I've been meaning for a while to write about the whole "retard" controversy that started with Rahm Emmanuel, was intercepted by Sarah Palin, then Steven Colbert, and is now resting comfortably in the hands of the horrible writers over at Family Guy. I have worked with lots of special needs kids and I have a joke about how I don't think it's okay to say the word "retarded," because language is powerful (feminists have been organizing for over 100 years and people still use the word "cunt" every day). In general, I think people who use it don't mean it to be hurtful, but that's the same shit people said when they use to use "gay" as an insult, and luckily, in the last few years, it's become pretty accepted amongst forward-thinking people that is not acceptable. I used to work with an amazing boy with autism, and his mom said that she used to use "retarded" all the time, but ever since she had her son she couldn't hear it without feeling a sting. That's as much of a reason as any, if you ask me, to find a different fucking word to insult people. There are plenty.
That said, Matt Taibbi has a great analysis of why we shouldn't be worrying so much about the word "retard" when we're talking about what Ramn Emmanuel said. I would side with Palin about the word being hurtful except that she had to go and be a hippocrite about Rush Limbaugh. Colbert, as always, was spot-on. And, for the first time in history, I'm going to say that Family Guy has done something awesome.
I didn't watch the show's most recent controversial episode about a girl with Down Syndrome (who is the daughter of the former governor of Alaska), but the actress who voiced the Down Syndrome character, Andrea Fay Friedman, actually has Down Syndrome. Friedman wrote the New York Times with some fantastic criticism of Palin's exploitation of her son Trig, and as Broadsheet's Mary Elizabeth Williams points out, she is funnier than most of the writers for Family Guy.
It's wonderful to actually hear Friedman's voice-- a voice that is categorically (and, as demonstrated here, wrongly) left out of the discussion. We should all be smart enough to know that people with special needs can be their own advocates, but that we still have a responsibility to advocate for what's right. I believe that part of that means choosing your insult words carefully, but it also means that even issues about special needs should be approached with compassion and complexity. Friedman shows us that it's a mistake to make categorical assumptions about what is and is not offensive. And so, I hate to say this, but I'm going to have to side with Family Guy on this one.
Friday, February 19, 2010
The burlesque cabaret of French medical examinations
A response to Blogging Molly's, The Kafka-esque nightmare of the Bushwick hospital.
I have lived abroad since (more or less) the Fall of 2008. If I had it my way, I would save up all my doctor's visits and dentist appointments and pap smears for my yearly trip home to see the 'rents. Unfortunately, my propensity for contracting yeast infections and other lady problems does not allow for this.
(Molly, I can't tell you how many times I have been told that I keep getting infections because I use condoms, and then also because I don't use condoms... even though I do. So, basically, all women are pregnant, vaginitis-riddled tarts, and it's all our fault for using condoms.)
But I digress.
Is our American health system perfect? Fuck no. Is it affordable? Not at all (although I've been lucky enough to stay on my Dad's awesome, state-provided health insurance for far longer than most are able to).
But there's one thing that keeps me coming back to the States for my regular checkups: I get it. I understand how it works. Yes, our country is in need of some serious health care reform, but at least when I go to the doctor, I pretty much know what's going to happen.
I know, for instance, that I won't have to take off my clothes for an eye exam. In France, there is no such certainty.
My first doctor's visit after moving to Flers to teach English was mandatory. In typical French fashion, I was not informed of this appointment until the day before its occurrence (apparently my appointment slip had been 'lost in the mail'), and I had to take a three-hour bus ride the next morning to get there. That's right, it wasn't just any doctor's visit; it had to be done in a specific city, in a specific hospital with specific government ties.
First of all, this medical exam is only obligatory for people coming from outside of Europe. I had to get a full physical in the States before taking the job (a rather benign experience), but apparently that was just a dry run, a preparation for what lay ahead.
So I got to Caen on the bus and made my way to the hospital where the first thing they did was to put me in a small room and tell me to undress from the waist up.
Upon leaving the room, the nurse said, "When you are finished, go through that door, there."
I followed orders. There didn't seem to be any kind of robe or anything, so I just opened the door and walked topless into this huge room with lots of machines and medical equipment. The same woman met me there and instructed me to step onto a platform and press my chest against a freezing cold wall, apparently to take an x-ray of my chest. That done, she said I could dress and go upstairs to the waiting room.
As it turned out, this was the least weird part of the visit.
After getting somewhat lost in the corridors of the hospital, I found my way (led by the sound of loud, American voices emanating down the hallway from the waiting room). I waited. And waited. Turns out they had given all of us 10:30 appointments, but there was only one doctor to do the exams. While I was waiting, someone came by and handed me the x-ray that had just been taken, as though I would know what to do with it.
Finally, my name was called, and I went into the rather large exam room. The doctor was an older, bespectacled gentleman, and as I handed him my chest x-ray, he said, "Undress to your underwear."
This is wear things got weird. There was no curtain. There was no attempt to turn away. The man just started firing off a series of medical history questions while I uncomfortably took off my clothes. There I was in my underwear (and bra), and he still wasn't finished with the questions. I stood awkwardly, saying there was no family history of diabetes. He told me to take a seat. The chair looked really cold. It was.
He wrapped up the questions and led me to the scale. He weighed me (Was this why he wanted the clothes off? Those few extra ounces of weight could have really skewed his measurements!), took my height, and patted me on the naked hip, saying, "Good job!" as I stepped off the scale.
Let me just paint the portrait of discomfort. Here I am, having stripped to my underwear in front of this man for, what appears to be, no reason at all, and now he's touching my naked skin. He continued to give me little pats of encouragement as I moved from one station to the next.
He handed me a bit of plastic and instructed me to cover one eye for the vision test. In my underwear.
I told him I have glasses and asked if I should put them on. He said no, then proceeded to mock me for having glasses when my vision was perfectly fine. Pat on the hip!
Finally, he told me to lie down on the exam table. Was this going to be the justification for the undue exposure? He listened to my heart and breathing, then set the stethoscope down on my crotch while he proceeded to kneed my stomach and ask if it hurt. Meahwhile, I am so focused on the cold bit of metal perched on my hooha that I'm really not sure what I'm saying (in French, of course).
Then, the whole thing was over. He told me to get dressed, handed me my x-ray (after glancing at it and deeming it fine [what the eff am I supposed to do with it?]), and sent me on my way.
I was feeling really violated until I spoke with some other people (including men) who related the same experience (minus encouraging pats). I guess the guy was just really efficient. He didn't want to have to lift a shirt to listen to someone's heart or feel their belly. And maybe he was looking for rashes or something.
The whole exam took maybe five minutes, then I had to get back on the bus to go home.
The doctor I ended up seeing in Flers was a woman and not creepy, but she had this same habit of telling me to undress (with good reason, this time) from the waist down, and not leaving the room while I did it. They just don't have modesty in France.
In Ireland, I can't even get a doctor's appointment. The health care system here is so overloaded (one pitfall of public health), that there are enormous waiting lists for nearly everything. Doctors simply aren't taking on new patients. And I'm not Irish, which doesn't work in my favor.
What's the moral of this story? I'm not sure. Perhaps, better to be misled and interrogated in your native language than in your underwear in France? But maybe it's a toss up. I've never had a shot in the ass.
I have lived abroad since (more or less) the Fall of 2008. If I had it my way, I would save up all my doctor's visits and dentist appointments and pap smears for my yearly trip home to see the 'rents. Unfortunately, my propensity for contracting yeast infections and other lady problems does not allow for this.
(Molly, I can't tell you how many times I have been told that I keep getting infections because I use condoms, and then also because I don't use condoms... even though I do. So, basically, all women are pregnant, vaginitis-riddled tarts, and it's all our fault for using condoms.)
But I digress.
Is our American health system perfect? Fuck no. Is it affordable? Not at all (although I've been lucky enough to stay on my Dad's awesome, state-provided health insurance for far longer than most are able to).
But there's one thing that keeps me coming back to the States for my regular checkups: I get it. I understand how it works. Yes, our country is in need of some serious health care reform, but at least when I go to the doctor, I pretty much know what's going to happen.
I know, for instance, that I won't have to take off my clothes for an eye exam. In France, there is no such certainty.
My first doctor's visit after moving to Flers to teach English was mandatory. In typical French fashion, I was not informed of this appointment until the day before its occurrence (apparently my appointment slip had been 'lost in the mail'), and I had to take a three-hour bus ride the next morning to get there. That's right, it wasn't just any doctor's visit; it had to be done in a specific city, in a specific hospital with specific government ties.
First of all, this medical exam is only obligatory for people coming from outside of Europe. I had to get a full physical in the States before taking the job (a rather benign experience), but apparently that was just a dry run, a preparation for what lay ahead.
So I got to Caen on the bus and made my way to the hospital where the first thing they did was to put me in a small room and tell me to undress from the waist up.
Upon leaving the room, the nurse said, "When you are finished, go through that door, there."
I followed orders. There didn't seem to be any kind of robe or anything, so I just opened the door and walked topless into this huge room with lots of machines and medical equipment. The same woman met me there and instructed me to step onto a platform and press my chest against a freezing cold wall, apparently to take an x-ray of my chest. That done, she said I could dress and go upstairs to the waiting room.
As it turned out, this was the least weird part of the visit.
After getting somewhat lost in the corridors of the hospital, I found my way (led by the sound of loud, American voices emanating down the hallway from the waiting room). I waited. And waited. Turns out they had given all of us 10:30 appointments, but there was only one doctor to do the exams. While I was waiting, someone came by and handed me the x-ray that had just been taken, as though I would know what to do with it.
Finally, my name was called, and I went into the rather large exam room. The doctor was an older, bespectacled gentleman, and as I handed him my chest x-ray, he said, "Undress to your underwear."
This is wear things got weird. There was no curtain. There was no attempt to turn away. The man just started firing off a series of medical history questions while I uncomfortably took off my clothes. There I was in my underwear (and bra), and he still wasn't finished with the questions. I stood awkwardly, saying there was no family history of diabetes. He told me to take a seat. The chair looked really cold. It was.
He wrapped up the questions and led me to the scale. He weighed me (Was this why he wanted the clothes off? Those few extra ounces of weight could have really skewed his measurements!), took my height, and patted me on the naked hip, saying, "Good job!" as I stepped off the scale.
Let me just paint the portrait of discomfort. Here I am, having stripped to my underwear in front of this man for, what appears to be, no reason at all, and now he's touching my naked skin. He continued to give me little pats of encouragement as I moved from one station to the next.
He handed me a bit of plastic and instructed me to cover one eye for the vision test. In my underwear.
I told him I have glasses and asked if I should put them on. He said no, then proceeded to mock me for having glasses when my vision was perfectly fine. Pat on the hip!
Finally, he told me to lie down on the exam table. Was this going to be the justification for the undue exposure? He listened to my heart and breathing, then set the stethoscope down on my crotch while he proceeded to kneed my stomach and ask if it hurt. Meahwhile, I am so focused on the cold bit of metal perched on my hooha that I'm really not sure what I'm saying (in French, of course).
Then, the whole thing was over. He told me to get dressed, handed me my x-ray (after glancing at it and deeming it fine [what the eff am I supposed to do with it?]), and sent me on my way.
I was feeling really violated until I spoke with some other people (including men) who related the same experience (minus encouraging pats). I guess the guy was just really efficient. He didn't want to have to lift a shirt to listen to someone's heart or feel their belly. And maybe he was looking for rashes or something.
The whole exam took maybe five minutes, then I had to get back on the bus to go home.
The doctor I ended up seeing in Flers was a woman and not creepy, but she had this same habit of telling me to undress (with good reason, this time) from the waist down, and not leaving the room while I did it. They just don't have modesty in France.
In Ireland, I can't even get a doctor's appointment. The health care system here is so overloaded (one pitfall of public health), that there are enormous waiting lists for nearly everything. Doctors simply aren't taking on new patients. And I'm not Irish, which doesn't work in my favor.
What's the moral of this story? I'm not sure. Perhaps, better to be misled and interrogated in your native language than in your underwear in France? But maybe it's a toss up. I've never had a shot in the ass.
Friday, February 12, 2010
This dog is walking himself!
Does this sign make anyone else think of Marmaduke?
I mean, clearly, this is the cheeky, French version. If it was Marmaduke, there'd be a mailman's foot attached to the loop of the leash (dear god, I almost wrote lead, I've been living in Europe too long...) and the dog would be tearing across the sign.
Or, as in this case (or perhaps, more accurately, the follow-up to this frame), he'd be dragging a mostly-asphyxiated dog catcher along beside him.
He sure does.
I mean, clearly, this is the cheeky, French version. If it was Marmaduke, there'd be a mailman's foot attached to the loop of the leash (dear god, I almost wrote lead, I've been living in Europe too long...) and the dog would be tearing across the sign.
Or, as in this case (or perhaps, more accurately, the follow-up to this frame), he'd be dragging a mostly-asphyxiated dog catcher along beside him.
He sure does.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Taking on Tebow
The hype is out there: we are furious or we are elated (okay, we are furious). CBS (despite its rejection of politicized ads in the past) has approved a $3 million Superbowl spot for Focus on Family, featuring Tim Tebow and his mom talking how it's a good thing she didn't have an abortion. The whole notion is pretty absurd--the idea that anyone would have noticed if Tebow had never been born or gone on to win a Heisman trophy--and completely misses the fact that Mrs. Tebow did have a choice which she was free to make (more on this and CBS's shit excuses in a great piece by Jill at Feministe).
Pam Tebow must have made other choices along the way that impacted her son's path to football fame and fortune; were those, too, implicitly right? Should we, perhaps, ban the right to choose which sports our children may play? Should football be viewed as a sport morally superior to all others? This seems no less absurd to me than the message of the Tebow ad.
Thankfully, though, Planned Parenthood is tactfully fighting back. Check out this new video and pass it on to a friend. Let's get people talking about this instead of giving Focus on Family any more of our precious time and attention.
Pam Tebow must have made other choices along the way that impacted her son's path to football fame and fortune; were those, too, implicitly right? Should we, perhaps, ban the right to choose which sports our children may play? Should football be viewed as a sport morally superior to all others? This seems no less absurd to me than the message of the Tebow ad.
Thankfully, though, Planned Parenthood is tactfully fighting back. Check out this new video and pass it on to a friend. Let's get people talking about this instead of giving Focus on Family any more of our precious time and attention.
Monday, February 1, 2010
The Best Year-In-Review Tribute Ever
Hi everyone, this is a piece I was commissioned to write, I will put up a link once it's up but for now here it is:
We're already almost a month into 2010, and by now all the resolve and self-reflection we built up over the New Year's holiday has probably started to wear off. But there is one bit of self-reflection, a “year in review” style tribute, that I still haven't gotten over. In fact, this has been my feel-good jam for most of the beginning of this new year; it's so incredibly good that I'm hoping it's an omen for how awesome the rest of the year is going to be. The tribute in question is a mash-up called “Blame it on the Pop,” by DJ Earworm. Let me also say that I'm a big fan of the mash-up-- I've been celebrating this art form ever since I discovered Girl Talk a few years ago. In “Blame it on the Pop,” Earworm creates a mash-up of the top 25 pop songs of 2009. To say that the result is a sum greater than its parts is an understatement.
“Blame it on the Pop” manages to weave together these poppy anthems, most of which are about getting it on or getting crunk, into a song whose message-- I say this with complete sincerity-- is profound and inspiring. Wait a minute, you may be saying-- we're talking about Fergie here, right? And Flo Rida, and Taylor Swift, and Miley Cyrus? Believe it. And while I do love a ridiculous club jam as much as the next girl, I find most of these songs to be completely intolerable on their own. And even with those artists in the mix who I do really enjoy-- Beyonce, Lady Gaga, and Kanye, for example-- it would still be a stretch to call them “poetic.”
Of course, in any tribute to 2009 it's impossible to separate one's own feelings about the year itself from the tribute, and maybe that's why it's so easy to assign such depth to an arguably superficial song. To borrow a lyric from The Hold Steady, this past year had its massive highs and its crushing lows-- both personally and politically. We started off hopeful with the inauguration of Obama, but the despair of the recession and the war pervades much of our collective memory of the year. It seems impossible to hear the strung-together lyrics of Earworm without seeing an acknowledgement of this collective despair. It so happens that the most common word among all these songs is “down,” which becomes the refrain of “Blame it on the pop,” with a repeating chorus:
Baby don't worry/ even if the sky is falling down/
it's gonna be okay/ when it knocks you down
Variations on this theme repeat throughout, as well as what I find to be a particularly poignant lyrical mash-up: Just get back up/ when you're tumbling down/ down/ down.
The video is great too, if only for the hilarious juxtaposition of all these artists-- from shirtless Flo Rida simulating oral sex to Jason Mraz singing to the sky, imploring us: “look into your heart and you'll find love, love, love.” Earworm somehow isolates the best aspects of each artist, and the song builds on itself so well that by the end I was practically tearing up at an image of Fergie. And I swear to God, if you had told me last month that I would ever write such a sentence about Fergie, I would have bet a million dollars against you.
I think that's why mash-ups are so incredibly appealing; I don't use words like “cosmic” lightly, but a good mash-up has a way of creating a sense of cosmic beauty. When an artist can combine certain beats with with certain hooks to make something so much bigger than each of its parts, it has a way of making the universe seem more intentional. Because, ultimately, a mash-up makes things fit together-- things that were once alone, and maybe mediocre, and maybe forgettable. And there is something very comforting about knowing that those things can be put together to make something amazing.
We're already almost a month into 2010, and by now all the resolve and self-reflection we built up over the New Year's holiday has probably started to wear off. But there is one bit of self-reflection, a “year in review” style tribute, that I still haven't gotten over. In fact, this has been my feel-good jam for most of the beginning of this new year; it's so incredibly good that I'm hoping it's an omen for how awesome the rest of the year is going to be. The tribute in question is a mash-up called “Blame it on the Pop,” by DJ Earworm. Let me also say that I'm a big fan of the mash-up-- I've been celebrating this art form ever since I discovered Girl Talk a few years ago. In “Blame it on the Pop,” Earworm creates a mash-up of the top 25 pop songs of 2009. To say that the result is a sum greater than its parts is an understatement.
“Blame it on the Pop” manages to weave together these poppy anthems, most of which are about getting it on or getting crunk, into a song whose message-- I say this with complete sincerity-- is profound and inspiring. Wait a minute, you may be saying-- we're talking about Fergie here, right? And Flo Rida, and Taylor Swift, and Miley Cyrus? Believe it. And while I do love a ridiculous club jam as much as the next girl, I find most of these songs to be completely intolerable on their own. And even with those artists in the mix who I do really enjoy-- Beyonce, Lady Gaga, and Kanye, for example-- it would still be a stretch to call them “poetic.”
Of course, in any tribute to 2009 it's impossible to separate one's own feelings about the year itself from the tribute, and maybe that's why it's so easy to assign such depth to an arguably superficial song. To borrow a lyric from The Hold Steady, this past year had its massive highs and its crushing lows-- both personally and politically. We started off hopeful with the inauguration of Obama, but the despair of the recession and the war pervades much of our collective memory of the year. It seems impossible to hear the strung-together lyrics of Earworm without seeing an acknowledgement of this collective despair. It so happens that the most common word among all these songs is “down,” which becomes the refrain of “Blame it on the pop,” with a repeating chorus:
Baby don't worry/ even if the sky is falling down/
it's gonna be okay/ when it knocks you down
Variations on this theme repeat throughout, as well as what I find to be a particularly poignant lyrical mash-up: Just get back up/ when you're tumbling down/ down/ down.
The video is great too, if only for the hilarious juxtaposition of all these artists-- from shirtless Flo Rida simulating oral sex to Jason Mraz singing to the sky, imploring us: “look into your heart and you'll find love, love, love.” Earworm somehow isolates the best aspects of each artist, and the song builds on itself so well that by the end I was practically tearing up at an image of Fergie. And I swear to God, if you had told me last month that I would ever write such a sentence about Fergie, I would have bet a million dollars against you.
I think that's why mash-ups are so incredibly appealing; I don't use words like “cosmic” lightly, but a good mash-up has a way of creating a sense of cosmic beauty. When an artist can combine certain beats with with certain hooks to make something so much bigger than each of its parts, it has a way of making the universe seem more intentional. Because, ultimately, a mash-up makes things fit together-- things that were once alone, and maybe mediocre, and maybe forgettable. And there is something very comforting about knowing that those things can be put together to make something amazing.
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