Tuesday, September 18, 2007

The GOP Throws a Tantrum: Gen. Petraeus is Rubber- MoveOn.org is Glue!

Today Arianna Huffington has weighed in on the latest Iraq "controversy" that has the GOP up in arms. No, silly, it's not the fact that our non-military contract mercenaries are causing more trouble in Iraq (or the fact that the Iraqi government apparently doesn't have the authority to do anything about it)! It's the fact that MoveOn.org called Gen. Petraeus names! Is there nothing those insidious lefties won't do? This is just going too far! Next thing you know, MoveOn will be getting 4,000 US soldiers and countless more Iraqi civilians killed in a war for oil and corporate profiteering!

We all know how sensitive military men (and the rapidly-fading politicians who hide behind them) can get. If MoveOn.org continues being so mean, the GOP may threaten to take its ball and go tell Mommy. But that's okay- we still get to say, "Liar, liar, pants on fire!" to Bush, Petraeus, and everyone who tries to hide behind cherry-picked data and political smokescreens.
Read Huffington's column here.

© 2008, Christopher Stansfield. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed to the public under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, and may only be distributed according to the terms of said license. To view a copy of this license, please click here.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Naomi Wolf's "Ten Steps to Fascism"

When I started posting on this blog, I made it clear that I was going to use it as an archive of my fully-formed writing rather than as a "traditional" blog, with a lot of links and a few pithy, first-draft comments scattered about. Even so, a piece of writing occasionally comes along that says everything I'd like to better and more coherently than I ever could do. So, for once, this is going to be that "traditional blog." Here's an excerpt of Naomi Wolf's masterly analysis of the last seven years. I hope you'll click the link to read the rest:

"Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US."


Read more about the ten steps here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html

© 2007, Christopher Stansfield. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed to the public under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, and may only be distributed according to the terms of said license. To view a copy of this license, please click here.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Don Imus: Did The Punishment Fit the Crime?

(This entry was adapted from a letter sent to the television show Countdown With Keith Olbermann while the controversy was still at the top of the news cycle. It has been altered so as to be more meaningful to a general audience.)

As I write this, it is the end of a week during which the Don Imus controversy has been the focal point of every television news and opinion show on the air, not to mention countless magazines, newspapers and blogs. Now that the man has been fired and the proverbial pound of flesh has been shaved off the corpse of his career, I wonder whether it isn’t beneath all of us to keep this story going. In fact, continuing to attack Imus is both petty and unfair. If Don Imus’s statements are now to be considered the pinnacle of racism, a huge segment of our population needs to start getting fitted for white sheets.

I am no fan of Don Imus- in fact, I can’t recall ever having listened to his radio show, as the whole concept of “shock” radio is unappealing to me. Like many others, I found the comments that led to his downfall abhorrent, and, after learning of some of the other things he has said throughout his career, I have no doubt that the man is a bigot. It is right and just that Mr. Imus should have to take responsibility for his statements, and it is right and just that there be consequences for those statements. That said, shouldn’t punishment at all times be appropriate to the crime at hand? Shouldn’t they be appropriately timed? While it is clear that Don Imus has engaged in a pattern of racially and sexually insensitive remarks, and that there has been outrage from the public on those occasions, it is not at all clear that Imus was ever officially warned by his employers, MSNBC and CBS Radio, that he would lose his job if he didn’t stop making such remarks. Without a warning, why on Earth wouldn’t Imus feel he could just go on as he had for years? It was apparent that few cared, and that the few who did didn’t represent a loss of income for the man or his employers. It is perfectly reasonably that Imus would not edit himself- nobody has ever attempted to edit him.

Adults are not much different from children- if they are not given effective and concrete warnings about their behavior, they have little incentive to stop that behavior. If little Tommy kicks little Peggy in the shins, he will keep kicking her until he’s told not to. In the same vein, punishment for adults works best when it’ threatened in the same manner punishment for children is. If a child talks back to his mother, it is not right that he be sent to his room for two weeks unless he has already been warned that such is the consequence of his behavior. When a broadcaster says offensive things, it is not right that he should be fired when he has never been warned that such are the consequence of those statements.

Suspending Don Imus was a perfectly reasonable response to his remarks, and Imus should additionally have been made to promise that he would never make such remarks again, lest he lose his job. If he refused to make that promise, or broke that promise in the future, firing would be perfectly reasonable- but not until then. One might feel that that is too lenient; that any proof that one is bigoted is enough to justify taking away his livelihood and publicly raking him across the coals. Reasonable people, on the other hand, who can follow that line of thought to its inevitable conclusion, feel that actions and words may be punishable in a free society, but thoughts are not. Perhaps the man is a bigot, but it is not his bigoted mind that should be punished: it is his bigoted words. And the punishment he received for those words was unjust. It is a convenient way for his employers to look like heroes without ever admitting that they could have put an end to his behavior years ago and did so only after they received uncomfortable attention.

I am well aware, as is anyone familiar with the way broadcast media works, that broadcasters have the ability to employ a time delay when material goes out live. If Imus has a history of making these inappropriate statements, why wasn’t he forced to work with a delay? And if there was, in fact, a delay, how can MSNBC and CBS Radio pretend to have been so offended by Imus’s words when that delay was never utilized? Imus had a certain degree of power as a celebrity, but his ex-employers had the power of the paycheck, and are thus far more powerful than Don Imus ever was. Where was the admission of guilt on the part of MSNBC and CBS Radio? “Liberal media” shows such as The Daily Show and Countdown With Keith Olbermann frequently (and correctly) lambaste President Bush for throwing his subordinates “under the bus” when his misdeeds and mistakes are discovered. How is this situation any different?
I have to question the smirking condescension and mock indignation that are invariably employed by commentators in response to Imus’s own defense: that this condemnation of him is an example of rank hypocrisy. Imus was wrong to speak as he did, but he is not wrong that something stinks about the way he has been treated. The fact that the Rev. Al Sharpton was the one person who was most stridently and vocally called for Imus’s firing, no matter what apologies or promises the latter offered, underscores this hypocrisy. Sharpton is a man who, to this day, refuses to offer any apology to the many people who were hurt by his manipulation of the Tawana Brawley case, his support of the anti-Semitic orchestrators of the Million Man March (and his own well-documented history of making anti-Semitic remarks), or his own history of divisive and inflammatory behavior. How can Sharpton possibly take the moral high-ground here? Even if Imus’s apologies were disingenuous, the fact that they were offered at all still beats Sharpton’s record by a mile.

Without a doubt, the media needs to continue to explore the issue of race- and not just when high-profile white men say obnoxious and hateful things. I would hope the media could do so without employing Imus as a convenient whipping boy. The man’s career is dead- throw some dirt over it and walk away. There is real racism to fight, racism that exists in governmental policy and human actions, not just in words. There is also other news out there- news that I daresay is more important than the incoherent “humor” of a man whose entire act was based on the fact that he was angry and misanthropic.

© 2007, Christopher Stansfield, with the exception of elements owned by Blogger. Entries are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, and therefore may be freely copied and distributed as long as they are attributed to Christopher Stansfield and not textually altered in any way, shape, or form. To view a copy of this Creative Commons license, please click
here. To learn more about Creative Commons licensing in general, or to find out how to become a Creative Commons licensor, please click here.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The Pilates Experiment

My calf hurts.

No, that's not specific enough. It's not grand enough a way of describing how my calf (actually, come to think of it, both of my calves, and also my thighs, and much of my lower back and my abs and, yes, my chest, too…and my ass) feels. My calf (along with all those other body parts) feels like it's been rung through one of those old fashioned laundry presses you see in Colonial Williamsburg or on those PBS shows where a family is force to pretend it's living in a different century (admittedly, I've never watched those shows, but I see the commercials, so I know what that sort of press looks like). It feels like the grapes must have felt like when Lucille Ball and that fat Italian woman stomped on them in that episode of I Love Lucy where everyone goes to Italy and hilarity ensues. If feels like the vein in Alberto Gonzales's head must feel like whenever the Attorney General testifies before Congress. (If I want this piece to have any relevance a few years from now I'll have to change that last line, but for now I'll leave it in.)

Why do various muscles that I never really noticed I have (and that no one else has likely ever noticed I have) feel so wrenched and twisted and pounded upon? Simple. I took a "Pilates For Beginners" class.

Taking a pilates class has long been one of those things I told myself I'd eventually get around to doing, like learning conversational French, watching all of Fellini's films, and getting hair transplants. As in most of the odd-numbered years of my life (and some of the even-numbered ones) I'm slightly out of shape- like a beanbag chair is "slightly unsupportive." And even though I grew up to a height of 5'10" in college, a perfectly acceptable average male height, I was, for much of my childhood, smaller than most everyone around me, so the idea of making myself look taller through lengthening my vertebra and improving my posture is extremely appealing. That said, I can't claim I ever went to any great lengths to fulfill my pilates ambition (if by "great lengths" one means actually looking up the times the classes were offered.) However, when an acquaintance of mine sent out a bulletin saying that he had recently become a pilates instructor and was looking for enrollees for his class, I happened to be online and happened to be slightly drunk, so I said "sure" and told him I'd be there for his first class. After all, I wouldn't only be helping myself, I reasoned. I'd be doing a good deed by playing guinea pig and giving a nice guy a boost in his career.

I wasn't at all dissuaded: not by the fact that I was told the workout would be intense; nor the fact that I was warned to make sure I had underwear on if I planned to wear shorts; nor even by the fact that the instructor has spent a large portion of his professional life dressed up in a variety of blue-colored bunny rabbit costumes and platform shoes. In fact, I was encouraged by that last bit, as I reasoned that a seven-foot tall blue rabbit was not likely to be a particularly didactic or harsh instructor. I was also encouraged by the fact that he had recently lost a great deal of weight and was thus fitting into smaller (though still blue) bunny costumes. If pilates was the way he did it, then hell, maybe I too would eventually look good in tights and long ears if I followed the same route.

I don't want anyone reading the next few paragraphs to think I was hopelessly ignorant or naïve about what I was getting into. I did have some idea of what pilates actually is. I've often heard that it's all about strengthening one's "core" (whatever that is) and paying more attention to one's body as a whole (rather than avoiding the very thought of one's body as a whole, as I've been doing for much of my adult life.) I knew a lot of dancers did it. Who doesn't want to look like a dancer? (Well, maybe not Fred "Rerun" Berry, but all of the other dancers.) And I knew there wasn't any weight lifting or running in place or sweating to the oldies involved. I thought it was vaguely like yoga or tai chi, where one stays in one place and somehow gets all the physical benefits a marathon runner gets, without the heavy breathing, blisters, and chapped nipples.

So, I was really rather excited. I was doing something proactive. I was able to swallow my fear of group exercise (correctly assuming that nobody would really be able to watch what I was doing since they would be too busy paying attention to themselves.) I knew I wouldn't be perfect right off the bat, but I was prepared to be grown up and work hard at it until I was the best damned pilates practitioner I could be.

I was, in other words, completely delusional.

Pilates hurts. I don't want to dissuade anyone from taking the classes, especially anyone who wants to take a class with a giant rabbit instructor, but pilates really, really hurts. It especially hurts if you're someone who is overweight, not especially coordinated, flat-footed, and have been walking on the balls of your feet your entire life, making your calves and hamstrings as tight as a G-string (on a musical instrument, not a stripper). I was right about the exercises largely taking place within a small user-defined area, but that doesn't really matter when you're asked to do things like lie on your back with your feet a couple of inches off the ground, your hip and shoulder bones dug into the mat, and your neck straight but off the ground. Read that last sentence again and see if you can follow what I'm saying. Now try to imagine being an overweight person who is asked to go directly from flat-on-your-back to sitting up without rolling over or using your arms for support.

The instructor, who is freakishly tall even without the platform shoes and rabbit ears, looked even taller as he loomed over me. I was right that he wasn't a harsh taskmaster. He was reassuring, positive, upbeat, and encouraging, a little like high school gym teachers are supposed to be and exactly like high school gym teachers never are. And yet, I found myself irrationally hating him every time he came to stand on my feet in an effort to help me "roll up" into position. I resented his cheer as my sweat literally dripped off of my head and on to the nice clean new gym mats that had been installed for the occasion. Every time he said to me, "I bet you never knew how tight your hamstrings are," visions of Elmer Fudd and his double-barreled shot gun popped up in my head. I wanted Bugs Bunny dead. I wanted Peter Rabbit dead. I wanted the Easter Bunny and Thumper and every other cheerful member of the order lagomorpha exterminated.

Even as I sit here, a tightly coiled bundle of pain, I can acknowledge that, in retrospect, I was being unfair. And yet, as mature and self-improving and low-pressure as the workout environment was, I simply couldn't help my feelings. I'm 15 again, standing under the ropes course at my high school, watching all the other students having fun walking on rope bridges and swinging from cables and eventually getting to use one of those neat ziplines James Bond's always hanging from- and I can't do it because my fat, weak body can't climb the rope ladder to get to the course, no matter how many times I make the attempt. In the pilates teacher's warm encouragement I see Mr. Butler, with his cheesy moustache and cleft chin, rolling his eyes and looking exasperated. I promise myself I won't give up, but as I struggle to keep from weeping with frustration I wonder why I, an adult, have to put myself through this shit.

As I relive both the events of the other day and the events of my childhood, the question of what makes an adult an adult keeps coming back to me. Throughout my childhood, I was always ahead of my peers in some ways and horribly behind them in others. I was a gifted reader and writer, had an extraordinarily retentive memory, and, according to some, I was also a pretty decent performer and public speaker. Those things came easily to me, and I was able to coast on them well into junior high school. But being able to coast in some areas can set one up for defeat in other areas, unless you have enough character and work ethic as a child to push yourself in the things you're not immediately talented at. I didn't have that character as a child. If I attempted to do something and I ended up looking foolish, I did my very best to avoid doing it ever again.

I can remember days on the beach playing catch with my father (a talented and athletic man, and, like the Blue Bunny, uncommonly patient and encouraging.) Despite the fact that he never lost his temper with me and did his best not to ever make me feel bad about my lack of hand-eye coordination, I simply couldn't stand how it felt when the ball would fly past me, or land in the sand at my feet, or, worst of all, land in my "lead hands" and bounce out again. My father would have been willing to practice with me for hours if I had asked him. I never asked him.

I never had any immediate talent in athletics, so I decided I didn't like athletics. I didn't like athletics, so I didn't ever practice them, and thus, I remained untalented. This Catch-22 not only led to me being a fairly graceless mover in my daily life- it also played a large part in the recurring struggle I've had with my weight since my pre-teen years. I resigned myself to being the last picked for every team. I resigned myself to taking "breaks" when the others were running laps. I resigned myself to standing under that rope ladder and never making it to that damn zip line. I simply resigned. And I never got any better. I told myself I didn't care. I cared. I care.

As I headed into my delayed adulthood, I resolved that I was going to be a better adult than I was a child. I would no longer give up on things just because they were difficult for me- I would push until I got as far as I could. In many ways I've fulfilled that goal. A kid who was so modest and embarrassed about his body in high school that he never changed in front of the other kids can now go into a gym locker room and calmly put on his shorts in front of better-built, better-looking men. I can (and do) workout regularly (okay, semi-regularly) and I don't worry whether I'm lifting as much weight as the guy next to me or whether my treadmill is turned up as high as the anorexic blond girl's is. I'm still not good at it, and no matter how many people tell me that eventually I'll "love it," I've never loved it in my life and I doubt I ever will. But I do it anyway.

I've worked hard on other areas of my life, too. There was once a time when I would see someone I was attracted to for friendship or romance and, scared of rejection, just accept that nothing could ever happen. Anyone who knows me nowadays would never accuse me of being shy or scared- that took work. That took working on my personality and forcing myself to socialize, rather than blithely accepting that I'd "never fit in."

I've much to be proud of, and that's why I keep coming back to the question: when you're an adult and you try something new, is it more mature to press on no matter how bad you are at it and how crappy you feel afterwards? Or is it more mature to recognize your limitations and give up before you make a bad situation worse? I want sticktoitiveness. I want to fight. And yet, the five foot walk from my bed to my desk to write this was so excruciating that I feel I must have been doing something differently than the others did. I clearly need more strength and flexibility in my legs, if I'm ever going to become accomplished at this pilates stuff. So, do I keep going to classes, slowing them down while the instructor sits on my legs, or do I choose, instead, to try an exercise that comes easier to me? The "comes easy" thing scares me- I want to be a better adult than I was a child. But when is it more adult and rational to take the easier way out?

I've decided, for now, to split the difference. I know now where the most problematic areas of my very problematic body are, and they are surprisingly not the ones I thought they'd be. I'm going back into the gym, working on the stretches my orthopedist gave me and that I long ago grew bored of. I'm making sure I wear my orthotics all the time, even though it means swapping them in and out of various pairs of shoes. I'm going to make my legs and abs strong. And I'm going to go back to pilates class. Just not next week. But I will. I promise. And if you're reading this, you have, unbeknownst to you when you started reading this, entered into a contract. Every time I see you, or at any interval of your choosing, you are to ask me- "Have you gone back to the class yet?" Shame me into it. Because I promise you, I will be a better adult than I was a child.



© 2007, Christopher Stansfield, with the exception of elements owned by Blogger. Entries are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, and therefore may be freely copied and distributed as long as they are attributed to Christopher Stansfield and not textually altered in any way, shape, or form. To view a copy of this Creative Commons license, please click here. To learn more about Creative Commons licensing in general, or to find out how to become a Creative Commons licensor, please click here.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Gift Certificate (Or, "In Praise of Spanky's BBQ and The Onion.")

Well, it's official- I am my grandmother's grandson (Irene Zenker (1908-2004)). I learned from her that when a company screws up, you should tell them. Over the years, I've done just that, but as I never got the results Grandmom did, I became increasingly convinced of the decline in customer service in this country. It's so rare to actually get results, I feel compelled to praise the businesses that actually take the time to care. Thus, thank you, The Onion, and especially, thank you, Spanky's BBQ.

You see, a couple of weeks ago, the satirical newspaper The Onion co-sponsored and heavily promoted an event with Spanky's BBQ, a restaurant in New York that serves, well, barbecue. In an event cleverly called the "Pig Fest," Spanky's would, for two hours only (7:00-9:00 PM), serve half-priced beers. No big deal, that- a lot of restaurants and bars routinely have specials like that. But the hook was that, in addition to the cheap beer, there would be a whole roast suckling pig, and free pork and sides to anyone who RSVP'd. With all due respect to my Kosher, Muslim, and vegetarian/vegan friends (not to mention my fellow lovers of "Babe" and "Charlotte's Web"), the prospect of free pork was too good to pass up. A couple of bucks for a beer would get me and a friend a free dinner for the night. Based on my impression of New York restaurant prices, that's a savings of, I think, $134,000 (give or take a buck.)

So, of course, I RSVP'd, and, of course, easily convinced one of my more carnivorous friends to join me. We arrived at about 8:10- not early, but not late, either. We checked in with the smiling (and cute) girl who had been employed by the Onion for the event, and were directed to the bar to buy our drinks. The harried (but presumably happily compensated) bartenders got our drinks, and we sidled over to the pork table... which was empty. Well, not entirely empty. One sad dinner roll remained. Though my friend and I were, at this point, ravenous, neither of us wanted to look like shnorrers (a fine old Yiddish word- look it up), so we left the roll and walked back to the bartenders. "When will you be bringing out more pork?" we asked. "Oh," he replied, "they've wrapped up for the night."

This was annoying on several levels- for one thing, the event was advertised as going until 9, and the clear teaser for the event was the food. The food had "wrapped up," I learned, at least an hour early. More importantly, when we signed in, we were not informed that there was to be no more food- we were just sent to the bar to spend money, which the bartenders took without any warning that there would be no pork to accompany our Coronas.

So, that night, I did what my grandmother taught me- I wrote a letter (though Grandmom would have written it by hand and paid for a stamp- I just used the miraculous modern convenience of e-mail.) Fully expecting never to hear from anyone, I sent this note, which I feel was "light" enough that it wouldn't seem the work of a crank, but serious enough to get the point across- you be the judge (note, the letter has been edited for brevity, but no significant content has changed):

"To Whom It May Concern:
Having left the Spanky's event a half-hour ago, I thought I'd pass along three tips in the spirit of bonhomie and neighborliness:

Tip One: When you've heavily advertised an event as taking place between 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM, and the main draw of the event is free food, it's preferable that the food actually be available until nearly 9:00, rather than being "wrapped up" (bartender's words) sometime before 8:15.

Tip Two: On those unfortunate occasions when an event has effectively ended early it's preferable that the check-in person let attendees know that it's ended, instead of sending them to buy drinks.

Tip Three: It's preferable that the sponsors pass Tip Two along to the bartenders- in other words, it's nice when the bartenders tell patrons that the food is gone BEFORE taking their money.

I don't mean to sound cheap (though I am) or unreasonable. If I'd arrived at, say, 8:55 rather than 8:15, I'd accept that the fault was mine. But, as you know, there are numerous events going on in New York on any given night. I had a choice between your event and going to Penang to see a friend's band perform, for example. If the value-added-incentive meant to pull people to your event and away from others doesn't actually exist as advertised, goodwill can be lost. Certainly, if the idea was to bring new customers to Spanky's, the restaurant's done nothing to make me want to take my friends there.

Next time I attend an Onion event, I hope for better.

Sincerely,
Christopher Stansfield"


Not bad, right? Pretty eloquent, and reasonably self-deprecating (I do, after all, admit that I'm cheap.) I didn't threaten or cajole, just stated a few facts. I emailed the letter to the Onion and CC'd it to Spanky's, and there I thought it would die.

Until the very next day, when I received the following response from the Onion (again edited so as not to reveal details of the newspaper/sponsor relationship that were divulged):

"Hi Chris,
Thanks for your note and I apologize for your frustration last night. Your points are valid.... (DETAILS WITHHELD)
In any case, we really should have said, "While supplies last" in the e-mail and we certainly should have cut things off more quickly once we realized the food had run out. Neither The Onion nor the restaurant realized the type of turnout we would have....
Thanks again for coming out and we'll do our best to ensure a better party next time around.
(NAME WITHHELD)"


Wow. That was pretty impressive, especially since it arrived early in the day. That implied to me that the letter was given some priority, and that the Onion, well, cares. So I wrote back:

"Dear (NAME WITHHELD),
I appreciate your quick, polite response to my email, as well as the apology...(DETAILS WITHHELD) it's to your credit (and the Onion's) that you responded at all- that's much more than many other businesses would do under the circumstances. Better luck next time!
Sincerely,
Chris Stansfield"


Note, by the way, that I'm downright chummy with the Onion staffer at this point- I'm no longer "Christopher Stansfield," but rather, "Chris." Again, I thought this would be the end of things, and I was actually pretty satisfied. But then, a few days later, I received another email- this time from Spanky's (presumably an employee, and not "Spanky," himself):

"Dear Christopher,first of all please let me apologize for your unfortunate experience at the pig fest. On behalf of Spankys bbq I would like to invite you and a guest in for lunch or for dinner. I am mailing a fifty dollar gift certificate to (MY ADDRESS WITHHELD, EVEN THOUGH I'M LISTED).Please call me if you would like to get in touch. Robert Protter (PHONE NUMBER WITHHELD)."


Holy Toledo! That's a hell of a response! After all, I wasn't really "entitled" to anything more than an apology, but now I have fifty bucks to spend on meat, alcohol, or whatever- and I checked out the menu- I can actually use the gift certificate for two full meals and not have to dig into my own wallet. I haven't redeemed the coupons yet (if anyone wants to join me, send me a note and I'll choose the wittiest and most eloquent friend to be my date.)

So, what have I learned from this experience?

One: Grandmom was right- sometimes it pays to be a cranky consumer.
Two: The Onion is awesome.
Three: Spanky's BBQ is also awesome.

Perhaps you, the reader, have learned something as well- next time you feel screwed by a business, take the five minutes to (humorously (or if you can't do humorous, politely)) let the business know. It works better than bitching to me about it over the phone. Or over coffee. Or in a bar. Or anywhere, for that matter. In other words, stop bitching to me, I have my own problems.

And, more importantly- go eat at Spanky's!

© 2007, Christopher Stansfield. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed to the public under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, and may only be distributed according to the terms of said license. To view a copy of this license, please click here.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

What's going on with Jon Stewart?

Has anybody else noticed that in the couple of days since Jon's masterful interview of John Bolton (in which we saw that a basic cable comedian has a better grasp of the Constitution and democratic theory than the man we sent to represent us in the United Nations), The Daily Show has, well, sucked? I know it's only been a few days, but here's how the week wrapped up:

The day after the Bolton interview, a good chunk of time was given over to a phone interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin (who is almost always a welcome presence), during which the bulk of the conversation consisted of Doris reaffirming that Jon Stewart is smarter than John Bolton. Sure, it's true, but is it really necessary? Couldn't the time have been better used commenting on the news of the day rather than defending something that needed no defense? The liberals who watch the show already figured out that John Bolton really IS a douchebag after all, and that Jon Stewart tore him apart in a dignified and polite manner- quite a mean feat. The conservatives aren't going to have their minds changed. So, like I said- why waste the time doing a public victory dance?

The rest of the episode featured a truly bizarre interview with Chris Hansen of "To Catch a Predator." We get it- molestation is bad- but how about mentioning the sensational and salacious ratings-grabbing manner in which "To Catch a Predator" goes about its work? Or mentioning that children still face far more danger from people they know than they do from Internet weirdos? What about some indication that Jon realizes Chris Hansen comes across as more smarmy than the predators he's "catching?" (Even "The Soup" on E!, a network not noted for its penetrating social commentary, has picked up on this last fact.) Instead of asking one single insightful question about the very real issues of due process and civil liberties raised by the series (which is largely founded on the extra-legal efforts of a vigilante group), Jon lobbed softballs and basically fawned over the guy like a panicked father (which is, I guess, what Stewart is.)

Incidentally, my old friend, Legal Aid attorney Shana Skaletsky, wrote a very good blog essay about "To Catch a Predator" that raises all the questions Jon Stewart didn't. Check it (and a brief bit of added commentary from yours truly) out here: http://shanaelyse.blogs.friendster.com/potpourri_/2007/03/to_catch_a_what.html)

Finally, the last episode of the week discussed only one piece of actual "new" news- the utterly absurd (and frankly, rude) treatment that Al Gore received at the hands of Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) during a hearing on climate change. Rather than take a moment to skewer Inhofe (the last man on Earth who still pretends he doesn't believe in global warming), Stewart instead focused on the fact that Gore has gained weight and implied the same thing Bill O'Reilly and his ilk do- that Al's just an egotistical blowhard. You know, it's possible to make jokes that actually reveal things to people they don't already know from the news: the Daily Show used to be expert at it, and Keith Olbermann is doing a great job of it on MSNBC.

So, what's the deal? After the Bolton interview, was there pressure from within or without to be more "fair and balanced" in the show's attacks? Is there an exchange rate in place? (For every joke about Tony Snow and Karl Rove there has to be one about Hillary Clinton or Al Gore?) Or is Jon just off his feed?

© 2007, Christopher Stansfield. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed to the public under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, and may only be distributed according to the terms of said license. To view a copy of this license, please click here.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

AIDS Walk 2007

Friends,
I know a lot of you don't have a great deal of money to throw around (I'm right there with you.) But, I really feel that the AIDS Crisis is too big to be fought only by the well-off. That is why I'm walking this year, and that is why I hope that you will pledge any small amount of money you can to me and, by extension, to the organizations and people who benefit from the money raised.

I'd be willing to bet that all of you know at least one person who has been infected with HIV/AIDS...some of you may be infected yourselves; you may have felt the nervousness and anticipation that comes from being tested, the panic that comes when you weren't as careful as you usually are, just that once; you may know the whirlwind of emotions that comes when someone you love tells you he or she has an incurable illness.

We live in a wonderful time, because progress has been made and continues to be made: Some studies estimate that newly-infected people can live for thirty years or more after infection. But the medicine is expensive, it can carry terrible side effects, and it does not work for everyone. There is no way to lead a totally "normal" life with HIV. If it isn't the medication, it's the constant need to monitor one's health. If it isn't the financial cost, it's the psychic cost: a fear every time you make a new friend or make a new date. All one has to do to understand that particular burden is to go to any number of dating sites where prospective mates say loudly and rudely and without the slightest bit of compassion or self-awareness, "Negative only."

Every day more progress is made. More medicines are developed, vaccines are tested, and even when they fail, they give researchers new leads to follow. But this can only continue if we all do what we can. Those people who don't have the means to take care of themselves can only be taken care of if we all do what we can. This crisis can only end IF WE ALL DO WHAT WE CAN.

So, help me do what I can. Or make a donation to another walker, or a donation directly to the AIDS Walk site. Walk yourself. Form a team. Volunteer on the day of the walk and in the days leading up to it. This isn't about my ego- that's why I've set a relatively low "goal." This is about the people around you. DO WHAT YOU CAN.
You can donate at my page: http://aidswalknewyork2007.kintera.org/chrisstansfield
Thank you.
Love,
Chris

© 2007, Christopher Stansfield. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed to the public under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, and may only be distributed according to the terms of said license. To view a copy of this license, please click here.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Ben Stein and the holidays, or "Yes, Virginia, there is an Establishment Clause."

Lawyer/actor/game show host/political commentator (not necessarily in that order) Ben Stein delivered a commentary on CBS Sunday Morning, 12/18/05 . Since then, the essay has been copied and emailed by every right-winger, Christian-rights activist, and First Amendment-hater in the country, two Decembers in a row. The original text can be found on Ben's webpage (address above.) My original response, in a slightly different form, first appeared on the comments section of Lance Bass's Myspace blog. (Don't ask.) Here it is:

Yes, Mr. Stein, There Is An Establishment Clause by Christopher Stansfield
In his much spammed and blogged-about commentary on 12/18/05 (yes, this speech is now officially a year old), Lawyer/Character "Actor"/Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein admits, "I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are." This admission is an old speechwriter's trick to get the audience on his side- after all, how can one fail to respect someone who finds the obviously ludicrous...well, ludicrous? Arguing with Mr. Stein about the importance of the former Mr.-and-Mrs.-Lachey would be like wearing a "Don't Support Our Troops," shirt.

Of course, Stein's next confession involves a 180-degree turn: "I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees."

Okay, fair enough- I am not aware of any real textual link between the celebrity publicity machine and the religious significance of Coniferous trees, but the insistence that Christmas trees should be called Christmas trees seems like another unassailable position.
And then he goes on: "It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away. I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat."

Well
. Now it seems ol' Ben's getting to his real point: God-loving Americans are abused! They are under continual attack! The atheists are on the march!

I admire and respect Ben Stein- despite our many political differences, he seems to have more common sense than much of his ideological crowd. That said, the concept that this country is somehow being hijacked by atheists or "bashes Christians" should inspire as much incredulous outrage as the concept that "The Jews started all wars" (Mel Gibson, 2006) or that Muhammad only brought the world "evil and inhuman things" (Pope Benedict XVI).

In battles between the atheist, agnostic, or simply irreligious versus the rights of those on "God's side," the winners are, more often than not, the religious. In this country, disputes both semantic and important between Christians versus those who are not often tend to favor Christian causes and beliefs. (If you can't research stem cells, evolution, or the morning-after pill, chances are it's not because of fundamentalist Hindus.)

I too, have no problem with people wishing me a "Merry Christmas" without inquiring whether I celebrate, nor do I find it offensive to receive a Christmas card or see someone's lovingly cared-for creche on his well-manicured lawn. (Though, inexplicably, religious rightists find it horribly offensive to use the religion-neutral phrase "Happy Holidays" when doing business.) I do, however, oppose the historical and continual erosion of the Establishment Clause and Equal-Protection Clause.

Manger scenes on private lawns or in private businesses are fine. Manger scenes on publicly-held land are not- it's as simple as that. To those who think the removal of Christmas trees from government- and common-held spaces is "anti-Christian," there is a simple compromise that can keep them there- celebrate other religions, as well. But this "religious (read: Christian) nation" (founded in a large part by agnostics and deists) simply cannot have that- look to the recent case of Sea-Tac airport, which decided to remove its fifteen Christmas trees because it couldn't stand the notion of putting up a menorah- and then proceeded to use the media to make the complainant (a rabbi) look "anti-Christian."

I'm glad Mr. Stein feels neither discriminated against nor threatened. Living in a metropolitan area with his level of fame and success can help insulate him from such fears. However, those non-Christians living in this country who genuinely are threatened and discriminated against have a right to stand up for themselves, and that does not make them anti-Christian. It simply makes them American.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." - The Constitution of The United States of America

"Government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion" (emphasis added)"- Justice David Souter, writing for the majority, in Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687.


This article © 2007, Christopher Stansfield. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed to the public under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, and may only be distributed according to the terms of said license. To view a copy of this license, please click here.