With Superbowl Sunday coming up, I’m bracing myself for indecency again. No, not Janet’s breast (proving once and for all that she and Michael are not the same person) or Nelly’s itchy penis (hmm … is Tinactin his sponsor?), but the erectile dysfunction commercials. All those “subtle” messages from the aging quarterback who can’t get his ball through the tire swing until Levitra lets him hit the target…. Then there’s the balding man who grow horns outside the lingerie shop and a couple linking fingers from separate bathtubs. But beware–if “it” lasts longer than 4 hours, seek emergency medical treatment.

Really, boys — we GET the metaphors, ok? They’re not sailing obliviously over our empty little female heads. And you know what? We’re as sick of them as you are of feminine hygiene commercials full of singing birds and sweet-smelling flowers.

Do they think women don’t watch sports, or do they just not care? It’s not just the Superbowl. They’ve invaded my beloved baseball, too. Half the ballparks in the country have rotating ED ads on the fence. Those are fun to explain to your kids. I just love a public ethos that frowns on condom ads, but slaps my face with male aphrodisiacs.

Folks using the products, more power to ‘em. But give me a break on the advertising.

Main Entry: shame·less
Pronunciation: ’shAm-l&s
Function: adjective
1 : having no shame : insensible to disgrace
2 : showing lack of shame : DISGRACEFUL
See also: Catholic Diocese of Spokane

Facing $76 million in claims for sexual abuse by its priests, the Catholic Diocese of Spokane met its moral responsibility last month by filing bankruptcy to protect its extensive real estate holdings.
As reported in Catholic News Age,

If an agreement is not reached, the cases could go to trial. The bishop said in his letter that bankruptcy protection would provide another option to “bring fairness, justice and equity to the victims and enable the diocese to continue its ministry and mission.”

Today’s news brought us new insight into their definition of “fairness, justice and equity” in the form of attorney Greg Arpin and professional expert witness Elizabeth Loftus. They’re gathering big guns to go after the 62 alleged victims of pedophile priest. If you recognize Loftus’ name, it’s because she made her name assisting in the defense of Ted Bundy, O.J. Simpson and the Hillside Strangler. She is frequently hire to help the cases of child molesters. She and Arpin intend to cast doubt upon the memories of victims to aggressively defend against monetary claims. Luckily for the dicoeses, some of the strongest cases have already committed suicide.

Hmm … that just doesn’t to fit with the Church’s public pose of humility and reform, does it?

Mark 12:17 (King James Version)

17 And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him.

Matthew 19:14 (King James Version)

14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

They should be ashamed.

Main Entry: shame
Pronunciation: ’shAm
Function: noun

1 a : a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety
b : the susceptibility to such emotion
2 : a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute : IGNOMINY
3 a : something that brings censure or reproach; also : something to be regretted

Shame is a word that women of my generation have a good handle on. We don’t need any “personal responsibility” lectures from Republicans; we’ve been taking the blame for everything from our teenagers musical preferences to the disappearance of Atlantis for decades now. We were raised to be Good Girls, spoon-fed images of Twiggy and Jackie O., and lectured on how “Good Girls Don’t” do a lot of things, whether it was cross their legs in mixed company or smoke cigarettes in public. Almost all those things had one thing in common: appearances. What would Others think and assume when they saw us? We imagined it, and were ashamed.

I tried very hard to be a Good Girl, and mostly I failed. So I embraced my Bad Girl-ness. In high school I smoked, drank tequila and hung out with long-haired boys who drove loud cars. In college, I smoked, drank tequila and played in a long-hair rock band, with guys who drove loud cars. Throughout my 20s and 3os, I smoked, drank tequila and campaigned for liberal causes with other long-haired, tequila-drinking people, and tried to keep my daughters away from boys who drove loud cars. I welcomed my 40s with a shot of tequila, a pack of Kools, 2 boxes of dye for my long hair, and a trip to the piercing parlor.

But through it all, I never managed to escape the last Good Girl Quest. To be Thin, or at least not being “too” fat.

Weight is the last bastion of shame. (Maybe it’s the same for men, but never having been one, I don’t know.) I never escaped the sneaking suspicion that Others were judging me by the shape of my body. Overweight conjurs up images of self-indulgence, gluttony and low character. It is taking up too much space which could be filled by someone better, more worthy; consuming too many resources that would be better spent on someone else. Take a gut check a minute–what comes to mind when you see an obsese woman on the street, holding the hands of her thin children? Her character immediately comes into question: she’s been “pigging out” at her kids’ expense. She should be ashamed of herself.

Chances are, she is. I know I am.

I’ve never had a healthy relationship with my body. In my darkest pre-medication days, the worst depressions were accompanied by anorexia. Self-loathing consumed me to the point that eating became an act of wicked theft; stealing for myself what belonged to someone more worthy of life. I couldn’t actively harm myself, but I could not force myself to eat. I would drop 30 lbs in a month as I spiralled deeper and deeper into the well. Friends would say, “Oh, you look wonderful! What’s your secret?” I could never bring myself to say, “Try wanting to die. Does it every time.” All they saw was a smaller body, thus a Good Girl. The sicker I was, the more positive reinforcement my self-punishment received. When I finally got help in my mid-30s, my weight stablized at high normal. I dealt with that and moved on.

As most of you know, I’ve been on the medical merry-go-round since last May, trying to get settled again on new mood medications. I’m in a period of blessed stability on the current crop, but the trade-off for losing the destructive impulses that made me self-medicate with tequila and cigarettes has been 20 lbs. I have the figure of a “glowingly pregnant” woman six months gone. And what I feel is a gut-wrenching shame. Not simple embarassment, but “a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety,” true to the definition. I’m not just fat, but a Bad Person again.

Last night I sat here crying, contemplating throwing out all the meds and take my chances with craziness. Anything had to be better than looking and feeling like this. Today I’m a little more rational on the subject, I hope. At least for now. But I think it’s good practice to stop and take a second look at how we judge others — and more importantly, how we judge ourselves.

I started reading Michael Connelly’s The Narrows this weekend. I’ve been a Connelly fan since The Concrete Blonde and Black Ice, so I opened this one with much anticipation, knowing that it would be in intersecting sequel to both The Poet and Blood Work.

You may be aware that Blood Work was made into a movie by Clint Eastwood a couple of years ago. I was very disappointed in the script, which mutated the story into a simple good guy/bad guy motif, and I was outraged when a secondary hero was transformed into a serial killer to simplify the plot.

I wasn’t the only one who was upset. So too are the characters. In Narrows, each one of them has to comment on his/her portrayal in that movie.

Gee, Michael, feeling a little bitter?

Or are you hoping to drum up a few more residuals from the lousy film?

Either way, let it go and move on, man. Spite is an ugly thing.

Link of the day: Book-a-minute

An excerpt:

A Christmas Carol
By Charles Dickens
Ultra-Condensed by Samuel Stoddard and David J. Parker

——————————————————————————–

Ebenezer Scrooge
Bah, humbug. You’ll work thirty-eight hours on Christmas Day, keep the heat at five degrees, and like it.
Ghost of Jacob Marley
Ebenezer Scrooge, three ghosts of Christmas will come and tell you you’re mean.
Three Ghosts of Christmas
You’re mean.
Ebenezer Scrooge
At last, I have seen the light. Let’s dance in the streets. Have some money.

THE END

There’s been a lot of yakking lately about Wal-Mart’s attempt to clean up its image with a positive public relations site. I can’t say I blame them. What began as a home-grown discount store has become the modern Monster In The Closet invoked to frighten small town businesses and the at-large liberal citizenry across the country. But in keeping with the I See Invisible People theme, I’m going to tell you the other side of the story.

I grew up in the heartland, in Spencer, Clay County, Iowa, the biggest little burg for 100 miles around. With a population of under 10,000, it was (and still is) a farming support community for the surrounding area. Most of the small towns in the county are lucky if they have one grocery store, let alone a supermarket. “Main Street” probably has 1 or 2 drug stores, a couple of cafés, a bank and maybe a handful of bars on the edge of town. The average resident has been there 50 years and at least 3 generations. It’s the original “where everybody knows your name” location. Mom & Pop shops are the rule, not the exception. We got our first fast food outlet in 1975, a Hardees. There was no chain supermarket in town until 1977, and then it was met with outrage for being open on Sunday. Until K-Mart arrived about 1978, Sernetts was the only department store in the county.

That calls up a warm and fuzzy image, doesn’t it? Unless you live there, and your name isn’t considered “good.” Or if you’re poor, divorced, the wrong religion, handicapped, etc and don’t fit the “upstanding citizen” mold for one reason or another. Then it’s a sucking swamp of closed doors and low expectations. Even a cousin or grandparent in one of the previous categories is enough to get you tagged as “bad business.” Good luck getting Mom or Pop to hire you to work in one of those few establishments then.

Though it’s invisible to the urban centers, rural poverty wears a different face but hurts just as much. Local businesses have little if any competition, which keeps prices high. They also have little competition in hiring, which keeps wages and benefits low. Still, in such a closed system, retail is considered a Good Job. Anything over minimum wage–if you can find it–is something to be grateful for. The result is a lifestyle gap where a whole lot of folks can’t even make ends meet, let alone get ahead.

Now imagine that little town gets a Wal-Mart. The human resources department there doesn’t care if your last name is good or bad in town. They don’t pass judgment on your divorce, your religion or your skin color. All they care about is can you do the job. They pay over minimum wage with chances for advancement, and glory be, they give you health insurance. Is it any wonder that their arrival is met with applicant queues a week long?

That’s on the income side. The outgo side is just as attractive. Suddenly you don’t have to pay $2.30 for a loaf of bread at the one grocery store in town. That store has competition. If they don’t try to compete, you can buy your groceries at Wal-mart and discover your paycheck goes 50% further. You might even get off food stamps. You can buy your kids new shoes for $10 instead of $40 on Main Street. Oh yeah, you can hear the painful squeals from here, can’t you. But for poor folks, Wal-mart can be the difference between breaking even and slipping even farther behind.

Yes, I’m aware that I’m breaking the Liberal Code here, but while Wal-Mart is referred to as the great monopoly, but they upset quite a few unpleasant traditions along the way, too.

My almost-15-year-old son informs he has a new “hook.”

Did you know Tony spelled backwards is Y NOT?

As a web designer, I love to surf and browse the Net like as if it were an art gallery. Every one in awhile I run across something so unusual that I have to tell somebody about it. That happened this morning, while cruising BlogSisters‘ links list.

Check out Annezca. Visually, it’s a treasure. I’m going to sit and just watch if for awhile.

It’s that time of year again. Let’s start with your monitors.
Click here.

With the national debt spiraling out of control, the Bush Administration has finally come up with some fiscal restraint measures. To keep costs down, the Veterans Administration is putting an end to “double dipping” by wounded war vets by charging them for meals while patients at Walter Reed Medical Center. Salon Magazine writer Mark Benjamin quotes:

From the Army’s perspective, the meal charges follow Army rules that are supposed to prohibit soldiers from getting free food as well as a separate food budget. But the only soldiers prohibited from getting both, under the new rules, are the long-term outpatients. “If they get [the cash each month] they would be expected to pay for their meals,” said Vandrey, the Walter Reed spokesman. He said the hospital was “really cracking down on soldiers who are getting both.”

For those unaware of the military pay structure, soldiers receive a minimal paycheck which is supplemented by housing and food allowances if they are living off base, not using the barracks and mess hall. Such is the case with soldiers supporting dependents, like most of our active duty troops. Before being sent to the war zone, they and their families lived in the community renting a house, sending their kids to school, and paying taxes just like everyone else. But if they are foolish enough to get shot or blown up by a roadside bomb while on patrol without protective body armor and sent back stateside to Walter Reed, the gravy train stops.

I’m sure we are all outraged at the idea of amputee vets pocketing an extra $267.18 a month and using it to feed their families while they’re in the holding queue, waiting for artificial limbs and physical therapy. If they’re being fed at tax-payer expense, then their families should give up that meager supplement that they are using to stay afloat with the soldier gone. How greedy of them! If it were not for the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, I’m sure someone would be calling them Welfare Queens.

In my not-so-humble opinion, when freedom cost an “arm and a leg,” the least this country can do is buy a guy’s lunch.