Sunday, October 15, 2006
The obligatory Mark Foley post
I've been issued a summons by the blogosphere PD for failing to write about the October Surprise of the century. It's apparently required by law for everyone with a blog. So:
First off, the disclaimers: what Foley did was a horrible abuse of trust and power, and my deepest sympathies go out to his victims (and they are victims, whether they think they are or not).
The media has been all over this story, and rightfully so (note to my colleagues: THIS is our role in society. Not Jen-Brad-Angie, or round-the-clock coverage of missing girls who happen to be pretty, white and wealthy, or water-skiing squirrels. We're the watchdogs, and we bring people like Foley into the harsh light of truth and demand accountability, when we're not distracted by Anna Nicole Smith.) But the cynic in me has to ask an uncomfortable question:
Would the story be getting so much play if the pages had been girls?
Obviously, I can't speak for any of the many people at any publication who make news decisions. I can only observe that I heard a few comments, the first day, along the lines of "Oh, I didn't realize the page was male," said in a way that implied "Whoa, this is way bigger than I thought."
Next question: Would the GOP have reacted the same way if the pages had been girls?
And: would the Washington Times have turned so fiercely on Hastert, demanding his resigntation, if the pages had been girls? This is, after all, a paper whose editor in chief once lamented that Bob Packwood had been forced to resign, when all he did was "kissed a couple of women who might have otherwise gone unkissed."
On the one hand, it's strictly an academic point. The pages weren't girls, and plenty of lawmakers from both parties have been forced out -- either by Congress or by their constituents -- for inappropriate sexual conduct. But it goes to a deeper question about the values of the people who brought Foley's behavior to light and the people who forced him out.
If those people feel Foley was wrong because he was taking advantage of an underage person -- any person -- who was in a clearly subordinate position to him, then bravo. You exposed a pedophile and took him down.
But if those people's biggest problem with Foley's conduct is that it involved people of the same sex, that's not only homophobic. It's also misogynistic, because if it's somehow worse that boys were involved, then it has to be better if it had been girls. That's the way rating scales work.
Pedophilia is pedophilia, and rape is rape. There's no sliding scale that traumatizes female victims less.
To the comment boards!
First off, the disclaimers: what Foley did was a horrible abuse of trust and power, and my deepest sympathies go out to his victims (and they are victims, whether they think they are or not).
The media has been all over this story, and rightfully so (note to my colleagues: THIS is our role in society. Not Jen-Brad-Angie, or round-the-clock coverage of missing girls who happen to be pretty, white and wealthy, or water-skiing squirrels. We're the watchdogs, and we bring people like Foley into the harsh light of truth and demand accountability, when we're not distracted by Anna Nicole Smith.) But the cynic in me has to ask an uncomfortable question:
Would the story be getting so much play if the pages had been girls?
Obviously, I can't speak for any of the many people at any publication who make news decisions. I can only observe that I heard a few comments, the first day, along the lines of "Oh, I didn't realize the page was male," said in a way that implied "Whoa, this is way bigger than I thought."
Next question: Would the GOP have reacted the same way if the pages had been girls?
And: would the Washington Times have turned so fiercely on Hastert, demanding his resigntation, if the pages had been girls? This is, after all, a paper whose editor in chief once lamented that Bob Packwood had been forced to resign, when all he did was "kissed a couple of women who might have otherwise gone unkissed."
On the one hand, it's strictly an academic point. The pages weren't girls, and plenty of lawmakers from both parties have been forced out -- either by Congress or by their constituents -- for inappropriate sexual conduct. But it goes to a deeper question about the values of the people who brought Foley's behavior to light and the people who forced him out.
If those people feel Foley was wrong because he was taking advantage of an underage person -- any person -- who was in a clearly subordinate position to him, then bravo. You exposed a pedophile and took him down.
But if those people's biggest problem with Foley's conduct is that it involved people of the same sex, that's not only homophobic. It's also misogynistic, because if it's somehow worse that boys were involved, then it has to be better if it had been girls. That's the way rating scales work.
Pedophilia is pedophilia, and rape is rape. There's no sliding scale that traumatizes female victims less.
To the comment boards!
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Elitists R Us
One aftereffect of my Big Adventure this summer -- along with my obsession with using chopsticks -- arrived in the mail a few weeks ago. Seems my trans-Pacific flights had piqued the interest of Northwest Airlines' frequent-flier gods, who bumped me up to Silver Elite status.
My membership in frequent-flier clubs has always been a bit of a reach -- I don't fly that often, and most of my Northwest miles came from a promotion cooked up by marketing execs on a coke bender, wherein you could get 40,000 miles if you switched your long distance plan to Sprint. (Shortly after I signed up, the promotion came to the attention of sober officials at Northwest, who promptly ended it, because who gives out that kind of miles?) But since there are no sporadic-flier clubs, I do the FF thing. (Technically, due to some courtesy title confusion, my mom does the FF thing. But I digress.)
So it came about that I'm spending a sunny but cold Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis, sipping premium tea and noshing snickerdoodles in front of a fireplace, nestled into a leather chair chronicling my adventures in high society courtesy of free Wi-Fi. Yes, I have gained access to the WorldClubs lounge. No longer must I walk past these frosted-glass doors with their "Members Only" signs and wonder how the other half lives. I'm living it.
(I was going to write "in front of a roaring fire," until I realized that a: that's a tired cliche, and b: it's not roaring at all. It's either a gas fire enclosed in what looks like a flat-panel TV screen, or it's a flat-panel TV screen showing an endless video loop of a fire.)
And I got bumped to first class for my flight to Rapid City.
Oh, but there's always a catch, and here it is: my Silver Elite status -- the preboarding privileges, the free upgrades to first class, the lounge access -- is only good until February, unless I make two more flights before the end of the year.
Denver for Thanksgiving will be one. The other? I don't care. I'll fly anywhere. I'll fly to Baltimore, for pete's sake, and take MARC back home. (According to DCist, United at one time really did operate a scheduled flight between D.C. and Baltimore. Why on earth anyone would spend an hour in a security line instead of driving 35 miles is a mystery. Maybe they were trying to get elite qualifying segments.)
All I know is, I MUST figure out how to keep my Silver Elite card. I'm never going back!
My membership in frequent-flier clubs has always been a bit of a reach -- I don't fly that often, and most of my Northwest miles came from a promotion cooked up by marketing execs on a coke bender, wherein you could get 40,000 miles if you switched your long distance plan to Sprint. (Shortly after I signed up, the promotion came to the attention of sober officials at Northwest, who promptly ended it, because who gives out that kind of miles?) But since there are no sporadic-flier clubs, I do the FF thing. (Technically, due to some courtesy title confusion, my mom does the FF thing. But I digress.)
So it came about that I'm spending a sunny but cold Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis, sipping premium tea and noshing snickerdoodles in front of a fireplace, nestled into a leather chair chronicling my adventures in high society courtesy of free Wi-Fi. Yes, I have gained access to the WorldClubs lounge. No longer must I walk past these frosted-glass doors with their "Members Only" signs and wonder how the other half lives. I'm living it.
(I was going to write "in front of a roaring fire," until I realized that a: that's a tired cliche, and b: it's not roaring at all. It's either a gas fire enclosed in what looks like a flat-panel TV screen, or it's a flat-panel TV screen showing an endless video loop of a fire.)
And I got bumped to first class for my flight to Rapid City.
Oh, but there's always a catch, and here it is: my Silver Elite status -- the preboarding privileges, the free upgrades to first class, the lounge access -- is only good until February, unless I make two more flights before the end of the year.
Denver for Thanksgiving will be one. The other? I don't care. I'll fly anywhere. I'll fly to Baltimore, for pete's sake, and take MARC back home. (According to DCist, United at one time really did operate a scheduled flight between D.C. and Baltimore. Why on earth anyone would spend an hour in a security line instead of driving 35 miles is a mystery. Maybe they were trying to get elite qualifying segments.)
All I know is, I MUST figure out how to keep my Silver Elite card. I'm never going back!
Monday, October 02, 2006
Literally and figuratively, my workplace is falling apart
Literally: An unknown substance (water? urine? liquid nitrogen?) gushed through the library ceiling, frying a computer and two printers and forcing the librarians to evacuate. On the upside, some quick-thinking soul rescued the editorial fax machine, which stopped working in, oh, I'll be generous and say mid-2002.
Figuratively: For years I've been plotting to usurp my boss. And suddenly, it happened, although I don't think him taking a job in a different office qualifies as a coup on my part. I exchanged many, many e-mails with co-workers about what would be different with me in charge. And then, two weird things happened.
One, I found myself in charge. And I started freaking out. There's no one to backstop me now. The difference between order and chaos, success and failure, is me. Some moments, I feel ready. Other moments, I long for a job that involves nothing more complicated than filing.
Two, I made an astonishing discovery. After clashing with my boss repeatedly on every conceivable topic, I thought I'd be thrilled to see him go. But no: I realized he'd become my nemesis. And I need a nemesis. What would Holmes be without Moriarty? Superman without Lex Luthor? Seinfeld without Newman? How could this have happened? (Chuck Klosterman explains the nemesis thing far more eloquently here.)
Or, to botch another analogy, he's the Benson to my Stabler. And if you think I have that analogy backward, on account of genders, you don't know my bawling-over-"Beaches" boss. That might be the better analogy. We disagreed, often and sometimes volatilely, over tactics, ideologies, etc., but we made each other better. And I find myself kinda missing him. Unlike Benson, whom I don't miss at the moment.
(And, like Stabler, I'd really enjoy grabbing a few people by the lapels and shoving them into walls when talking just doesn't do the trick. Unlike Stabler, I'm fazed by the possibility of civil litigation.)
P.S. You think I'm joking about the urine thing? I wish I were. Sewage has leaked through our ceiling several times. Also used water from an improperly sealed shower. Yes, there's a shower on the floor above ours. No, I don't know why.
Figuratively: For years I've been plotting to usurp my boss. And suddenly, it happened, although I don't think him taking a job in a different office qualifies as a coup on my part. I exchanged many, many e-mails with co-workers about what would be different with me in charge. And then, two weird things happened.
One, I found myself in charge. And I started freaking out. There's no one to backstop me now. The difference between order and chaos, success and failure, is me. Some moments, I feel ready. Other moments, I long for a job that involves nothing more complicated than filing.
Two, I made an astonishing discovery. After clashing with my boss repeatedly on every conceivable topic, I thought I'd be thrilled to see him go. But no: I realized he'd become my nemesis. And I need a nemesis. What would Holmes be without Moriarty? Superman without Lex Luthor? Seinfeld without Newman? How could this have happened? (Chuck Klosterman explains the nemesis thing far more eloquently here.)
Or, to botch another analogy, he's the Benson to my Stabler. And if you think I have that analogy backward, on account of genders, you don't know my bawling-over-"Beaches" boss. That might be the better analogy. We disagreed, often and sometimes volatilely, over tactics, ideologies, etc., but we made each other better. And I find myself kinda missing him. Unlike Benson, whom I don't miss at the moment.
(And, like Stabler, I'd really enjoy grabbing a few people by the lapels and shoving them into walls when talking just doesn't do the trick. Unlike Stabler, I'm fazed by the possibility of civil litigation.)
P.S. You think I'm joking about the urine thing? I wish I were. Sewage has leaked through our ceiling several times. Also used water from an improperly sealed shower. Yes, there's a shower on the floor above ours. No, I don't know why.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
