31 March, 2009 | Comments are off

Obama has just arrived in London – he’s staying at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Regents Park, which is quite close to where I live.  I’m hearing the helicopters now.  It’s astonishing to read about the circus that is accompanying him across the pond.

Given the millions of pounds that the British are spending on security for this G20 summit, given the logistical and security nightmare of having the world’s leaders in one place at the same time and given that the world’s economy is in meltdown and we’re supposed to be frugal (oh – and given Sarkozy’s threatened tantrum), I’m wondering why they don’t just hold this summit via webcam.  All these useless prima donnas in expensive suits could just stay at home. Skype works pretty well for this sort of thing.  And it’s free.

27 March, 2009 | 5 Comments

This week I’ve gotten into a couple heated debates with men about patriarchal religion.  If you know me or read this blog, then you know that nothing upsets me more than this topic.  I am a spiritual person in certain ways, but I do not believe in patriarchal religion.  I could never believe in a god that gave men rights that were denied to women and I find it difficult to respect anyone who supports such beliefs.  I know I shouldn’t waste my time arguing with people about this and sometimes I wonder why I do it.  But tonight, I stumbled upon two articles that reminded me why this fight is so important:

-Brazilian Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho tried to prevent a 9-year-old girl from having an abortion.  She was pregnant with twins because her stepfather raped her.  Without an abortion, this abused and tortured child would have likely died.  Thankfully, the girl had the abortion, but in revenge, the Vatican has excommunicated the girl’s mother and the doctors who performed the procedure – however, the rapist is still a member of the church. If that doesn’t say it all, nothing does.  I cannot possibly put my feelings about this into words, so I won’t even try. This editorial in the Guardian by Cath Elliott is worth reading.

-In Turkey, the suicide rate amongst women has skyrocketed. It seems now that the government has cracked down on “honor killings,” girls who violate the family “honor” are being forced to kill themselves instead of being murdered by their fathers and other male relatives.  This article really defies belief.

I know it’s not healthy to spend Friday night reading stuff like this, but if a quick scan through the papers reveals two such horrific stories, then it just shows the degree to which women and girls in this world suffer and die because of patriarchal religion and culture.

25 March, 2009 | 4 Comments

Exciting news chez Anglofille.  I’ve given notice at the hall of residence where I live and work.  I intended to stay here until I finish my PhD, but two years in this place is enough!  It’s served me well, but now it’s time to move on.  I need to live in a place where I have a kitchen and where I’m not surrounded by teenagers – you know, adult life.  So I’ll move out of here the second week of June, which means I get to have a real summer break!

After I move out of here in June, I’ll go straight to NYC, where I will live for a month.  My NYC accommodation was just confirmed today.  I’m so excited!  I have a love-hate relationship with New York, but I spent my early adulthood there and without that New York experience, I’d be a very different person today.  So NYC has a special place in my heart.  My time in NYC won’t be a vacation, however.  I’ll be writing up a storm.  My novel takes place in NYC.  I left there in 2000, so I feel I need to return and experience the city once again, just to make sure my novel is as authentic as possible.  I’m writing a “New York” novel and as I start the rewriting/revision process, it’ll be a great advantage to be living there.

After New York, my plans are still taking shape.  I am applying to a few writer’s colonies and conferences.  Plus I will see my parents.  Wherever I go this summer, my top priority is rewriting the novel.  I hope to submit my PhD next January or February, which doesn’t leave me a lot of time.  Panic is starting to set in!

I will mostly likely return to London towards the end of August, but where I will live then is a big question mark.  I will worry about that later – there’s still plenty of time to figure that out.  I have roughly 12 weeks (a little less) until I leave for New York and I refuse to step foot into the U.S. without a completed draft of my novel in hand, so I better get back to work now…

23 March, 2009 | 4 Comments

Sad news about Sylvia Plath’s son committing suicide.

As everyone already knows, Jade Goody died yesterday, on Britain’s Mother’s Day.  Too bad OK! Magazine rushed out their death issue in advance, otherwise they could have really milked the Mother’s Day angle.  This editorial in the Independent is one of the best pieces I’ve read on the Jade phenomenon.

And finally, President Obama will be visiting London next week for the G20 summit on April 2nd and 3rd.  I plan to participate in the protests.  As I’ve already written countless times, the presidential election changed my political views a lot.  And my tax dollars going to bail out Citibank was the last straw (I have an extreme hatred of Citibank, that bunch of vampires).  Of course, they are just symbolic (for me) of the whole bailout. This is an explosive time to have a G20 summit and there are going to be many protests in London next week from a variety of groups. Depending on how many people actually show up to protest, parts of the city could become paralyzed and there could be violence or even rioting.  The police have a tendency to be heavy-handed when it comes to protestors, which makes matters worse.  This Saturday there’s the Put People First march.  There’s an alternative summit at the University of East London on April 1st.  And this group that calls itself “G20: Meltdown in the City” wants to bring London to a standstill and storm the Bank of England during the summit.  Should be an interesting week…

21 March, 2009 | 8 Comments

At long last, spring is here!  Today I went to St. James’s Park to see the daffodils, which is always a highlight of the year.

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19 March, 2009 | 5 Comments

Very sad news about Natasha Richardson’s death.  When I heard the news I couldn’t help but think about my trip to the theatre last October to see her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, perform in The Year of Magical Thinking. That play, a searing one-woman show, had Redgrave portraying a mother struggling with grief over her adult daughter’s death (based on the life of Joan Didion).  Now the same exact thing has happened to Redgrave in real life. The similarities are striking.

I never saw Richardson on the stage, though I remember liking Widow’s Peak, which also starred Mia Farrow and is a nice light-hearted Irish film from the early nineties.  Worth checking out.

18 March, 2009 | 4 Comments

I was shocked yesterday when I saw this edition of OK! magazine on sale:

Those of you in the States may not know who Jade Goody is – she’s a reality TV star who is terminally ill with cervical cancer, which has spread throughout her body.  The nation has been gripped by her slow ghoulish crawl towards death, much of which has been filmed and photographed for the nation’s entertainment.  She recently married her boyfriend on TV, selling the rights to a TV station and OK! so she can put the money in a trust fund for her sons.  Her chemotherapy was filmed as well.  Only now that she’s so close to death has she stopped being interviewed and filmed. The British media – from the tabloids to the more “respectable” outlets – are covering every aspect of her impending death.  Mind you, before Jade was stricken with cancer, she was vilified as a racist bully, but now she’s a saint. She’s one of those ubiquitous British celebrities who is famous for absolutely nothing, besides being famous.  I know that reality stars gain fame in the U.S. as well, but it’s nothing like it is here.  The fact that Jade is pure white trash and her husband is on parole (and has recently been convicted of another assault) just adds to the fun.

So anyway, back to my original point.  Apparently, OK! magazine is just so excited about Jade Goody’s death that they’ve rushed out this tribute issue, complete with the dates 1981-2009, which makes it seem like Jade Goody is already dead.  I’m sure they’re hoping she’ll die this week, so then they’ll be the first to have their tribute issue on sale.  Like kids at Christmas, they are so excited for her death that they just couldn’t wait any longer. It’s like Jade is a character in a soap opera and her creators have decided to kill her off. The fact that the real Jade is lingering on in her death bed is inconvenient, because the public is thirsty for her death now.  They want an end to the Jade Goody story, even if Jade herself is not yet dead. And since the tabloid and celebrity media created Jade, they have the power to get rid of her whenever they please.

Now that the “character” of Jade Goody is dead, maybe the real Jade will die in peace.

17 March, 2009 | 5 Comments

Senator Chuck Grassley has said that AIG executives who took bonuses should follow the ‘Japanese example’ by either resigning or committing suicide.  Not a bad idea.  This whole business with AIG is sickening and I really wonder when Americans are going to take to the streets.  These executives are giving us the finger and Obama and his team are acting like they have no control over a corporation to which they gave $170 billion of our tax dollars. Outrageous.

In other news of the insane, the Pope has said that condoms are not the answer to the AIDS crisis in Africa and that sexual abstinence should be encouraged.  It’s no surprise that the Pope would say something like this.  What I don’t like is that his comments are reported by the media as if they have some sort of legitimacy, rather than what they are – insane.  If some Imam stated that adulterers should be stoned to death, scorn and ridicule would be heaped upon him (except in England, where criticizing his ideas would be ‘hate speech.’)  Both the Pope’s ideas and the Imam’s ideas rest on the same continuum of hatred and ignorance, yet we’re supposed to believe the Pope has something of value to contribute.  His comments belong with the comments of other religious men of our times – on the scrap heap of irrelevancy.

To end on a lighter note, I’m sure many people have already seen this, but Will Ferrell’s video sketch ‘The Landlord’ is hysterically funny.

15 March, 2009 | 3 Comments

For some reason, I don’t really have any friends who are my exact age.  It sometimes seems to me that people born in 1972-1973 have vanished from the earth and I’m the only one left.  Was there a really low birthrate during this time?  I wonder.  The only people I know who are my exact age are people I grew up with (who I only ever have any contact with now because of Facebook) or people who I knew during my undergrad days in New York, but I don’t have strong connections to these people anymore because we’ve all moved around too much.

So…I have friends who are older or younger, but none my age.  Most of my friends from home are older me.  But because I am a student, most of the people I’m friends with here are younger than me – sometimes by as much as a decade.  I’ve been lucky enough to make friends with people from my PhD, but they are in their 20s or their 40s and beyond.  Apparently, doing a PhD in your 30s isn’t the norm.  Seriously – I don’t know anyone in their 30s doing a PhD, so it’s a bit sad.  I was out with some 20-something PhD ladies the other night and we were chatting about girl stuff, as we do.  And we discovered that I’ve been menstruating about the same amount of time that they’ve been alive.  So that was funny…for them.

I know there are some people born in 72-73 out there somewhere and one day I will meet you.  [I write 72-73 because I was born in 1972, but at the very very end.]  This was a fun period in history – near the end of the Vietnam War, Nixon was president – good times, good times.

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13 March, 2009 | Comments are off

This morning I shared a taxi with a very handsome man.  He was a complete stranger, but we happened to be going to the same destination.  He was so cute and he paid the fare.  **swoon**

12 March, 2009 | 11 Comments

The most viewed article on the Guardian for the past 24 hours is Alaska governor’s daughter Bristol Palin reportedly splits with Levi Johnston.

The Guardian is supposed to be the newspaper for smart, educated people.  Why the relationship status of the daughter of the governor of Alaska is of any interest whatsoever to any British person is a complete mystery to me.  Do British people really care about this?  I just don’t get it.

Yesterday morning, I was watching the BBC news channel’s coverage of the Alabama shootings.  It was the top story on their website too, with all sorts of links along the lines of “America’s obsession with guns.”  Any time there is a shooting in America, the British media loves it.  Unfortunately for the news media, a German student went on a killing spree yesterday (and with a much higher body count), thus ruining their “America is the land of lawless killers” theme for the day.  Boo hoo!  Some stupid German had to undermine their thesis that Americans are savages and Europeans are civilized.  Oh well, better luck next time.

I was amused by this pull quote on one of the BBC’s articles on the German shooting:

Yep, it’s all the fault of Americans.  Europeans aren’t violent at all.

The only difference between Americans and Europeans is that Americans have easy access to firearms (which I do not agree with at all).  If Europeans had access to guns like Americans do, then there would be just as many shootings here.  It’s a shame so many Europeans are blind to this fact.

10 March, 2009 | 7 Comments

Today alternated between bright sunshine and rainy dreariness with dark black clouds.  Very eclectic weather.

This afternoon I bought myself a bouquet of pink tulips, which according to the label were grown in Lincolnshire.  I used to buy myself flowers all the time, but then I became very practical and decided I couldn’t afford such luxuries. Since when did I become practical?  I spend so much time sitting at my writing desk that I might as well make it pretty.  And really, £3 is quite reasonable for a bunch of 6 tulips, given all the aesthetic pleasure they bring.

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8 March, 2009 | 1 Comment

You’re desperately trying to find a scene from an old chapter where your protagonist attempts suicide and a search through My Documents for the word “death” returns 304 documents.

[However, I did find the scene...]

8 March, 2009 | 3 Comments

Happy International Women’s Day!  Since I write about women’s issues all the time, I feel no need to post something special today.  It’s interesting, though, that this day isn’t recognized so much in the U.S.  I’ve met women from parts of Europe who have told me that Int’l Women’s Day is a big deal where they come from, that their fathers/husbands always give them flowers, etc.  I was surprised by this, but it’s a nice idea.

I have been sidelined somewhat these past few days by terrible pain in my lower back and leg.  The pain in my back is okay now, but my leg really hurts.  I think it’s the sciatic nerve. I sometimes suffer from lower back pain, but never leg pain.  Great, something new!  When I got up this morning after spending all night and part of last evening in bed, I felt much better.  But as soon as I begin to sit on this crappy institutional furniture, particularly my desk chair, the pain comes back again, with occasional tingling/numbness.  Lovely.

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4 March, 2009 | 4 Comments

Queen Elizabeth is to award Senator Ted Kennedy an honorary knighthood.  If a man who drives a young woman off a bridge and leaves her to die alone in the water without summoning help is deserving of such an honor, then it means nothing.

[But this news does tie in nicely with my previous post on patriarchy.]

4 March, 2009 | 1 Comment

I was reading an article in the Guardian this morning about Pakistan’s “descent into chaos,” evidenced by yesterday’s terrorist attacks. This section of the article about what’s happened under the leadership of Asif Ali Zardari jumped out at me:

“Few had very high expectations of Zardari, the notorious playboy widower of Benazir Bhutto. Nevertheless, the speed of the collapse that has taken place on his watch has amazed almost all observers. Across much of the North-West Frontier Province – around a fifth of Pakistan – women have now been forced to wear the burka, music has been silenced, barbershops are forbidden to shave beards and more than 140 girls’ schools have been blown up or burned down.”

You have to wonder what’s so threatening about little girls being educated that their schools have to be destroyed.  The idea seems so ludicrous and evil that it’s impossible for any rational person to even comprehend.  But of course, the oppression of women and girls is at the very heart of patriarchy and in order for patriarchy to flourish, women and girls have to be kept in submission.  While it’s easy to dismiss the men in Pakistan as lawless savages, the same principles of patriarchy are at work in the West, it’s just that most people choose not to see them.  For example, in England, only 5% of rape prosecutions result in a conviction.  Rape is not considered a serious crime by the courts or the police in England.  According to this terrifying article in the Washington Post (definitely worth reading), “rape goes largely unpunished” in England.  In 2007, one judge accused a ten-year-old rape victim of “dressing provocatively.”  You can rape a woman in England and it’s virtually guaranteed that nothing will happen to you.  This is not Pakistan – this is England.

I’ve just chosen this example of rape to make my point – there are countless other examples of the way patriarchy functions in the West, even though most people are willfully ignorant about it.  These examples are not as sensational as girls’ schools being blown up, and obviously women in the West have more rights and a standard of living that’s not even comparable to those in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, but that’s not the point.  The point is that patriarchy is a global threat and if women from many countries recognize that the struggle of women in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan is also their struggle, meaningful change might really be possible.

3 March, 2009 | Comments are off

I always dread winter because I hate the darkness that it brings.  I was born, ironically, on the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.  While I’ve always disliked the dark winter months, ever since moving to London-Paris-London, I’ve struggled much more in the winter.  In London, it can get dark an hour earlier than it would in New York; when I was in NC for Christmas, I noted that there was almost an extra two hours of light there per day compared to London.

At the peak of winter, the days in London can be as short as 8 hours, if that – which means 16 hours of darkness! [On the flip side, it stays light here in the summer until very late.]  Even during the daylight hours, it can be overcast much more than I’m used to. This past summer, it was overcast more than it was sunny. For me, the lack of light is the worst thing about living here.  Perhaps if you grow up here, your body becomes accustomed to it, but when you come here as an adult, it is quite a shock.

Just to note: London is higher north in latitude than any U.S. city.  Paris is about equivalent to the U.S./Canadian border.   By way of comparison, New York City is equivalent to Salerno, Italy.  Los Angeles shares latitudes with cities in Iran and Pakistan.  So you can see the differences.  Before this winter came, I decided to be prepared.

While it’s normal for everyone to drag a bit in winter – low energy, need for more food and sleep, etc. – my reaction has always been a bit more intense. Since moving to Europe, each winter, particularly in January, I have experienced extremely low levels of energy and motivation, which has had a negative impact on my life and work. I don’t have Seasonal Affective Disorder, but nonetheless I am very sensitive to the lack of sunlight. The arrival of daylight savings time and spring-like weather always alleviates my feelings of blah.

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1 March, 2009 | 11 Comments

There’s an interesting article in the Guardian about the practice of force-feeding young girls in Mauritania and other parts of Africa.  The young girls are sent to fattening farms, where they must gain large amounts of weight before being seen as suitable for marriage. “Girls as young as five were still being subjected to the tradition of leblouh every year. The practice sees them tortured into swallowing gargantuan amounts of food and liquid – and consuming their vomit if they reject it.”

The article states: “Fattening of girls is practised beyond Mauritania, in northern Mali and rural Niger – areas conquered, along with half of present-day Spain and Portugal, by the Almoravid dynasty in the 11th century. The practice of fattening also continues in Nigeria’s Calabar state and north Cameroon.”  Fat is considered beautiful and stretch marks are likened to “jewels.”

As women gained rights in Mauritania, force-feeding had fallen out of favor, but recent set-backs for women now see the practice becoming more common again.

I think this is a fascinating story because it shows how our preferences for body shapes and sizes are culturally conditioned.  While there are certain universal beauty preferences (for example, symmetrical facial features) the Western media ideal of women who are extremely thin – in other words, underweight – is not in any way “natural.”  Many people assume this preference is innate and natural, but it is simply the result of cultural conditioning.  In the past there was a preference for larger women.  In many parts of Africa today, that preference still exists.  But even in these regions of Africa, the Western influence can be felt.  A male political scientist in Mauritania said: “These days girls watch fashion shows on television. Their role models are American actresses or Lebanese singers in sexy dresses. Girls do sport. Yes, Mauritanian men like slightly round women. But there is no way we want them obese.”  Western media influences, with emphasis on extreme thinness, have spread around the world.

I think it’s tragic that these young girls are being force-fed, just as it’s tragic that in our culture, women and girls are obsessed with dieting and fat women are stigmatized.  No matter what, women are never free to be how they naturally are – thin, fat or somewhere in between.  While beauty standards may not be universal, what is universal is the control and destruction of the female body by patriarchal societies.