Lost: The Package

Spoiler Warning: This post contains details about season six, episode ten of Lost, ‘The Package.’ I’m giving you not one, but two spoiler avoidance links today: My post on the Transgender Day of Visibility, and abby jean’s excellent post over at FWD, ‘Happy Cesar Chavez Day!‘

I have a confession to make: This episode kind of bored me. I’m not sure if it was the episode itself or all the other stuff going on right now, but I had a really hard time focusing and I kept drifting away to do other things and pulling myself back. I’m having a hard time even articulating why it bored me, honestly, especially because it’s an episode which I really wanted to like. And it makes me very grumpy when I dislike something or am bored by it and can’t quite say why.

Finally, Sun and Jin actually did something. A lot of somethings, actually, both on Island and in the flash sideways. In the flash sideways, it seemed like things weren’t going well for them. Sure, they made it to Los Angeles, but they were having a secret affair instead of living in the open, and in the end we close with Sun sustaining what looked like a potentially serious gunshot wound and saying ‘I’m pregnant.’

So, apparently, whatever was causing her fertility problems in the original timeline isn’t an issue now. Which is interesting.

And I feel really guilty because all season I’ve been going ‘hello, what about Jin and Sun,’ and now they finally give me an episode centred around them and I yawn all the way through. It’s very peculiar, because this episode didn’t feel substantially different from any other episodes we’ve had thus far; still moving pieces around on a chess board, still getting dribs and drabs of what lives might have been like, but I was left with an overwhelming ‘eh.’ Maybe, like other viewers, I am starting to get restless and I am reaching that point of ‘ok, enough with the damn setup already, let’s get this show on the road!’

There was one aspect of the episode which did interest me, though, and that was Sun’s head injury and the way that other characters dealt with it. A lot of people responded to it by TALKING REALLY LOUDLY AND S-L-O-W-L-Y to her, which created an ideal opportunity for Sun to go off in Korean about how she understands just fine, she just can’t respond in spoken English. I saw her becoming overwhelmingly frustrated and pissed off, understandably, because everyone was suddenly treating her as though she was a household pet who’d peed in the ficus. And her experiences mirror what a lot of people actually experience in the real world; people really do behave like that and it is every bit as annoying and rude and frustrating as it was on screen.

Until that scene at the end where Jack, who is not really a character I like most of the time, thought ‘hey, maybe instead of just shouting in English at her, we should try enabling a communication method which does work, and, like, establish communication with her since she has clearly indicated that she can understand spoken English, she just can’t speak it!’ So Jack busted out the pen and paper, and lo and behold, they had a conversation. In which Jack talked in a normal tone of voice and Sun scribbled on the notepad and they communicated.

Communication and varying modes of communication is a subject of immense interest to me. And while I don’t really think of Lost as a show which focuses on disability, sometimes it has little tidbits which make me really intrigued, and this was one of them. I think that the creators probably thought ‘oh, wouldn’t it be cool to do this as a plot device,’ but what I took away from it was ‘hey, sometimes people communicate differently, and instead of abusing them because they can’t communicate like you, maybe you should find a communication method which works.’ And that’s a good thing to take a way. I am curious to know if other viewers picked up on that or if they got stuck on the ‘cool plot device’ thing.

31 March, 2010 – 8:11 pm | By s.e. smith | Posted in reviews, television | Tagged |

Transgender Day of Visibility

Today is the Transgender Day of Visibility. It’s a counterpoint to the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is about the people we have lost. Today is about a celebration of trans* identities. About the excellent and wonderful and lovely people in our community. About all of the work which has been done and the accomplishments which have been made. About trans* friendly spaces and the slow shift in social attitudes which seems to be happening all around us. It’s a day for triumph and victory. We’re here, we’re trans*, get used to it.

All that said, I have mixed feelings about it.

Because of this word, ‘visibility.’ It seems to suggest that we must be visible before we can be accepted.

Why?

Why must we be visible to exist? ‘Visibility,’ to me, skates dangerously close to ‘I’d like to look in your pants to satisfy my curiosity about what’s there.’ It reminds me of the many people I have met who are tremendously proud about ‘always being able to spot a transgender,’ as though being trans* is so obvious that you might as well wear a giant sign. It makes me think about the people who have been forcibly outed and, yes, abused and sometimes killed because they were trans*. It makes me think about the denial of identity, not the celebration of identity.

This probably wasn’t the intent. The meaning of this event is not to reinforce the idea that the only identities which exist are the ones which are obvious and clearcut. Indeed, it is to say that trans* folks should not have to hide themselves. This is about celebrating identities, not questioning them or suggesting that some are more valid than others, but this concept, this ‘day of visibility,’ it’s making me feel a little bit sour.

Oh, but I’m not supposed to talk about that today, because it’s the day of ‘visibility.’ It’s a day to celebrate.

I prefer to celebrate trans* folks, and all folks, every day. Just like I remember trans* folks who aren’t around anymore because of bigotry and hatred every day.

These are things which do not go away when they are a part of you.

Many people seem to have fundamental difficulties with grasping the very idea, the concept, of a trans* gender identity. They want it explained in detail and they will keep asking and asking and asking but fundamentally, what it boils down to is this: You will never know. If you are not trans*, you will never know.

You don’t have to know. That’s ok. You don’t have to know my experience to accept it. You don’t need to understand me to love me. You don’t need to ‘get it’ to think that I still have a right to exist. Just as I do not know the experience of being a trans woman, I do not know the experience of being agendered, I do not know the experience of being a cis man, but I can love and honour and respect all of these people. I don’t know need to question them about their identities, I don’t need to ask them how they know who they are, I don’t need to look in their drawers.

It is enough for me to know that they are human beings, and that they exist.

‘Visibility’ campaigns make me uneasy. Because so much of it seems to be focused on the idea that you need to be visible (out) even if it is dangerous, because your right to exist cannot be acknowledged until people can see you. This, of course, ignores people who cannot see, yet another example of our vision-centric society.

And it ignores the fact that identity is personal. You should not have to disclose your identity if you do not want to. And you should not be forced to disclose to make a point, to defend the right of people like you to exist, to make people see that you are just like them. You already are just like them. You should not have to provide proof that you exist.

Your gender? Doesn’t matter to me. I mean, it matters in the sense that I want to use the right pronouns when I talk about you, because it is disrespectful to misgender people with pronouns. But you can say ‘I prefer that you use ‘he” and that’s all I need to know. You don’t need to be ‘visible’ for me. You don’t need to show any part of yourself to satisfy me.

It is enough for me to know that you, a human being, exist. You are not an anatomy lesson. You are not a teachable moment. You are a person. And you exist. You have nothing to prove to me. You are not required to fan out the story of your life for my delectation. You don’t need to tell me if you were ever called something else, if different pronouns were used for you. You. Are. You.

This is supposed to be a day about celebrating good things in the trans* community. And I think that’s a good thing to do. But I also think it’s a good thing to do every day, and that this concept, of ‘visibility,’ it makes me feel really uncomfortable and honestly kind of unhappy. It makes me feel singled out and strange and tingly, this ‘visibility’ thing because it feels less like celebrating to me, and more like clinging to sticks of wood in a whirlpool and going ‘no! I exist! I refuse to be sucked under!’

And if you don’t feel that way, that’s ok. This is absolutely not a post which is attempting to convince anyone of anything, it’s an attempt to articulate how I, personally, feel about something, and I’m not even sure it’s that successful. I set out, when I started writing this, to write about all the awesome and wonderful things happening in the trans* community. About artists and writers and their accomplishments. About progress. But every time I tried, it snarled back to this, this visibility thing, and how very uncomfortable it makes me.

I don’t know, people. I just don’t know. Why do I need to be visible to matter, or to exist? And, conversely, why should people be obliged to hide themselves to be safe when all they want is to live openly?

31 March, 2010 – 10:17 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in gender | Tagged , |

Spiny Stooges

The Feminist Blog Carnival No. 16 is up at Beauty Schooled!

Jessica Yee at Bitch Magazine: Feminist Intersection: Contemporary feminism isn’t necessarily anti-racist

But I would argue, in my life experiences thus far, that many of the same mistakes from the second wave ARE being made and that just because we’ve got some new and hot language like “intersectionality” to use in our talk – doesn’t necessarily make things change in our walk (i.e., actually being anti-racist).

Cara at The Curvature: Being a Male Victim of Domestic Violence: Like Having No Genitals?

The fact that, while women are mostly the victims of intimate partner violence, they are not the only victims of intimate partner violence, is still an issue not discussed very frequently in mainstream culture, so increased visibility for the issue is certainly a good thing.

Nick Britten at the Telegraph: Men owe women for ‘creating beer’ claims academic

Miss Peyton said that up until 200 years ago, beer was considered a food and fell into the remit of women’s work.

Hart Van Denburg at CityPages: Michele Bachmann asserts health care reform is unconstitutional. Is she right?

“They are wrong if they think this is not a serious challenge,” he said.

Jessica Strong at Racewire: It’s Back! Abstinence-Only Funding Revived in Health Bill

The Obama administration can add this one to its ever-growing list of progressive criticisms: The health insurance reforms the president finalized this morning include a revival of the controversial abstinence-only education initiative known as Title V.

Marianne Kirby at The Rotund: In our mouths and on our tongues: food and how we can’t shut up about it

When we’re talking about food politics? Let’s shut up about fat people.

Justine Larbalestier: Teenagers & Reading

Also I read heaps of appalling sexist crap growing up and it was, if anything, a spur to my feminist politics. So, thank you, crappy books of my youth.

Denver Post Plog: Captured: Guttenfelder’s iPhone Photos

…an iPhone camera, carried in his flak jacket pocket, coupled with a Polaroid film filter application to photograph the daily lives of Marines, Afghan soldiers and fellow journalists during the military offensive in Marjah, Afghanistan.

Very interesting images, very different from the other photography coming out of Afghanistan right now.

31 March, 2010 – 10:03 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in interesting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Adult Inaction on Statutory Rape, Stalking, and Harassment Leads to Death of 15 Year Old Student

Content Note: This post contains discussions of abuse, bullying, rape, rape culture, suicide, and slut shaming.

I was horrified this morning when I cracked open my RSS feed to read a story from the New York Times about charges being brought in Massachusetts against nine students who harried a young woman to death. ‘9 Teenagers Accused of Bullying That Led to Suicide‘ is a headline that I just do not want to see ever and unfortunately I have seen a number of iterations of this over the past few months. I am reminded of the case Cara wrote about only a few months ago; Hope Witsell, 13, committed suicide after her classmates circulated nude photographs of her.

Phoebe Prince was 15. Her family had recently relocated from Ireland, and like many students in a new school, she undoubtedly struggled to find her ground but appeared to settle in reasonably quickly, making a number of friends and posting pictures of herself and her new friends having fun together on social networking sites. She ended up in a relationship with a senior, which attracted negative attention from her classmates, who started harassing her. On 14 January, she was abused in multiple locations around the school, according to reports, before a drink was thrown at her on her way home. She then hung herself in a stairwell, where her sister found her.

The bullying which Phoebe endured was, by all accounts, awful. It also took place primarily on school grounds. For three months, students stalked her in the halls. They called her an ‘Irish slut,’ a slur which I would have thought went out style 100 years ago, but evidently not. Students harassed her with text messages and evidently used social networking sites to takes their bullying beyond school grounds.

There’s a lot of discussion about what to do about abuse and bullying. In this case, it is clear that Phoebe’s school failed her. It’s one thing for administrators to fail to pick up on bullying which takes place outside school grounds. When abuse of this magnitude takes place at school and educators know about it and fail to act, that is nothing short of reprehensible.

District Attorney Elizabeth D. Scheibel said in a statement today:

Contrary to previously published reports, Phoebe’s harassment was common knowledge to most of the South Hadley High School student body. The investigation has revealed that certain faculty, staff and administrators of the high school also were alerted to the harassment of Phoebe Prince before her death. Prior to Phoebe’s death, her mother spoke with at least two school staff members about the harassment Phoebe had reported to her.

She went on to note that several bystanders, including faculty, attempted to intervene, clearly illustrating that people were aware of the bullying and that some people were perturbed by it. Shockingly:

In reviewing this investigation, we’ve considered whether or not the actions or omissions to act by faculty, staff and administrators of the South Hadley public schools individually, or collectively, amounted to criminal behavior. In our opinion, it did not.

How is ignoring bullying which escalates to the point that a young woman commits suicide not ‘criminal behaviour’? Educators have a clear responsibility to their students. Going to school is not just about learning, but also about socialisation. Abuse and bullying are directly harmful. They prevent students from learning, they disrupt the school environment, they cause trauma which former victims may struggle with for the rest of their lives. Students are repeatedly told that they can report abuse to adults and that something will be done; what kind of precedent does it set when students do just that and nothing happens?

Inaction on the part of administrators was also a betrayal of trust. Phoebe’s trust, when she assumed that she could attend high school without being tormented. The trust of her parents, who believed that they were sending their child into the care of responsible adults who would look out for her welfare. The trust of all the people who reported the bullying in the belief that they were doing something to stop it.

Sometimes, bullying leads to death. Bullying is not ‘just kids being kids,’ it is not a ‘normal’ part of attending school, it is purely and simply abuse.

Phoebe Prince, a young woman with long dark hair and a warm smile, wearing a scarf.

Phoebe Price was an artist. A writer. By all accounts she was an accomplished and talented young woman who will never have an opportunity to realise that talent.

Her friends have come forward now to talk about how lovely she was, and I cannot help but wonder where they were when Phoebe was being relentlessly bullied and abused. Were they among the bystanders who tried to help her? Among the people who reported the bullying? Did they follow protocol and report the situation to adults in the belief that administrators and faculty would take action to help Phoebe?

‘Her adjustment problem was she got popular quick and she ran right up against the beautiful kids,’ said South Hadley parent Lucas Gelinas. He said his son was an acquaintance of Prince’s in class. ‘She started taking some of that magnetism away from them.’

Yes. Let’s blame the victim, shall we. How dare Phoebe move to the United States from Ireland and threaten to unseat the popular kids with her vibrant personality. More so, how dare she poach on the sacred territory of the popular girls by dating a popular senior boy. Clearly, she got what she deserved, right? Everyone knows that ‘sluts’ deserve to be bullied and shamed for their actions, right?

This is what rape culture looks like. This is what abusive cultures look like. When parents of Phoebe’s classmates assure reporters that she was ‘attention grabbing,’ it suggests that if she had just been quieter, less obtrusive, less herself, perhaps her classmates wouldn’t have felt so threatened by her that they felt the need to torment her for months. To be so abusive to her with the apparently open permission of faculty members that she committed suicide to escape. What happened to Phoebe was Phoebe’s fault, is what these people are saying. To say otherwise would be to admit complicity.

Reporters are already complaining that the nine students charged in the case are ‘being depicted as monsters.’ Well, bullying is a monstrous act. It also tends to have a snowball effect and I suspect that some of these students are lesser monsters than others; all it takes is one dominant student to draw other students into a cycle of bullying behaviour. When you are in a situation like that, it can be difficult to exercise choice and break free of the cycle, let alone to speak out against it, because then you become a target for bullying yourself. As long as you are one of the people throwing stones, you believe that the other people throwing stones cannot turn on you.

In my eye, it’s the administrators at Phoebe’s school who are the real monsters who should be called to account here. They had the knowledge of the bullying and the ability to take action and they did nothing, and that is something deeply shameful. And I’m sure that many of those administrators are feeling very bad right now, as well they should be, because they took no action while a young woman was bullied to death. They did not intervene to attempt to break the links in the bullying cycle. They did not attempt to help Phoebe escape. They evidently ignored reports from Phoebe’s own mother about the situation.

This was not the first time the school knew about bullying and took no action. Here’s another parent, quoted in the Times:

“My daughter was bullied for three years, and we continually went to the administration and we really got no satisfaction,” Mr. Brouillard said, adding, “I was offered an apology a few weeks ago that they should have handled it differently.”

There was a culture of tolerance for bullying at Phoebe’s school. Some of the same students charged in this case were reported earlier and administrators failed to act. Now, they say:

The school has convened an anti-bullying task force, which met Monday, to help determine how to deal with bullying. “That’s the really clear message we’re trying to send — if you see anything at all, online, through friends, you have to tell us,” said Bill Evans, an administrator leading a group subcommittee.

It strikes me as good that this is happening, but I have to ask: Why did it take a death for the school to decide to take action?

30 March, 2010 – 10:35 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in social justice | Tagged , , , |

Dubious Umbrellas

Site note: As you may have noticed, I’m writing under my name, s.e. smith, rather than my pseudonym, both here and at FWD. There are a lot of reasons for this, but primarily it has to do with people getting confused and not realising that meloukhia and s.e. smith were the same person.

Adam Hochschild at Mother Jones: Blood and Treasure

As far back as Congo’s history is recorded, the wealth from this vast natural treasure house has flowed almost entirely overseas, leaving some of the planet’s best-endowed land with some of its poorest people.

Amanda Hess at The Sexist: American University Student Newspapers Vandalized Over “Rape Apology”

An unidentified member of the campus community has responded with a more direct retort: They removed copies of the paper from their stands and posted a message above them reading, “NO ROOM FOR RAPE APOLOGISTS.”

Bruce Fisher at ArtVoice: Your Budget, Your Economy

“The reality is that with the loss of state funding the regional economy will probably grow at less than three percent a year,” said Ganley. “The lag in the regional economy will continue until the state fiscal situation stabilizes.”

Whitny Doyle, RN at the Alibi: An interview with a New Mexico nurse who served in Iraq

The compelling narrative behind Amy’s experience puts TV’s fictitious world of libidinous nurses and endearingly quirky patients to shame.

Dan McGraw and Susan Costa at the Fort Worth Weekly: The Real Deal on Fake Dope

What they’re smoking is billed as an herbal incense, but the herbs in this case have been sprayed with one or more compounds that are the synthetic equivalent of THC — the compound in marijuana that gets you high.

John Sides at The Monkey Cage: Recruitment and the Underrepresentation of Women in Political Offices (via abby jean)

I’ve pasted one of their graphs above, which shows that men are recruited more often than women with comparable political experience.

gudbuytjane guest posting at Feministe: The Angry Tranny: Tone Arguments and Trans Women

…the dominant groups retains the right to decide what is and isn’t acceptable tone, and dissenting ideas are inevitably considered impolite, rude, or angry.

30 March, 2010 – 10:02 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in interesting | Tagged , , , , , , , , |

Food: The Problem Isn’t Information Deficit

At FWD recently, I highlighted this label I found attached to a bunch of asparagus:

The tag which was attached to a bundle of asparagus, photographed on top of said asparagus. Text on the tag reads: 'Healthy, Sensible Food Practices: Always wash fresh fruits and vegetables thoroughly under running water. Health Professionals recommend that you eat least five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. Distributed by The Nunes Co. Inc Salinas, CA 93902 Produce of USA For more information 1-800-695-5012 www.foxy.com'

I pointed out that it felt to me like an example of food policing in action; you must eat five a day! Health professionals recommend it!

Some commenters responded to say “well, maybe some people don’t know about five a day.”

Do people really believe this?

This seems to feed into the idea that fat folks don’t know we’re fat, or don’t understand nutrition. That if we can only be educated, we will magically become unfat. Likewise, if only consumers became educated about five a day, they would be better people. Sensible people. Healthy people. If only socially undesirable and icky people were educated, they wouldn’t be so icky anymore.

The produce section in my grocery store is filled with numerous signs about five a day, including signs illustrating what a “serving” is. Every other grocery store I’ve visited has the same types of displays. Likewise, five a day information in plain language with illustrations is on a lot of food packaging, and it’s taught widely in schools.

I don’t think that the problem is people not knowing about five a day. I think that the problem is lack of access to choices.

If you’re on Women, Infants, Children (WIC), a food assistance program, your choices are limited, often in surprisingly arbitrary ways. Food stamps are better, but not necessarily, and the total you can spend on food is still capped. Produce is expensive. Whether you’re getting assistance or not. Asparagus, pictured here, is very much a “luxury” vegetable.

If you have very limited money to spend on food, fresh fruits and vegetables may not be as much of an option. Because you can get more calories from other sources, so you’re driven to buy something else. You might want fresh fruits and vegetables, but the prices are a serious obstacle. Production of most fruits and vegetables in the United States is not subsidized like animal products and corn. That means high prices at the grocery store.

If you can only go to the grocery store once a week and you  need to stock up on stuff to eat through the week, your choices are again limited, especially if you are also poor. You can’t afford to buy lots of fresh fruits and veggies because they will go bad before you eat them. So maybe you get some to eat on the first few days, and then you buy other things, things which will keep, so that you won’t starve before you can go to the grocery store again.

If you have a disability which makes you sensitive to smells, textures, and tastes, you may have a tough time with some fruits and vegetables. Likewise, produce can cause stomach upsets for some people. Yes, healthy, lovely, wonderful, sensible produce! Can make people sick! Those people have a mighty fine reason for not buying produce.

If you are in a food desert and your shopping options are limited to the corner store, you might not even be able to buy produce, for any amount. Perhaps there will be a few tragic looking bananas, some oranges, some potatoes. That’s it. You can’t afford the time to take public transit to a store in a neighborhood where fresh produce is available. (And this is one aspect of Michelle Obama’s otherwise troubling food crusade which I like, is addressing food deserts and trying to make more food options available to people; Mrs. Obama gets what some people  seem to fail to grasp, which is that it’s not a lack of education,  it’s a lack of opportunity.)

If you are a single working parent, you may not have time to prepare produce, or you may have a child who doesn’t like fresh produce. Should you be made to feel guilty because you can’t coax your child into eating vegetables every night and because you only have 20 minutes to make dinner and that is just not enough time?

This produce label illustrated, for me, a fundamental disconnect a lot of people seem to have with the world around them. People focus on patronizing “education” without recognizing any of the barriers to access people might face. I may be wrong in assuming that most people in the United States know about five a day because it’s been shoved down my throat and in front of my face for most of my life.

But I would also note that the five a day program isn’t very helpful. What sticks in my head is “five a day,” not how much a serving size is. That’s why I like the charts in the grocery store which illustrate how much a “serving” of fruit and vegetables is. What would have been more helpful on this asparagus label was a note including how many servings were contained in the bunch.

And even that doesn’t solve the fundamental problem: You can know about five a day, you can know from your experience with your body that you benefit from eating five servings of fresh fruit and vegetables a day, and you can still not be able to access five a day. These campaigns are dreamed up by middle class folks in nice neighborhoods with lots of time and money and a big grocery store. Here in the real world, they can feel almost ludicrously unrealistic.

Related reading: The Fat Nutritionist.

29 March, 2010 – 10:28 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in Food | Tagged , , , , |

Intent Lemurs

General announcement which may be relevant to your interests: Find me on Twitter @sesmithwrites.

Gwen at Sociological Images: Global Income Distribution, Development Aid, and Debt

Allie B. sent in this graph that provides some interesting information about how income is distributed in various countries, found at Visual Economics.

Jack Foran at ArtVoice: Waterways

Hudson River School paintings were intended to inform a remote audience about a pristine natural environment. These inform about a natural environment in a precarious way due to constant threat of incursion by the audience.

Brianna Snyder at the Hartford Advocate: Watching the Detectives

And there’s Jimmy Justice, in the middle of the day, standing outside of a Rite Aid to bawl out a cop over a parking infraction.

Charlie Smith at Straight: U.S. white supremacist videotapes anti-Nazi rally in New Westminster

Craig Cobb posted the footage on the Podblanc video-sharing Web site, which is soliciting donations by mail to his address on East Pender Street in Vancouver.

Julie Deardorff at the Los Angeles Times: Organic: What it means on different products

Some consumers are more than willing to pay higher prices for organically grown food and other products. But is the extra dollar worth it?

29 March, 2010 – 10:02 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in interesting | Tagged , , , , , |

This Should Not Be Here

I hope that most readers are familiar with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a vast island of floating garbage in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There are actually two patches formed by ocean currents in the Pacific, one of which is twice the size of Texas. Garbage which ends up in the oceans has to wind up somewhere, and this is one of the places it winds up.

What’s astounding about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was that it existed quite happily for some time before people began to notice it. This illustrates the vast size of the Pacific, the fact that things on its surface can remain hidden. Let alone what lies beneath; some marine biologists say that we probably know more about the surface of some planets than we do about what lies at the bottom of the ocean and in the waters between surface and sea floor. It is a mysterious world filled with all sorts of interesting and horrible things which we don’t know about.

Garbage does not magically vanish when it disappears from view in a landfill or lies forgotten by the side of the road. Indeed, it can be quite persistent, enduring for not just decades, but centuries. It may break down into small components, but it still does not dwindle away into nothing. As it breaks down, smaller and smaller organisms consume it, ensuring that garbage is found at every level of the food chain, from the stomachs of dead pelicans to the bodies of single celled organisms which mistake tiny pieces of plastic for food.

Bioaccumulation. Larger organisms eat smaller organisms and toxins become more concentrated in the process. Most animals are not designed to express the chemical compounds found in plastics because plastics are relatively new. If you can’t express them, they build up in your body. If they’re toxic, that makes you sick. Or animals die because their stomachs become bloated with plastic, because they become ensnared in trailing pieces of garbage and drown, because they choke on what they thought was food. Other animals eat animals which have become filled with plastics and other compounds and they in turn are sicked because what once was food is not simply dangerous.

Researchers recently found that the Atlantic has a garbage patch of its own. Where does it come from? Garbage which falls off trucks on the way to the dump. Garbage tossed on the ground instead of in cans. Accidents in which trucks spill their loads. Overturned trashcans by river beds. Poorly secured landfills. Deliberate dumping. The plastic bag which dances across the street in the wind. The volleyball everyone thought was someone else’s responsibility which got left behind after a day at the beach.

What is made cannot be unmade, done cannot be undone. Cleanup efforts are futile against this vast accumulation, although people certainly try and they study the garbage they find in the process. There is much to be learned from garbage, not just about where it comes from but how it breaks down (or doesn’t) in seawater and how it distributes itself in the water column. Those materials floating on the surface reflect the tip of the iceberg, concealing the garbage which is suspended in the waters below.

This is the outgrowth of consumer culture, of living in a world where everything is disposable and where garbage is efficiently collected and taken somewhere else where people do not have to look at it and they are not faced with the reality. While there has been a focus on trying to collect and control garbage more effectively through anti-littering laws, better distribution of public trashcans, more oversight on landfills, there seems to be a corresponding reluctance to address the source of that garbage.

I’ve seen small scale initiatives to dial back on packaging, to produce less garbage by packaging goods less intensively, but everywhere I look I see single use plastic things. Wrappings where no wrappings need to be. Things designed to be thrown away instead of designed to be used. Sure, some people carry reusable bags, but they still bring home food packaged excessively with them, and they throw out that packaging once the contents have been consumed. This is not the fault of the consumer; there are no other choices.

Stopping the flood of garbage isn’t going to make the garbage patches go away. The ocean is still sick and it is still our fault and while we shouldn’t throw up our hands in despair and just give up on trying to do something about the garbage that already exists, it sure would be nice if we could do something to cut down on the amount of garbage we generate, to stop piling more and more on top of what which already exists as though enough garbage will make the problem go away, as though we can bury our trash problem in more trash.

The problem, of course, is that reducing the amount of trash we make, by default, also reduces consumerism. We are indeed at the point where making a buck is more important than anything else, where something which doesn’t require buying more and spending more won’t be viewed as a viable solution. We have, surely, an obligation to keep buying more things to keep demand high so that the economy does not collapse! If we don’t buy cheap plastic crap, the companies which make cheap plastic crap will go out of business! If we eschew single use and throw away things, companies will only be able to sell a fraction of the things they once sold! Surely, we cannot have that.

The garbage patches are a great drifting pointing finger aimed squarely at us.

28 March, 2010 – 10:26 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in environmental issues | Tagged , , , |

Watermelon Seeds

We are sitting on the jetty, a plate of perfect sunshine yellow watermelon slices between us. The plate is made from blueish-green glass spotted with bubbles, slightly uneven in a way which is supposed to suggest that it was made by an artisan, and each slice of watermelon is miraculously proportionate in relation to the others, neatly arrayed like the petals of a flower and looking as though they were artfully arranged when in fact a few deft slices of the cleaver did the work.

It is a climate which people who seem to know these things would call “alpine,” outcroppings of granite and tiny star-like flowers hidden like treasures, fantastically coloured lichens and bristling trees. The lake is one of many caught like a fly in amber in this place, clear waters dark and blue, small and splendid. At night, tiny lights sparkle in the trees and sometimes it is hard to tell where the fireflies end and the artificial lights begin.

The jetty is silvery with weathering and velvety with age, smoothed and softened by scores of footfalls across a myriad of summers. I imagine, for a moment, that each passerby left a bright wake and that the jetty comes alive with trails of blazing light. There is, of course, a rowboat, with faded paint and rickety oarlocks, which appears to be of dubious provenance and even more doubtful seaworthiness. I am told that sometimes people use it to venture to the opposite shore, which is not so far away, but far away enough, I suppose.

Let me tell you something about sunshine yellow watermelon: It is exactly like eating sunshine yellow watermelon. With each bite the pieces crisp, schhhhhhck, in your mouth and then there is an explosion of sweetness and something underlying which is slightly more complex. And when you swallow, the juices trail down your throat and tickle your tastebuds.

She picks the seeds out of her slices before she eats them, flicking them neatly into the water around the jetty and sometimes a fish lazily drifts up, eyes a seed, and then gulp, pops up to take it. I, on the other hand, spit my seeds out, pop so that they burst into the water or land just short, on the edge of the jetty, and then I steathily push them over with a brush of my hand. She is the one who cut the watermelon, and its insistence on order is perhaps a reflection of her neatness and attention to detail, just as the slices would be ragged and uneven if I cut them, because while I desperately long for order, everything around me seems to fall into disorder without any effort on my part.

The soft and tightly coiled curls of her hair are drawn back and her eyes are huge and dark and her orderly fingers pick neatly at each slice, and our legs dangle over the edge, stopping short of the water but somehow feeling refreshed and cooler just from their proximity to the glassy surface of the lake. Her toenails are pointed forest green, I notice, with meticulously even and smooth surfaces which suggest that she put a clear coat over them so that they wouldn’t be ruined. The gold hoops in her ears glow against her skin and her toe ring winks back at me as strands of cloud drift overhead.

There is a deep, quiet stillness here, so dead in the heat of the afternoon that even the insects cannot muster up the energy to call out, not a breath of wind to disturb the grasses which might otherwise rustle, not an animal astir in the woods. The air is thin and clean and clear and it smells faintly of straw and something else undefinable, ground stone, perhaps, blended with turpenes from the trees.

It is just us here, the family has gone to town for groceries and to seek refuge from the heat in the air conditioned movie theatre, leaving us on the jetty, her skim shimmering with heat while mine slowly reddens and blushes despite the sunscreen. I might care, I should care, but I am only here for a few days and I refuse to skulk inside in the warmth of the day when she is outside and there is watermelon; I will burn and crack and peel but the worst of it will not happen until I am gone, lifted up and returned to earth near sea level where fog and ocean wrap me in a blanket and it never gets too warm.

It would be oppressive but somehow it is not. It it hot, yes, but dry, and the watermelon is cool and refreshing and as I think this, she wriggles out of her sundress and leaves it pooled on the jetty, knifes into the water so smoothly that she creates hardly a ripple, and she strokes deep and long to the middle of the lake, and then back again, splashing me playfully. Drops of water appear, bright specks, on my jeans and I flail at her with one foot and she laughs, turns like a seal in the water, and darts away again.

I am almost regretful to leave the watermelon but the water is so cool and inviting and she teases me and I shrug out of my own clothes, folding them neatly with my glasses on top, and lumber into the water. It is not cool. It is cold. Shockingly, icy cold, and I gasp because I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me and then roll onto my back, hands behind my head, to drift wherever the lake will take me.

We will have all afternoon before the family comes back, she whispers in my ear when she surfaces, hot breath and a faint suggestion of her lips along the margins of my ear.

Oh really, I say.

27 March, 2010 – 10:50 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in history | Tagged , , |

Sour Victory

Actress Gabourey Sidibe was recently recognised with an Academy Award nomination for her work in Precious. I haven’t seen Precious yet, but it sounds like the recognition was well deserved, from the reviews I’ve read and the people I’ve talked with about the film. This is a huge victory; to be nominated is an immense honour, even if someone does not win.

But it seems like a lot of folks couldn’t respect that. Couldn’t, in fact, allow Gabourey Sidibe to enjoy her recognition.

Why? Because she’s fat.

Every single person I have talked to about Precious, without exception, has made a point of mentioning that Sidibe is fat. Not just fat. Dangerously fat. Grossly fat. OMGDEATHFAT. ‘I worry about her health,’ a friend of mine said one night. ‘Really,’ I replied. ‘Do you know something about her health that I don’t?’ ‘Well,’ my friend said. ‘She’s fat.‘

It must be so hard to enjoy a movie when you are fretting about the health of the lead all the time!

Oh, wait. These people don’t care about Sidibe’s ‘health.’ They care about the fact that she is fat and radiant and doesn’t give a flying fuck. They care about the fact that she dares to wear snug gowns for publicity appearances, that she shows her arms, that she is often smiling broadly; how can you be happy and fat?! They care that she showed up on the red carpet at the Oscars in a beautiful dress with a big smile, ready to enjoy her honour and the night.

She should be going around in sacks! With a paper bag over her head! She’s fat! Ew! Gross!

I don’t know Gabourey personally. I don’t know anything about her other than that she is a good actress, and I’ve liked the interviews with her I’ve seen and read. She seems like a pretty cool lady. I can’t put myself in her shoes because I am not her. But I imagine that it must be really, really hard to be constantly reminded that your accomplishments are nothing  because you are fat. To be told in as many ways as possible that you cannot stand on your own recognition; no matter where you are, people have to throw in a reference to your size.

Gosh, if we didn’t stress the fact that she was fat, it might give the children bad ideas. It might suggest to other fat Black women that they, too, can be successful and radiant and happy. That it is possible to be fat and nominated for an Academy Award! If we don’t constantly harp on her size, people will think that fat is healthy or something, or it’s the way to get ahead, and they will rush out and gorge themselves on Twinkies.

People.

This is not about her ‘health.’ These concern trolls don’t give a flying fartle for her health. If it was health we cared about, why aren’t we worried about all those Olympic athletes? They train their bodies with grueling programs! Lindsey Vonn skiied with a possible fractured somethingorother! They work so hard and subject themselves to serious injuries. That’s got to be unhealthy, right? But no, Olympic athletes are celebrated. They are allowed to enjoy their accomplishments and they are universally heralded.

This is not about her ‘health.’ It’s about the fact that some people think that fat women are disgusting. Some people think that fat is a moral failing. Some people are personally offended by the sight of people who are fat and happy. By the fact that fat people can do great things. That we can be great people. This might suggest that fat people are actually human beings, just like everyone else, and we can’t have that. Fat folks need to be constantly reminded of how unpleasant and icky and gross and foul they are.

Which means that we must, constantly, always, talk about how fat Gabourey Sidibe is. We will cover up our prejudice and bigotry by making it sound like a health concern; ‘there’s nothing wrong with being fat, really, it’s just that I worry about her health.’ ‘What kind of example is she setting for children? Doesn’t she know there’s a childhood obesity crisis going on?’ ‘How can I enjoy her work when I’m worried she’s going to keel over with a heart attack at any minute?’

And some of these people will openly admit that it’s all about the fat hate when they are pressed. But others won’t. They will vociferously insist that they just care about health, even though this is inconsistent with their own actions. Unhealth has become so coupled with fat and fat is so coupled with ‘bad’ that people have internalized the idea that it is acceptable to attack fat folks on the grounds of their ‘health.’

I know absolutely nothing about Gabourey Sidibe’s health. I suspect that the same holds true for most of the population. But, more critically, it’s not my business. Whether she is healthy or unhealthy, it is not my business. She’s a human being. She’s a person. Her body and health are her own and she is allowed to make choices about them. Being healthy is not a moral obligation. Being unhealthy does not make you a bad person. And that means that it’s not acceptable to speculate about her health, to use her health as a tool for berating her for being fat.

Gabourey Sidibe is a big girl. She can take care of herself. Really. She doesn’t need your ‘concern’ and your worried statements. You know what she would probably like? Congratulations for her accomplishments. Recognition of the fact that she is a terrific actress. For people to decouple Gabby Sidibe the person and actress from Precious, the character. For people to be able, just once, to talk about her career and her accomplishments without dragging her weight into it.

26 March, 2010 – 10:51 am | By s.e. smith | Posted in size | Tagged , , |