Jezebel 
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New York, 11:29 AM
Wed Dec 9
70 posts in the last 24 hours
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10:56 AM
Usually I am just minding my own business at the time and am neither happy nor sad. It infuriates me that strangers think they have a right to demand that my facial features should be set in a certain way.
11:13 AM
12/08/09
More science?
It's too haaaaard for my ladybrain around here today.
"unless they were told they'd gotten the hormone. "
Now that's just ... creepy. I wish that weren't my visceral reaction to what's actually a fascinating piece of evidence-based information.
Happy or fearful, girls.
Those are the choices we've got.
*looks around*
I don't usually start this early - and I was going to go to the gym - but is there somewhere nearby I can get a martini?
12/04/09
But the other part of me that is learning disabled in spatial relationships knows I'd install an engine upside-down and backwards.
Sigh. I have to continue putting up with assholes at the office.
12/03/09
i was driving through n.c. on my way home from thanksgiving, and i heard an ad on the radio for a garage that was owned and operated by a woman. im not sure the gender-makeup of her staff, but the advert was directed to women to come into this women-friendly car shop for their repairs. and i tell you, if i lived around there, i definitely would. not just to support a woman in a male-dominated field, but because i know that i have had male mechanics try and take of advantage me because they assume i don't know anything about cars based on my gender.
my other dream mechanics are the brothers from car talk. i want them to be my mechanics and my bffs.
12/03/09
Then after WWII, everybody was like, We can't just leave them alone in the rubble. We have to make sure no more Nazis get delusions of grandeur, and we have to help them rebuild--literally and economically--the country so there's no more misery/poverty/anger that will cause another war. And so there was the rebuilding of Germany. I can't remember if there was a rebuilding of Japan (since it was European history). Now Germany is all set and not trying to start wars. Neither is Japan.
Can someone explain why it was a good idea to rebuild Germany but not Afghanistan? Are these situations at all alike in anything but my wikipedia-like remembrances of high school history?
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12/03/09
First of all, Afghanistan is nearly in civil war at this point. In Western Europe post WW2, the Nazis were resoundly conquered. As they were a state-run army, once the leaders died/surrendered, the general rank-and-file soldiers didn't keep fighting on their own. That's not the case in Afghanistan. There wasn't any insurgency or Nazi forces in Western Europe after WW2 ended. There also wasn't any local sympathy for Nazis, which makes it easier for rebel forces to survive. There is some of that for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Secondly, Afghanistan is massively lacking in infrastructure - both human and physical - moreso than almost any other country in the world. Its one thing to rebuild schools and roads and factories that were destroyed in Austria so that schoolteachers and factory workers can return to them, its quite another to build a school or a road where there's never been one before, and where an entire generation is largely illiterate. Its easy to restore civilization to conditions within the same decade, its much harder to create it after everyone who remembers a stable, prosperous Afghanistan (which existed until 1973!) is either dead or has fled the country.
Also the Marshall Plan was incredibly expensive.
I'm NOT saying the US shouldn't pump hundreds of millions of dollars into Afghanistan in terms of infrastructure and economic development. We totally should. Its just that we won't.
ETA: Oh also! We were resoundingly treated in Europe as liberators. Everyone outside of Germany (and possibly inside as well?) was more than happy to see us. While that might have initially been the case in Afghanistan, it definitely no longer is true.
12/03/09
12/03/09
But what we're talking about is the textbook definition of nationbuilding. Which isn't happening.
12/04/09
12/03/09
That said, I think Greenwald's point is great. But I do hope we can manage to leave a standing government in that country that views all people are equals. Though that's clearly too much to expect when our own legislators fail at that, right?
12/03/09
12/03/09
However, things are just as bad (and maybe worse, but who's comparing?) for women in other parts of the world, and we've got no interest in affecting change in those places, so you've probably got it right.
12/03/09
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12/03/09
If that is truly why President Obama did not pull out the "we're the good guys, getting rid of evil" card in the speech, because he does not believe the human rights and women's rights horrors are not fixable through military means, then I have to applaud him, because it's so easy to try to justify it that way.
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12/02/09
Unlike other groups, we live intimately with those that benefit from our oppression. We get cookies from them when we disavow shrill feminism.
Also, inextricable from the construct of womanhood, is taking care of others, particularly men. We're considered selfish if we put our issues first, if we won't put it aside for the "greater good" of electing a candidate that doesn't care about us, or if we don't take on other oppressions with our activism.
People don't demand that other movements incorporate feminism the way other groups demand that feminism take on their issues.
12/02/09
12/02/09
Either way you're going to bleed to death.
This country does not give a fuck about women.
12/02/09
Maybe a lot of the large donors she named don't feel the need to advertise their threats for Ms. Hirshman's benefit. It reminds me somewhat of the story about Meredith Baxter Birney from this morning. Do powerful female Democratic donors need to send out the town crier with their intentions so as not to face speculative public ridicule by the 84 people who actually know who they are? These power players are mostly unseen by the voting masses anyway.
I've given this way too much thought already.
12/02/09
12/02/09
I think a key point Latoya makes is "it can take years of dedicated organizing (along with continued slights from the majority) to galvanize enough people to take action" I think a lot of 'in-sniping' comes from the fact that we assume our battles and our priorities are the same for everyone else, its a tough one.