What's an Antonym for Rhetorical?

I just spent too long reading and following up links on Pandagon. I specifically got sucked in to the post on being a feminist boyfriend. I didn't even manage to get through half of the 100 or so comments.

It did start me thinking about my own feminism. Inadvertantly, I swear--I wasn't specifically seeking out feminist topics, I was just bored at work and browsing through Hops' blog roll.

I don't worry about being a feminist boyfriend, because I don't have girlfriends. I do, however, worry about being a feminist person (aka a feminist) and I don't think it's a bad idea to set out what, exactly, that means.

Sexual equality is such an easy assumption for me. The fact that we should expect the same quality of work from men and women. The fact that both sexes should expect the same treatment. In my modern dance class at university (yes, I'm one of those kind of guys--actually, I thought 'modern dance' meant something that would be useful on Friday nights, which gets me laughing at my naivety now) I was in a group with two girls to choreograph a dance. Wiry, tall, weak-as-hell Mike. Short, heavy, religious Zany. Pierced, tattooed, biceped Amber. And Zany thought I would be willing to lift her, despite our class having at no time gone over lifts. Despite Amber being obviously stronger than me. I kind of laughed in her face. I consider it a branch of feminism not to have to participate in such a male gender role. (Not to mention such false heterosexual choreography.)

It's so easy for me to expect the same things from men and women, because most women are both stronger and smarter than I am, that I wonder whether I'm not actually unconsciously perpetuating certain problems...though I don't know what.

Ha--two sexes. Nice binary there. Like I said, I'm not entrenched in the heterosexual world view, and I have trouble thinking of things from a feminist perspective because I have troubles of my own. I'm not overly preoccupied with the general idea of feminism because it sounds like a foregone conclusion in todays' world.

The problem with that belief is when I go back home and hang out with the kids I grew up with, and they make some basic attempts at obvious censorship concerning racist comments, sexist comments, homophobic comments (am I missing out on a better adjective for that last one?), etc.

I support women's suffrage. (No shit.) I do not support the glass ceiling. (I don't think we need to race right out and elect a female president solely based on her sex, just as I don't think we should elect a black president solely based solely on his skin.)

I support capable women and men in the workplace. I support capable men and women in sports. Who am I kidding, I support no one in sports besides Lyndsay Wall, but you get the point.

What else is there?

I don't think people should stop talking about feminism, particularly because I know those kids from home need someone to get through to them.


As I said, I spent a long time tracking down the links on Pandagon, one of which led me to Pam's House Blend on the topic of sexual abuse in public places. The surprising thing, when I was reading the comments, was that they twisted into an argument about transvestites being allowed in women's changing rooms.

That sexual binary, coming back to bite us in the ass. Persephone, the woman arguing to keep "all non-women" out of female locker rooms, etc, really leaves me confused. Is it that she is afraid of being looked at with desire (aka she's never heard of lesbians), or that she's afraid of seeing physical differences (aka she's never seen anyone else's body)?

I'm not really sure I'm equipped to take up this topic. But it does bring to mind a Southpark episode that my brother references often, in which a character had a "species-change operation" and was offended when the football stadium didn't have seating for dolphins. What does Persephone want, a third room in all public areas for Other?

Frankly, I haven't been to a gym or any public changing room in forever, because it makes me feel horribly anxious. It's not that I'm worried that other people will check me out. It's not that I'm worried about being roughed up after checking someone else out. It's that I'm worried about making someone else feel uncomfortable, just knowing I'm there, possibly checking them out.

And that's pretty awful. I like swimming, and I haven't gone to the public pool at the Y across the street because I know there are people out there like Persephone.

I don't consider myself a champion of gay rights. Or a champion of feminism. I consider myself a regular person who tries to slap down prejudice whenever it pops up. Sometimes it's like a Whack-A-Mole, but most of the time it seems like a non-issue.

What else is there?

Gym Class Heroes Really Are My Heroes

Taking the cue from my friend Hops over at Be A Good Human, I present my number one favorite song of 2006.

"There's a lot of you don't realize, there's a whole subculture of boys driving around in vans looking for your daughters and your lottery tickets."

I lost my Gym Class Heroes CD this past summer when I secretly sublet an apartment with some shady peeps. I wouldn't give back the summer in exchange for the CD, but I'd trade July's trip to Disney World for it.

Wishing to be the Friction in your Jeans

It's a new semester. All week it's been, "No running in the halls!"

New books to figure out. New names to learn. One of my classes, there's a girl named Cherry and a girl named Strawberry. Blueberry dropped out. (I'm not even lying.)

That's not to say there haven't been a few good things to read this week as well. The article telling us about how one out of every 100 Americans is behind bars, found through Objectify This. The presidential hopefuls on msnbc.com, of course.

And the Best Buddhist Writing 2007. Two excerpts from the essay entitled There's No "I" in Happy by Matthieu Ricard:

"...A person whom we consider today to be an enemy is most certainly somebody else's object of affection, and we may one day forge bonds of friendship with that selfsame enemy. We react as if characteristics were inseparable from the object we assign them to. Thus we distance ourselves from reality and are dragged into the machinery of attraction and repulsion that is kept relentlessly in motion by our mental projections. Our concepts freeze things into artificial entities and we lose our inner freedom, just as water loses its fluidity when it turns to ice."

...

"You are napping peacefully in a boat in the middle of a lake. Another craft bumps into yours and wakes you with a start. Thinking that a clumsy or prankish boater has crashed into you, you leap up furious, ready to curse him out, only to find that the boad in question is empty. You laugh at your own mistake and return peacefully to your nap. The only difference between the two reactions is that in the first case, you'd thought yourself the target of someone's malice, while in the second you realized that your 'I' was not a target."


Take that, negativity! You're only a mirage created by my mind's egotistical habits.

On Tuesday as I walked to work, I found myself trying to convince myself of the following:

I am everything. I am the world. I am the rocks beneath my feet. I am the sidewalk. I am the snowflake as it tries to follow the car. I am the wind current. I am the air passing through that woman's lungs. I am that woman. I am the force of gravity, I am the electromagnetic force combating gravity. I am not the center of the world...these things are me. I am a small part. I am insignificant--I am everything. I create the world around me. The man walking in front of me creates the world around him. He is me. I am him.


...Actually, at that point it got kind of personal, but it was interesting while it lasted.

No Doz (ing Through College)

I want to go back to school. I'm torn between two different colleges. I've tried listing the pros and cons of each, and there's a clear "obvious" choice, but there are a lot of emotions tied up that don't translate well to a pros/cons list...

[This entire post is basically a response to Liz's College...again post, and her question about what makes college great. One of the things that makes it great is the opportunity to meet people other than those who simply happened to be born in your county. People like Liz. Check out her blog.]

College is pretty great. Not only do you restart your friend base, you restart yourself. Not that it's easy to change from who you were into who you want to be, but here's your first real chance to try (that is, if you never transferred grade schools, which I didn't.)

And it's remarkably social. I'm grateful for the education I received in the classroom, which is one of the main reasons I'm drawn back to Oswego--but I valued even more the education I received at parties, social outings, shared apartments... Growing up never really ends, as far as I can tell (though I'm only 22, so I'm not sure I'm qualified yet to make that decision, but I do know that when I was 12, 22 was adult) but a lot of growing up happened in college. Realizing what matters in your life, sorting out what was important to you in the past only because it was important to your parents, teachers, peer group... A lot of the stupid stuff falls away.

That's not to say that college is a fantasy world. I gritted my teeth and got through high school--which is strange, because for the most part I actively enjoyed high school--with the thought that when I got to college, I would basically be walking on to the set of Friends. I assumed my friends would all read the same books as me and we'd sit around talking about philosophy over steaming cups of organic tea.

Reality was pretty far from my dreams. Oh, don't worry--I found a group of friends who I related to on a very deep level. I just wasn't the person I had always believed. My friends and I took part in such educational activities as hitting the bars every weekend, playing darts and sharing pitcher after pitcher of the cheapest beer in town. We took turns crushing No Doz pills for bumping off of each others' rippling abs, a body image achieved through ritualistic group purging. Kidding! But we did have the occassional crazy party, with the too-occassional alcohol poisoning. I can't say that we really passed around any books. Wait, yes, we passed around the textbook for Kestas' chem class...we shared the textbook for Intro to Astronomy...

And when I eventually realized that we weren't conforming to the image of "literary university students" to which I had jacked off long ago (not literally!), I heaved a sigh of relief. Because we meshed well together the way we were. Because we helped each other get through the issues associated with living on our own for the first time. Because, as crazy as it seems, we didn't need help from a TV show to figure out who we really were.

A lot of my favorite times were at the end of the day when Jenna and I would talk about what all the crazy people said when they spoke up during class. Or at the catering job I had with Jessica and Dana. A few more were when we went to watch Rachel, Catherine, and Mackenzie play hockey. Or our coed hockey team with Kevin. Or getting 3 hour rides home with Ben and making him teach me about chemistry.

Part of what makes me want to go back to Oswego is the thought that if that awesome group came together once, something like it could happen again... Another part tells me not to force the issue, and to look for new friends in a new place. Then again, Jenna's headed to that part of the state. WHAT WILL I DO?

Good thing there're still a few more months to ruminate on this choice. The one thing I do know--this time, I'm looking forward to a bit more scholarly learning, having gotten enough (maybe) out of my first social education. Though, come to think of it, every day is a new lesson in social education. This year, I'm stuck in a class that's bound to help me in my future interaction with kids (hopefully my own, someday) but that isn't really advancing my other goals.

However: here's to being debt-free by the time I start picking up college classes again!

The earth not the Earth. To be not to Be.

I'll find a new topic soon, but just a couple more things about our one and only home, the earth:

1. You don't have to capitalize "earth" if you use "the" before it. Also, you don't generally have to capitalize it unless you also mention another, capitalized, celestial body in the same sentence, such as "Earth and Jupiter." Don't worry about it too much, though--most of us are clueless.

2. Plastic does suck. Recycle. An albatross' stomach was cut open to reveal about a pound of plastic, including a cigarette lighter. Buy refillable ones!

3. You can always find something new to implement in your life, even when you feel like you're just hearing the same thing again and again. I mean, how many times have we all heard that batteries simply aren't landfillable, and how many of us take the trouble to find out how to recycle them? (I've heard Staples will recycle them.)

4. How do you pass the time here on earth? Any ideas that don't include drugs will be welcome--I believe compiling a list of such activities is going to be one of the new big crusades in my life. (I'm not knocking drugs, I just don't require any suggestions in that arena.)

we're all Deer in the Headlights of this one

When I stumbleupon'd the plastic soup twice the size of the continental united states that is afloat in the pacific seas, I was reminded of why we need to chuck our disposable culture.

I've always had the hope that our huge ocean rafts would be more intentionally created. (Reference one of my favorite sci-fi novels, Snow Crash.)

What do we do about this? It's one of those "Oh, man.." kind of problems.

Drowning In Waste

I'm about a third of the way through Rubbish by Richard Girling, and my favorite parts so far have been the tours he's taken me on in management facilities for our three primary wastes: bathroom waste, recycled waste, and unrecycled waste. I was actually most surprised by the recycling section, because I had slightly higher hopes for what's being done in that sector.

Worry number one: Why aren't more things recyclable? This doesn't even come from the book, it just comes from looking around. Can we recycle CD jewel cases? Can we recycle plastic bread bags? Can we recycle the screw-on tops of our water bottles? In most cases, the answers I've found have been NO. WHY?? And why don't we listen to people who tell us not to buy things that aren't recyclable?

Worry number two: Why aren't things recycled more efficiently? If I have a first-edition PET bottle, never before recycled, why does it have to become a gutter in its next life? Why can't it be washed out and reused the way it is? Or at least cleaned, melted, and reused as another PET water bottle? What is the deal with making our recyclables into disposables after only a few cycles?

Worry number three: Why aren't more people worried about this? I mean...how much more room do we really have for landfills? And isn't anyone worried about this modern-day version of 'sweep it under the rug'? I've heard the argument that we can just store our garbage on the moon, or shoot it into the sun, so why get up in arms...but I've also heard the argument that it costs between $5,000-$10,000 per pound just to get something into orbit, so that doesn't really seem all that feasible of a solution. Besides which, siphoning off resources out of our closed planetary system just because we don't want to go without our chuckable water bottles seems like an awfully shortsighted idea.

the king of oration

did you know i love short videos?

i particularly love short videos of martin luther king jr quotes.

(note: i first viewed this video on feministe. i first viewed feministe because of hops.)

in university, i had to write a paper outlining my principles of nonviolence. expect an updated version to be available on here shortly.

Half The Battle

Today, I celebrate a unique milestone: I officially have less than 200 days remaining in South Korea.

It's sad that I'm celebrating the passing of time like this, considering I'm enjoying my time here. I'm getting reaquainted with my brothers, which was one of my major goals in making this trip, and I'm steadily paying off my college debt, which was my other major goal. I sincerely enjoy my job, which is an unexpected bonus, and I'm doing a ton of reading, which is my number one favorite activity.

So why do I have this countdown going in my head?

Because my life is on pause.

While google imaging for a sweet picture of an old-school VHS tape on pause, with those fuzzy lines across a portion of the TV screen, you know what I mean, I came across this comic justifying the consumption of coffee at any time of day. It has nothing to do with life being on pause, but I decided that it was time to move on from that idea anyway.

As I said, I've been reading some really great books. (Some future post will specify which.) There's a pretty good bookstore, Bandi and Luni's, at the Coex Mall. It has a huge English section to browse through, but I'm getting kinda itchy to put in some specific requests, for which Powell's Used Books is going to be seriously helpful. As a sweet enticement, any order of $50 or more has free shipping in the USA. Nice, huh?

Aside: I did, in fact, seek permission to quote my friend, quoted in my previous blog entry concerning men's abortion rights. He gave permission. He didn't even check what quote I used first. I neglected to ask him whether I should quote him by name. I think I'll just leave it anonymous unless our conversation digs up another interesting quotable, in which case perhaps I'll give him a little more space on here.

And, to wrap it up, I'll let you in on a little secret. I started writing this post without really believing there was a milestone to celebrate. I got halfway through my first sentence, which seemed like a good one, so I decided to at least look at my calendar before deleting the sentence and starting over. That's when I saw '199' handwritten in the upper corner of today's square.

Now you know--and knowing is...

Misandristing

Today I came across the word misandrist for the first time. I dictionary.com'd it, of course, as is my wont.

(Actually, I http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/misandrist 'd it, because that's my real wont...I type in the whole web address. I don't know, I think it makes me feel like a hacker or something to go directly to the page I'm looking for.)

I came across the word for a person who hates men in the comments for Glenn Sack's "The Sexist Pencil Sharpener vs. The Sexist Knife Block." I agree with Mr. Sack on this one--both the pencil sharpener and the knife block are in pretty poor taste.

Not so sure I agree that the pencil sharpener is a representation of a consensual sexual act that women enjoy. I mean...splinters, to begin with, right?

I disagree completely with the idea of the female pen holder. Cara is right--it promotes rape, especially with what it's programmed to say when you use it as you're supposed to, by inserting your pen into the vagina.

Disgusting.

It's issues like this that reassure me that I'm a feminist, and apparently I need reassurance because I'm still struggling with the abortion issue. It's not that I want to ban abortion--far from it. From where I am in my life at this moment, I believe that if I were ever faced with having impregnated a woman, I would be strongly against getting an abortion, but that would be my choice. I believe there are many situations (probably a majority of situations, these days) in which abortion is the best option.

One of my friends recently put it to me in a new way, which helped to undermine the beliefs I've been espousing so far on the subject on men's rights in the abortion arena.

I partially quote him here, permission to be sought later:

"[...] Once your child is born, no amount of prenatal posturing absolves a mother or father of their responsibility to the child. [...]"

I guess I agree. (When I say I guess, I don't just mean I'm agreeing reluctantly--I mean I'm agreeing tentatively, because I'm not sure that I do agree.)

So where does that leave the guy, then? Nobody I know is arguing that abstinence is a reasonable demand, and yet when a guy and a gal shack up for the night, use a condom, and it results in a pregnancy anyway, the woman can either say it's too much pressure and go for an abortion, or she can decide to keep and raise the child. In the end, the woman makes the choice, forcing the man to play along.

Makes having sex seem like an extremely weighty decision, doesn't it? I wish I could support the idea that you shouldn't be having sex until you're in a committed relationship and wouldn't be too put out by a pregnancy. I don't support that idea because I try not to forestall the inevitable.

Down The Drain

When I think hard about money (which happens about twice a month, first when I wire money home and then again when I'm dolling that money out to pay my debts), I sometimes wonder how all this work I'm doing is going to look, down the line. Will I be able to buy a house with greater ease, all because I paid off my college debt quickly? Or am I going to be SOL because of that one time I made a late payment on my credit card?

It's times like those that I really appreciate Liz Pulliam Weston, MSN's money blogger.

Actually, I'll be honest--I never think about her at those times. I never think about the future either, unless it's to bask in the idea of being debt-free in a few months. (Only with hopes to go back to school and get that debt right back... I mean, it's been my constant companion for almost five years now, who wouldn't miss it?) When I do think about Liz Pulliam Weston is when I'm considering my credit score, which is usually just after I've logged out of hotmail and one of her articles catches my eye. I keep meaning to check my own credit score for free, because I really would like to know how much that late payment set me back. I've had credit cards for five years, so have I been developing good credit? One of my friends told me that you have to mess up your credit before they start keeping score--sounds stupid, but who am I to say?

The point is, if you've somehow missed out on Liz Pulliam Weston before this, I think she's pretty helpful. Not that I know whether she's full of it or not--she's just a handy resource to do that first bit of learning you need to get you moving.

See...oh, two?

For some reason or another, the planet has always seemed kinda important to me. Maybe it's just the way I was raised, though I like to believe that even if I hadn't had a new-age mother, I would still have arrived at the conclusion that we need to take care of our only home.

Maybe it's the science fiction I read constantly growing up, a consistent reminder that there is a future to look to. Kids who will need a place to grow up. Of course, in those stories, the kids were often growing up on new worlds, but it's become clear to me (and hopefully everyone) that we're not starting off-planet manifest destiny any time soon.

That's why I like people like Leah Ingram and her new Green Boot Camp, giving a new idea every week of ways to improve our treatment of our planet.

I made a New Year's resolution to buy things for friends. Would carbon offset credits be a lame gift? I can't decide. It might be what my brother calls a Homer Simpson Bowling Ball--a gift I buy for someone else so that I can get the benefit.

Then again, we're all on this planet, right? So preserving it ought to benefit all of us.

Hmm..

Boil blog for 20 days in skull of witch (Roald Dahl, anyone?)

Resolution #7: Be less verbose. (Aka post shorter blogs.)

Sorry about this recent trend of mine not to do so..

My last blog entry boils down to thinking men should be able to bow out of a fetus's life, and then not have to pay child support, as long as they make it clear that they would prefer an abortion while there's still time.

The entry before that boils down to Resolution #6: No sex this year.

It turns out, the past few "relationships" (and there I'm being kind to myself) I've been in weren't all that useful. I'm hereby renewing my effort to become friends with a potential sig-o before hooking up with said potential sig-o, because all too often I gradually realize they're actually sickoes. Not all that bad--just not all that good.

Also--here's to making positive decisions while drunk. For example, one such positive decision would be to NOT have another beer.

what the hell...spring for the greater of two evils.

In a sincere effort to be a good human, I've recently realized it'll be necessary to avoid talking to certain people as much as possible. I think there's something to be said for repairing unneccessary heartache, especially if I'm the root cause, and I've made an attempt to do so. Sometimes, though, the best thing I can do is distance myself so as not to do any further damage.

In this spirit of bettering myself, it has suddenly occurred to me that New Year's resolutions might be a good idea. I've never had any serious ones, but I'm going to make around four.

1. Don't be callous.
2. Learn more about power plants, waste disposal, and calculus.
3. Become more outgoing.
4. Get out of debt.

Alright, #4 is kind of lame, since four months ago I already committed a year of my life to paying off my college debt. (I understand that a year sounds like a short time to pay off college debt, but I had to invest a lot into this--reference being on the other side of the world. Interesting fact: the sidewalks are made out of metal and we all have to wear magnetic shoes. When we go indoors, we just do a little flip and the building holds us up. Don't even ask me how they anchor the buildings, because I haven't learned much about their magic yet.)

And #3 is just something I've been meaning to do anyway, especially after my main social connection, my best day-to-day friend, told me I was the biggest mistake of his life. I'm going to work on knowing current events so that they can be conversation topics. I'm going to work on number two so that I can talk about the topics that actually interest me.

#2 mainly stems from my desire to quit fucking up our planet, because among the buffet of pick-and-choose bible quotes that I was raised on, one of my favorites has always been "First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck of chaff that is in your brother's eye." I want to learn to be perfect in my own habits so that I can start proselytizing. And of course, by that I mean converting people to my faith. My faith being in the fact that the earth is important.

And #1...how am I going to manage that one? Sounds hard. I'll try to be more emotional, though. Big reaction when actually I think it's no big deal. I'm going to test-drive the belief that being fake is better than being dull!

That exclamation point shows how exciting the new me is.

Blazing a Trail (where Many have Gone Before)

Don't be mad...I've been blogging on myspace. We'll call it practice.

Here I go. My official blog. Home of my thoughts on the net. Aka, Michael T thinks.

That link was the second result in a google image search of "michael t thinks." Obviously, I think I'm going to convince people to vote for Mitt Romney by pretending to blog as a A Common Gal in Little 'Ole Idaho, Rooting for Romney. In fact, I don't think anything of the kind, because I've only been really non-committally following the presidential business, rather than blog-committally following it.

It's not that I don't want to be one of those people who blogs about a specific subject. I even tried to determine something about which I feel extremely passionate, in order to narrow down what I could blog about (among other motivations). Didn't work out that way.

Instead, I realized that I liked that introspective feeling a lot. Too much, maybe, but I'm going to get away with it, because this is my blog, and that's how I do. So I'm taking the larger blog, rather than just a single entry, and trying to determine what it is I think about.

These days, it's often about commas. --Actually, I started this post with the express purpose of linking to The Laughorist, so don't be surprised if I wrap it up kinda quickly after this. I knew I couldn't link to it on myspace. Not upscale enough.

I'm not going to take a lot of time getting down to my deepest thoughts today. First of all, I never do that, and second, it's 10:41. That means that I'll be locking up the office in about 15 minutes and heading home with my brothers. I've got to have more protein in my life, so I'm going to hit up the grocery store for some tofu. (I was actually reduced to buying my dinner at OK Mart last night--for those of you who don't live in South Korea, OK Mart's a gas station. Alright, so I bought some delicious frozen dumplings and a bag of roasted almonds...doesn't mean I don't need tofu back in my life.) Turns out, peanut butter and jelly isn't good enough to be a staple in your diet, nor are eggs. Good--but not good enough.

Besides, I'm out of butter.