Meet the Gibbons

I am not feeling current events today. Since tomorrow is Super Tuesday, it feels like the calm before the storm. I didn't watch the Oscars; I've seen reviews many ways about Chris Rock's hosting. It's Leap Day, which has a fascinating history, but there's not much more to say about that.

So I'm going to tell you about my friend Burma and her husband and kids.

I was friends with Burma's husband, Caruso, before I got close to her. Caruso is a ladies' man who is particularly attracted to brunettes, so he warmed to me immediately when I started going to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago regularly. Caruso had lots of girlfriends, and I didn't want to be one of those, so I never took pictures of him.

In January of 2011, Burma gave birth to Sai, her third son (her two oldest sons no longer lived at the zoo with their parents; they had families of their own in other zoos). At that time I went to the zoo every few months when I went to Chicago with Victor.

In fall 2012, I began going to law school at Northwestern University, living across the street from the zoo, and visiting the Gibbons at least weekly. Caruso would run right over to the glass when he saw me and spin around or squeak or otherwise acknowledge me.

One day my route required me to take my bicycle with me through the zoo rather than leaving it at one entrance. I wheeled it into the primate house and parked it near the entrance end of their enclosure. Caruso came over and greeted me, as usual. Burma was up in the faux tree. I waved to her. I'd been trying to get to know her better since I was there so regularly.

I noticed her looking from the tree down in the general direction of my bike. She inquisitively moved her head sideways and then forward. She was clearly curious. I wheeled it closer to her, and don't tell me I'm wrong when I say that she just wanted to take that thing and roll across the street to R.J. Grunt's to grab a cocktail.

After that, she and I became as close as Caruso and I already were, and sometimes even closer because Caruso can be fickle.

I suspected Burma was pregnant in early 2013. I spent that summer working in the clinic at my law school, so I was there often, throughout the summer. She looked a lumpy and tired and her envy of my bicycle became more wistful than aspirational.

My internship ended in early August and I eagerly returned to Colorado for the rest of the summer. When I returned about three weeks later to start school, Burma, Caruso, and Sai had a new family member.

All adult male gibbons are black and adult females are blond. Infant gibbons are all born blond so that they blend in with the mother and are therefore less vulnerable to predators. When they start moving around, they all turn black, then the males stay black and the females turn blond again. It's a trip to watch. I've only seen boy gibbons grow up so I've never seen the transition back to blond.

Daxin, the new baby, was a boy. it turned out. I got to watch him grow up as I went to law school. I spent at least one hour a week with the Gibbon family: mom Burma, dad Caruso, and children Sai and Dax.

My times away got longer as I spent summer of 2014 in Denver and then organized my schedule so I could take a long spring break back home. In May of 2015 I graduated and moved back to Colorado.

I've been back a couple of times and am excited to visit them in a couple of weeks when we're back in Chicago. Caruso may not remember me, but Burma will, especially if I bring my bike. I miss them. I wish they were on Facebook.

Miss Piggy: life coach

Last month when one member of my life coaching team passed away, I wrote about it on my blog about the 80s television show The Facts of Life. David Bowie and Jo Polniaczek from Facts are two of three famous/fictional influences that significantly shaped who I am today. Their influence on my acceptance of my own gender nonconformity was crucial. I don’t want the third member of my life coaching team to be overlooked, though, so I want to dedicate a few words to her today.

Here’s to you, Miss Piggy.

Jo and Bowie have the whole gender-nonconformity thing going for them, and that speaks to me for obvious reasons. Piggy, of course, is the femmest of the femme. She’s obsessed with clothes and hair and makeup and has a large number of “way to not be a stereotype” moments. She is also a pig. Who dated a frog. Talk about nontraditional expressions and preferences.

Please put children and animals in the overhead bin

I’ve seen some outrage over a story headlined with various incarnations of, “Boy removed from plane over allergies, passengers applaud.” The soundbite version of the story is that a seven-year-old boy, along with his mother and terminally ill, cancer-stricken father, were thrown off a plane because the boy was allergic to dogs. When he was thrown off, people clapped.

It’s a little more subtle than that, but those are the basic facts. I’m not sure the outrage is warranted; I’m actually impressed with the airline, from the perspective of an animal rights activist, for not automatically valuing the boy over the dogs.

Which Is Scarier: Trump Being the President, or Trump Picking the President?

So the Trump machine rolls forward, with the Orange One now boasting nearly five times as many confirmed delegates at this point than his competitors. I’m not necessarily lamenting that, because I think the GOP is generally insane and evil, and it’s not like I’d be happier if Cruz was in the lead. But while part of me wishes the media had never fueled the Trump Express to give it this kind of momentum, I must admit that the spectacle is fascinating. It’s like performance art.

And that’s the thing. It’s so perfect, I have a hard time believing it’s real. Therefore I have concluded that Trump isn’t a real candidate. His candidacy is a performance meant to lead to his actual goal, which is not to govern the country. What is he planning? I have a theory.

Donald Trump doesn’t want to be President, but he wants to pick the President.

Uber Bullets: The fallacy of reactive fear

On Saturday, a man in Michigan opened fire on three separate occasions, ultimately killing six people and wounding two. It turns out the guy was an Uber driver, and the majority of headlines about the incident have made reference to that fact. Predictably, the resulting media scuttlebutt included comments about Uber’s screening process, and Uber itself issued a statement defending its hiring practices.

It’s not at all uncommon for people to follow an unfortunate incident with “I’ll never do that again.” Got food poisoning at a restaurant? You’ll never go there again. The airline lost your luggage? You’ll never fly that airline again. And clearly, there’s some logic to it. Obviously, when something is unsatisfactory, one way to express such dissatisfaction is by “voting with your feet,” i.e., ceasing use of the product.

It’s different, though, when one has a bad experience with something one knows. Shit happens, and if a reliable service screws something up once, that’s not necessarily an indication of an irredeemable decline in quality. In fact, sometimes one incident off the rails makes it less likely that a similar incident will happen again as the organization seeks to plug any perceived holes about its process.

I conducted an informal poll among my associates this morning about whether they’d change their Uber habits after Saturday’s shootings. I’m pleased to say that one hundred percent of the respondents said they wouldn’t. The only person who said she wouldn’t use Uber after Saturday didn’t use it anyway because she already had suspicions.

Indeed, Uber has reasonably pointed out that, since the shooter had no criminal history at all, there was no background check or process that would have revealed that he was a danger. Short of ordering a complete psychological work-up of any applicant, a process which is surely too burdensome to expect (and again not at all a guarantee of identifying the danger), I don’t see a reasonable way that Uber itself could have prevented this incident.

I am not a champion for Uber. I don't use it but I have no objection to it; I’ve been an Uber passenger with others before and I once took an Uber called by a Good Samaritan to the emergency room when I crashed my bike and broke my hand. I simply remain resistant to downloading apps, and the times I haven’t been able to walk, bike, or take transit to where I have to go, I’ve simply hailed a cab. For a progressive I’m awfully resistant to changing my habits.

It doesn’t much matter to me whether this incident sinks Uber or not, but it frustrates me when people knee-jerk react to things like this rather than rationally evaluating what the true implications are. Most Uber drivers, like most people, are likely decent individuals. Most people selling items on Craigslist are honest. Most people using dating services are just looking for a nice person to go out with. It’s impossible to weed out every possible risk on these platforms, just as it is in the real world.

In fact, the people put in the greatest danger in Kalamazoo on Saturday were those who might’ve had nothing to do with Uber at all. The gunman didn’t shoot his own passengers; it seems the safest place to be in Kalamazoo during this shooting spree was this guy’s Uber.

Terrible shit happens in the world. A terrible thing could happen to any individual, even if that person does absolutely everything as safely as is possible. Obviously the consequences of this particular brand of “unlucky” were horrible. It would be more horrible, though, to stop living because of what “might” happen.

How I Became a Rugger

People who met me after the mid-2000s associate me with rugby. It’s almost inconceivable to them that there is a quite adult Vikki that didn’t even know what rugby was, and would never have been predicted to play it. And yet.

During Memorial Day weekend of 2003, I had been in Colorado for just over a year. I lived with my sister near Boulder, where we both worked at the university. She was then an assistant professor on her third or so year at CU, while I was a counselor in the admissions office, having been hired permanently in January after completing a six month internship in the second half of 2002.

My sister and I decided to go to the annual Boulder Creek Fest. We had a perfectly nice time there, enjoying beers and music and carnival food. Then she ran into a friend of hers, and the two of them went off on their own. I had no trouble with that; I'm always happy to entertain myself. A few minutes later, though, I realized that somehow she'd ended up with all the money, and I had no money for beer!

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I found a spot where I could stake out the vending operation and see where my in might be.

The first thing I saw was the sign that said "Tips benefit Boulder Rugby Club." I didn't exactly know what rugby was, but I did know that it was some kind of aggressive sport. I immediately judged "meatheads" and figured I'd have no trouble chatting someone up for a beer or two. I identified a target and moved in.

Thoughts on Scalia: Conspiracy and Consistency

When my husband came home yesterday afternoon, he asked me if I'd heard that there's now suspicion as to whether Supreme Court Justice Antonin "Nino" Scalia died of natural causes. I began typing "Scalia death" in Google on my phone.

"Oh," I said, "apparently the conspiracy theory is that he was smothered with a pillow."

It appears that in one interview the owner of the ranch where Justice Scalia was found dead said that Justice Scalia was found "with a pillow over his head." Add to that a Texas law which allows justices of the peace to declare cause of death without seeing the body, a family who turned down an autopsy, and a picture of the ranch owner shaking hands with President Obama, and you've got a conspiracy theory on your hands.

For the record, I actually know a dude who sleeps with a pillow on his face.

Mother Jones has an excellent guide to the assassination theories. I haven't seen anyone try to suggest that he arranged his own death yet, so I'm going to have a go at it.

An Open Letter to Peyton Manning

Dear Peyton,

Yesterday, I wrote a blog post defending you with respect to the expanding coverage of your 1996 incident with trainer Jamie Naughright.

It continues to not sit right with me that people take this incident and its aftermath to dismiss every other part of your reputation. However, by now you must know that you made mistakes throughout the handling of the incident, and the only thing you can do is own up and apologize.

I understand that you were probably motivated by nothing but immaturity and very stupid judgment when the incident occurred. I understand that you then followed the advice of your coaches and other parties, believing that they properly knew how the system worked. I understand that an adolescent can easily think that the goal should only be to avoid punishment rather than to reflect on the incident and consider what the right thing to do is.

In 2000, when the Manning book was published, I understand how you thought - and maybe were told - that as long as you didn't mention her name, that describing your version of the incident would not be in violation of the previous settlement agreement. Maybe you thought that since readers of the book would likely be your fans, no one would dig out the briefly described incident and resurrect it.

Of course, someone sent the relevant pages to Ms. Naughright's office. If that was you, surely by now, you know that was very stupid. If it was someone else with your knowledge and encouragement, you know that was stupid too. If you have no idea how that came about, you should probably say so.

Ms. Naughright went back to court in 2005 after you apparently made some more comments about her in an ESPN story about you. I can't find any clips of those comments; the ones that I have seen show other people talking vaguely about you and the incident. If you did bring it up again, surely you know that was very stupid. If you didn't, you should probably say so.

I suspect that for the last nineteen or twenty years you probably haven't had much of an opportunity to think for yourself. But advice from your family and agents and lawyers and handlers to refuse to apologize for the incident is not sustainable. Much of the outrage directed at you as more people learn about the story is not necessarily about the original incident, but about the refusal to acknowledge it.

I understand that you perceive the incident differently from the way Ms. Naughright does, and perhaps you think you've already done enough by issuing the initial apology letter and acknowledging the incident as "crude." I understand that you were in the midst of a different, less enlightened environment in the 90s when the culture forgave and even encouraged such behavior toward non-athletes. I can see how a person who otherwise has no blemishes on his record is in no hurry to dig up the one that exists.

But that's the only choice you have now. Part of moving toward an environment that is welcoming and open to all of us is accepting responsibility for our indiscretions, regardless of the age, regardless of the motive.

Hold a press conference. Make a public statement that in 1996, you did a very stupid thing that you regret. Acknowledge or sincerely deny any subsequent involvement you had in resurrecting the incident. Be humble. Never say "but." Contact me. I'll write the speech for you.

Now's the time where, regardless of what you think about the situation, you have exactly one path to restore your credibility. You look as bad as you can possibly look right now; owning up and accepting responsibility is the only way to proceed if you want anything but a checkered legacy.

In Peyton Manning's Defense: An unpopular post

A few weeks ago, during the standard Broncos-Patriots trash-talk before the AFC Championship, I learned that while a student at the University of Tennessee in 1996, Peyton Manning had an inappropriate incident with a female trainer. Since the Broncos have won the Super Bowl, I’ve seen the story more, usually the New York Post's version with the headline, “Peyton Manning’s Squeaky-Clean Image Is Built on Lies.”

I’ve read quite a bit about this story, and while the incident was undoubtedly completely inappropriate and offensive, I’m afraid I can’t join the mob that wants to string him up by his testicles and declare him an enemy of women everywhere in 2016. I am not a sexual assault apologist, nor do I have any particular affection for Peyton Manning even though I’m a Broncos fan (I’m actually more excited about Brock Osweiler getting to have a shot outside of Peyton’s shadow). And for whatever it’s worth, I also thought the uproar about Cam Newton’s actions after the Super Bowl was unwarranted; to me he was acting exactly like a very disappointed young man who was frustrated that he didn’t perform at his best on the biggest stage of his life.

And I say all this as a person who did some really terrible shit when I was in my 20s.

Structure: An According to Vikki Housecleaning Post

This post is for the purpose of announcing the structure that I believe will work best for this blog. On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, I will continue posting short commentary on current relevant issues. On Thursdays, I will post a memoir. On Fridays, I will cross-post from my other blog: Cousin Geri: A Facts of Life Appreciation Blog.

Today's post is just a new announcement for a thing on Monday, but it's a great time to review the blog and see how great it is! Have at it!

Moving to the Mountain

My husband (then boyfriend) and I had talked about moving to the small mountain town where we’d vacationed regularly in the three years since he’d bought a condo there, but the timeline had always been “someday.” In my third year of law school, “someday” became “now” and I had to make a crucial life decision.

“Vikki,” he asked me on the phone on Christmas Eve, “are you sure that you want to move?”

He’d texted me pictures a few days before of an amazing house he’d found in the mountain town. He was skiing during the holidays at our vacation condo while I spent Christmas with my family in New Mexico. I loved the house. It was exactly the kind of place I’d always wanted to live. I loved the idea of actually living in the little storybook mountain town we’d visited so often.

Yet I also knew that movement lawyering doesn’t happen in a mountain town, and public service doesn’t give you a lot of control over where you live.

Basically, I was choosing between devoting myself to my personal life or to my career.

Sometimes I feel guilty for the choice I made. Sometimes I also feel jealous of my friends who decided to commit to the career path. One good friend of mine will be starting in the public defender appellate division this fall, and it is a position that I would have applied for if I had been willing to live in Denver.

I’ve also felt guilty about the tension between wanting to help marginalized, underserved populations and wanting to live in a comfortable home with a nice view. I admire people who become part of the communities they serve, and I sometimes feel bad that I don’t have it in me.

I think however, that going with my heart and making the choice to serve my personal desires has helped me to come up with career ideas that actually excite me, and I have a wonderful husband who fully supports this period of self-discovery. I recognize how incredibly lucky I am to be able to explore exciting, but not necessarily well paying, opportunities. 

I also recognize what my role in progressive movements can be.

The truth is that I simply don’t have it in me anymore – if I ever did – to be the boots on the ground, so to speak. What I do have, though, is a lot of passion, a way with words, and a great speaking voice. I have an opportunity to inspire and educate those who will be better on the ground than I can be now. I volunteer in the local restorative justice community, I will host a workshop at a conference on gender next month, and I’m working on some writing I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

“Vikki,” he asked me on the phone on Christmas Eve, “are you sure that you want to move?”

“Yes, my love. Let’s go for it.”

Counter-protesting with Deafening Silence

Apparently the Beyoncé backlash is not over. There is a big anti-Beyoncé protest scheduled next week at NFL headquarters. There is also an anti-anti-Beyoncé protest in the works. There’s no sign yet of an anti-anti-anti-Beyoncé protest, but give it time.

I generally believe that any protest should include concrete demands, otherwise it’s very difficult to figure out when the protest has achieved its goals and is “over.” Some protests, like those that are part of the Black Lives Matter movement, have demands that include massive paradigm shifts and social change, so there isn’t really an “over” and the demands can be less concrete.

Apparently, the Beyoncé protesters want to “tell the NFL we don’t want hate speech and racism at the Super Bowl ever again!” Let’s assume for a minute that Beyoncé’s performance indeed constitutes hate speech and racism (I do not believe it does). I can only guess that the protesters want the NFL to pre-approve all halftime shows henceforth? And reject anything that is the slightest bit controversial, whether it’s presented by a group of elderly British men, a middle-aged white woman from Michigan, or a young Texan black woman?

And what do the counter-protesters want? Presumably they watched and enjoyed the halftime show, as did I, and are perfectly OK if the selection continues as usual, that is, a committee identifies which performers are hot and reaches out to them. While I get the concept of showing numbers in support of a thing that a group is protesting, I wonder if the plans to counter-protest give the protesters more legitimacy than they deserve.

And that is really the question. When idiots like Westboro Baptist Church, Roosh V, or Donald Trump squawk and screech and pout, are we better off yelling back, or giving them exactly as much attention as they deserve?

Several months ago I suggested that the best way to deal with the Trump candidacy is to stop paying attention to it. The man is an attention-hog who is likely to stay around as long as he’s in headlines. If the media takes him out of their coverage, the candidacy loses its point.

Some friends told me that it was dangerous not to take him seriously. I’m not sure that was the case back then; now that he’s become the frontrunner, it might be impossible to stop the train, and indeed, the prospect of his election is terrifying. But in the initial stages, I wonder if ignoring him would have prevented him from getting the support he now has, and if that lack of support, or even just the lack of attention itself, would have nipped that disaster in the bud.

Last week, Roosh V, self-proclaimed pick-up artist and leader of the laughable “neomasculinity” movement, cancelled a set of secret meet-ups once the plan got out and the likely backlash became apparent. I guess it’s probably a good thing for those meet-ups to not take place, but if they had, would they have been more than a handful of grumpy dudes I wouldn’t associate with anyway complaining about the yucky wimmins who won’t go out with them? Can that group of outliers really be said to be dangerous?

Instead of helping, I fear that backlash gives validity to an invalid position. It creates attention for the position, and in many ways validates their distorted worldview. They think everyone is out to get them; the backlash just proves it.

I think a strategy of non-acknowledgement of such positions is something that at least ought to be tried. The NFL Beyoncé backlash is the perfect time to give it a go, because there will likely be no real consequences. The NFL is unlikely to promise not to feature the hottest artists if they’re too controversial, and even if the protesters manage to turn the protest into a boycott, the NFL isn’t going anywhere. And even if they get everything they want, big deal. Super Bowl halftime shows will become a little less interesting. That’s a small price to pay for shutting down fools.

What's the Super Bowl Halftime Show for Anyway?

Apparently, Beyoncé’s performance at Super Bowl 50 drew some ire from establishment types. Most notably, former New York City mayor RudolphGiuliani characterized it as “an attack on cops.” He went on to note that “What we should be doing in the African-American community, and all communities, is build up respect for police officers, and focus on the fact that when something does go wrong, okay, we’ll work on that.”

Say what?

I’m comfortable saying that anyone who would tell African-Americans, particularly urban African-Americans, to “build up respect for police officers” is terribly ignorant. Keep in mind that “ignorant” isn’t necessarily an insult; it simply means that the ignorant person lacks information. Because anyone who looks at the raw numbers regarding police violence and homicide against African-Americans has to understand that there is a problem.

But Rudy says that “when something [goes] wrong, we’ll work on that,” right? I wish I could see where the work was happening, considering that institutionalized police violence against African-Americans is nothing new. Take a look at excerpts from Jack McCoy’s closing argument from a 1998 Law & Order episode:

How could such a horrifying thing happen in our city? It may be comforting to simply point at these two officers and say that Mr. Michaels's death was solely the issue of their sick, hateful minds, or to lay some of the blame on the police department. . . . [T]he police department did nothing, except issue reprimands. So other, well-meaning officers got the message. The department tolerates racists. It's OK to use racial slurs, to use excessive force, to use racial profiling. Not only that, it's OK to do it in front of your fellow officers. Don't worry, the buddy-buddy system will protect you. The blue wall will shield you from civilian authority. . . . As long as crime is down, as long as the streets are safe, as long as these abuses by police officers happen in someone else's neighborhood, we're content to look the other way. That's what these officers were counting on. That our failure to police them manifests our indifference – even our acceptance – of their methods. Well, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, here's your chance to send a clear, unambiguous message to every police officer, good or bad, that we will not tolerate racism. That we will punish every abuse. And you can do it today by exacting from these two individuals the most extreme punishment under the law. The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution recognizes our right to be secure in our persons, and protected from unreasonable seizures. No police officer can take those rights from us. Not unless we give them away.

Indeed, racism in police forces was a matter ripped from the headlines nearly twenty years ago. Charming.

OK, so even if it’s a really serious problem, maybe the Super Bowl isn’t the forum to address it. Mr. Giuliani commented that the Super Bowl is for “decent, wholesome entertainment.” I presume that by “decent” and “wholesome,” Mr. Giuliani means “non-controversial.”

Well, that’s simply not going to happen as long as the Super Bowl wants big acts on the field at halftime. Music has always been a way to rebel, to express discontent, to give disaffected youth something to grasp onto when they feel no one else understands.

In just the past ten years, the Super Bowl halftime show has featured the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” a scathing political critique; Madonna’s religiously controversial “Like a Prayer,” and Katy Perry’s lesbian experimentation anthem, “I Kissed a Girl.” And probably other controversial songs that I’m too out of touch to know are political.

Beyoncé addressed an issue that is literally a matter of life and death for her people. She addressed it in a way that social issues are often addressed, and in an environment where her words could reach a large number of people. That’s exactly what the forum is for.

As for the cops who don’t want to be questioned, well, stop brutalizing and killing black people. And those of you who aren’t doing it, speak out against your associates. Fix your damn house before you get indignant about being called out. Then we'll talk.

No, Gloria, I'm Not Boy-Chasing

Hillary v. Bernie. As a registered Democrat in a state with a primary, I’ve been giving much thought to this decision. I have supported Hillary in the past; I supported her in the 2008 primary. I am aching to see a female president. I am frustrated that progressives’ new hope is another old white man. I want very much to believe that Hillary Clinton is the right candidate for president.

Over the last couple of weeks though, I have learned a lot. I have delved more deeply into each candidate’s history, evolution, and own words, and the more I learn and contemplate, the more I am reluctantly dragged into understanding that when it comes to the policies, Bernie Sanders is the far superior candidate for my worldview.

This weekend, Gloria Steinem informed me that suchevaluation is just a march to where the boys are, and Madeline Albrightinformed me that there’s a special place in hell for me.

Oh no, ladies. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to guilt-trip smart, thoughtful, legitimately conflicted women into supporting Hillary just because of her vagina. I certainly wouldn’t support a Fiorina or Palin candidacy; your comments suggest that I should.

I have tremendous respect for Hillary Clinton. I am well aware that the fight for true sex/gender equality is far from over. I understand, my own wishes for a non-gendered society notwithstanding, that we live in a culture which is much more difficult to navigate as a woman than as a man. She is impressive, and she is a role model for how to succeed within the system.

The problem is that the system is broken.

That is what the voices backing Bernie Sanders are saying. It’s not enough to take one step forward and two steps back all the time, pushing through policies that are solely for show, that don’t actually take any steps toward addressing the plight of the poor, of people of color, of the truly marginalized in our society. Some critics point out that even if Hillary Clinton is great for privileged straight cis white women, she has never been an advocate for the populations that suffer the most.

Ms. Steinem’s and Ms. Albright’s comments actually underscore what Hillary’s problem is in reaching progressive women. Both comments suggest that women who support Bernie are stupid, uninformed, or evil. I know I am neither, and I resent that suggestion. While I would never base my vote on being insulted by a third-party supporter of a candidate, these comments sure didn’t pull me any further into the fold. To these white women who have succeeded within the establishment, it is as plain as the nose on my face that obviously I should be supporting the female candidate. It’s a reflection of their business-as-usual mentality, and business-as-usual is exactly what we need to change.

Ms. Steinem “apologized” yesterday. I use quotation marks because her words don’t go anywhere near admitting that by suggesting that female Bernie Sanders supporters were all about the boys, she was engaging in the same kind of stereotypical assumptions that she has struggled to fight! She would do well to remember what she wrote last year when reflecting on the Clinton/Obama primary battle of 2008: “Soon, a person or a group’s choice of one candidate was assumed to be a condemnation of the other. I could feel fissures opening up between people who had been allies on issues for years. The long knives of reporters, plus a few shortsighted partisans in both campaigns, deepened those fissures until they bled.”

I agree, Gloria. That’s a bad thing. So stop doing it.

Toward a Nuanced View of "Drugs"

This morning, Hsiu-Ying Tseng became the first doctor inhistory convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to a prison term forreckless opiate prescriptions. Apparently, she had been notified that three of her former patients died from opiate overdoses, and she kept prescribing them “to young patients who traveled long distances and paid cash for their prescriptions. She wrote them without performing meaningful medical exams and despite there being no medical necessity for the drugs. She ignored pleas from parents and loved ones concerned about the worsening addiction of sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters.” She was prosecuted for the deaths of three patients who died of opiate overdoses prescribed by her after she learned of the first three deaths.

Other doctors have been arrested and charged with other crimes relating to the overprescribing of opiate painkillers, and it is well-known that much heroin addiction begins with prescription painkiller abuse. Deaths and near-deaths from painkiller overdoses are common.

And yet, the DEA has painkillers classified as a schedule I drug, and marijuana classified as a schedule II drug.

Two days ago at a town hall appearance in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton said that she would change marijuana from a schedule I drug to a schedule II drug, and encourage research on the medical benefits. In the same breath, she spoke of the need to address the overdose problem. She then correctly noted that opiate addiction leading to heroin use is a primary culprit.

Nothing she said was untrue, but it was completely inappropriate to jump from a medical marijuana discussion to an indictment of drugs leading to overdose. No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose. There are conflicting stories about actions that marijuana users have taken that have been dangerous and/or fatal, but no matter how hard you try, you’re not going to find a story of someone who died simply from smoking, vaping, or ingesting too much weed.

I live in a small Colorado mountain town, where there are three marijuana dispensaries for a population of 2,200 and plenty of people are routinely stoned. Colorado is in its second year of legal weed, and the sky has not fallen. Other than a questionable ballot outcome in the last midterm election, our fair state is doing just fine, with so much of a boom in tax revenue from pot that we had to have a marijuana tax holiday last year.

And yet, so many – not just the puritanical – continue to wring their hands at the idea of legal weed. The stigma remains. Even in states where marijuana is legal and common, we hesitate to invite neighbors over for a bong the way we might invite them over for a cocktail.

Society’s attitude toward so-called drugs has to be more nuanced than “drugs are bad, mmmkay?” Now that more and more people understand that prescription opiates have a dangerous propensity to lead to serious addiction problems, and more and more people have the opinion that weed is no worse than alcohol, it’s an excellent time to reexamine all drug priorities and encourage the thoughtful, comprehensive reevaluation of federal drug laws. Non-enforcement is not enough; as long as marijuana remains illegal on the federal level, the tension between state and federal laws will continue to confuse, and to expose would-be entrepreneurs in a fledgling industry to unfair and unnecessary risk.

It’s great that attitudes toward marijuana are changing. It’s also great that attitudes toward more dangerous but more “legitimate” drugs are changing. Now is the time to put it all together and work toward comprehensive drug reform.

Privilege and Representation: The Real Implications of Tuesday’s Women-Only Senate

After major snowstorms hit the nation’s capital city last week, the morning of Tuesday, January 29, in the Senate was unusual. Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski noted that every single person in the Senate that day, from Senators to pages, was female. The revelation sparked predictable commentary of the “girls rule, boys drool” ilk. Senator Murkowski herself suggested that the phenomenon “speaks to the hardiness of women.” CNN’s coverage ended with the reporter rhetorically asking what the story says “about if you want a job done properly.” The popular message is clear: that only women showed up to Tuesday’s senate shows that women are inherently tougher, harder working, and generally better than men.

Or perhaps it suggests something entirely different. Perhaps it suggests exactly the opposite: it is learned behavior reflective of the fact that women have been historically excluded from the political space.        

When you're already a minority in the position of "representing," you can't risk being judged as lesser. A former co-worker of mine, the only other Latino/a in our office, told me on my first day of work, “Remember, you have to do twice the work to get half the credit.” Indeed, pioneers face significant obstacles. When you’re first, you’re carrying the weight of the entire group on your shoulders, and if you fail, you’ve shown that your minority group can’t hack it. That’s just part of the inevitable cultural aftermath of breaking down barriers. Women, even at the highest levels, still need to prove themselves in ways that men do not.

And so, if you’re one of a handful of women in the Senate and you wake up to waist-high snow but find out the Senate isn’t closed, you show up. It is a manifestation of the privilege the men had that they didn't need to fear being negatively judged by staying home.

People often bristle at the word “privilege,” thinking that the assertion that male privilege exists suggests that all men spend their lives lying on lounge chairs with buxom women serving them beer and fanning them with palm fronds. That isn’t what privilege means. Privilege refers to those little niceties that one takes for granted because one never had to think about being on the other side of them.

           

It did not have to occur to the men in the Senate that their absence might speak negatively of all men, because it wouldn’t. Society simply has never considered one white man as representative of all other white men. And while the pressure of “representation” is slowly lessening as we have these dialogues and better understand the implications of our assumptions, it is very much alive and well. The risk that one misstep will serve for some as proof that women (or Latino/as) can’t do the job is enough to keep me on my toes. It would have been enough to get me to the Senate on Tuesday if I worked there.

While it’s appealing to wave a female-superiority flag because of Tuesday’s Senate phenomenon, it is dangerous. It is at least as dangerous as any other belief that you can identify an individual’s talents and strengths by what is or is not hanging between their legs. It is perhaps more dangerous because it takes a phenomenon that probably is due to weakness by oppression, and recasts it as an innate strength. This sleight-of-hand prevents us from seeing and addressing the real issues facing pioneers of all kinds.