The Slacktiverse

E Pluribus Unum

Whoever [damages] any [money] issued by any [official source], with intent to render such [money] unfit to be reissued, shall be [punished].

Lucky me that's not what I'm doing.

I want these one-dollar bills and five-dollar bills and ten- and twenty-dollar bills to go out into the world. I want every dollar of this money to change hands a hundred times. I want every person who lays eyes on a bill I've touched to take a good look at what I did to it, and to have a good think about why I did it.

Every dollar bill that passes through my possession leaves with a permanent-marker line through the words 'In God We Trust', and the penned note in the margin, 'wheresgeorge.com'.

The wheresgeorge.com bit isn't the important part. I'm curious about where the money goes after it leaves my hands, that's all. No, the important part is that with my deletion of the national motto, the design is in compliance with the plain text of the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

The US courts have considered this motto's constitutionality three times. Aronow v. United States in 1970 says that 'In God We Trust' has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion. Its use is of patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise. In 1979, Madalyn Murray O'Hair sued in the Fifth Circuit, and the Fifth Circuit referred to the Ninth Circuit opinion above. The Freedom From Religion Foundation tried again in the Tenth Circuit in 1994, and the case was dismissed without trial, based on similar reasoning. The Supreme Court declined to review all three cases.^[1]

What that tells me is that the judges in all three cases and on the Supreme Court in all three instances are soaking in the privilege inherent in being a monotheist in the US. Being a US monotheist is natural and normal, they think. Getting Good Friday off work is the way things ought to be. They don't mean anything religious by the phrase "In God We Trust", therefore no one does.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". It's right there in plain language in the First Amendment.

That means that Congress cannot declare the country officially Methodist to the exclusion of Presbyterians and Baptists, nor Protestant to the exclusion of Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox—the whole country's with me here. Nor can Congress declare the country officially Christian to the exclusion of Jews and Muslims—here I start losing people by the truckload. Nor can Congress declare the country officially monotheist to the exclusion of polytheists and atheists—here I lose everyone who isn't polytheist, atheist, or sympathetic to the non-monotheist cause.

Or put it another way. "In God We Trust". Which god? Allah? Zeus? Vishnu? Erzulie Freda? Invisible Pink Unicorn?

'We' in the national motto includes, must include, literally everyone in the nation. But "In God We Trust" makes a point of excluding everyone who believes in many gods, or no god, or a single female god. Everyone, that is, except monotheists.

The phrase "In God We Trust" might have lost all religious meaning to many monotheists, but for the rest of us, the religious meaning is very much alive, and painful, and declaring that phrase our national motto is a declaration akin to "One Nation Under God, love it or leave it". If we are not monotheists we are not American, is what "In God We Trust" on the currency tells us, and far too many people think that's either not happening or a perfectly acceptable or indeed desirable state of being.

Contrary to popular belief, the US is not a Christian nation. Only seventy-eight percent Christian. Sixteen percent unaffiliated, two-thirds of whom are nonreligious, and five percent less popular religions; one percent declined to answer.

Seventy-eight isn't one hundred. In God we do not all trust.

Having "In God We Trust" on the money I use to buy my pizza is an unconstitutional violation of the religious freedom of more than one in five US citizens, myself included. That's why I take that phrase off every dollar bill I touch. (I'd hit the coins, too, but I don't know if the ink would stay.)

If we must have the national motto on the money, we should revert to having the national motto be 'e pluribus unum'. Out of many—Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist, United Methodist, Mormon, Orthodox, Reform, Sunni, Shia, Vaishavism, Shaktism, Zen, Theravada, Shinto, Bahá'í, Vodou, Santería, Asatru, Hellenic Reconstructionism, Wicca, Unitarian Universalism, atheism, agnosticism, humanism—

Out of many, one.

--MercuryBlue

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^[1] The U.S. National Mottos: Their history & constitutionality ↩

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

US Political Party Priorities

Platform. Noun. A political stance on a broad set of issues, which are called planks.

The 2008 Democratic platform and the 2008 Republican platform, [NOTE: The page to which this originally linked has since been taken down. To the best of our knowledge this is a copy of the party platform originally referenced in this article], the 2008 Constitution platform [NOTE: The page to which this originally linked has since been taken down. To the best of our knowledge this is a copy of the party platform originally referenced in this article] and the 2010 Libertarian platform and the 2010 Green platform, are summations in varying degrees of detail of the views of the parties that have the most influence on US politics. Disagreement with one's party on one point doesn't necessarily mean much, but disagreement on a sufficiently large number of points, especially on the points that the party considers most important, indicates that one is a member of that party, as they say, in name only.

The political landscape has changed somewhat since each of these five parties released their most recent platform, but not, I think, by so much that each party's priorities as laid out in their respective platforms and the preambles to same are now inaccurate.

So, going into the 2012 elections, what are the priorities of the United States political parties?

The preamble to the Democratic Party platform starts by describing what is often known as the American Dream: "We believe that every American, whatever their background or station in life, should have the chance to get a good education, to work at a good job with good wages, to raise and provide for a family, to live in safe surroundings, and to retire with dignity and security. We believe that quality and affordable health care is a basic right. We believe that each succeeding generation should have the opportunity, through hard work, service and sacrifice, to enjoy a brighter future than the last. But[,]" the next paragraph begins, there are problems. War. Economic troubles. Impending environmental disaster. These are the major concerns of the Democratic Party. The first thing mentioned, likely the most important, is whatever their background or station in life—equality of opportunity.

Contrast the Republican platform's preamble. "This is a platform of enduring principle, not passing convenience—the product of the most open and transparent process in American political history. We offer it to our fellow Americans in the assurance that our Republican ideals are those that unify our country: Courage in the face of foreign foes. An optimistic patriotism, driven by a passion for freedom. Devotion to the inherent dignity and rights of every person. Faith in the virtues of self-reliance, civic commitment, and concern for one another. Distrust of government's interference in people's lives. Dedication to a rule of law that both protects and preserves liberty." The preamble goes on to say that "reckless political forces [...] imperil [victory in the Iraq and Afghan wars] and endanger our nation", and economically and societally speaking "it is a time of transformation", and emphasizes "proven truths and tested wisdom". War, the economy, and social issues are the primary concerns of the Republican Party, and the first thing mentioned, "courage in the face of foreign foes", describes both nationalism and commitment to war.

The platform of the Constitution Party begins by saying that it is going back to "the principles of The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights", and "the original intent of the Founding Fathers". The preamble starts further down the page: "The Constitution Party gratefully acknowledges the blessing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Creator, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States. We hereby appeal to Him for mercy, aid, comfort, guidance and the protection of His Providence as we work to restore and preserve these United States." No question there what's most important to the Constitution Party members. The preamble also adds "property" to the Declaration's "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" and omits "promote the general welfare" from its paraphrase of the Preamble to the Constitution.

The Libertarian Party's platform preamble begins, "As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others. We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized." The platform continues to emphasize the individual above the communal in all ways.

The Green Party's preamble begins with concern for lowered tax revenue coming from corporations and the super-rich, lowered budgets for regulatory agencies and for social and educational programs, job outsourcing, toxins in our environment, governmental debt, US imperialism and militarism and corporatism, and how we will be seen by future generations. Finding a single issue, or even three issues, with which to define the Green Party is a challenge. The nearest it may be possible to come is after the preamble, where the platform lists and explicates the Green Party's Ten Key Values: Grassroots democracy. Social justice and equal opportunity. Ecological wisdom. Nonviolence. Decentralization. Community-based economics. Feminism and gender equity. Respect for diversity. Personal and global responsibility. Future focus and sustainability.

Again going by the idea of 'the first thing on the list is the most important', what is the most important policy issue to each of these five parties?

For the Greens, it's political reform. Get the money and the something-for-something out of politics, give all viable candidates (though who defines 'viable'?) equal air time, proportional voting, a multi-party system instead of a two-party system, ending the Electoral College. This all makes sense. Before such political reform happens, the Greens will probably always be a third party, mostly irrelevant and mostly ignored, rather than a party that happens to be small.

The Libertarians begin with freedom of expression. No government censorship. No government regulation of communication media or technology. No government control of same. No government interference with religious matters. The platform doesn't say 'government' quite as often as I do, but often enough that one must wonder whether nongovernmental censorship or control of media or interference with religion is acceptable in Libertarian eyes.

The Constitution Party's number one issue is abortion. Namely, under a Constitution Party government, there would be no or effectively no legal abortion. The Constitution Party further rejects the authority of the Supreme Court, at least where it comes to abortion, and would appoint to positions of federal authority only people who believe that every fetus is a person. There is no consideration in the Constitution Party's platform of the rights or needs of the pregnant woman, except to note that the pregnancy's origin in rape and/or incest is not grounds for the pregnancy's termination.

The first concern of the Republicans is that all's fair in love and war. Nothing is ruled out. Not torture. Not the use of weapons of mass destruction. Nothing. Also, "[the 9/11 attacks] should have put an end to the Democrats' naive thinking that international terrorists could be dealt with within the normal criminal justice system, but that misconception persists." The Republicans do advocate US nuclear-arsenal reduction.

The Democrats' immediate priority is the economy, on which they spend four paragraphs before four pages on their top priority, health care. Health insurance for everyone, is the Democratic way; not a single-payer system, but universal health care nonetheless. They do reduce 'women's health' to 'women's reproductive health', but they also say "We will never put ideology above women's health."

The Democrats, by their own words, are primarily concerned with promoting the general welfare. The Republicans, with providing for the common defense, on the principle that the best defense is a good offense. The Constitution Party, with ending legal abortion. The Libertarians, with individual liberty at the expense of the common good. The Greens, with making elections fair and with social justice.

Read all five platforms, if you're a US citizen and you'll be at least eighteen come November. I don't know your personal hot-button issues to search the platforms and do the compare-contrast for you. If—more likely, when—each party comes out with a new platform between now and November, read that, too. Which party believes the things nearest to what you believe? Then in November, vote. I can't and won't tell you how to vote, but vote.

Your country depends on it.

--MercuryBlue

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

QUILTBAG. Queer, Questioning, Undecided, Intersex, Lesbian, Transgender, Bisexual, Asexual, Ally, Gay, Genderqueer.

In my experience, everyone has at least a general idea of what most of those words mean. For example, 'lesbian'. There's variability in the definition—does a woman who's never had sex with a woman count as a lesbian? What about a woman who's attracted to men as well as women but who has sex with women exclusively? But if I say 'lesbian', you hear some variant of 'woman who has sex with women', for just about any value of 'you'. Similarly, bisexual and transgender people get the short end of the stick from most sides, but thanks to the popularity of the acronym 'LGBT', people tend to at least have heard rumors of the existence of bisexual and transgender people.

Intersex and genderqueer, though? What nonsense is this?

I am not intersex, nor am I aware of knowing anyone who is, so I'll leave the explanation of that concept to the experts. I am, however, genderqueer myself, and I know several other genderqueer folk. This subject I can take on.

Everyone who isn't intersex fits into one of two distinct boxes with regards to biological sex. XX or XY, vulva or penis. 'Sex', the characteristic so identified, is entirely distinct from 'gender', the characteristic discussed in the remainder of this piece, though confusingly the words 'female' and 'male', 'man' and 'woman', are used to refer to either sex or gender, or where possible both at once. Mostly it's possible, because most people are cisgender: self-identified female as well as birth-attending-doctor-identified female, for example. Sometimes it is not possible, because some people are transgender or genderqueer: 'transgender' means, for example, identifying male while having been identified at birth as female. Gender is both an identity and a social construct.

Wikipedia is an excellent starting place for a relatively straightforward definition of the word 'genderqueer'. To paraphrase: there are at least as many ways to be genderqueer as there are people who call themselves genderqueer, and there are several categories within the concept: bigender people (who are both male and female), third-gender people (who have a gender that is neither male nor female), agender or genderless people (who have no gender), genderfluid people (who are sometimes one gender, sometimes another, sometimes in between), and people who queer gender (who express gender in non-normative ways).

An example of queering gender would be someone I know who goes by Woggy. He identifies as cisgender, describes himself as a 'femme male', and I have seen a picture of him wearing an ankle-length green skirt. In US culture, from whence Woggy and I both hail, skirts are reserved for the female of the species, and the cissexist mind would lock up at the sight of the obviously male Woggy wearing one.

Someone who declines to be identified has childhood recollections of thinking "I should have been born a girl". He oscillates between thinking of himself as happily genderqueer and as a trans woman in denial; he prefers himself with long curly hair and without facial hair on the grounds that that way he looks "girly". If he is a trans woman (and I continue to use male pronouns despite that possibility because he says he prefers them, at least for the moment), he's not among those who would seek sex reassignment surgery; he is content to remain physically male. Gender is often described as performative, as a result of our behavior and the roles we play, and so it is for him.

Azz identifies alternately as 'genderfluid' and 'gender-irrelevant', and before all else as 'geek'. They can be found on the gender binary, sometimes a feminine 'she' and sometimes a masculine 'it', but they are not always on the gender binary, and see also 'gender-irrelevant'. They will answer to feminine pronouns, though, being female-bodied and accustomed to wearing skirts and tops that flatter that body.

An anonymous individual prefers the pronoun 'ő', or 's/he' and 'her' for those of us who speak English and can't work out how "roughly like the 'ir' in bird, particularly with the British received pronunciation which drops the r, and gets the vowel sound close enough" is supposed to sound. S/he isn't sure if s/he's agender, genderfluid, third-gender, or as Azz says, gender-irrelevant; the beauty of the term 'genderqueer' is that it's broad enough to cover all those possibilities. The certainty is that s/he is not male and not female. Especially so on days when s/he's on her period or similar; the disjunction between the body's thus-emphasized sex and the mind's gender or lack thereof exacerbates mental health issues.

Sixwing uses female pronouns offline for family reasons, neutral pronouns online; ze is constantly amazed at how people respond to zir setting zir gender, in Internet places that require disclosure, to 'not telling' or 'other'. Identifying as genderqueer is, for zir, more about rejecting gender than embracing it, because neither female nor male stereotypes, roles, or accoutrements fit. Ze is working to present as androgynous to masculine rather than as feminine, and appreciates that zir workplace doesn't require gendered clothing; again, gender as performance, tertiary sexual characteristics such as clothing deliberately chosen.

Rainne is female-assigned-at-birth (as distinct from female-bodied; as another FAAB interviewee said, it's their body and they're not female). She tends to recognize this fact only when it is being inconvenient, such as when she is on her period. Female pronouns aside, Rainne is agender, and behaves as such. Not femme, not butch. Gender is a performance in which Rainne chooses not to play a role.

I myself identify most days as an agendered femme woman, three words: one for gender identity, one for gender performance, one for body shape. The rest of the time, I think I'm being appropriative of the genderqueer experience by identifying myself as genderqueer rather than as a cis woman. Certainly the world outside the Internet thinks I'm a cis woman, and my skirts and earrings and my reluctance to get motor oil on my hands do nothing to dissuade them of that belief.

Huh. It's only as I write this paragraph that I realize, for an essay meant to reflect the diversity of genderqueerness, it's not very diverse at all. My interviewees whose birth sex is male identify with the female gender, and my interviewees whose birth sex is female are gender-neutral.

I did not ask any of my interviewees their sexual orientation, though some of them volunteered that information. This was deliberate on my part. Gender identity and sexual orientation are two distinct things. They're related—a male-assigned-at-birth person beginning to feel sexual attraction to men might be beginning to identify as a cis gay man or as a straight trans woman—but there are significant differences between cis gay men and straight trans women, not least of which being the level of societal acceptance. Gay and lesbian people are not inherently rejecting the gender binary, just the bit that says men must have sex only with women and vice versa. Trans people are not inherently rejecting the gender binary, just the bit that says gender is determined by whether one's procreative organs are external or internal.

Genderqueer people inherently reject the gender binary altogether. 'Male' and 'female' are not the only categories, our existence says; belonging to one category does not preclude belonging to another, and it is not compulsory to belong to either.

Perhaps that's part of why genderqueerness is so little known. We threaten the gender binary, and on that binary rest so many assumptions (established as early as the pink or blue icing on the baby shower cake) about people and how they behave that if it crumbles, everything might crumble with it. Better to pretend we don't exist.

Guess what? I exist. Woggy, Rainne, Azz, Sixwing, they exist. Bigender and third-gender people, they exist. And for many, many reasons, it is long past time that the gender binary came tumbling down.

--MercuryBlue

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

The Privileges of Health

(Trigger Warning: Body policing, fat shaming)

The body's a temple, that's what we're told
I've treated this one like an old honky-tonk
Greasy cheeseburgers and cheap cigarettes
One day they'll get me if they ain't got me yet
Kenny Chesney, "Living in Fast Forward"

Mens sana in corpore sano. A healthy mind in a healthy body. Juvenal said that in Satire X when listing things people should want out of life. The Latin phrase is the motto of athletic organizations ranging from the Asociacion Atletica Argentinos Juniors to the Beale Gaelic Football Club in County Kerry, Ireland, and educational institutions ranging from the Kongsbakken videregående skole in Tromsø, Norway to the Dhaka Physical Education College in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Healthy body, healthy mind: everyone has always known it.

Why then do so few people have healthy bodies?

There are several rules to keep in mind when endeavoring to have a healthy body.

Rule one: Drink clean water. If you're dying of cholera or dysentery, you're not healthy. Over a billion people get diarrhea every year, and two to five million of them die. The easiest way to assure clean water to drink is to buy bottled water. The next easiest is to live somewhere with a decent municipal water system. Failing that, count on charity: water, The Water Project, water.org, and such like. As for quantity, drink as much as you need. The 'eight eight-ounce glasses' rule of thumb is bull, but if you're thirsty or your urine is yellow, you haven't been drinking enough water.

Rule two: Breathe clean air. The more air pollutants you're exposed to, the more likely it is that you'll contract respiratory disease. Support the Environmental Protection Agency or your local equivalent thereof, and if you live next door to a factory that spits smoke constantly, move. Also, avoid being around smokers whenever possible; secondhand tobacco smoke contains dozens of carcinogens.

Rule three: Keep yourself clean. Proper hygiene is necessary to prevent the spread of many illnesses—washing hands alone has saved hundreds of millions of lives. Brush and floss your teeth; gingivitis makes your gums easily hurt, and bad teeth are one of the most obvious markers of poverty.

Rule four: Eat clean food. Cholera is no longer a common food-borne illness, thank FSM, but Campylobacter, Salmonella, and E. coli still abound. The symptoms of all three (fever, cramps, diarrhea) are unpleasant, and diarrhea, again, can kill. If you do not live somewhere with a Food and Drug Administration or equivalent, emigrate, or become a food safety expert.

Rule five: Eat enough food. If you're starving to death, you're not healthy. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization defines hunger as the consumption of fewer than 1800 calories a day. For comparison's sake, that's three Big Macs and a four-piece Chicken McNuggets. More than a billion people in 2009 failed to get that magic number of 1800 calories a day; these people are predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. To avoid undernutrition, live somewhere with a stable government; to avoid undernutrition in children under five (the most important time of life, nutritionally speaking, is conception to twenty-four months), live somewhere that values women. If you already do both of those and you're still hungry, patronize your local food bank; otherwise, rely on one of these charities.

Rule six: Eat enough protein. Ten percent of your daily caloric intake should be protein; significantly less for long enough and you're at risk of kwashiorkor, a disease primarily found among undernourished children. Protein from animal sources supplies all nine of the essential (that is, not synthesizable by the human body) amino acids. Protein from plant sources is invariably very low on at least one of the nine, usually lysine or methionine, but eating some grains and some legumes (corn and beans, rice and soy) will balance matters out; what one plant lacks, the other has in plenty. If you're relying on a food bank for your nutritional needs, don't; food banks are in perpetual need of foods containing lysine, such as animal protein, beans, and peas.

Rule seven: Eat enough fat and enough essential fatty acids. Fats are necessary to the diet because certain vitamins are only effective when dissolved in fats, because the body needs insulation against cold and against physical shocks, and to keep cells functioning smoothly. ω-3 and ω-6 fatty acids and the ratio between the two are important to nervous system function. Fats are found in everything, it seems. ω-3 fatty acids are found primarily in oil from cold water oily fish or from the algae those fish eat, and ω-6 fatty acids are found in basically anything with unsaturated fat. So make sure to eat fish once or twice a week, unless you're a vegetarian, in which case take algal-oil supplements, and eat enough unsaturated fat. But:

Rule eight: Don't eat too much fat. No more than ten percent of your daily caloric intake should come from fats, and those should be primarily non-hydrogenated monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, that is, oils instead of solid or spreadable fats, which are saturated fats and which put you at risk for cardiovascular disease. Also, the more fat you eat when you're getting enough calories from other sources, the more fat is stored against future need that may never come. I'm a Health at Every Size advocate, but the world in general is not. Doctors in particular, I keep being informed (trigger warning, swearing), are generally under the impression that for people over the arbitrary 'healthy' weight, losing weight cures all ills. So if you're eating fatty food, it might be better to stop or cut back. If you're eating fatty food only because it's cheaper, definitely stop.

Rule nine: Eat enough micronutrients. There's a laundry list of elements and compounds necessary in small quantities to the proper functioning of the human body. Sulfur and selenium, for example, are key to the manufacture of certain amino acids. Vitamin K is involved in making injuries stop bleeding. In general, the more varied your diet, especially with regards to fruit and vegetables, the less you have to worry about your micronutrient intake. Eat dark green leafy vegetables daily for assorted vitamins and minerals; eat citrus and tomato multiple times a week for other vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin C. Drink fortified milk for calcium and vitamin D. Use iodized salt for iodine and sodium, though if you're worried about eating too little sodium, either you have scary-low blood pressure or you don't eat estadounidense cuisine. If you can't afford a varied diet, take a daily multivitamin, but that is not the preferred option for multiple reasons, not least being, who wants to eat the same things all the time?

Rule ten: Eat enough carbohydrates. Simple sugars are the primary energy source for the body. Complex carbs are just strings of simple sugars. Whole grains are better than processed, again because of micronutrients, in this case thiamin, which is vital to the peripheral nervous system and the cardiovascular system and which is found in the part of the grain typically removed during processing. Don't worry about the added expense. Which brings us to:

Rule eleven: Don't stress. Work stress, relationship stress, money stress, lack-of-privilege-related stress, trauma-related stress—stop. Breathe in. Pause. Breathe out. Breathe in. Pause. Breathe out. As Kenny Chesney says, we're living on fast forward, and we need to rewind real slow. Stressing disturbs your sleep and your digestive system, gives you tense and aching muscles, and exhausts you, and that's just the physical symptoms. Take five every so often, fairly often, and just breathe. Take thirty every day to do something relaxing: a bubble bath, a pleasant book, a yoga session. If you don't have time, make time.

Speaking of yoga, rule twelve: Exercise. The rule of thumb is at least thirty minutes a day of moderate physical activity. Make sure you balance that among cardio, flexibility, and strength exercises, and make sure the strength and flexibility exercises work your whole body. The Onion jokes about forgetting to develop the muscles in one arm, but it's not funny; if your work requires you to carry a toolbox, for example, and you habitually carry it with one arm instead of switching between them, you'll wear out the one arm and fail to strengthen the other, which is counterproductive. If you don't have time to exercise, again, make time.

(Trigger Warning: Car accidents) Rule thirteen: Get enough sleep. Too little sleep screws with your ability to receive, process, and recall information and puts you at greater risk of mental illness, diabetes, and heart problems, as well as making it more likely that you'll fall asleep at the wheel and total your car and yourself. You know better than anyone else how much you need; the rule of thumb for adults is seven to nine hours. If you don't have time, make time. Schedule sleep the way you schedule work. Right before bedtime is a good time to pencil in your daily half hour of peace, to help you wind down for the day. Do not, absolutely do not, use caffeine within a few hours of bedtime. Invest in a high-quality mattress and pillow suited to your comfort.

Rule fourteen: Have good health and dental care. In an emergency situation, the need for good health care is obvious; no one wants an incompetent setting a broken bone or drilling a cavity in a tooth. In non-emergency situations, good health and dental care is vital. Regular checkups make it possible to catch major health problems while they're still minor health problems.

All these rules derive from one basic rule. If you can't, for whatever reason, follow all of the above, as long as you follow this one you'll be all right. Rule zero of maintaining good health, the cardinal rule, is this:

Don't be poor.

Good health is a privilege, not a right. Exercise it. If you can.

--MercuryBlue

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

There's more to atheism than Ayn Rand, part one

The inevitable question for any atheist or agnostic. 'How can atheists be good without god?' (Or gods, but the pun only makes sense without the S.)

Answering this question requires defining both 'good' and 'god(s)'. I am up to neither task. Let's shift focus to a related question, that of atheist morality. What is it and where does it come from?

Without a god to hand down from Mount Sinai the commands to murder not, adulter not, steal not, lie not, covet not; without a god to hand down from the unnamed mount in Galilee the command to love your neighbor as yourself; without gods to reveal the śruti containing the ways Hindus are to restrain themselves (nonviolence, truthfulness, refraining from stealing and entering into debt, refraining from sexual misconduct, having compassion for all, and so forth): without gods, what is the foundation of atheist morality?

I am actually going to emulate Ayn Rand and say that the foundation of atheist morality is self-interest.

(No, no, don't leave yet—)

Anything that harms me myself is therefore immoral. If you cut me, it hurts me; that shows it's wrong to cut me. (Caveat surgery, caveat risk-aware consensual kink.) If I go into debt, it hurts my financial well-being; that shows it's wrong to go into debt. (Caveat mortgage, caveat student loans.) I'll talk more about the caveats in a future essay. In general, though, if it hurts me, it's immoral.

Consider my life. I did not grow and cook and serve all the food I eat, I did not grow and spin and weave and sew the clothes I wear, I did not build the building that shelters me or the computer on which I type these words or the communication network that brings the words from me to you. I depend on others to do at least some of these things for me. Harm to these others, then, harm to the crop picker in the field and the server in the restaurant and the seamstress and assembler in the factories, is harm to me. Harm to me is immoral; therefore harm to these others is immoral.

These others depend on still others for their own needs. The still others depend on yet more others. Suddenly we're playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and it's immoral to harm anyone.

Wait a minute, that sounds familiar.

Be nonviolent; be compassionate. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do no harm.

It's almost as though the core of atheist morality is the same as the core of religious morality.

From that core we can derive certain rules. Murder not, because I don't want to be murdered. Rape not, because I don't want to be raped. (I'm altering the Jewish commandment from 'adulter not' to 'rape not' for reasons I'll be happy to explain in the comments, if anyone cares.) Steal not, lie not, covet not, because I don't want to be stolen from or lied to, with bonus points because an economy based on theft and lies and envy (as the US economy, at least, is) benefits a few at the expense of the many, and nobody wants to be one of the many.

Sticking with the Ten Commandments a bit longer, we might not be able to derive "but the seventh day is Sabbath for YHWH your God" from "do no harm" without the axiom 'YHWH your God exists', an axiom that atheists do not believe. But the follow-up bit, "you are not to make any kind of work, not you, nor [anyone in your household]", can certainly be derived from "do no harm". What brought me to atheism is a commitment to evidence-based reality and an absence of evidence for deities. (That very evidence-based thought is one of the ten yamas of Hinduism, specifically satya, truthfulness. That one's axiomatic for atheists.) The evidence says, without rest time, mental health sucks, physical health sucks, productivity sucks. Consumer Behavior 2012, chapter 25: Vacationing, mentions several studies that say so. Not getting enough rest causes harm, to me and to those who depend on me, and causing harm is immoral.

Going back to the crop picker in the fields and the server in the restaurant and how harm to them is harm to me, it is incumbent upon me to prevent this harm. Reasonable immigration standards, because so many US crop pickers are illegal immigrants and they'd be harmed less if they could immigrate legally. Do away with the absurdly low minimum wage for tipped employees, and until that's done tip my server, because any server who gets stiffed on the tip from one table one night might just be screwed for rent that month.

Without deities to provide rules about sex, there are no rules save 'do no harm', from which we can derive, for example, 'don't sleep with Anne when Anne's married to Bob unless you have permission from Bob to sleep with Anne', because Bob's spouse sleeping around is harmful to Bob. Without deities to provide rules about food, there are no rules save 'do no harm', from which we can derive 'don't overeat, don't undereat, don't eat anything you're allergic to, don't serve anything one of your guests is allergic to', and so forth. The list goes on.

How can atheists be good without god? our imaginary interlocutor asks. The answer is, the same way theists are good with god: by doing no harm.

--MercuryBlue

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

Merry Christmas—Happy Christmas to All

Christmas is a time for family. Tradition. Remembering the past, enjoying the present, looking towards the future.

My family has two Christmas traditions in particular that I want to talk about. One is 'Twas the Night Before Christmas as narrated by my mother's mother, who died...must be fifteen years ago now, shortly after my mother's father. The home video shows Grandma D, Grandpa R, Dad (and part of the tradition is that Mom, when we get to that part of the video, says "God, he looks young"), me age not quite three, and my brother age just past one. I like this tradition, because it's a way of connecting with people I loved and lost; just thinking about it is putting tears in my eyes. The essay title comes from this: Grandma D misread the final line of the poem.

Our other important family tradition is that Mom reads Anastasia Joan Kirby's A Dream of Christmas Eve. This is also a way of connecting with my grandmother; she read the story to my mother and her siblings every Christmas Eve, and when Uncle R1 started having kids, she wrote Saint Anthony's Guild for permission to photocopy the book so that each of her children and their families could have a copy. Ours is crayoned on; apparently I thought the book needed some color. We actually have two copies, because a couple years ago I tracked down a used copy online and bought it for Mom for her birthday. Judging by Mom's reaction, it's the best present I've ever given her.

It's an incredibly sweet little story, written in couplets of anapestic tetrameter. The narrator describes a dream ze had one Christmas Eve, in which Santa Claus, upset because he'd "forgotten poor Timmy and Sue", sees the children's family Nativity scene and asks baby Jesus what he should do. Jesus, incredibly articulate for a miniature sculpture of a newborn, sends Santa up to the sleigh for "the doll that was broken / And all the old things Santa thought were no good, / Stacked up in the sleigh with odd pieces of wood" that Joseph means to use to make a boat for Timmy. Mary asks Jesus to miracle her up needle and thread for a new dress for Sue's doll. The Magi take the embroidery on their robes and the gifts they brought Jesus to decorate the Christmas tree. The camel donates hair for a paintbrush, the lambs wool for a doll-sized muff, the shepherds their staffs for candy canes, and the ox asks Jesus, "Would He please to remove the best horn from its head / And make from it one that would toot Toots instead?" Jesus himself takes the lights from all their eyes and a star from the sky as the final touches on the tree. Santa, whom one would think would be used to magical happenings, is astonished and overjoyed to discover that his mistake will not in fact ruin Timmy and Sue's Christmas; he thanks Jesus and the others for all their help and for making his Christmas bright. "There wasn't enough that he'd like to have done, / But the very best gift he could leave, for a start / Was all of the love that he had in his heart, / And I heard him call out as he left for his rest: 'MERRY CHRISTMAS to All, and one that is blest!'"

It's a Catholic story, as well. Transubstantiation, if you're unaware, is the Roman Catholic doctrine that the bread and wine of the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus. If carbohydrates can be flesh and alcohol can be blood, literally instead of merely symbolically, why shouldn't statuettes be the actual persons they depict? Miracles, in the Catholic view, do happen.

The story is copyright 1937, so I can't blame Kirby for failing to be a twenty-first-century feminist, but the story has rigid gender roles. Joseph is a carpenter, a historically male-coded activity. Mary sews, something coded female since the dawn of time. Timmy gets the outdoor activity, the "boat / Which Timmy next summer might set out to float"; Sue gets a doll. Whether it's a fashion doll or a baby doll isn't specified, but either way, playing with dolls is a strongly female-coded activity. I've never understood that. Fashion is one of those industries, like cooking, where doing it for money is coded male and doing it for love or to support a family is coded female, and while it's true that most women will be mothers, just as many men will be fathers. Given the rigid gender roles of the story, how can my mother tolerate reading this to her daughters?

The only speaking parts in the story are Santa, Jesus, the camel (identified as 'he'), the ox ('it'), and perhaps the lamb ('perhaps' because, well, "The lamb went Baa-Baa!—which meant, I would guess / It was perfectly happy and answered Yes, Yes!"). Three male characters, one that may or may not be male (insert quote from 1776) but certainly is not female, and one of unidentified gender. Mary rates five couplets, more than anyone else but Santa and Jesus, but strictly speaking, she does not speak at any point in the story. She thinks in quotation marks. I do not count the narrator as a speaking part, though perhaps I ought to; if I did, that would make it two characters of unidentified gender, though the author's name is stereotypically female. Again, 1937; I find I cannot fault Kirby for doing something that everyone in 2011, it seems, is still doing, but in the context of 2011 feminism, it makes me uncomfortable.

There's one final thing I don't like about this story. Timmy and Sue are described as "two poor little children", and the lack of presents and Christmas tree decorations from the children's parents means we must assume 'poor' to be in the economic sense rather than as in "oh, you poor thing". Again, 1937; this story was published during the Great Depression. Why do Timmy and Sue rate a miraculous Christmas, when so many other children in that era didn't get Christmas at all? And reading the story in 2011, where are all the charitable givers? Christmas is the most profitable time for charity, at least in the US, where I assume this story to be set (certainly it was published in New Jersey); charities that accept volunteer hours rather than donations in cash or kind inevitably find themselves turning folk away at Christmas and shorthanded the rest of the year. No Christian I've ever known likes the thought of a child waking up on Christmas Day to find no presents under the tree, and the US has a lot of Christians. Why then did these two children have nothing? And why do they get a one-time miracle consisting of toys and candy, when a one-time miracle of a new job for the household breadwinner would do the family much more good?

A Dream of Christmas Eve illustrates a complicated Catholic doctrine, transubstantiation, for young minds, as well as an easier to understand doctrine, that God will provide. In the Catholic context, the story is a success, and it's a damn shame it's so little known. But I am not Catholic and I cannot read the story as a Catholic. In the context of atheism, let's hear it for suspension of disbelief, and in the context of feminism, the story, though typical of its time, is completely unsuited to a modern audience.

I can't imagine Christmas without it.

--MercuryBlue

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

Ethical Dilemmas

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?

Ethics are hard.

The trolley problem is a thought experiment, though. No one has ever encountered it in real life. No one ever will. What about other questions?

Should one shop for chocolate at local stores that only sell products by Hershey and Mars and Nestlé, thus supporting companies uninterested in protecting the rights of cocoa farmers, or should one shop for chocolate at Fair Trade retailers online such as Divine Chocolate or Sweet Earth Chocolates, thus ensuring that none of the money stays in the local economy? One could do without chocolate entirely, but then it's that much harder for the employees of both the local stores and the Fair Trade stores to earn their livings, and also one has no chocolate.

Should one support international treaties to reduce carbon emissions, thus protecting the environment, or should one support international efforts to bring everyone up to the same standard of living, thus reducing privilege? One could support both, but how to industrialize nations without dumping mountains of soot into the air?

Should one support the Occupy movement, because economic oppression is something very nearly all of us suffer from, or oppose the Occupy movement, because it fails to consider other forms of oppression? (Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street, anyone?)

Should one contribute money to the local food bank, thus feeding the local hungry, or to water.org or the like, thus giving water to the worldwide thirsty? It's an either-or; a dollar given to one charity cannot go to another. It's possible to contribute to both charities, of course, but there are people suffering from malaria and AIDS and neglected tropical diseases. Which do thirsty people with leprosy need, water or medicine?

One can give and give until one has, like the woman in Mark 12 41–44, given all one has to give, but there will still be more need than one can answer, and then one will have neither food nor water nor medicine oneself. How will that help?

Ethics are hard, people.

And none of the above takes into consideration that ethics are, y'know, hard. I've written on this before. I can't ethically shop at Walmart, because they treat their female employees like crap and they keep prices down by paying their suppliers' employees hardly anything, and I can't ethically shop at IKEA, because they treat the US the way the US treats Thailand. There's a furniture shop conveniently located on South Main Street in the town where I live: it's owned by a family, not a corporation, and as far as I know it's entirely staffed by that family, so they have incentive to treat their employees right. But when I move into my own apartment, where will I be shopping for furniture? Walmart or IKEA, because a queen-sized bedstead costs $450 at the hometown furniture store and a comparable bedstead costs $150 at Walmart.

I don't have any answers. I wish I did. It would be so much easier that way.

The one thing I'm sure of is that it is possible—it is necessary—for ordinary reasonable prudent people to disagree on ethical issues.

Take the example of reducing carbon emissions versus raising standards of living. It is vitally important that carbon emissions be reduced. It is vitally important that people trying to live on 1 USD a day improve their standard of living. Which is more important—well, if I passionately argue one side, and Jane passionately argues the other, either we'll both get disgusted and walk away or we'll come to a conclusion somewhere in the middle. Maybe the solution is to gift solar panels to the villages of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa—voila, electricity to people in need without raising carbon emissions more than necessary to make and transport the panels.

But we can only arrive at such a solution if all sides acknowledge that, hey, the other sides all have a point.

Contrast the current state of US politics. One side wants nothing to do with cutting carbon emissions. That's the same side that wants nothing to do with improving the lot of the poor in any country. That is not on. One side of US politics wants us to shop neither local nor Fair Trade, because that's the side owning and owned by the national and international 'free'-trade corporations. That is not on. One side of US politics opposes the Occupy movement, not because the Occupy movement is going about dealing with economic oppression in a way ignorant of other oppressions, but because the Occupy movement opposes economic oppression. It's like there's a second trolley on the heels of the first, and instead of sending it over the person(s) killed by the first trolley, sending it on the other track. That is not on.

That side is the side that's winning, because the side that takes ethics into consideration is divided on what to prioritize, QUILTBAG rights or women's rights, jobs or the environment, universal health care or making sure our grandchildren aren't paying for the decisions we make today, and how to go about achieving whatever we finally decide to make the number one priority. If we ever do decide. Whether to pick a number one priority is an ethical dilemma in itself, as is what that priority should be if there is one.

G. W. F. Hegel, roughly translated, defines tragedy as the conflict not between good and evil but between two competing goods. Hegel never met contemporary US politics, and contemporary US politics have apparently never met Hegel.

We could all use some more Hegelian tragedy in our lives.

My opinions? We tried TARP and it didn't work, the banks are sitting on the money, so let's try giving money directly to those in need via hiring them—a government job is still a job—and via bailing out those with underwater and not-much-above-water mortgages. We can't afford lowering taxes on the upper middle class and up right now, and it's not like the military-industrial complex isn't a jobs program. Contribute small amounts to many charities—philanthroper.com is excellent for charitable crowdfunding. Join Occupy and stand up for the people Occupy helps to oppress in hopes that Occupy will collectively stop oppressing them us. Minimize carbon emissions now in the countries that already produce lots of same, while educating lots of people, especially from industrializing and unindustrialized nations, in the ways of green energy and manufacturing. And, uh, M&Ms from Walmart. Though I did specifically request Fair Trade chocolates for Christmas sparkle season gift exchange day. What about you?

--MercuryBlue

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

Can I get a Witness?

(Trigger Warning: Discussion of Child Molestation/Abortion in the Comments)

Achoo!

"Bless you!" I hear in three-part harmony.

I'd much rather my coworkers (and classmates, and...) said "Gesundheit", the way Mom does, if they must say anything; that's a wish for good health, not a prayer that a nonexistent deity will keep my nonexistent soul from flying out my nostrils. But I don't know how to politely tell anyone to knock it off, and I don't know if it's wise.

I'm not out at work. I'm not out at school. I'm not even out at church; the UUs won't care that I'm an atheist, but as far as the Catholics are concerned, I'm one of them. I'm a holly-lily Catholic, because I was baptized and confirmed and I attend Mass twice a year, at Christmas (holly season) and Easter (lily season). I can't not. It's part of being a member of the [Blue] family.

***

My brother: *pro-life and anti-marriage-equality arguments*

Me: *pro-choice and pro-marriage-equality arguments*

My brother, quoted with permission: Clearly we're not going to get anywhere this way, so let's try focusing on the primary cause of our difference in opinion: why do you believe that God doesn't exist?

Me: Bzuh? Slacktivist. MadGastronomer. Amaryllis, cjmr, hapax. [S]omehow I don't think theism v atheism is the "primary cause of our difference in opinion".

My brother: Yes, there are various forms of theists who share your political views. How many of them are faithful, well-informed Catholics? Zero. I didn't ask about gods, I asked about God (and to clarify, I am referring to God as the Catholic Church understands Him). If you really believed in God as the Catholic Church understands Him, you could not hold your current political beliefs.

No offense intended to Catholics who believe God considers women and QUILTBAG folk to be fully human and who consequently support abortion rights and marriage equality; rest assured that I'm not talking about your understanding of deity when I say this:

If I really believed in God as the Catholic Church understands him, I would find myself compelled to oppose him.

***

My brother: No one other than Catholics can trace the authority of their church directly from Peter (I’m sure I could find the list of popes in about 5 seconds). Jesus said that he would build His Church on the rock of Peter, and that the gates of hell would never prevail against it (by introducing false teachings), and as the Pharisees spoke with authority because that sat on Moses’s chair, the Pope and the bishops in union with him speak with authority because they sit on Peter’s chair.

Me: If God's out to keep the Catholic Church as an institution from falling into error, why is the Catholic Church as an institution doing so much to protect pedophile priests?

My brother: Bzuh?

***

My brother: [T]he point of government is to protect the people, which would include their souls even if 'soul' were only a metaphor.

Me: Religious beliefs are not something to base public policy upon.

My brother: [W]ho said anything about basing public policy on religious beliefs? The Church and the state both agree that there should be a separation of church and state.

Any Catholic politician who casts a vote with the intention of legalizing abortion, or of protecting laws allowing abortion, or of widening access to abortion, commits a mortal sin.

When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.

Yeah, doing a real good job there of keeping the Church out of the affairs of the state.

***

I, [MercuryBlue], do hereby give formal notice of my defection from the Roman Catholic Church. I want it to be known that I no longer wish to be regarded as a member of the Roman Catholic Church.

I further declare that I am aware of the consequences of this act regarding the reception of the sacraments of the Church, including the sacraments of the Eucharist, marriage, and the sick, and also with regard to burial.

I undertake to make this decision known to my next of kin and to ensure that they are aware of these circumstances in the case of my being incapacitated.

I acknowledge that I make this declaration under solemn oath, being of sound mind and body, and in the presence of a witness who can testify as to the validity of this document.

There is no one I can ask to sign my apostasy letter with me. Literally no one I know in meatspace is someone I know to be an atheist.

I could ask my therapist, I suppose. But the model letters I found all have the 'sound mind and body' phrase (ableist much?), and she knows exactly what my mental health is like. I could ask someone at the UU service, but I don't yet feel as if I know anyone there. Damn you social anxiety.

Even if I find a witness, I don't know if the diocese will do anything but laugh.

I'm a holly-lily Catholic and I don't know how to stop.

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Between writing and posting this article, I asked the UU congregation's busy-bee to sign my apostasy letter, and same is now en route to the parish in which I was baptized. I'll keep you posted.

--MercuryBlue

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

The personal is political

Everything you do, everything I do, has political implications. Let me walk you through a few of them.

My political decisions this average Friday begin when I roll out of bed and stand, bleary-eyed, staring at my dresser. Fridays are casual dress days at my workplace, so I have my choice of T-shirts and jeans. Kathy C (names changed to protect the innocent) has been tweaking my nose about being too shy to greet people, and it'd be fun to tweak back, so I want to wear my ThinkGeek "You read my T-shirt. That's enough social interaction for one day" tee. I can't find it, though, so I consider my "Church of Castiel" tee before deciding not enough people at work are likely to know Supernatural for it to be worth it. I have, however, found my "HI" tee, which works for the original plan of amusing Kathy C. I pair it with a denim skirt and silver earrings.

Already I've made four political decisions. One, to wear estadounidense-made clothing and jewelry; the Hawaii shirt says on the tag that it was made in the USA of imported fabric, and the earrings were made by an Etsy member in California. Two, to wear clothing made in Bangladesh, undoubtedly by people making a few dollars a day, and three, to wear clothing bought at Goodwill; that's where the skirt came from. I didn't think to check the skirt's origin when I bought it. I don't know if I would have bought it had I known. Probably. My "Church of Castiel" tee was made in Pakistan.

Four, and this is the only one that looks from the outside like a political decision, to support peace in the Middle East. The earrings say "peace", "שָׁלוֹם", "سَلاَم".

(No one comments on the earrings all day.)

In the bathroom I make more political decisions. One is to buck notions of feminine beauty by declining to wear makeup. I'm so accustomed to making this decision that I don't even keep makeup in the bathroom. I do shave my underarms regularly, and that is a political decision as well. Beauty standards continue to have power over me. Also, I have my period. I don't go for the environmentally friendly Diva Cup or what have you, since I haven't even got the hang of tampons, nor do I use cloths to absorb the flow, though I could, since we have a stash of 'bubble cloths' (formerly cloth diapers, now used for everything under the sun). No, it's disposable pads, for cheapness and convenience. I can stash two more pads in my purse and be set for the day.

I've overslept, so I don't have time for my usual morning routine of watching the previous evening's Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert while I check my email and newsreaders and play Echo Bazaar. These political decisions are obvious as such, because the blogs I follow on Google Reader and Dreamwidth tend to be liberal or progressive by U.S. standards, as Maddow and Stewart are and Colbert pretends not to be. ("Reality has a well-known liberal bias.") Echo Bazaar is political as well: "There are people walking around with the faces of squid—squid—and you have the nerve to ask me my gender?" is one of the gender options at the start of the game, and gender affects game play not at all; people of any gender can seduce people of either gender or both. The NPCs are racially diverse and the PC is whatever race one chooses, as the PC is only ever seen in silhouette. Contrast, for example, Sryth, where there are only two genders available and it's just assumed that the character is white. I haven't played enough Sryth to know whether sexuality comes into play.

I keep meaning to include yoga in my morning routine, but that runs into a few problems. One, I'm sleepy in the mornings. Two, is it cultural appropriation, perhaps with a side of veiled racism? Three, I have orthostatic hypotension, and attempting a sun salutation tends to leave me dizzy. I don't care to spend another six hours in the emergency room while they work out that it was just low blood pressure that caused me to pass out in the first place.

Last night's leftovers were all claimed by my brother, not that I liked it all that much anyway, and I don't have any lunches stashed in the fridge, so I grab a Maruchan Ramen microwavable meal and hop in the car. Locavore food it ain't; Maruchan has three manufacturing plants, two in California and one in Virginia, and there's no way of knowing which produced this meal. The relevant point is, it only cost me a dollar ten. I'd rather be eating spaghetti and tomato sauce from the night before last, partly because it tastes better and partly because the tomatoes were picked about ten minutes before they were cooked, but none of that survived the stampeding hordes otherwise known as my siblings.

As I drive to work, I stop at the Royal Farms for an iced vanilla latte. It comes in a glass bottle I never recycle, because I know of no recycle bins at work for anything other than paper products. (Bobbi Jo says we work in a paperless office, and we all laugh. I go through half a ream a day, and that's just what's getting express-mailed out to our customers.) I feel guilty about not recycling, because it's that much more unnecessarily in a landfill, but not guilty enough to switch to the much cheaper and much less appealing coffee that lives in a pot by my desk, nor guilty enough to learn how to operate a coffee pot myself so I can make my own iced lattes.

I note that the Valero and the Royal Farms both have gas at $3.659 a gallon, and my car is under half a tank with more than fifty dollars in my checking account. I'll get gas on the way home.

At work, the only political decision I make is whether to speak up when Bobbi Jo gripes that night shift only fills up the printers because they want the Box Tops. (General Mills puts Box Tops for Education on everything, boxes and otherwise, including the paper that goes in our printers, and pays schools something like five or ten cents for every Box Top the school mails to General Mills.) I don't say anything, mostly because someone distracts her with a question before I've formulated mine, but next time there will by FSM be a discussion, or at least a rant session, about why US schools are funded so poorly that they have to collect Box Tops in order to pay for necessities.

Working where I do, though, might be a political decision in itself, were it not for the fact that it was literally the only place I could find willing to hire someone with my pathetic résumé: I work for the state government. To quote Ann Coulter: "No, it's worse than not having a job, having a government job, because you have somebody doing something nobody wants, taxpayers pay for it, and they can never get rid of them." Well, I'm easily gotten rid of, because I'm not a full-time employee (though I have full-time hours), but somebody has to do my job. I stuff envelopes all day long, and people pay quite a bit to file or to get copies of the papers that go in those envelopes. But I'm part of a revenue-generating division that operates, I'm told, "like a business", so I suspect I'm not who Coulter is railing against. I would explain why the various functions of local, state, and federal government are in fact vital, but that's beyond the scope of this essay.

Before heading home, I call the local contemporary hits station with a request for the five o'clock free-for-all: Lady Gaga's "Born This Way". That's political too, given the song's pro-queer message, but it's also that I love the song. The DJ doesn't play it, though, having played Gaga too recently, and I consider asking for Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" again. I hang up without making a second request, since I asked for that Katy Perry song yesterday.

I consider heading out to the mall Waldenbooks, since it's closing, but decide against it. Borders, going out of business or otherwise, is part of the force causing independent bookstores to shut down, and I therefore shouldn't support Borders. I've also already spent my book budget for the month.

I consider also heading to Walmart. I'm running low on candy, and this Walmart has eight Reese's or small Kit Kats or small Hershey's Dark for a dollar. But, well, Walmart. They discriminate against their female employees, no matter what Justice Scalia thinks; they purchase from manufacturers who pay their employees a few dollars a day at most. And Hershey. Reese's and Kit Kats are made by Hershey, which company does little to purchase fair-trade chocolate. The cacao that went into the Kit Kat I ate as I type this was probably grown by child laborers. I could eat something made by Nestlé instead, but they have a history of unethically sourced beans, not to mention a history of aggressively marketing formula over breastmilk in developing countries where there's neither the funds nor the facilities to sterilize—leading to who knows how many dead babies.

I do visit the AC Moore, because I'm running low on glass pearls and other sparkly things to make into shinies for my Etsy store. I don't even think to check the origin of the sparklies I buy, and that too is a political decision. (They're all made in China. Every last one.)

When I approach the Royal Farms, I see that gas is at $3.639. Score! I turn into the station, hoping the Valero won't be at $3.629; I find out in a few minutes that it's not (and on Sunday that the Royal Farms and Valero are both at $3.599; I can't win). I prefer the Royal Farms to the Valero, because Valero is a Fortune 500 oil company and Royal Farms is a local convenience store chain usually with gas stations attached, and supporting Royal Farms over Valero gives me the illusion of supporting small business over Big Oil. It's an illusion because gasoline is a fungible commodity. For all I know, the gas I buy at Royal Farms was processed by ExxonMobil from oil bought from Saudi Arabia.

At home, it's time for weekend chores. Mine is cleaning bathrooms. Joy. Vinegar for the easy surfaces. Windex for the mirrors and toilet bowl cleaner for the toilets and calcium-lime-and-rust remover for the bathtub, not that I bother with the bathtub today because the only way anyone will know I've cleaned the bathtub is if I knock over the shampoo rack trying to clean behind it. All three claim on the label to be environmentally friendly products, but FSM alone knows what gets into the water when I rinse them away. And I scrub with paper towels, not bubble cloths, because it's not worth my time to figure out which laundry basket has bubble cloths.

As Montgomery Gentry says, I'm a product of the 'me' generation. I want what I want when I want it and I don't give care what it takes to get me what I want. I want to wear cheap clothing, I want to eat cheap chocolate, I want to use cheap jewelry supplies, so I buy inexpensive clothing and jewelry supplies and chocolate without caring about the human cost. Without even looking to see if there is a human cost. I collect General Mills Box Tops to send in to my sister's elementary school in lieu of actually donating to that school or finding a way to make sure the school is properly funded without donations. I have to get to work, so I buy gasoline, and I have no way of knowing whether the money from that purchase funds wars. I'm not sure I have a right to care, there, because I pay taxes, and I know damn well that money funds wars. I make a silent statement that I support peace in the Middle East instead of doing anything that promotes peace in the Middle East. I'd rather hurt the planet than find somewhere to recycle a damn bottle.

Half of it comes down to the almighty dollar and how few almighty dollars I have. The rest boils down to, I just. Don't. Care.

I could care. I should care. I would care, if it didn't inconvenience me to do so.

This is what it is to be an American.

--MercuryBlue

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

Cui bono? Cui malo?

Trigger Warning: swearing, violent imagery; mention of sexual assault, abuse, suicide, abortion, and forced childbirth.

When I talked to my mother about the virtual yard sale I'm shamelessly promoting, she had a look at my library and said that some of the genres I own would be, in a brick-and-mortar store, tucked "in an alcove out of the way, behind a plant, where—" She waved her hand roughly level with my littlest sister's head. "—can't wander by." I can't be sure, but I think Mom was talking about my lesbian erotica and the book entitled Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting our First Amendment Liberties, and protecting my sister from same.

For my ethical decisions, I subscribe to a form of utilitarianism. Prevent the greatest suffering for the greatest number, do the greatest good for the greatest number, but never forget (as Ursula K. LeGuin points out in the Omelas story) that the individual is also important. This requires me, before making any decision, to ask two questions, First: Cui bono? Second: Cui malo?

These questions are often asked by those who are not utilitarianists, as well. To whom the good, and to whom the harm? And very often, especially when the subject of the question is a liberty certain adults want and other adults wish to forbid, the answer to 'to whom the harm?', loudly cried, is "the children".

Think of the children, many say, when decrying California's recent law placing LGBT people and people with disabilities alongside women and people of color as groups whose contributions to estadounidense history cannot be neglected by education. [The law] forces children to study materials that tell them their families' values are wrong. [...] [The law] does not allow parents to protect their kids by opting out of classes that promote homosexuality.

Think of the children, many shout, when denouncing so-called partial-birth abortions, performed to minimize harm to the mother when removing her late-term nonviable fetus. President Bush spoke the painful, literal, legal truth on November 5, 2003, when he said, "For years, a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are inches from birth..."

Think of the children, the Motion Picture Association of America implicitly declares,(first minute of the clip - be advised that it contains fairly explicit depictions of non-violent sex) when rating films with heterosexual sex scenes as R and films with virtually identical sex scenes, bar the sex of the participants, as NC-17. (The first minute of the clip.) That's the whole purpose of the rating system: General audiences, Parental Guidance, Parental Guidance age 13 and up, Restricted (under-seventeens allowed with an accompanying parent), No Children under 17.

Think of the children!

Bar Harry Potter from library shelves because children might think magic is real. Forbid children from buying video games where someone's breast is bared, while allowing children to buy video games where someone is torn in two starting with the vagina. (Second segment. Trigger warning for violence; you'll know when that part's coming up because Stewart warns you too.) Edit Sucker Punch to remove any hint of female sexual pleasure and female sexual control, while leaving in the sexual assault scenes and being willing to leave in the edited-down scene that now looks nonconsensual.

Think of the children!

Raise the thundering hordes against YA books that deal with sexuality, with bullying, with abuse of drugs and alcohol, with suicide. Ignore utterly the teens who struggle to deal with such issues in real life. Think of the children!

Why?

To whom the good? Who benefits by steering teens away from frank discussions and depictions of their own sexualities? Who benefits by discouraging adults from engaging in perfectly legal and ethical behaviors? Who benefits from taking harmless fun away from teenagers and thereby encouraging them to take up less-harmless fun?

Social conservatives, for one. Or they think they benefit. But to whom the harm? What does it gain anyone to hurt the children who will grow to be QUILTBAG adults by telling them in school that the contributions of people like them meant so little to history that those contributions are not even recorded? What does it gain anyone to hurt the teenagers who are living through dark times by denying them the books that tell them they are not alone? What does it gain anyone to silence those who say it is neither inconceivable nor intolerable for women to desire and for men to be desired?

To whom the good, and to whom the harm?

Think of the children, I say. Think how it hurts the pregnant teenager to be forced to bear and raise the child conceived of sex she was pressured into, to sacrifice her own chances at success and the child's in order to preserve the fetus's life. Think how it hurts the bullied teenager deep in depression to believe that no one can ever help him because no one has ever hurt the way he has. Think how it hurts the girl who's just coming into her sexuality to be confused by and afraid of the changes in her and to have nowhere to turn for answers, save the media that tells her these desires are undesirable, unreal. Think how it hurts the boy born into a girl's body to be confused by and afraid of the ways he differs from other girls, the ways in which he is terrified to believe he is unique.

Prevent the greatest suffering for the greatest number, do the greatest good for the greatest number, and never forget the importance of the individual.

Think of the children.

--MercuryBlue

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