So what do all these things have in common?  There is an oppressive organization that is acted on the "welfare" of the people.  Each organization says that it is implenting practices that will improve the overall welfare of its populace.  However, what is really happening is the removal of civil rights and liberties so that the controlling organization has even more power, thereby making it easier to manipulate the masses. 

In The Handmaid's Tale, the rights and liberties of women are stripped entirely away.  They are used as incubators for children.  If you cannot produce a child, your life is not worth much.  The government had stripped the rights of all but a select few. 

In V for Vendetta, it is very similar.  The government has been taken over by religious fanatics (see Religious Far Right here in the US) and forced everyone to comply by their standards.  Free speech, free press, and free religion are 4-letter words. 

And now let's look at two real-life examples of this terrifying slide towards annihilation of the freedoms that each person inherently has.  Joey Cheek is a gold-medalist from the 2006 winter Olympics.  He has taken up the cause of Darfur and has spoken out against the Sudan's largest trading partner, China.  He had received his visa a few months back so that he might attend the Olympics.  Not 24 hours before his departure his visa had been revoked by the Chinese government.  The Chinese government gave no reason why and has no responsibility to, since the government is not held accountable.  The second example is from my wonderful employer, (see Religious Far Right again).  We are not able to voice our dissent or discuss anything that might be deemed "negative."  This was all to the discretion of the executives.  Seem fair? 

If you have a conversation with me, especially after a few good cocktails, you'll know my opinion.  I would much rather have anarchy than have all my rights and liberties stripped away.  It's horribly terrifying that real life does imitate art.  Our founding fathers would have given their lives to keep our freedoms intact.  How many of us would do that today?  Would we just sit idly by and watch as our freedom is slowly pulled away?  Would any of the "executives" or "government officials" step in and say this is not right, even though they are benefiting enormously?  I truly hope so.  I struggle with sitting by idly.  I need to speak and act during any moment where my freedoms are threatened.  I hope that you will do the same.

And then came Star Wars, an epic story with star spanning special effects. Full steam ahead and there are many movies now out at the same time. For example, right now we have Hell Boy II, Dark Knight, Journey to the Center of the Earth and the Mummy III, to name a few. So, a lot of these are good fun and not particularly deep. Hollywood does love to turn speculative fiction into only eye and mind candy. When you look at the evolution of speculative (SF, fantasy, horror) novels, we've gone from bug-eyed aliens to very complex stories and worlds that look at the human condition, ethical and moral tales and what-ifs of future technologies.

On top of covering a host of possibilities with humanity, an author has to often create a viable, believable world that works. It must still follow rules and must be shown enough to paint dimensions so the reader can see it. This is of course, much easier in a movie, and yes a picture is worth a thousand words, maybe even five thousand. Good speculative writing is not for the faint of heart, nor for the undisciplined and uneducated.

All of these skills that one must learn for speculative writing apply for any type of writing. Know your market, which means read, read, read. Then write, write, write and learn and perfect. This never stops, ever. I tend to lump all the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror and even the myths of long ago under the umbrella term of speculative. In reality, anything that is not considered a history or telling of true life events, is in fact speculative.

Now the truly interesting thing is that a speculative writer can write science fiction and it will be looked down the long narrow noses of literary academics and called "genre" (said with nose in the air, as if smelling bad, and with an English accent). But a literary writer can write something that is speculative fiction and it will be praised and lauded and given awards. Case in point; Margaret Atwood has written two speculative novels (at least that I've read): Oryx and Crake and The Handmaid's Tale. They are sometimes claimed to not be speculative, or speculative but not science fiction, getting to the fine hair splitting of genre names. But she takes those technologies and does a what-if into the future. That is indeed speculative and even science fiction.

When I was slowly progressing toward a degree in Creative Writing at UBC, one had to specialize in three areas: I chose short fiction, children's fiction and poetry. In my kiddy lit class, the instructor didn't like it when we wrote anything to do with fantastical worlds. She said they didn't sell that well. Well, Ms Alderson, are you eating your hat after the fame of Harry Potter? This attitude was reflected throughout the department. However, George McWhirter who was the department head, and the only person worth his weight in gold, understood that writing well came first and what you wrote came second. He was not of the opinion expressed in The Boston Globe: "[T]he genre of the comic book is an anemic vein for novelists to mine, lest they squander their brilliance." Ow.

A champion for blending or removing the snobbery borders between genres (or lowbrow and highbrow as some put it) is Michael Chabon. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay. For his most recent book The Yiddish Policemen's Union he was award the Nebula and the Campbell Awards. He was purported as saying the SF related Nebula meant more to him than getting the Pulitzer.

Perhaps with such writers as champions, we'll see "genre" fiction being treated as writing and not drivel, where the best of all writing will rise to the top and more "genre" works will be nominated for awards. I'm not holding my breath...yet.

By the way, we just unearthed the video camera to film my brother's school play, so I think I'm going to use it to film myself playing the 1st movement of Bruch and then I'll post it so my friend who lives far-ish an watch it.  And, of course, anyone else who wants to.

This time has been so sweet, of course, because it is fleeting. I'd like to say it's been all daffodils and roses the entire 14 months, but the truth is, it has been terrifying, frustrating, stagnating, and, well, hard. Even as I type those adjectives, the Uber Mother voice rears up inside and raises her finger to chastise me. Isn't this the most important thing you've ever done? Can't you think of someone besides yourself? Don't you love your son????

I both hate the Uber Mother, and want to be her. I want to hear her, and I want to shut her up for good. At least, I think, I am beginning to understand her.

I don't know how or if I tried to prepare myself for motherhood. The goal of "growing up, going to college, getting married, and having children" was pretty heavily ingrained from early on. It's not a path I ever denied or tried to see around. When I hit my mid-twenties and had no immediate marriage prospects, I sought depression, not options. Eventually, I got out of the habit of waiting for something to happen and told myself that I might just have to consider other paths. I stopped thinking about wanting children because I wanted children to be a conversation, a possibility that came from a conversation with the right person. I didn't want children to be this "one size fits all" dream that I'd have to lodge another person into.

As it turns out, the right person did want children, had already had one, and was game for at least one more. His approach to parenting was more intuitive, less about books and experts and psychologists and focus groups. Given to over-thinking any new challenge that comes my way, I welcomed this laissez-faire attitude.

I live in an era in which market forces have successfully translated love for one's child into all kinds of accoutrements, including $800 strollers, $1500/hour doulas, pre-natal yoga, lactation consultants, a whole section at Barnes and Noble, DVDs, movement classes, music classes, sign language, etc. Preying on the natural anxiety that arises from trying to care for another human being, mega-baby stores have thrived.

Of course when a generation inherits a new array of technology and insight into time-honored traditions, it tends to want to "out-do" the previous generation, big time. I casually asked my mother-in-law one day about leaving my son crying in his car seat while I went to the bathroom. (I was feeling guilty about not being enough, to the point where I was feeling selfish for actually going to the bathroom!!!) Trying to encourage me to give myself a break, she said "Sometimes, you just have to put them down and let them cry." My sister-in-law, who had given me a Dr. Sears book for Christmas, overheard this and said "I don't think you should ever leave your baby alone to cry." She then re-told a memory of waking upin the dark,  alone in her crib. "I felt so abandoned," she said.

The not-so-subtle guilt my sister-in-law was laying on her mother is also evident in the Sears' books. Too often, the book I have "begs the question" when it defends attachment parenting. For example, when talking about bedtime, the book asks do you want bedtime to be a calming, comforting ritual in which parent and child bond? Or, do you want it to be a schedule forced on your child, even when s/he resists? I'm paraphrasing here, but the use of guilt in these parenting books, and in others, is pretty obvious.

So, where does an anxious mother go when she needs advice and support? Of course, I ask other mothers and fathers on the playground. Of course, I have to resort to my own instincts, and of course, my own personality (good or bad) influences every parenting decision. I have not been "remade" into Uber Mother as the commercial world would have me believe is possible.

A few years ago, a colleague recommended that I read The Red Tent by Anita Daimant because she thought it nicely dovetailed a book we both taught, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I read the book, and it is a nice companion to Atwood's dystopian novel. Atwood's novel creates a world in which women are the architects. In this world, infertile women get to be mothers, and the fertile women are slaves to the matriarchs. In The Red Tent, Diamant re-imagines a Biblical tribal world in which women have a kind of matriarchy within a larger patriarchy. The women-- sisters, mothers, wives, daughters-- bear the responsibility of bearing and caring for the children. In these roles, they rely on their bonds and generations of knowledge that have been gained by first-hand experience and passed-down through careful training. These women learn about raising children by watching many mothers, every day, and by being mothers to others' children before they have their own.

Sounds romantic-- I know. Too romantic, and I hate to fall prey to the practice of idealizing an older culture. But, I feel that all of the impositions of the Uber Mother try to instill what was possible when women had a real community in which to become mothers. Today, we move away from families, we buy into the "experts" ideas about how to raise our children, and we think we have progressed when we abandon whatever ideas may have gotten us through our imperfect childhoods. We approach motherhood the way we have approached doing well in school, or competing for a job, establishing a career. The idea that succumbing to some kind of shared, experiential knowledge is advanced, seems passe.

Perhaps these products and books and experts try to get us to believe we can get back to the garden, the the state of perfection, to a state of innocence, where nothing is ruined and one's upbringing is without abandonment, anger, fear, or loneliness. That's a lot of pressure to heap on a parent, but I know I feel it. And I hear it in others' rationale of their parenting. Instead, I'd like to be back in that Red Tent, with my grandmothers, my mother and her sisters. I'd like us all to be muddling through. They'd tell me it's all going to be OK, and I'd believe them.

The weather gizmo on my desktop says yesterday's high was 78. Today's: 58. New England - the cradle of our nation, folks!

Several people have asked what I think of the economy in the past week or so. I don't have any insight that you couldn't draw from reading any major paper. Things grow worse. Once I get some money to move around I intend to invest in a mix of ETFs from Vanguard. But you shouldn't necessarily take my advice on where to put money. How the economy's doing and how I'm doing don't always go hand in hand - and that's presuming I even get the first part right.

Plus, my ideas change constantly. I used to want to save up enough to buy my own place. But then someone (either Julian Sanchez or Will Wilkinson) made the point that young, single people rarely improve their lot by buying a house. Once you get tied to a significant investment of real estate, you can't pack up and move on a month's notice. Now's the time I should be chasing job opportunities, crazy projects or hot blondes with a passion for Chandler novels, 70s movies and straight whiskey. Call the difference between my rent and a mortgage (less interest deductions) a flexibility premium. I'm happy to pay.

My point: listen to me if you like, but don't follow me out onto the lake.

A rare end-week media blow: The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. I don't suppose I need to lend my voice to the volumes of critical praise for this novel, other then: yeah, that. Flynngrrl had a post once about a Supreme Court decision on abortion. In it, she made the point that the question of abortion rights comes down to one fundamental fork in the road: either you believe a woman owns her body or you don't. Either a woman has an inherent value outside of her social role as Childbearer, or she doesn't. The Handmaid's Tale gives us a world where this question has been decided.

I don't think it presents a realistic view of how religious fundamentalists would seize control of the United States (I hardly think they'd need to gun down Congress). But it doesn't have to. Good science-fiction doesn't look for the most likely future outcome starting from today's events. Rather, it starts from a What If (no matter how outlandish), grounds it in verisimilitude, then rolls from there. And Atwood pulls that off beautifully.

And not only does Handmaid move and inform and signify (yeah, yeah, trivial accomplishments, those), but Atwood's style amazed me, too. She uses a remarkable economy of language to describe the protagonist's conflicted emotions - her loathing of her captors, her fearful desire to obey, her absolute and paranoid despair, her nostalgia for an admittedly troubled past, and so forth. Finding a novel this powerful leaves an impression on you; finding a novel this well-written delights you.

Am lasat-o pe Doi Cai in Scala si am mers pe jos, fentand baltile, pana cand Andrei picked me up si am povestit in BMWul lui prins in trafic pana la Casin. E ceva cu Andrei pe care nu pot sa pun degetul. Are ceva dragut care mi-l face atragator, nici prea soft, nici dur, poate tonul lui calm si felul particular in care pronunta cuvintele cu un fel de incetineala laid back. Este art director si lucreaza la doua birouri de mine in linie dreapta, in dreapta mea. The strange part este ca eu nu am mai fost atrasa de un tip before. Cam asta as avea de spus pe acest subiect. Desi probabil va starni niste curiozitati. Nu e ceva sexual, e mai mult o, mmm, habar n-am. O fantezie? Hehehe. Mda, ma amuz de una singura. Si mai e si toata povestea asta cu Raru, care ma excita teribil. Am luat-o razna... Anyway la asta ma gandeam aseara, sigilata in tramvai, la intersectia dintre Marasti si Averescu, umezeala inabusita, nervi temperati, o multime mixta reconoscatoare sa se fi adapostit de ploaie, apoi din ce in ce mai nerabdatoare in burta masinariei pe sine care nu se mai misca. Cred ca am stat acolo peste 40 de minute, dar eram linistita. Imi citeam cartea, recuperand paginile pe care dimineata le-am inlocuit cu mersul pe bicicleta. Felul in care Atwood stie sa insire cuvintele intr-o propozitie, apoi intr-o fraza, legand o poveste din evocari vizuale atat de intense, il invidiez. Stiu ca ea scrie intr-un fel asa cum mi-ar placea sa pot scrie si eu. Admir dexteritatea jocului lingvistic, imaginile ei, imaginatia. Imi place sa petrec timp in cartile ei.

Cand tramvaiul in sfarsit se smuceste si incep claxoanele isterice, ma gandesc putin la spatiul in cate traiesc again. Oare am devenit eu mai calma? Are legatura cu progresul temporal pe care il numim varsta? Imi lipsesc autostrazile si viteza, though. Ma gandesc la ploaia asta care a adunat in ea particule infime din cine stie ce continente si a venit sa le verse aici. Si praful cosmic din atmosfera spalat putin pe hainele mele. La Crangasi primesc un telefon de la Instructor, blocata la Universitate, amanam in alta zi, care urmeaza sa fie stabilita. Aleg sa cobor, desi mai sunt 2 statii, insa multimea care a avut timp sa se adune, zeci dintre ei, catarati pe refugiu, impingandu-se pentru o inghesuiala privilegiata in tramvaiul intarziat excesiv, aglomerarea asta ma cam sperie, si desi ploia anu s-a oprit cu totul, am sa ma plimb pe la lac si incet o sa merg acasa. Am sunat sa o anunt pe Babe si, ce placere neasteptata, era pe acelasi peron cu mine asteptand sa razbata benzile circulate haotic spre trotuarul dinspre parc. Am inchis si am sarutat-o luand-o prin surprindere, poate startling her a bit. Not such a bad day after all, right?

And the little f*ckers are churning on religion, polygamy, and child abuse at top speed.

I've actually been saving up one of my favorite Cary Tennis (columnist for Salon.com) pieces for a while, planning to write about left-coast liberalism (LCL) and his interesting take on our beliefs about racism and other social no-nos...but I'm co-opting some words of wisdom because they just freaking work with this topic, too.

And how can you miss it? The prairie-skirt-clad women of the poetically named Yearning for Zion Ranch (aka the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), aghast at the government raid on their compound, the separation of them from their children (and underage marriage fodder)?

I know my liberal street cred is going to take a huge hit with this one, but...well, who really cares? It's been dubious since I turned 30 anyway. I've been asking myself some questions that are not necessarily unique, but which certainly don't have many answers, about these people. And I'm having a hard time with it. Does anyone else get a whiff of a burning pyre for the witch hunt? Does anyone else see certain parallels with society-at-large's treatment of gay marriage?

Wait...before you freak out...allow me to explain.

First off, obviously, freedom of religion is a big issue. I'm not a card-carrying member of any religion, but I acknowledge that I must accept the choices others believe in, even when they are anathema to me. I expect the same in return, which I've observed is a courtesy rarely extended by the religious types (but that's for another blog). Nonetheless, in my belief system, I am finding little ground to condemn a group because they believe in polygamy. Heck, there are tribal cultures around the world where polygamy is standard practice. Just because an unmarried, offspring-less, overeducated, middle-class woman in the U.S. doesn't think it's all that groovy, doesn't mean it should be banned for everyone, yes? We can agree on that, can't we? Maybe. Okay, now replace "polygamy" with any other buzzword of the day, starting with "gay marriage." Is my point becoming clearer?

Granted, the polygamy issue might make for scintillating news, but it's the underlying issues that are truly the concern. The church and the law being in conflict would be the primary issue here. U.S. society (rightfully, IMHO) sets an age of consent. The YFZ cult believes it is not answerable to U.S. law on this (although it's apparently pleased to take advantage of that freedom of religion thing). Next, we have hundreds of women claiming single motherhood, and the state-funded benefits that come with that status--which then in turn supports the cult. Hmmm...if I were the taxpayers of Utah, Arizona, and Texas, I'd probably be a little pissed, too. And, frankly, estimates say there are tens of thousands of polygamists living quietly--all around the country--and pulling the same scam. I can't imagine the YFZers willing to pony up their tax dollars to support lifestyles like mine; although they seem to believe they're entitled to pubic support for theirs. In fact, it's pretty easy to imagine what life would be like if their belief system was mainstream and mine was the "renegade splinter cult." Certainly, they'd see my lifestyle as sinful, unworthy, and probably a few other choice negatives. I mean, holy shades of Handmaid's Tale, Margaret!

And, of course, there are the incontrovertible "ick" factors: There's a reason why most 14-year-olds aren't interested in 60-year-old men, and there's also a reason why incest is frowned on pretty much universally throughout human history and society (with some notable ooky exceptions, of course). Not to gloss over this--because I think the ick factor here is high--I just think, enough said on this point.

Finally, and this is my LCL side talking, any group (religious or otherwise) that bases its power and durability on the subjugation of women and children, including what is essentially institutionalized ignorance, has some 'splaining to do. Society, at least here, has made great strides toward recognizing the value of education; however, any good dictator or cult leader knows that educating one's population generally tends to erode one's authority over them.

And, I think, after pondering this and consulting the hamsters...that's where the line should be: You are free to practice your religion, as per the Constitution, but you cannot (a) abuse others to continue said religion, (b) break the laws of the land that is providing you with the safe place to pursue your beliefs, and (c) expect the folks who don't share your beliefs to cough up the dough to support you, just because you somehow think you're entitled.

The flip side of this, though, is a little more difficult: If a group adheres to a, b, and c, doesn't that mean that they should be allowed their place in society, unmolested and unjudged?

And that's where Cary comes in...Tennis' article, which dealt with racism (http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2008/01/03/racist_friend/), notes the following:

"If you take an imaginative leap to the 12th century, or the 18th century, or the 1930s, you will notice how radically beliefs change. We who are now alive think we know what is right and correct, as did the Spanish in the Inquisition and the Protestants in the Reformation and the Maoists in the Cultural Revolution; it is the privilege of those on top to think they know what is right and correct. It is a nice privilege indeed. Doubting ourselves is hard."

I swear--that paragraph should be taped to the bathroom mirror of the judge, prosecutor, and all 5 billion defense attorneys working this case. (And for good measure, it probably needs to be taped to the mirror of each and every person claiming to be a leader today--whether they're a religious leader, CEO, fundamentalist of any ilk, politician...oh, crap...nearly started to rant for a sec.)

Anyway, to quote another portion of the same article by Tennis:

I just think lots of us are pretty dumb, and we're not all that virtuous either, and big deal. I'm not so impressed with our own assumed air of virtue, we liberal coastal elites. I don't think we're all that morally superior to the racists and sexists we can so easily pick out of the crowd and condemn. I think in fact that our frequent presumption of moral superiority is a deep character flaw that blinds us both to the vast virtue around us and to our vast capacity for growth. And more than that: Our air of superiority bores me. It bores me how we talk. It bores me how seriously we take the liberal taboos, how easily we are stopped at the borders of good taste.

And, yes, I agree, especially with "...our frequent presumption of moral superiority is a deep character flaw..."--and it's not just in the way we look at the YFZ people; it's in the way we look at other races, other religions, other sexual orientations, other cultures. That air of superiority? I see it every day. I sometimes am guilty of contributing to it, frankly. And it is boring. It is banal. And it is narrowminded. Not only that, but this narrowing of our ideals--and the rejection of those who hold other ideals--is a frightening prospect. It's too easy to tell ourselves it's okay, because the superior ideals are our own. But what if the tables are turned (hmm...historical precedent, anyone?)?

I hardly ever hear sentiments like Tennis's spoken--but I think they deserve to be. And I think if people actually stepped outside their little bubbles of faux moral outrage toward those who don't share their "righteous" beliefs, they'd be in for a treat.

Speaking of treats, the hamsters are asking for more cheese.

Imagine a world where the quality of your existence is dependent on your sex. You could say, that's the world we live in. But that would be an exaggeration. Which becomes clear when you confront yourself with the reality presented in this novel. Its reading helps to realize that maybe it is not as bad as some radical feminist movements would claim. But it is also leaves you with the alarming feeling that something like that could happen and in fact, as history shows, did happen.

The authoress depicts Gilead - a country which used to be the USA before the whole government was assassinated. Who took over the power were men, who now are in control not only over the state, but also over women, whom they deprived of rights and property. And the women get divided into various groups, determining their status and the extent to which they are subject to the power of their supervisors. There we have Marthas, Aunts, Handmaids , Wifes and Unwomen. The system's main goal is to maximize the level of reproduction. A woman is therefore persecuted if she cannot give birth to a child and thus support the country in the only way she allegedly can.

As far as the form is concerned at the beginning the plot is hard to follow as the reader is thrown into a world he/she doesn't know and is not given any lifebelt. Only later do we get some retrospectives, but these are also not chronological. However, once you get accustomed with some new terms like the Eyes the novel gets engrossing.

And Atwood's writing gift manifests more than often. I sometimes wondered, that such short lines can be so impressing. Let me quote some of them:

I have enough daily bread, so I won't waste time on that. It isn't the main problem. The problem is getting it down without choking on it. Now we come to forgiveness. Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. For instance: keep the others safe, if they are safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, leit it be fast. You might even provide a Heaven for them. We need You for that. Hell we can make for ourselves.

This is the prayer Offred is saying. Talking of prayers: even these are ruled by the system - the women had to pray in the specified form, there were even prayer machines. All other religious groups were in various ways eradicated. Just like gender traitors... It does ring a bell.

A good piece of literature, for sure.

Did you see Huckabee's Christmas message yet? Even Catholic League President Bill "War On Christmas" Donahue has an issue with the way Huckabee is abusing his faith for the purpose of political pandering. As Donahue points out it is disconcerting that Huckabee is bringing up his faith over and over again while challenging Mitt Romney's Mormonism. Once again I have to encourage you to reread The Handmaid's Tale today.

" When I get out of here, if I'm ever able to set this down, in any form, even in the form of one voice to another, it will be a reconstruction then too, at yet another remove. It's impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too may shapes which can never be fully described, too many flavors, in the air or on the tongue, half-colors, too many. " (p.134)

I think part of what drew me to this quote is the parallel I see with the story of God as it unfolds in the Bible. There are so many gaps I wish were filled in. So many expressions I wish I could see. So many conversations I wish I could hear.

My mother gave a talk on what it means to be a servant. The Doubter, the Denyer, and the Traitor all sat down at table and each had their feet washed by their Master. I am pretty good at serving and taking care of myself, my family and my friends.

But Jesus washed the feet of the one who would betray him.

Am I willing to serve the backstabbers, those who make me angry, my enemies, the stranger? Do I go the extra mile for others, for my colleagues at work, even for those I am close to? Do I take the parking space closest to the door or do I park far away so that another can have that space? In everything I do, do I give consideration to the other before me? Am I trying to be first or am I content to be last?

There is a popular phrase in pseudo-Latin found in The Handmaid's Tale: "Don't let the bastards get you down." The book is powerful and there is some truth to the phrase. But it's popularization more closely reflects the "me first, stand up for the individual, hate your enemy, vengeance, look out for your own" values of our culture.

If we take seriously the call to be servants, then we are asked to go further.
Sinere te ab improbis opprimi. LET the bastards get you down.
On your knees in prayer for those you disagree with. On your knees in service to those who annoy you.

That is a hard word to hear. But deep within me it rings very true.
I pray that I would have a Servant's Heart in all that I say and do.