Sexist Language

I figured I needed a post about this after I did the one about ableist language. Now I, personally, am better about not using sexist language than I am about not using ableist language. I won't go into the reasons for that at the moment. However, there are still sexist terms I do use. So here's essentially a bulleted list.

-Mailman (and similar: I've gotten better about these types)
-Freshman (this I have been pondering for a while. That is, I know it's sexist, but I'm trying to come up with an alternative.)
-Man (to refer to people in general)
-Man (as in "man the booth"-... at our club night at school, I said I wouldn't man the booth, but I would woman the booth.)
-Guys (I use this one a lot... Currently trying to find a replacement)
-Manmade
-Chairman
-Mrs., Miss (I'm hoping this is obvious. I'll explain if it isn't.)
-He as default (...Lately this has been largely changed to he or she. See next item.)
-He or she (Notice that the male always comes first. Gee, I wonder why?)
-Manmade
-Sportsmanship
-Hysterical (Look at this if you don't understand why.)

Somehow, I know that as soon as I am out of reach of my computer, all the other sexist terms that I'm forgetting at the moment will come rushing in.


Sources (other than my mind- I'm mostly putting these here so I can find them again):
Why Sexist Language Matters from Alternet
Gender-Sensitive Language

Ableist Language I'm Going to Try to Avoid

I know that I use ableist language with some frequency. I'm going to try to work on that. I figure that it will be easier to do such now than later. So these are the words and phrases I'm going to try to avoid. If you hear me using these terms please point it out to me. I imagine I'll be making some mistakes for a while. I'm not going to include words that I already avoid.

-Lame (I don't think I use this word too much, but I'm not sure)
-Crazy (I know I use this one a lot)
-Insane (See crazy)
-Blinded to/by/etc. (Actually, when I use this one, I tend to say I'm blind because I can't find something. Still not acceptable.)
-Normal (Say, as opposed to disabled or similar)
-Paranoid (Not sure if I use this one.)
-Hysterical (I don't think I use this one too much, but I may)
-Idiot (I know I use this one all the time.)

If you notice me using these or other ableist words, you have my full permission to tell me.

Updates

The book I'm reading at the moment is called Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, by bell hooks. It's really good and enlightening. I'd definitely recommend it. It also challenges a lot of common ideas that aren't actually rooted in fact.

So I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a post solely dedicated to the different blogs I like to visit. There are a number of them that I quite like. Some of them I've linked to, but some of them I haven't yet linked to.

I think I'll leave this post at that since I'm still contemplating these things.

Women in Mathematics-Related Fields

You may want to read my previous post to see what exactly caused me to write this.

So, obviously women are not innately worse at math than men are. That's complete nonsense. Here of some examples of women who did well in mathematics-related fields:

First, of course, I have to put Ada Lovelace. I find her personally interesting because she's widely acknowledged to be the first computer programmer. Here's a biography describing her achievements.

Maria Agnesi wrote the first math textbook written by a woman.

Marjorie Lee Browne was one of the first black women to get a graduate degree in math in the US

Grace Hopper invented the compiler (basically, a compiler converts code written in a programming language to machine language. Click on the link if you have no idea what I'm talking about and are so inclined.).

And there are many more if you care to look.

Another Veganism Post

This one's just going to be about how it's perfectly possible to be healthy as a vegan. So one question any vegan will probably be asked is how they get their protein. I'll be including links and commenting on parts of them. The first site I'm referring to is an article at veganhealth.org about, of course, protein. One thing I found notable was that "It's now been about 20 years since protein in vegan diets was determined to be a non-issue by nutrition researchers." And yet people are still convinced- and clinging on to the idea- that vegans (or even vegetarians) couldn't possibly be getting enough protein. As a 16 year old female, I'm supposed to get about 50 grams of protein per day. Half a cup of tofu has 8-11 grams of protein.

It must be one of those doublethink kinds of things, but it always seems odd to me that people can simultaneously think that vegans can eat nothing but tofu and that they couldn't possibly eat enough tofu to get much of any protein out of it. Half a cup of soybeans has 14.3 grams of protein. I certainly eat plenty of soybeans, although frequently indirectly. Tofu, of course, is made of soybeans. As is my vegan ice cream. As is soymilk; etc. And then vegetables have protein. You can look at the list if you're curious.

It also points out that unless they don't eat enough food in general or eat total junk food, vegans don't have to worry about protein. There's a brief snippet of this article that deals with the same issue. I'm going to take a possibly too large quotation from this:

"a varied diet of nutritious plant foods provides all the protein that you need. Unlike animal protein, plant-based protein sources usually also contain healthy fiber and complex carbohydrates. Animal products are also full of artery-clogging cholesterol and saturated fat, and consumption of animal protein has been linked to some types of cancer. Plus, it's suspected that the high sulfur content of animal protein weakens people's bones. (For example, a study by researchers at the University of California found significantly less bone formation in meat-eating women than in vegan women.)"

I knew I had heard somewhere that animal protein weakened bones. And you thought I made that up. And then this article points out that "with protein, more (than the RDA) is not necessarily better [...and] Diets that are high in protein may even increase the risk of osteoporosis and kidney disease ."

This article is also illuminating. It points out that "The meat and dairy industries spend billions of dollars to project their message right into your shopping cart through television commercials, magazine ads, and grocery store ads." Which makes sense. I'd point out more, but much of this stuff is repeated. You know what I should do? I should print out a copy of each of these articles and, say, attach them to my skin somehow. Alright, so I'm exaggerating, but people really seem to hate the idea that vegans can get enough protein.

Alright. So I've got protein covered. I may write another thing on, say, calcium, but I think I've written enough for now.

Famous Feminists: Part 1

This is the beginning of a list of famous feminists that I'm going to compile. This part will include mostly first wave feminists. If you have any suggestions of first wave feminists that I may have missed, tell me so and I'll add them.

Mary Wollstonecraft
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Lucy Stone
Susan B. Anthony
Olympia Brown
Helen Pitts
Jane Addams
Barbara Bodichon
Lucretia Mott
Alice Paul
Margaret Sanger
M. Carey Thomas
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Tubman
Lucretia Mott
Margaret Fuller

I know I've got to be missing people here. But it's a start.

Racism Links

Well, here I am at home, feeling ill. I have a sore throat and I can't speak all too clearly. So I figured I'd do another linking post. Only I decided these links would be about racism and white privilege because I don't think I've posted enough about those things here. Some of these links may be older, but they all are important to read.

Anti-Racist FAQ
"Check my what?": On privilege and what we can do about it from Shrub.com (Not only about white privilege, but that's certainly included)
On "Colorblindness" from The Angry Black Woman
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh
On the definition of racism from The Angry Black Woman
On white privilege from The Angry Black Woman
And then a lot of things from Womanist Musings, of course.

I'll be on the lookout for some more.

Links

I unfortunately seem to have come down with some sort of sore throat-related illness. I figured I'd just link to other posts instead of attempting to come up with something myself. These links, however, are very good.

From Womanist Musings about what Obama's healthcare plan doesn't cover.

From Appetite for Equal Rights about Caster Semenya
From Shakesville about the same
Also about the same from Feministe
A cartoon from Shakesville
From Sociological Images

So that's it for now.

Vegan Junk Food

I watched the health care speech earlier today (I would have watched it yesterday, but I was far too exhausted). I thought about writing about it, but I'm not in the mood to think about such things (I really don't need to feel depressed again). So I decided I'd write about a much lighter topic: vegan junk food.

Anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I have a huge sweet tooth. Back when I wasn't vegan, I'd consume large quantities of ice cream and such. I've been known to eat far too many donuts. Cinnamon buns, etc. But ice cream was always my favorite. In fact, when I thought about being vegan (not seriously entertaining the idea yet) for the first time, the main reason I didn't consider it further was that I didn't think I could give up ice cream.

Luckily, though, there's vegan ice cream! Very luckily. Some of it is better than others, but there's definitely good vegan ice cream out there. The Rice Dream brand was pretty awful. There was another kind that I didn't like, but I can't think of what it was called. My favorite brands are Tempt (this one appears to be hard to find, but if you find it it's good), Tofutti (much easier to find), and So Delicious (a newer favorite). The good thing about So Delicious is that it has more flavors than the others seem to. At least, more flavors that are easily procured. Vegan ice cream sandwiches I would say go by the same brands.

I technically haven't yet sorted out the vegan chocolate dilemma, but I'm close. I just don't like dark chocolate. I mean, it's better than nothing, but I much prefer milk chocolate or white chocolate. I gave dark chocolate another try, but it really wasn't going to do it. So earlier today I looked up vegan milk chocolate (I figured it had to exist. Maybe soymilk chocolate or something). Luckily, it did exist. Lots of people seem to like the Terra Nostra Rice Milk Chocolate. So I'm planning on procuring some of that if possible.

Then there are a few things I haven't figured out yet, but which I can go without if necessary. For instance, whipped cream. I did like to occasionally have my ice cream with a large mass of whipped cream. Maybe more than occasionally. I seem to be the best in my family at spraying out the whipped cream. The trick is to have it COMPLETELY vertical. Completely. Anyway, I still need to see if such a thing as vegan whipped cream exists.

The other thing is cookie dough. Mostly cookie dough ice cream. I'm not sure if I'll have any luck with that. If I do, though, it would probably be at least marginally healthier than regular cookie dough due to the lack of eggs...

One thing I really do need to find is vegan cinnamon buns. So now I'm going to continue my research (...on trivial matters, but still research).

Results: Ha ha! Vegan cookie dough ice cream does exist! Brands include Wheeler's, Purely Decadent, and Temptation. Vegan whipped cream, too, exists. The main brand seems to be Soyatoo. My cinnamon bun search was slightly less successful, but I did find about a million recipes. So it's not hopeless. Hah! And going vegan's supposed to be hard!

Links

Well, I figured since yesterday's post was so depressing (...in a different way than usual), I should write about something else today. Of course, I couldn't think of anything. So much for that bright idea. But I did think of something I could post. I'm going to post a series of links to websites/blogs that I frequent. I may make a comment or two about their contents. We'll see.

First up is Jezebel, which is basically an online magazine. At the moment, some of their articles that strike my attention address topics such as health care, the creation of gender roles, and lead in lipstick. Not that that last really affect me, but whatever.

So then there's a blog called... Alas, a blog. Not one of my very favorites, but I do like to visit it occasionally to see if anything interesting is going on. The most recent post, which qualifies as interesting (although frightening) in my opinion, is about Pat Buchanan's defense of Hitler.

Next (I am skipping a number of bookmarks, but if anyone's interested I can include them in a later post) is one of my favorites: Echidne of the Snakes. It's one of the first few I found and I recommend it to anyone even slightly interested. I suppose I should recommend some posts but they're pretty much all brilliant.

Another one I like is Feministe. No posts particularly catch my attention today, but when I see a particularly interesting post I'll try to link to it. Jump off the Bridge is pretty cool too. Don't ask me what the deal with the title is. I feel sure it's explained somewhere on the site, but I can't remember what the reasoning was at the moment. Again, right now I'm not finding any really exciting posts, but I'd still recommend checking it out.

Another great site is Sociological Images. I'll let that site speak for itself.

Now this next one is definitely a favorite, although it's a newer find for me. Womanist Musings has to do to some degree with the intersection of sexism and racism. It's wonderful.

So those are some of my favorites from that particular folder in my bookmarks. Tell me if you want some more links, because I could definitely do that.

Women's Equality Day

I haven't really had anything interesting to post lately, but I figured I should write something, given that apparently today is Women's Equality Day and all. Also, I finished reading Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions today, which reminded me to be annoyed that even now the ERA hasn't been passed. I find that rather frightening. This is kind of unrelated, but I'm posting a Gloria Steinem quote (from the book I just finished): "Women have always worked. If all the productive work of human maintenance that women do in the home were valued at its replacement cost, the gross national product of the United States would go up by 26 percent." I guess I'll just post some links relating to the occasion.

From Empowher
From The White House (the only thing that annoys me about this is that it acts like Women's Equality Day didn't used to exist until this year, which isn't true)
A new White House sub-website
From About
From the NWHP
From Wikipedia
From Jezebel

PETA

I really, really hate PETA. It has nothing to do with being unsympathetic to animal rights: I am going vegan, after all! No, it is because of their advertising strategies. Basically, these consist of in one way or another cruelty towards anyone who commonly gets discriminated against. Except for animal rights people. It's completely counterproductive. All it does is make people hate PETA. And sometimes that leads to rebellion, which results in more animal abuse! PETA's REALLY not helping ANYONE! PETA's really having problems when someone going vegan hates them. And I'm not the only one, either. (See the following links)

Vegan Hope
Feministe


And some more generally anti-PETA, but not necessarily anti-animal rights links:
Calorie Lab


And there's much more if you care to look for it.

Mark Twain Quotes

I don't know why, but reading quotes is really fun.

"A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read."
"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?"
"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know."
"If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat."
"It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."
"It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions."
"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."
"Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about."
"What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself."
"When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not."
"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform."
"Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it."
"The report of my death was an exaggeration."

Gloria Steinem Quotes

I know I just barely posted something, but it just occurred to me that I should do something like this. Such ideas always come to me when I'm supposed to be doing other things (...like packing...). These are some of my favorite Gloria Steinem quotes.

"Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. "
"If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?"
"We've begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters. "
"A woman reading Playboy feels a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual. "
"A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space. "
"A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. " (I really like that one.)
"I will no longer be referred to as Miss Steinem of Ms. magazine. "
"The first resistance to social change is to say it's not necessary."

Not, of course, that Gloria Steinem doesn't have her own problems.


Actually, now I feel like posting some more quotes. These are from Elizabeth Cady Stanton:
"Woman will always be dependent until she holds a purse of her own."
"The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation."
"I shall not grow conservative with age."
"The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstition of the Christian religion."


...This shouldn't be so fun. Now for Susan B. Anthony quotes...
"Independence is happiness."
"Men their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less."
"It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union."
"The fact is, women are in chains, and their servitude is all the more debasing because they do not realize it."
"The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God."
"I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows."
"Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the slave, so will I ignore it all to protect an enslaved woman."


I think that's more than enough for today.

MSNBC

Some of you may know that one of the few TV shows/ stations I've been willing to watch is MSNBC. Well, I've discovered some unfortunate news on that front. Basically, the parent companies of MSNBC and Fox have made a deal to make Olbermann and O'Reilly stop complaining about each other. This is chiefly bad because large corporations are influencing what news is presented to the public. Also, I hate Fox and think it deserves to be criticized. Secondly, Richard Wolffe, MSNBC's political analyst (whatever that means- mostly Olbermann just has him on Countdown a lot) is apparently very involved with big business. I must admit that last bit surprised me because I actually had a favorable impression of him. So much for that. Luckily, I haven't heard any unfortunate news about Rachel Maddow. That would have truly been awful.

Also, there are far too many forms to fill out upon getting a job. Mandalay's begging me for attention (well, her version is sitting on my desk as I go on the computer, but it's the same thing essentially).

Edit: Look at this. I always did have a good impression of Quakers.

Blog Posts

I have to leave to practice parallel parking soon, but I thought that before I left I'd leave some links to some recent blog posts I found interesting. So here it goes:

Healthcare It's Personal from Womanist Musings is about how people misrepresent Canadian healthcare.

Obama on the Gates Arrest from the same blog is about exactly what the title suggests.

On Gendered Language from Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog has some connection to my last post.

I have to leave now, but I might post some more links later.

Edit: I'm back. Now I'll look for more interesting links.

Bechdel Test Roundup from Female Impersonator is about the portrayal of women in movies.

Stay Classy, Electronic Arts from Unapologetically Female is horribly depressing.

This post about Limbaugh from Think Progress is kind of amusing.

I think that's good for now. Feel free to post your own links in the comments.

Male as Default

I'm warning you in advance that this will be a very short post because I have to go to sleep soon. Anyway, have you ever noticed that whenever you have to select your gender on, say, a website to create an account, the one originally selected is male? Without exception. I honestly have never seen an instance when female was selected. There's not even a dubious excuse for it. I mean, female comes first in the alphabet. It's clearly just an example of all the sexist attitudes that still exist.

There are many similar instances of the same idea. For example, when talking about a postal worker, one usually refers to her/him (Notice how that looks unfamiliar in that order?) as a mailMAN. Mailman seems to include men and women, but if anyone said mailWOMAN, it would never refer to a man. Also, note the her/him example. Always, things like this are phrased him/her, him or her, or he or she. Each of these alone you could perhaps dismiss, but it's a recurring trend.

Veganism

Well, I've been eating entirely vegan since last Wednesday (not this most recent Wednesday, but the one before that). Well, technically Wednesday evening. I say eating vegan for a few reasons. First of all, I'm not considering myself vegan until I have proven that I can keep it up. Second of all, veganism isn't only food. I mean, my shoes are unfortunately made out of leather (which is really bad, especially given that I haven't eaten meat for a long time, but in my defense, I haven't bought a pair of shoes at all recently), I haven't made sure that my toothpaste, etc. is vegan, and I haven't even begun to research clothing. Still, it's a good start. I plan to work on the non-food front when I return home.

So now I've decided to use the rest of this post to engage in the quite probably futile effort to convince someone (I don't have anyone in particular in mind) to at least eat fewer animal products or less meat. I can at least try. As whenever I try to articulate my reasons, all that I end up coming up with is that "they're really mean to the animals", which isn't exactly the most effective way of communicating what I mean, I plan on mostly linking to things. I think I mostly do this because if I ever learn any of the details I quickly try to forget about them, which I feel that I'm justified in doing as I still reform my behavior.

My fear of conflict is whispering in the back of my mind for me not to do this, but in such a situation I am able to ignore it. My current motivation is powerful enough to overwhelm such. There are a few categories under which arguments for veganism tend to fall, the most common one being concern for animals. But veganism also benefits the environment and is healthier.

I figure I should start off with the bit I've already explained in the past: the vegetarian part. First of all, killing animals is wrong. That alone was enough to make me a vegetarian. Then of course, the animals are treated horribly. They're generally kept in tiny cages where they don't have room to move around, and that's only the beginning. The free range thing isn't a good copout, either. It doesn't actually mean that they all get to wander around. I've also argued in the past that becoming a vegetarian is so easy that there's no excuse not to, but that argument isn't quite as effective when it comes to being vegan.

I'm going to make one more point and then I'll just post the links. It's not that hard just to replace a few things. For instance, soy milk in my experience tastes better than regular milk. Ricemilk is okay, too. I didn't like almond milk as much. You have to be a little pickier about ice cream (soy ice cream is kind of bad, as is rice, but hemp and tofu- yes, tofu: it actually tastes good- make good ice cream). Pancakes taste the same without eggs and with soymilk. I can't say I've had good luck with cheese replacements. There are egg replacements. Vegan bread tastes the same. Seeing as I'm sure people have heard this before and that this won't really convince anyone, I'm just going to leave the links. Hopefully at least someone will look at some of them just to humor me. ...Just be glad I spared you the PETA links.

Vegan Action
Vegan Outreach
Vegan Wolf (Don't ask me where they got that title...)
Veganic (Okay, so this one's by someone working for PETA. It was inevitable.)
Viva

Perhaps this isn't the greatest time to mention it, but I just realized that Starbursts aren't vegan or even vegetarian. ...I should have known that by now.

Miscellaneous Details

I haven't posted anything this week, mostly because I've been extremely busy. My camp started (I'm basically a CIT) and it runs from 8 AM to 5 PM. Plus the bus ride takes a while. So I haven't had time to do much of anything else. Now it's the weekend, though, so I have more free time.

So this morning I was catching up on the news, etc, and I found it interesting that I didn't see much of anything about the whole prosecution thing. I think I'm taking that to mean that there definitely isn't any real investigation of the Bush administration about torture going on any time soon.
However, there's been a lot of work on healthcare that I was mostly unaware of this week due to my busy schedule. I've been having trouble finding too much detail on this, other than all the ridiculous claims the Republicans are throwing out. (Like this, for example). There may or may not be some willingness to just pass it without worrying about the Republicans, which would be good. I'll have to look around for more information later.

Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings have started. Apparently they have gone pretty well. It looks she'll be confirmed.

I seem to be unable to say anything much so I'll just link to some things. Think Progress points out that Obama should just issue an executive order preventing the further application of Don't Ask Don't Tell, which is a very good point. I don't understand why the Obama administration is acting like it can't really do anything. This piece of news about how the conservatives don't think civil rights leaders are important enough for students to learn about bothered me. This, about some of what Obama is doing with infinite detention, was troubling. This (about Obama's faith based initiatives thing) upset me, too.

Tentative Relief- Never mind

I'm assuming that anyone who reads this already knows that I really think that Bush and others who were responsible for the whole Guantanamo Bay situation really need to be prosecuted. If anyone didn't at the very least suspect this of me, I will be completely shocked. Well, lately I've been feeling disappointed and frustrated because it was looking like that wasn't going to happen. But luckily, there's some good news on this front!!!

Think Progress (not just Think Progress, but that's what I'm going to link to) is reporting that attorney general Holder is "leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate Bush admin's torture policies".

...Curses! So much for that! Look at this. Basically, he's only prosecuting interrogators who went beyond what the evil John Yoo did. ...If you're looking at the link, read through the whole thing: through update two. ...I almost didn't read that part.

Basically, information is very tentative at this point, but it looks like there will be an investigation so limited and so badly targetted that it would have been better not to have it at all. All of this is extremely discouraging, and what's truly awful is that it appears that Holder's trying to trick us or something. I'm most confused about all this.

Edit: For once my giant folder of politics-related bookmarks came in handy. A lot of websites don't have anything about this yet, and even fewer actually include the bit about the discouraging details. Sites that actually do have something about this include TalkLeft, ... and other than what I already linked to, that's it. Plus a few had the first bit, but the second part's kind of important. Hopefully all that means is that no one has managed to write anything about it yet.

Progress So Far

I know I haven't posted in a while. I have a number of excuses, including that I went on a long hike, I wasn't feeling well yesterday, and I couldn't think of anything to write. Luckily, I don't think I have to come up with a reasonable excuse (not that all of those weren't true). I'm not going to have too much time to write today because I have a lot to do. I also need to pack because I'm going away for three weeks.

I'm slowly making progress on my goal. I'm still drinking soy milk. I even tried soy ice cream. I've known since I started considering this that giving up ice cream would probably be the hardest part. Ice cream's my very favorite food... I have a sweet tooth. Well, the ice cream situation will be a little harder than switching to soy milk was, but I think I may be able to manage.

There are a few difficulties with soy ice cream. First of all, it doesn't taste quite as good as regular ice cream. It's still good, but I suppose it's hard to compete with regular ice cream. Secondly, the number of flavors is very, very limited. In fact, when I went to Whole Foods to procure some, the only flavors I saw were, I believe, vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. So I got vanilla.

The thought of giving up cookie dough ice cream is very depressing, though. Someone needs to invent the equivalent of Ben and Jerry's for soy ice cream. Then again, cookie dough, for instance, isn't even vegan. Still: there has to be some sort of fake cookie dough that could be invented. ...Well, I guess it wasn't very healthy, anyway. But that doesn't make giving it up any easier.

But the soymilk and soy ice cream were more or less successful. The thing that didn't work out so well was the vegan yogurt. It didn't taste very good. I'm hoping that was just because when I tried it, I had a really bad stomachache. If not, I guess there are other brands. I'm still determined, though. Even if people do persist in pointing out how hard it will be to give up some of this stuff. Stubbornness does come in handy occasionally.

Well, at least if anyone tries to convince me it'll be bad for my health to attempt to go vegan, I can easily refute the claim. A lot of the unhealthy food I enjoy isn't vegan. So my health can really only improve from this. Also, just in case anyone brings this up, most Americans get too much protein anyway. ...But that's all I'm saying on the topic because I have to go.

Not Joe the Plumber Again

Does anyone remember Joe the Plumber? Or, as I generally like to refer to him, not-Joe the not-plumber? Well, look who decided to embarrass himself again. Not-Joe the Not-Plumber completely perplexes me. Just in general. As in, everything he's ever done that's been publicized. Then again, I never have been able to completely understand any of these right-wing people. But Not-Joe the Not-Plumber in particular is very, very perplexing.

I'll get to the point already. So, you know how all the crazy Republicans decided to do the whole "teabagging" thing? ...That never made sense to me either, of course. So, first of all, Not-Joe decides that he is exactly the right person to tell us all what to do since we're clearly all dissatisfied by intrusive government (I sort of am, but it's about completely different things, such as wiretapping...). I'm going to start quoting from this article: he "said the best advice he can give to citizens who are frustrated with intrusive government is to stop voting along party lines and begin electing leaders who will abide by the nation's founding document.

"Learn the Constitution," he said. "Then when someone wants to be elected, hold their feet to the fire and make them follow it because that's what we need to get back to. It works so well when we follow it. Forget party politics. Learn the Constitution and vote the best American in, not the best Democrat or Republican.""

...He says as he prepares his ballot to vote for another Republican. I find it terribly ironic that the guy who's so in favor of the tea parties and other Republican nonsense is telling us that we need to "learn the Constitution". I, for one, already "learned the Constitution".

Don't worry, I'm not nearly at the best part yet. So another thing mentioned was that "I'm cynical by nature, but I am also very hopeful because I see people from the Left and the Right showing up to these tea parties," he said. "You have people, bikers, union members and guys in three-piece suits showing up to these things." ...Because bikers, union members, and guys in three-piece suits are CLEARLY not people. ...I suppose that wouldn't have amused me so much if I weren't so grammar-obsessed, but I found that really funny.

THIS is the really great part: "Asked if he has plans to run for public office, he replied, "I hope not. You know, I talked to God about that and he was like, 'No.'"" That's the epitome of stupidity. Is this guy mentally ill? Then again, I suppose a lot of people think that this "God" character exists, so this is only a small step from the unfortunate norm. Still, though. I thought only the really crazy religious wackos (not that they aren't all, but those that stand out) thought God actually talked to them. What did he do? Just call God up on the phone? Where do people get this nonsense?

This last bit's sort of amusing, too. "He continued, "I believe he's gotten me on this grassroots movement. If I can encourage leaders to step up, that's what I would like to do. That's a heavy role. That's something I don't know if I am prepared to do yet."

But Wurzelbacher said he will keep that door open if God ever calls him to be that leader.

"I just know whenever I fall off his path, things get really hard," he said. "So I just stick with what God tells me to do.""

I swear this guy must be delusional. Maybe he hears voices, actually. Which wouldn't be any of my concern, except that this guy somehow presumably has some sort of credibility with the crazy Republicans. Also, the very idea of not-Joe being elected is a mix of amusing and horrifying. I want to say it would never happen, but we've elected some pretty stupid people before. Bush is the example that comes to mind, of course. You know what the Republican ticket should be for the next election? Sarah Palin and Not-Joe. The question is who would be president and who would be vice-president. Candidates, I mean. I think Palin would have to be the presidential candidate. SNL could do some very funny stuff with the two of them. Of course, if they got elected it would be a nightmare.

I just re-read the post about it at Think Progress, and the bit about him actually considering being in public office last year surprised me. Mostly I was surprised because I don't think I ever heard about that. ...I don't want to link to anything that awful, but click on the link at the Think Progress post. It's really pathetic. Well, at least this is a sign that the Republican party still isn't doing too well. Not that it wasn't already obvious.

Edit: speaking of Republicans who are so crazy it's surprising even the Republican party takes them seriously... look at this about Michael Steele (also referred to as work-not-jobs for obvious reasons).

Reading

Today, I was reading for a few hours (maybe 4? Something like that) until I finished my book. The book, by the way, was Belinda by Maria Edgeworth. This is certainly not unusual for me. What's unusual is that I started this book maybe half a month or longer ago, and I just barely finished it. It was pretty good for the most part. There was just this small bit in the middle that seemed to bore me slightly. It is, of course, a nineteenth century British novel. Those are my favorites of late. Well, for a long time. Ever since I grew tired of fantasy books. In fact, even before then I started reading similar books.

Next I'm going to read The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. This, although written during the same era and in the same general place, is slightly different. It's an early gothic novel, similar to those written by Ann Radcliffe such as The Mysteries of Udolpho which I was reading earlier. It's very short. When I finish it, I'll be reading the books from a series by Anthony Trollope. Trollope books are good, and the best thing is that there's a ton of them. So that should keep me occupied for a while. I'm going to go and start on my next book now.

Quotes

So, this is the second post in one day, but the first was really short and I didn't think of this until now. I'm going to post some quotes that I happen to like. Finally I have a place to write these down!

Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths. ~Lois Wyse
Women are not inherently passive or peaceful. We're not inherently anything but human. ~Robin Morgan
Many beautiful women have been made happy by their own beauty, but no intelligent woman has ever been made happy by her own intelligence. ~Mignon McLaughlin
The little rift between the sexes is astonishingly widened by simply teaching one set of catchwords to the girls and another to the boys. ~Robert Louis Stevenson
Men define intelligence, men define usefulness, men tell us what is beautiful, men even tell us what is womanly. ~Sally Kempton
Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating.
Andrea Dworkin
The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, "It's a girl."
~ Shirley Chisholm

I didn't go through any great effort to standardize the formatting. But those are a few of the quotes I like. Specifically, quotes relating to feminism. I have others relating to other things.

Soymilk

Remember my post about how I wanted to become a vegan? Well, I've slightly modified that proposal, but I still want to try. Basically, my goal will be to limit my consumption of animal products. But my ultimate goal is still the same. So, last weekend, I got some soymilk. And I've been drinking it. It's not too bad. I mean, I prefer my regular organic milk, but that's more from habit than anything I think. Soymilk is almost sweet. However, it's also slightly overpowering for me. Still, I've been determinedly drinking my soymilk. Everything's easier when my morals and passionate beliefs are involved. Now I just have to figure out what to eliminate/replace next. Maybe I'll see about vegan yogurt.

More Slightly Impersonal Writing

My day was fairly dull today, and so I'm going to take this opportunity to post about some of the things I spend time thinking about. Yesterday I was writing more about feminism, so today I think I'll go with the war in Afghanistan. So, it should be very obvious that I'm opposed to the war in Iraq. I'm also opposed to the war in Afghanistan, though. As such, Obama's decision to intensify the war in Afghanistan concerns me.

First, though, I'm going to go into my reasoning. Clearly, my initial reason was that I'm essentially a pacifist. War is wrong: all it is is legalized murder. However, once I started learning about the war in Afghanistan in my NSL class and then researching it at home, I discovered that not only would the war in Afghanistan be morally wrong, but it would also be ineffective. It seems that our strategy is to storm into Afghanistan and kill all the terrorists. That's absurd, however. I mean, first of all it would be very, very difficult to even FIND all of them, what with the treacherous terrain and all. But it is also very counterproductive.

You see, the main reason that these people get away with terrorism is that many of the Afghani people support them. Basically, Afghanistan was a mess after various wars and the Taliban provided order and stability. The other way the Taliban get support is by setting themselves up as the positive alternative to the evil Western nations, particularly the US. And it works. The US is extremely easy to demonize. So, really, if we go in and start killing people, more people will become terrorists.

Another reason people turn to terrorism is that Afghanistan's economy is a mess. The main ways of getting any money are basically selling illegal drugs and terrorism. Naturally, starting a war wouldn't help their economy too much. What they need are things like schools, food, and a better economy. Not war. By going to war, we worsen the problem, and our own image, to the extent that it isn't already as bad as it could possibly be.

Even from a purely selfish standpoint it's stupid. Our own country's economy is such a wreck that we really don't need to go into more debt by starting pointless, counterproductive wars. So the war is very, very stupid.

One thing that perplexes me, though, is why on earth Obama supports the war. I mean, if it were Bush I would understand just to attribute it to stupidity. But Obama's smart. He's really smart. So why doesn't he get it?

Since I'm sure I've left things out, most notably the region's history (I'm not too great with world history, but hopefully I'll improve), I'm going to leave some lovely little links! And that was accidental alliteration. Really.

Rethink Afghanistan
http://www.peaceactionwest.org/
http://getafghanistanright.com/

Zelda

So, today I was watching my sisters play Zelda for a little bit, and I was reminded of my opinion that Zelda games are extremely sexist. I feel that it is necessary to point this sort of thing out, so as to weaken its power of influence over you. Even when I'm met with groans and complaints for doing so. Nonetheless, I continue in hope that I have some small degree of influence in doing so. And even if I don't, I feel that I am morally obligated to do so.

So, back to Zelda. First of all, the whole thing is about a man having to save a weak, powerless woman. That's basically the theme of all the games. If you don't think that's sexist, consider how extremely unlikely it would be that someone could find a game with the roles reversed. Link, moreover, is valued for his athleticism and intelligence, whereas Zelda is valued only for her appearance and well-mannered behavior.

It portrays women as weak, powerless, and generally inferior to men. It portrays what is unfortunately a pervading view throughout our culture, which is that women are essentially decorative objects and that men are the ones who are really good for anything. That's basically the gist of it.