Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Back to the New York Times*, I came across this essay by Judith Warner that I'm surprised hasn't been more widely blogged.

Here's the bit which caught my eye:

In the foreword to One of the Guys progressive icon Barbara Ehrenreich writes about how seeing the now-infamous Abu Ghraib photographs “broke [her] heart.” The sight of Lynndie England, with a naked Iraqi man on a leash, and Specialist Sabrina Harman, “smiling an impish little smile and giving the thumbs-up sign from behind a pile of hooded, naked Iraqi men,” she writes, shattered her “illusions about women.” While she “never believed that women were innately gentler and less aggressive than men,” she says, she did believe that “women were morally superior to men,” due in part to the fact that “women do most of the caring work in our culture.” The presence of women in our armed forces, she had hoped, “would over time change the military, making it more respectful of other people and cultures, more capable of genuine peacekeeping.” (The essay was originally published in the Los Angeles Times.)

How odd, I thought, reading this.

Chalk it up to having come of age in the Thatcher years; I never have harbored any particular beliefs in the inherent peacefulness, respectfulness or revolutionary potential of women. Thanks to my historical shortsightedness, prior to reading Ehrenreich I'd even managed to forget that, only a few decades ago, such beliefs were commonplace among feminists. They still permeate our culture, these notions of difference, showing up today in the push for boys-only classrooms and in the shelf life of such pop psych classics as Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus. They also show up, as Rosalind Barnett and Caryl Rivers, co-authors of Same Difference: How Gender Myths Are Hurting Our Relationships, Our Children and Our Jobs, have written, in an oddly “presumably female-friendly form of postfeminist 'essentialism,' arguing that women are in their very essence compassionate, empathetic, cooperative, loving and sensitive, while men are essentially competitive, assertive, independent, self-reliant and thick-skinned.” And they still have a certain hold over a certain kind of boomer-feminist imagination.

“A certain kind of feminism, or perhaps I should say a certain kind of feminist naïveté, died in Abu Ghraib,” Ehrenreich writes. “What we need is a tough new kind of feminism with no illusions. ... a kind of feminism that aims not just to assimilate into the institutions that men have created over the centuries, but to infiltrate and subvert them.”

I'm not convinced, however, that we need a new kind of feminism. I'd like to see instead if we could step away from gender and breathe life into a new kind of ism that turns around simply being human.

I'll confess, I don't know Judith Warner from Adam (or, should I say, Eve), but that last sentiment matches my perception of women and feminism.

And I think that's one of the reasons why the radfem mindset (or what I've seen of it expressed in conversations in the feminist blogosphere) rubs me the wrong way.

Biology and socialization do play important roles, but I don't share that "assumption of superiority" Ehrenreich described in her article as "more or less beyond debate."

I think traditional gender roles can be a straitjacket to people of all sexes. Individuals should be freer to find an identity that works for them as individuals, rather than being restricted by society's constraints. Not just swapping roles -- allowing men to be nurturers and women soldiers, but accepting welcoming the existence of nurturing soldiers, and nonchalant if Patrick was once Patricia.

But I reject Warner's description of this as "a new kind of feminism" or "a new kind of -ism"

As far as I'm concerned, that is feminism.

Frankly, Ehrenreich's notion of female moral supremacy sounds more like lingering Victorianism. [See Flapper by Joshua Zeitz for another look at that early division among women's rights activists.]

Anyway, Warner's essay goes on to point out the many ways that, statistically speaking, "men and women aren't all that different anymore (at least in modern Western culture):

Sociologists Molly Monahan Lang and Barbara J. Risman have called this a pattern of "gender convergence" -- an “ever-increasing similarity in how men and women live and what they want from their lives.” <snip> But the big picture still clearly indicates that -- however slowly and imperfectly -- the boundaries between the worlds of men and women are dissolving.

We're not there yet, but we're much closer than ever.

The long-held feminist goal of becoming more fully human has been, at least in theory, achieved for women, and now appears to be in the cards for the rising generation of men as well -- assuming we will see the kinds of concrete social policy changes that are needed to make it possible. Getting family issues out of the gender ghetto and putting them front and center in our shared political imagination would be a step in the right direction.

But being human has its up- and downsides. In the case of Abu Ghraib, says Rosalind Barnett, the female abusers didn't break with their "nature" as women; they simply had a historic opportunity to act upon what, for some, always lies dormant. “With Abu Ghraib,” she says, “people focused on gender and ignored the fact that these were men and women who were in the same situation. The evidence shows that when women men and women are put in the same situations ... they don't behave differently. All the things we think of as stereotypically female are situational.”

The potential for women to be predatory has always existed. Now women are in a position to act upon it. And men are better positioned to express their better natures. Does this mean men who nurture and prioritize their families are at risk of becoming "one of the girls"? Only if we hold onto outdated notions of what it means to be a guy.

Again, there's still work to do, particularly in other countries and cultures, but I think Warner has an important message.

“Women are not inherently passive or peaceful. We're not inherently anything but human.”
          — Robin Morgan

Went to see Harvard Hyperion's production of Romeo and Juliet this afternoon (of which I'll write more later) and I found myself wondering...

I've heard people suggest that the character of Mercutio may be an allusion to Marlowe.

Is that actually derived from scholarly research, or is it merely fanon?

[Actually, with Shakespeare, most conjecture can be considered fanon, but I was trying to separate scholarly research from popular conception...]

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! is sponsored by both Pabst Blue Ribbon and Grey Goose vodka.

Just goes to show, it's a program with appeal that goes beyond taste or class... as long as you drink heavily.

And so, the day after I post about my goal to see every Shakespeare play, I'm browsing the news and discover that Cymbeline just opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

But it's only playing thru May 12th, so I was going to chalk it up to bad timing and hope it's staged again in a more convenient locale.

Then I mentioned it to Ian.

He wants to go.

It's not like I have any time to take a day off of work for the trip.

So, we are now discussing whether to make the trek to a Saturday matinee...

We are such bad influences on one another...

Front page of today's New York Times Business section is Paper Jam at FedEx Kinko's:

One could almost think that the integration of Kinko's into FedEx is going off without a hitch.

It is not.

Profit margins at Kinko's have fallen, revenue has barely grown and employee turnover, which was 42 percent in 2005, was still a daunting 27 percent last year. Paul Orfalea, who was nicknamed Kinko for the full head of curly black hair he sported in 1970 when he founded the company -- originally to serve students at the University of California, Santa Barbara -- says he will not step inside the stores now.

"It gives me a stomachache to see what's happened to the place," Mr. Orfalea, now balding, said.

But what, actually, has happened?

I can't answer from the behind-the-scenes perspective, but I can tell you my impressions as an occasional customer of the joint.

About three miles from my house there's a Kinko's I used to patronize.

It was open 24x7, so I could go there any time day or night. I think I once dropped off a copy&cut job at 11pm and picked it up 7am the next morning.

When FedEx bought them, they cut hours. And, their turnaround time has increased.

Without that added convenience, I may as well just support the local business owners rather than the chains.

Agh! LOL-speak is taking over my brain!

I've just created the following three for lolbrarians:

And I have several more ideas that are on hold until I find the right images

Incidentally, while looking up the call numbers (and I don't have cataloging reference works onhand, so that may not be 100% accurate), I discovered a book titled The Primal Cheeseburger, which has call numbers GT2868.5 .R69 1994 (LC) and 394.1 (Dewey).

In 2002, Eric Grode wrote an article in American Theatre titled "Bard or Bust: A Fanatic's Vow" describing his attempt to see all Shakespeare's plays before his 30th birthday.

Before long, I realized that this goal wasn't quite so clear-cut. First of all, how many plays did Shakespeare actually write? Scholars differ on the number--anywhere from 36 to 40. After doing a bit of authorship research, I decided to settle on the number 37. Of the "contested" plays I would include Pericles and Henry VIII but not Two Noble Kinsmen, Edward III or the obscure Cardenio. Other ground rules were that movies didn't qualify, nor did musical "updates" like West Side Story or Verdi's Otello. Ingmar Bergman's Swedish-language Winter's Tale, which I heard through an English-translation headset, however, made the cut. The phenomenally entertaining Tiny Ninja Macbeth -- in which one man, Dov Weinstein, reenacted the play using inch-high plastic action figures -- did not.

Grode goes on to recount his difficulties finding a production of the last play he needed to see: Titus.

The article itself isn't online, though I did uncover one of his attempts at finding a production, posted to a board in 2002.

And it's got me to thinking...

I'm taking a similar path.

I'm not setting myself any deadlines. I'll see how matters work out in terms of money and time and the vagaries of scheduling.

But the more plays I've seen, the more I want to see.
When I saw the schedule for the Washington Shakespeare Festival and my eyes widened most at Edward III and Coriolanus... I knew I was a goner.

The article has also gotten me curious how many others are involved in -- or have completed -- such a pursuit.

Any other completists out there, trying to see all Shakespeare's plays?

If so,

1. How many have you seen so far?
2. Any ground-rules you've set yourself?
3. Why are you doing it?

And, to answer my own questions,

Meanwhile, my silly side now wants to design some kind of prize or tribute to people who have seen every play (by whatever definition of "seen" and "every" they care to use).

Maybe some sort of congratulatory t-shirt or lapel pin from Cafe Press?

I rather like the idea of designing a little "passport" book to store tickets or programs for people on this journey...

Then again, maybe this would be more appropriate:

			All's Well	As You Like It	Comedy of Errors	Cymbeline	Love's Labors Lost
			Measure for Measure	Merry Wives	Merchant	Midsummer Dream	Much Ado
			Pericles	Taming the Shrew	Tempest	Troilus & Cressida	Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen	Two Noble Kinsmen	Winter's Tale	Antony & Cleopatra	Coriolanus	Hamlet	Julius Caesar	King Lear
Macbeth	Othello	Romeo & Juliet	Timon	Titus	King John	Richard II	Henry IV1
Henry IV2	Henry V	Henry VI1	Henry VI2	Henry VI3	Richard III	Henry VIII

Chibi Shakespeare generated by the Abi Otaku Avatar Maker

And with that, here's my personal scorecard to date, in a slightly more compact format:

King John	Richard II	Henry IV1	Henry IV2	Henry V	Henry VI1	Henry VI2	Henry VI3	Richard 3	Henry VIII
Antony & Cleopatra	Coriolanus	Hamlet	Julius Caesar	King Lear	Macbeth	Othello	Romeo & Juliet	Timon	Titus
All's Well	As You Like It	Comedy of Errors	Cymbeline	Love's Labours	Measure for...	Merry Wives	Merchant	Midsum Dream
Much Ado	Pericles	Taming the Shrew	Tempest	Troilus & Cressida	Twelfth Night	Two Gents	2 Noble Kinsmen	Winter's Tale

This was in Ian's cookie last night:

The rubber bands are heading in the right direction. Lucky Numbers   30, 25, 17, 38, 46, 2

Eric Asimov enjoys the 80-martini lunch

It's actually a gin-tasting among four, so really only 20 martinis per person, but that's how he headlines it.

And be sure to play the interactive feature to hear Mr. Asimov's voice.

Having heard Isaac Asimov speak once, I can hear a slight similarity. To Ian's more experienced bartending ears, he sounds like someone who's just consumed 20 martinis...

A related column suggests samosas as a good accompaniment, and they provide a recipe for potato and green-olive samosas.

Today's front page:

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was seen wearing a New York Yankees cap!

Oh, the horror!

And it's such a big deal, it requires two-thirds of the front page to report it...

I'm so glad we're a two-newspaper town.

And yet, I'm also glad the Herald is around, just for the smiles it brings me...

Here are some of the forthcoming Shakespeare productions in Massachusetts this summer:

Play	by	Company	Opens	in	Location	More info
Romeo & Juliet	by	Harvard Hyperion & Actors' Shakespeare Project	May 05	in	Cambridge	Bard in Boston
Love's Labours' Lost	by	Actors' Shakespeare Project	May 29	in	Cambridge	Bard in Boston
A Midsummer Night's Dream	by	Shakespeare & Company	June 08	in	Lenox	Bard in Boston
Henry IV	by	Industrial Theatre	July 14	in	Taunton	Bard in Boston
A Midsummer Night's Dream	by	Commonwealth Shakespeare Company	July 24	in	Boston	Bard in Boston
Romeo & Juliet	by	Publick Theatre	July 26	in	Brighton
Anthony & Cleopatra	by	Shakespeare & Company	July 27	in	Lenox	Bard in Boston

New England Shakespeare Festival's summer touring production will be Comedy of Errors, though they don't yet have dates or locations. And I'm still waiting for Redfeather Theatre Co. to announce their summer production.

[If that's not enough, in the middle of all this, we're going to Old England, where we'll either see Merchant of Venice or Othello at Shakespeare's Globe.]

Also, some day, Kenneth Branagh's As You Like It will finally be released to the general public, though I'll confess, the more time that's passed, the less interested I've become in this project.

In the introduction to Roger Ebert's new collection, Your Movie Sucks, Ebert writes:

When I am asked, all too frequently, if I really sit all the way through these movies, my answer is inevitably: Yes, because I want to write the review.

That's dedication for you.

And, I guess, that's another thing that separates the pros from the hobbyists.

I'll confess, I'm feeling Dreamed out (seven productions in three years will do that to one), and was thinking of skipping those shows, since I'm not duty-bound to go.

I mean, it's not like I'm getting paid to write my reviews (aside from press tickets in some circumstances). More to the point, it's not like I'm getting any extra time for this. No, I see these plays and write up reviews on my own time, working around my regular 9 - 5 paying job.

And it can be rough. [Driving time to a Friday night show in Lenox involves missing a half-day's work.]

Sorry, I'm rambling.

Point is, I have to figure out my next step. Is this still just a cozy little hobby of mine, which means I can see or skip shows as I feel like it, or should I take the next step towards professionalism and start seeing shows I'm less interested in, if they fit my self-defined criteria...

I've been leaning towards the former; Ian's pushing the latter...

Since y'all are my audience, do you have any input?

lolbrarians

PS: LOLTrek:

A few more tidbits rediscovered after posting the previous entry:

TeacherKen on how the current focus on high-stakes testing in education destroys the joy of learning.

A study reveals red-light cameras do not improve traffic safety.

City officials touted the program as an effective tool in reducing car accidents. ... But preliminary data has shown no reduction in traffic accidents. And figures provided by the city suggest that the red-light cameras may cost as much as they bring in.

Via an advocacy blog, which also points out the inherent contradiction:

"In most instances, the private company responsible for the cameras gets a 'kickback' for every ticket issued," Rhode Island ACLU Executive Director Steven Brown wrote to Cicilline when the proposal was first aired. "It is thus in their best interest -- as well as the city's -- to have people running red lights. This is precisely the opposite of what the city's goal should be -- ensuring better safety at dangerous intersections."

A few short items catching my eye recently:

Web 2.0 giveth and Web 2.0 taketh away...

This morning on Wired:

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

This evening on NPR:

The U.S. military has recently begun posting videos of troops operating in Iraq on the video-sharing Web site YouTube.

In the interview, spokesperson Lt. Col. Christopher Garver describes the content they'll be posting as “unfiltered boots-on-the-ground perspective videos of what's going on here in Baghdad.”

If they truly wanted to give a front-line perspective, why are they banning blogs?

What's the scope of the melamine-tainted food problem?

Ezra Klein finally gets at the numbers, quoting a recent FDA Import Alert:

This has been one of the largest pet food recalls in history, a recall that continues to expand. Thus far, 18 firms have recalled product, 17 Class I and 1 class II, covering over 5,300 product lines. As of April 26, 2007, FDA had received over 17,000 consumer complaints relating to this outbreak, and those complaints included reports of approximately 1950 deaths of cats and 2200 deaths of dogs.

Mind you, it was on April 26th that "FDA official Dr. Dan McChesney said the number of animal fatalities associated with the tainted food was 'in the high teens'." What's a factor of several-hundred when it comes to health issues?

Chris @ AmericaBlog exposes the FDA's plan:

So the same team that told everyone that melamine was no problem to animals, is now saying that there is no need whatsoever for a pork recall after tainted pork entered the food system of America. Why am I not as confident in the FDA's claim as they are?

... "Testing and the joint investigation continue. If any evidence surfaces to indicate there is harm to humans, the appropriate action will be taken," the agencies said.

Ah ha, the old "let the public be America's food inspector/guinea pig. Does anyone see a problem here?

And Natasha @ Pacific Views repeats the news that the chicken industry (poultry and eggs) are the latest group to acknowledge use of the tainted feed.

Majikthise describes an insanely wrong-headed PSA.

This public service announcement from the Ad Council is supposed to educate the MySpace generation about the importance of protecting their personal privacy online. That's a worthy goal. These days, managing your reputation online is an important aspect of street smarts.
Unfortunately, this ad does nothing to empower kids to stay safe. Instead, it sends the message that girls who are being harassed by adults brought their misfortune on themselves.
...
Predictably, the Ad Council's message is "Think before you post, little girl." Just once I'd like to see a campaign called "Think before you stalk, dude." Or: "Just because a minor posted this doesn't give you the right to throw it in her face, creepy adult."

Oddly enough, AP asked all the presidential candidates what they'd want if they were stranded on a desert island. I agree with Kevin Drum that Tom Tancredo gave the best answer.

Monday's New York Times has an article on duck dicks:

Dr. Brennan, a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University and the University of Sheffield, visits the [bird] sanctuary every two weeks to measure the phalluses of six species of ducks.

          ...

Gazing at the enormous organs, she asked herself a question that apparently no one had asked before.
"So what does the female look like?" she said. "Obviously you can't have something like that without some place to put it in. You need a garage to park the car."

And it was at this point in the article, that I realized something very profound...

I see an Ig Nobel Award in this woman's future.

Dr. Brennan plans to team up with a biomechanics expert to build a transparent model of a female duck.

I so hope she brings that with her to the ceremony...

First seen on Boing Boing, which includes a photo of the longest known duck genitalia...

Think Progress has the numbers:

Speaking of Iraq, Riverbend, who has been blogging from Iraq since 2003, has recently written:

On a personal note, we've finally decided to leave. I guess I've known we would be leaving for a while now. We discussed it as a family dozens of times. At first, someone would suggest it tentatively because, it was just a preposterous idea- leaving ones home and extended family- leaving ones country- and to what? To where?
     ...
On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it's the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I've had since the age of four? Is there room for E.'s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?

The problem is that we don't even know if we'll ever see this stuff again. We don't know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends... And to what?

During much of my workday, I've been receiving e-mail from a library listserv under the subject:

What has LIS learned?

and it's starting to make me feel really defensive...

Logically, I know what they're discussing^*, but sometimes it's tough having a professional acronym as my name...

^* Library & Information Science -- the subject I got my Master's Degree in, making me "Lis, Master LIS"