Category Archives: NYC

A New York story.

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I get a text from My Amazing Lover™ yesterday afternoon:

OK with you if I meet Luke* for a beer at 5?

Of course it’s okay.  It’s always okay.  One reason among many that our relationship works well is that we ask each other such things even though we don’t have to.

I carry on with the Palace business.

Around 8pm I get another text:

May I take you to dinner?

Of course it’s okay.  It’s always okay.  One reason among many that our relationship works well is that we ask each other such things even though we don’t have to.

Soon I heard the key in the lock, and in he walked.  “Hi, handsome.  How was your evening with Luke?*”

“Well…”

And My Amazing Lover™ proceeds to tell me.

They were going to meet in midtown somewhere for a beer.  They’ve done so before.  They share a hobby, an interesting and adventurous one, and they like to talk, online and off, about things going on in the field.

My Amazing Lover™ cuts out of work a little early to meet up with Luke, who informs him that another hobbyist, heretofore unheard of — let’s call him Jim* — will be joining them.  Jim has decided that they should meet at a “spa.”

Oh, cool, My Amazing Lover™ thinks.  I can really use a massage.  My lower back has been killing me.

He is picturing a spa-slash-bar, maybe in a swanky tower somewhere, all glass-walled with views of the river, an extensive selection of exotic beers on tap, and a world-class, old-school bartender from Queens in a white jacket.

Instead, the three meet up at a storefront operation in Koreatown.  The place is clean and bright, and before he can really take in his surroundings he is promptly escorted to the locker room to change.  It strikes him as odd that (a) there is only one locker room and it’s strictly for men, (b) the staff are all women, and (c) the women are freely walking in, out and around the locker room.

He showers and changes into the robe and shorts provided.  There are no spa shoes.  He is escorted barefoot into a private room by a lovely young Asian woman.  “I’ll take your robe,” she says.  He disrobes.  “And you can take those off too,” she says, pointing at the shorts.

“I’d rather not.”

He climbs onto the table, face-down.  “My back hurts here,” he tells her.  “My neck and shoulders are really tight, too.”

She sets to work on him, and he starts taking in the events of the past fifteen minutes.  Is this… what I think it is?  He begins to relax under the ministrations of his enthusiastic masseuse.  His back feels better.

“Okay,” she says, “You wanna turn over now?”

“No,” he says.  “Just my back.”

She continues.  He wonders where this is heading.

“Okay,” she says, “Your friends are done and waiting for you.”  How does she know this?  “You only have five minutes left now.  You’re the boss…” she says coyly.  “You tell me what to do…”

He points at his back and tells her, “Keep rubbing there — you’re doing a good job.”

She does exactly as he asks.

Moments later he is back in the locker room, where Luke and Jim are indeed dressed and waiting, among the many women walking in and out.  He dresses.  His masseuse comes by, pats him on the belly, and gives him a wink and a smile.  Jim has already paid for their sessions, including tips.  They head to a nearby pub, order drinks and appetizers.  They shoot the breeze until 7:30, and no one ever says a single word about the preceding hour.

__________

My Amazing Lover™ is unsettled by these events.  I assure him that yes, the place is exactly what he suspects it is:  a “rub & tug,” in the local vernacular.  They are ubiquitous in this city.  Frequently posing as spas and nail salons, very often they do provide legitimate spa and salon services.  In gay neighborhoods, they are staffed with young Asian men; a few cater to women as well.  My (former) nail salon on Hudson Street turns out to be a rub & tug.  I found this out from my colorist, Vance, who went in for a back massage one day and the woman who did my manicures grabbed his hand and put it between her legs, then on her breast.  And Vance describes himself as a “five blocker” — that is, one can tell he’s gay from five blocks away.  He frequents the rub & tugs in Chelsea.

Over dinner and drinks, we look up the place on his iPhone.  A one-star review at Yelp.com reads as follows:

Unlicensed.  Make sure you go in wanting a “massage” and not a real massage.  This place is not legit, and I’m amazed that it can operate right next to the Empire State Building. Do not go here unless you’re a guy, you know what you’re getting into, and you realize that the “tip” will vastly exceed $40.

We discuss human trafficking.  Now he desperately wants to shower with antibacterial soap from head-to-toe before going to bed.  “Don’t forget to scrub your feet,” I helpfully remind him.

My Amazing Lover™ genuinely cannot comprehend why anyone would seek out such a thing.  I bet him the Palace treasury that Jim is a married Republican.

__________
*Names are changed.

A Vagina Monologue.

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As a notorious Vagina-American On The Internet™, I have solemnly undertaken the duty to report on vagina-related news, if and when I feel like it.  Like today, for instance.

The impetus for this post started about two weeks ago, when the Palace received an alarming missive from the New York Civil Liberties Union:

Dear Friend,

You won’t believe what passes for sex ed in classrooms across New York:

  • A school district in the North Country defined the vagina as a “sperm deposit.”
  • A district in western New York used a handout portraying women as “hazardous material.”
  • A district in the Capital Region mentioned same-sex attraction as a cause to seek “counseling.”

These are just a few of many startling findings in Birds, Bees and Bias: How Absent Sex Ed Standards Fail New York’s Students — a report the NYCLU released yesterday that examines sex-ed instruction in 82 New York public school districts. We found that school districts statewide have used sex-ed materials that are inaccurate, incomplete or biased.

…

The report makes clear how the lack of binding statewide sex-ed standards is jeopardizing the health and well being of New York’s youth.

Nearly 45 percent of New York’s male high school students and about 40 percent of female students are sexually active — but 1-in-3 boys reported that they don’t use condoms and 4-in-5 girls say they don’t take birth control pills. New York’s teen pregnancy rate is the 11th highest amongst the 50 states. And about 1-in-3 of new sexually transmitted infections diagnosed in New York each year occur among residents 19 and younger.

Understandably, the information contained in this important missive seriously pissed me off.  I downloaded the NYCLU’s report.  As I began slogging through it, I found my jaw perpetually agape: those bullet points in the email?  They weren’t the half of it.  (You can download a pdf of the report here; a longer summary and press release on NYCLU’s site is here.)  And in the interim, Martha Kempner at RH Reality Check did a bang up job of evaluating the NYCLU report, employing generous proportions of mockery to season the “highlights.”

I could have just linked to that piece and left it at that, but I’m not.  And that is because neither the report nor Ms. Kempner’s piece point the proverbial finger at the culprits responsible for this sorry stats of affairs.  As I see it, the major roots of the problem are two.  First, with the exception of the five boroughs of New York City (yay NYC!), general sex education is not required in New York State public schools.  In 2005, the State published sexuality and sexual health instruction guidelines, but they are not binding on school districts.  The 2012 national sex education standards are non-binding as well.  As a result, educators are supplementing or supplanting inaccurate or outdated information in abstinence-only textbooks with their own materials, many of which also contain inaccurate and outdated information, as well as sexist, shame-based, intolerant, heterosexist messaging likely to exacerbate the very problems sex education purports to address.  The practical effect of all of this is entirely predictable:  “vast gaps in skills, awareness and knowledge that risk great potential harm.”  Fortunately, the solution is as straightforward and simple as it is obvious: make  sex education instructions standard, comprehensive, value-neutral and binding.  Unfortunately, the political will to do so appears shaky at best — and that is because of the intractability of the second major root of the problem: Conservative Personality Disorder.

Let me state at the outset what should be obvious, but just in case:  the health and wellbeing of the nation’s vaginas directly and significantly impacts the entirely of our society, including men (straight or gay or otherwise).  For example, teen pregnancy is correlated with profound and long-term effects on poverty, education, health care, and the cost and scale of social programs — to say nothing of the direct effects of unwanted pregnancies on teens themselves, male and female.  Sexually Transmitted Infection (“STI”) rates, particularly for asymptomatic diseases such as early HIV infections, are an entirely preventable problem that, due to the nature of human sexuality and our culture’s problematic views about it, flow back and forth between sexes and sexual orientations.  Further, misinformation (or a lack of any information whatsoever) about female sexuality appears to track closely with misinformation (or non-information) about male sexuality and LGBTQi sexuality as well.  And of course no matter who you are, you can still have a mother, daughter, sister, niece, wife or female friend whom you love and whose health and wellbeing you value tremendously: provided you’re not an @$$hole and/or a conservative, you would insist that the women and girls in your life have access to all of the information and resources they need to make informed decisions about their sexual relationships and reproductive health throughout their lives.  (Just as I want men and boys to be so empowered.)

When I recently wrote about the evil FAIL that is gender essentialism in public schools, I described it this way:

in the essentialist view, a person’s gender can fall only into one of two separate and distinct categories—”male” and “female”—and any variation within each gender is only a secondary consideration—at best incidental, at worst a “problem” requiring a “solution.”

Ironically, for all their focus on math abilities gender essentialists only appear to be able to count to two.  Rather than acknowledging that any real sex-specific cognitive abilities fall on overlapping bell curves … the essentialists insist that their silly male/female binary is, or more accurately should be, representative of reality.  Incidentally, those (such as yours truly) who take issue with the gender essentialists do not posit that there are no innate biological differences between male and female brains.  My own view is that to the extent any such differences actually exist, (a) they fall on those aforementioned widely overlapping bell curves … and (b) the differences are largely if not entirely inconsequential with respect to nearly any endeavor in the real world.

I also noted:

I am hardly the first to recognize that political conservatism correlates with gender essentialist thinking: it goes a long way toward explaining the right’s misogyny and anti-feminism, homophobia and anti-gay bullying, hostility to women’s reproductive rights, militarism, and a whole host of conservative attitudes.

As it turns out, when I wrote that I was woefully uninformed.  The problem is not just sex-segregated classrooms and the harm to girls (and boys) caused by basing their education on scientifically disproven stereotypes, although that is certainly blogworthy bad enough.  But in the Year of Our Lard 2012, New York State public schools are actively teaching kids harmful and disproven stereotypes.  As much as conservatives love to screech about the “indoctrination” of our nation’s schoolchildren with the dreaded Godless Liberal Values and that infernal Gay Agenda, take a look at these illustrations from a classroom worksheet, and consider just who is doing the indoctrinating:

From this helpful exhibit, we learn the critically important information that males have not one but two ginourmous areas of their brains devoted strictly to “SEX,” each of which overwhelms every other mental function.  In descending order of gray matter magnitude — after “SEX” and “SEX” of course — the male brain is devoted to: “ability to drive manual transmissions,” “dangerous pursuits,” “T.V. and remote control addiction centre,” the “lame excuses gland,” the “crotch-scanning area,” “ball sports,” the “avoid personal questions at all costs” area, and the tiny (but non-negligible!) “attention span.”  Brain areas too small for the scale and resolution of this useful graphic are “domestic skills,”"toilet aiming area” and “ironing.”  In case you missed the meta-message here, the graphic also points out that the “Listening to children cry in the middle of the night” gland is not shown due to its small size and “underdeveloped nature.”  Hahaha… hilarious!

*cough*…ahem.

Meanwhile, behold the “female brain”:

You see, in the female brain the largest lobe (followed closely by the “chocolate centre”) is the “need for commitment hemisphere.”  Then comes “telephone skills,” the “indecision nucleus,” the” jealously” area, “listening,” and “shopping” — followed by the related and all-important “shoe/handbag coordination” lobe.  The smallest portion of note is the tiny “SEX” cell, accompanied by this footnote: “Note how closely the small sex cell is the the listening gland.”

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me.

Or how about this helpful handout about women, cleverly titled Hazardous Materials Data Sheet?

From this informative graphic, girls (and boys!) can learn a lot of important “facts” about women:

  • women are a “hazardous material,” discovered by “Adam.” Very, very interesting.  (I know an excellent bartender named Adam.  I will totally have to ask him what he knows about this. )
  • women are “accepted” at 55kg (121 lbs).  BUT!  Abnormal specimens unfortunately abound, varying from 45kg (100lbs) to 225kg (500 lbs).  Good to know. 
  • women are “specimens” to be “possessed.”  I feel so much more empowerfulled already.
  • MY PHYSICAL PROPERTIES:
  1. My body surface is “normally” covered with a “film of powder or paint.”
  2. “Boils at absolutely nothing—freezes for no apparent reason.”  Right.  Because men who think of women in these terms are never, EVER huge @$$holes.
  3. I can be “found in various grades ranging from virgin material to common ore.” [Get it? "Common ore."  Hahaha.]
  • MY MENTAL PROPERTIES:
  1. I react well to “gold, platinum and all precious stones.”  (You should really ask My Amazing Lover™ about that.)
  2. I explode spontaneously without reason or warning.  (Just wondering: does exploding at sexist or conservative stupidity technically count as “without reason or warning?”)
  3. I am the “most powerful money-reducing agent known to man.”  OMFG I AM FREAKING AWESOME.  Also:  I have never earned any money myself!  Ever!  I only have the power to reduce the (rightfully) earned money of “man.”  (I am going to have to learn to develop this money-sucking ray gun ability so I can aim it at the Koch Brothers, Wall Street executives and conservative PACs.)
  • MY COMMON USE.  (Wait – I am to be used?  By whom?  Gee, I wonder…I had better read on!)
  1. I am “highly ornamental, especially in sports cars.”
  2. I am also a great aid in “relaxation.”  I’m not 100% sure, but presumably I am an aid in the relaxation of those all-important default humans, a.k.a. Penis-Americans.
  3. And — this is such an exciting fact, about which I had no idea! — I can be a very effective cleaning agent!  Trust me:  I am beaming with pride!  (Again, you should probably ask My Amazing Lover™ about this…)
  • MY HAZARDS:
  1. I turn green when placed alongside a “superior specimen.”  I’m not exactly sure how “superior” is defined here, but from what I can discern from the ubiquitous messages I get from the culture in which I dwell, I would hazard a guess that the definition of “superior” encompasses “younger,” “thinner,” “more feminine” and/or “more compliant and submissive.”  Not relative to me in particular, mind you, but in relation to the current “specimen” one is “using.”
  2. I can be one among multiple possessions— so long as I never look upon the other specimens.  Otherwise, we might unionize.  And then where would America be, people?

There are other explicit messages in sex education materials meant to enforce retrograde views of women (and men).  Some that overtly perpetuate gender stereotypes include:

  • Handouts explaining that men “want to conquer & dominate” whereas women try “to manipulate and control;” men see “women as a trophy” whereas women see men as “security and protector[s]”
  • A textbook lesson on unhealthy relationships, where boys are cast as the “Controller” and the “Distancer,” and girls are cast as the “Enabler” and the “Clinger.”
  • A “gender roles” activity that divides a class by sex and tasks each group to describe the “ideal male/female,” including “how they should carry themselves, act, talk, walk, sit, etc.
  • In a small number of districts, entire lessons about boy-girl differences are based entirely on unfounded stereotypes. For example, one district’s materials included: A “math” problem in which the ”solution” is “Woman=problem;” a “men are from mars, women are from Venus” exercise that exploits gender stereotypes; and a visual portrayal of “romance mathematics” that states what happens when different types of men and women, smart and dumb, get together. For example, dumb man + smart woman = marriage.

Some messages are much more subtle and insidious.  For example, in the context of basic reproductive anatomy lessons, crude drawings depict the internal and external genitals of men, but only the internal genitals of women.  I will spare you the illustration from page 23 of the report.  Titled “after birth,” it depicts a baby still attached to the umbilical cord lying next a woman, shown from the waist down, with a giant gaping uterus — and no external genitals.  As the report describes it:

This image of a woman who has given birth indicates only her abdomen, vaginal canal and one leg, reducing the woman’s identity to that of a vessel for gestation and de-emphasizing her active role in giving birth. These values were common to many curricula.

In a conservative coup de grace, a large number of the school districts surveyed use medically inaccurate terms to describe pregnancy and fetal development, for example referring to pregnant women as “mothers,” and a fetus as a “baby.”

Sexual arousal, sexual pleasure and orgasm are rarely if ever discussed (and when they are a disproportionate emphasis is placed on — surprise! — males).  A vagina is “the organ that receives sperm during reproduction.”  Alternatively, a vagina is where the “penis fits” and “the organ into which the penis is inserted,” a “sperm deposit” and “where the male’s penis is inserted during intercourse.”  When they are not birthin’ baybeez, vaginas exist only as repositories of penises and sperm.  Please make a note of it:  you want to be as up to date on the cutting edge of human sexuality as New York school kids, don’t you?

A third of school districts surveyed taught students that “not practicing abstinence was an immoral choice” or one “that would cause students to become social outcasts, suffer emotional or psychological harm, or fail in other aspects of their lives.”

For example, one instructor-created presentation stated: “compared to teens who are not sexually active, teenage boys and girls who are sexually active are significantly less likely to be happy and more likely to feel depressed.” One textbook (a version of which was in use in 10 districts) counsels students that:

  • “Waiting until marriage to have sex preserves traditional marriage … Actions that preserve traditional marriage preserve the family. Actions that weaken traditional marriage lead to the breakdown of family life and much unhappiness.”
  • “being sexually active interferes with your values and family guidelines.”
  • “Having sex outside of a loving, committed marriage increases your risk of feeling rejected, being compared to someone else, and feeling used by a partner.”
  • “When you practice abstinence, you will not be guilty of having sex with an unwilling partner. You will not be accused of date rape.”
  • “Character is a person’s use of self-control to act on responsible values. When you have good character, you uphold family values and practice abstinence from sex.”

Considering that 95% of Americans have had premarital sex, that sure is an awful lot of unhappy, rejected, citizens with bad character who feel used.

By this point, it should surprise no one that the critical topics of rape, sexual assault and sexual violence are not exactly well-handled:

many districts teach students about sexual violence in a gender-bound context, insinuating [incorrectly -Ed.] that only girls can be victimized and that only boys are perpetrators or abusers, or that dating abuse affects only opposite-sex couples. For example:

  • Sexual-assault lessons taught only to girl students.
  • rape and sexual assault defined as coerced “vaginal penetration,” excluding boys as potential victims. [This definition also excludes from "rape" and "sexual assault" other nonconsensual criminal acts which do not involve a penis and/or a vagina, many of which can be perpetrated upon persons of any gender. -Ed.]
  • materials used in many districts that always use female gender pronouns when referencing victims and male gender pronouns when referencing aggressors.
  • materials that reinforce the idea that boys often can’t control themselves and that girls who wear skimpy clothes are sending a “message.”
  • materials that explain only to girls how to avoid rape and explain only to boys how to prevent their behavior from becoming rape.
  • An overwhelming majority of districts (61, or 75 percent) did not provide information about local resources to help students deal with rape, sexual assault and dating/intimate partner violence.

Much like the clitoris and the female orgasm, LGBTQi individuals are virtually nonexistent in sex education curricula in New York State—except when they are portrayed negatively in connection with (outdated and inaccurate) HIV information.  Given how women are routinely treated in New York State sex-ed curricula, perhaps our young LGBTQi friends should count their blessings?

__________
A NOTE ABOUT PRIVILEGE:  None of the foregoing should be construed as My Opinion Of The Most Important Vagina-Related Issues In The World Ever.  In no particular order, female circumcision and clitoridectomy, sex trafficking, denial of education, domestic violence and workplace discrimination are all exponentially more serious vagina-related issues than, say, drawings that depict women with no external genitalia in high school health classes.  It may occur to the astute reader, however, that all of these vagina-related phenomena fall on a continuum:  the inherent view of women underlying all of them is identical.  Eliminating a woman’s genitals with a blade, or by deliberate omission in sketches that are ostensibly intended to educate students about human anatomy and sexuality, is a difference of degree, not of kind.

A NOTE ABOUT THE TITLE:  The title of this post is a play on a play, The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler.  If you haven’t seen it, it is well worth checking out.  There are often free productions (or low-cost benefit performances) on college campuses, particularly around V-Day.

2008 Vagina Monologues Poster by Nicky Fernandes, Hiroshima (JAPAN)

Central Park.

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Yesterday in New York was another perfect weather stunner: low 70s (F), low humidity, with fluffy white clouds drifting in deep blue skies.  My Amazing Lover™ suggested we give the new boots a try, and go for a hike in Central Park.  After a breakfast of Greenmarket eggs and bread, we headed uptown.

When I lived in Hell’s Kitchen the park was an essential part of my life.  All year round, in every season, a visit would bring me peace and joy.  As you walk in from of Columbus Circle the city noise slowly fades, soon to be replaced with the clip-clop of horse carriages and the sounds of young children at the playground.  In the snow, the instant hush that envelops you is breathtaking.  The park is enormous —over 800 acres — and its a mix of rough rocks and wild woods, beautifully manicured lawns, lakes and ponds, sports and recreation areas, tree-lined plazas, rolling hills and sprawling meadows.  One of its most extraordinary features is the brilliant incorporation of sculpture and architecture throughout the park, breaking up the naturalistic landscape here and there to create spectacular spaces where people are drawn together.   As I told Loyal Subject™ SJ, in my view Central Park is perhaps the second-greatest testament to the beauty and power of socialism in the world (the first being single-payer healthcare, of course).

Eventually we exited the park on the West side, right at the Museum of Natural History.  Because of the recent arachnid ninja assassin incident, I was a bit wary of the giant spider over the doors. But I had wanted to see the bioluminescence exhibit—which was terrible, by the way—so we went inside for a bit and enjoyed a few exhibits before heading back downtown for brunch.

Here are some pictures I took.  I hope you enjoy them.

This d00d makes serious bubbles.

The Lake and San Remo apartments in the background.

I love the fountain at Bethesda Terrace, by Emma Stebbins, the first woman to receive a public commission for a major work of art in New York City (1868).

Ooh, look!  A babbling brook!  Better than a babbling blogger, amirite?

I did not climb these rocks—but the important thing is that I could have in my new boots.

Remnants of late summer.  The leaves have barely begun to turn here.

The infamous boots:  hours of hiking—and no blisters.

Oh, I am onto you, giant arachnid ninja assassins!  Perhaps this is their lair—hiding in plain sight at the Museum of Natural History!—where they scheme and plot their Palace invasions.

EXACTLY as I suspected:  evil wingnut billionaire David Koch was clearly behind the arachnid ninja assassin plot!

Apparently, we can now expect the Koch brothers’ Tea Party army to disguise themselves as… birds.  Just a word of warning: If one of these duck-looking thingies attempts to storm the Palace gates,
I WILL KILL IT WITH FIRE.

Some old friends I haven’t run into in a while: African rhinos.  Badasses.

Cheetahs: cousins of the Fierce Palace Guard™.

Fierce Palace Guard™.  On duty.  *sigh*
I must train her at once to spot the Common Loons.

14th Street.

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It is one of those perfect days in the city:  mid-70s (F) and sunny, with a light breeze.  A lot like September 11, 2001, actually.  Over the years I’ve learned that many New Yorkers have come to find their own 9/11 rituals, such as making contact with the people who experienced that day with them, or paying tribute in person at their neighborhood firehouse.  A friend I met for dinner last night said she goes out to the Hudson River Park piers.  She likes to be near the water, and to look at the downtown skyline and the Statue of Liberty in the harbor.  Me, I’m not big on ritual or tradition (shocking, I know), but if I had to come up with something for 9/11, I guess I would say that I try to write a blog post or two, and find some joy in my day.  You know:  just like I do every other day of the year.

In light of the spectacular weather, today’s pursuit of joy involved a pleasant afternoon hike to Union Square and back, for no particular purpose.  I zigged and zagged along the way, avoiding the busiest thoroughfares in favor of quiet, tree-lined streets.  On the way back, my meandering led me unintentionally to a bustling stretch of 14th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues.  Rather than wait for the light, I braced myself, took a deep breath, cranked up my headphones and bounded into the foot traffic.  I wasn’t expecting it, but the brief walk along this single block painted for me a vivid picture of exactly how amazing New York City is — or can be.  How incredible the United States is — or can be.  How astonishing our species is — or can be.

First, there are the buildings.  Structures high and low.  Architecture old and new.  A high-end spa and a low-end nail salon.  A dollar store and a union headquarters.  A shop that sells cheap wigs and cosmetics, and a store that, after glancing at the window display, I could not tell you what is sold there if my life depended on it.  A deli, a pub, and a coffee shop.  “Fabco Shoes.”  A subway entrance.

But the real treat was the people.  An impossibly glamorous couple dressed head to toe in flowing bright whites, waiting for the light.  People with canes, walkers and wheelchairs.  School kids in uniforms.  Babies in strollers.  Women in ornate saris.  Joggers.  A gay couple (actually I should just say “two men walking hand in hand,” and leave it at that).  Teenage girls laughing.  A man sitting on the sidewalk holding a paper cup and a sign that said “HIV & homeless.  Please help.”  Businessmen in sharp suits and expensive sunglasses.  Street vendors.  Men and women and none-of-the-above.  Blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, and every conceivable mixture thereof.  Young families, and the elderly.  A policewoman.  The shockingly obese and the scarily skinny and the utterly, unfathomably unremarkable.

I live here.  But in a very real sense, we all live here.  That stretch of 14th Street is not just a snapshot of New York City, although it is certainly that.  It’s a slice of the people who make up this country.  And beyond that, it’s a sample of the humanity that stretches around the globe.  This is why it irritates me to no end whenever I hear conservatives refer to “American culture.”  They have something entirely different in mind than I do—or, I would venture, than the majority of people on 14th Street today do.  Theirs involves wearing flag pins and being seen in church on Sunday.  Mine involves people of diverse backgrounds and unique life histories making their way in the world, all of them happy to step aside for someone else passing by on a crowded sidewalk.  Well, most of them are anyway.  This is New York.

Palace breaks shoe rule.

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The Palace has an official position on just about everything, including, of course, shoes.  New York City is notoriously tough on shoes, especially when urban hiking is a much loved pastime.  I have a shoe guy on Hudson Street who makes a pretty good living year-round strapping Mars rover-grade tire treads to the soles of my perpetually worn out footwear.  Given this ongoing state of affairs, you might think that a sensible Vagina-American such as myself would place the utmost value on comfort and durability when purchasing shoes, sandals or boots.  You would be wrong.  For in the environs of the West Village, one simply does not venture forth from one’s Palace without wearing fashionable shoes.

Now before you judge me a shallow and vacuous snob, allow me point out in my defense that it is nearly impossible to find shoes here that are not fashionable, even at secondhand shops (where I do not buy shoes anyway because eew).  The nearest shoe stores to where I presently sit are Steve Madden, Jimmy Choo, Chrisitan Louboutin and an absurdly trendy boutique on Bleecker Street called Verve.  I do not shop at any of these places, unless by “shop” we mean “stare in the windows and mouth WTF.”  (Madden and Verve are expensive enough, but Choo and Louboutin are in the stratosphere—as in a thousand or three.  For one pair.  Of shoes.)  As savvy New York women know, if you want a great deal and a vast selection, you wait patiently for a shoe sale at Macy’s on 34th Street, proceed to the fifth floor, and survey the vast sea of (fashionable!) footwear that spans the entire length and breadth of the iconic building.  This ain’t your local Macy’s.  I mention my neighborhood shoe shops merely to set the backdrop against which one’s footwear is displayed.

It’s been a long time since I clattered to and from a midtown office gig in patent leather pumps, sneering dismissively at all those women who had the good sense to commute from the ‘burbs in hideous sneakers and keep nice shoes under their desks.  In fact, I hardly ever wear heels at all anymore, except for the occasional date night.  Which brings me to My Amazing Lover™’s recent proposal to take me hiking.  Not in Central Park, not even in Manhattan, but in the actual woods.  In…New Jersey.

Believe it or not, I actually like this idea.  When I was a teenager, my family lived in a house that backed up to a deep woods.  Every spring my sister and I would clear a path with a sickle, which would remain well worn until the winter weather became unbearably cold.  A stream ran through it, narrow enough to jump the rocks across in some places.  Upstream a ways, the water made a 90 degree turn and formed a wide arc, flanked by a rocky beach on one side and a tall bank on the other.  It was magical.  In the heat of the summer we swam there, enjoying the cool water and the company of fish and frogs and birds.

My Amazing Lover™ tells me there are spectacular parks with trails in New Jersey, and I have no reason to disbelieve it.  So, you know, I’m game.  One look at my (fashionable!) footwear collection, however, would quickly disabuse anyone of the notion that I possess anything even remotely appropriate for trudging around in dirt somewhere in the wilds of New Jersey.  “Come on,” My Amazing Lover™ said to me. “Let’s get you some hiking boots.”

Off we hiked (hahaha) to Union Square, where there is a sporting goods store called Paragon.  I’d been there once or twice.  It was Labor Day and the place was bustling.  We made our way to the second floor and into a room wrapped on three sides with displays of hiking boots.  I had no idea there were so many types, styles and brands.  I don’t know what I was picturing—maybe a couple of waterproof Timberlands or something—but this definitely wasn’t it.

As I scanned the ladies’ and then the mens’ section, I became more horrified by the minute.  There was not one hiking boot in the entire store that I would be caught dead in.  Ever.  Anywhere.  Not even in New Jersey.

Olive green with red trim and shiny black and white zig-zags?  Tan with orange patches and black laces?  Navy blue with dark green leather strips and thick black soles?   Who does that?  In what world is that okay?  Is there some charitable initiative I’m not aware of wherein the entire hiking boot industry now hires only blind designers?  Because damn.

My new BFF Isaac.

But this was it.  If I wanted to go hiking, I needed to find something here.  Where else was I going to go?  (Jimmy Choo?  I think not.)  I had a brief flashback to those women commuting from the ‘burbs in their hideous sneakers:  I envisioned making my way to a remote park in New Jersey in my sparkly flats—or maybe my chocolate boots—then surreptitiously slipping on these ghastly things in the car upon arrival and making a mad dash into the woods before anyone could see me.  Fortunately, there was an adorable young salesman named Isaac who spent the better part of an hour patiently bringing me one box of boots after another.  Once I had surrendered my sense of color (and dignity), the process of shopping for hiking boots became more and more bearable until the pout nearly disappeared from my face.  Isaac knew the merchandise, and had me walk up and down a ramp with a rocky surface in each pair I tried on, making a series of adjustments and recommendations based on the precise fit.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the Palace’s first acquisition of its kind: hideous hiking boots.  Behold:

OMFG.

Things I care about today.

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THINGS I CARE ABOUT TODAY:

Public parks, like the Hudson River Park.  I love that on a gorgeous day like today, my neighbors and I can step away from the chaos of the city, listen to the water lap at the piers, and watch boats go by.

Public art, like whatever the hell this thing is in the meatpacking district across from the Apple store.

Oh.  Well I guess that explains it then.

Hilarious signs in the windows of gay and drag bars on Christopher Street.

No shirt, no pants, better service.

Good wine.  This is a sign outside of a new wine shop in my neighborhood.  It might as well be the Palace motto.

Secular thrift stores, like Housing Works.  Its mission is to “end the dual crises of homelessness and AIDS.”  Unfortunately these efforts are vitally necessary, because my city, state and federal governments have shown themselves to be indifferent at best, and contemptuous at worst, about seriously addressing these epic human tragedies.  (Unlike religiously affiliated organizations like The Salvation Army, the finances of Housing Works are transparent: you can see their financial disclosures here.)

If I need something, I go there.  A flower vase ($2).  A summer skirt ($12).  A picture frame ($6).  A wine rack ($20).  If I have something in my closet I haven’t worn in over a year, I donate it there.  Win-win-win.

My awesome coffee mug collection, (mostly) courtesy of Housing Works.

Happy kittehs in store windows.

THINGS I DO NOT CARE ABOUT TODAY:

I do not give a rat’s ass about the orgy of greed, racism, more racism and misogyny that is the Republican National Convention.

Have a lovely evening.

Mystery Series Part 2: Strategic Voting, Softball Edition.

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As I mentioned yesterday, I’ll let loyal readers guess my proposed title for this series after I’ve posted all (or most) of it.  The “Mystery Series” is in response to Palace blogger and (self-proclaimed) Loyal Subject™ SJ’s questions, posed in a comment on my post from the other day.

As a refresher, here is a re-post of SJ’s comment:

Rhetorical question for Iris: Does it make sense to try to buy some time by voting for the LOSE Party (Lesser Of Shitty Evils), based on the unlikely and shrinking possibility that we may still have a fighting chance if Democrats win? Whereas if Republigoons gain control, we are not only fucked but doomed to live in a theocratic, fascist state for the foreseeable future (which, owing to my age, is probably the rest of my life)?

For sure the choice sucks, and that raises the following question: How did those CHUDs acquire such ominous power in a supposedly educated country? It seems like yesterday – I’m thinking of the Clinton years – that life here was at least somewhat decent, that there was actually hope that we were on track to a more rational, compassionate future. (Note: I’m not crediting Clinton, just making reference to a time when vile Repugs did not rule.) So I guess I’m going to do everything I can – which isn’t much – to try to ensure that the avowed Enemies of Humanity ([of] women in particular) don’t gain total and lasting control of the most dangerous country on earth. I say total and lasting because you would have to be extremely naive to think they will relinquish control once they attain it, demographic trends notwithstanding. Fascists don’t get voted out of power – it takes guns, and guess who has the guns.

Here’s my interpretation of the phrase, “totally fucked”: This country experienced a horrendous Civil War; now I have the uneasy sense that rivers of blood may flow again regardless of which gang prevails in the coming elections.

Darkness descends . . . am I delusional, or deadly serious?

__________

I want to bring as wide attention as possible to this piece By Ted Glick at Reader Supported News, entitled “Strategic Presidential Voting.”  Mr. Glick poses an interesting question of his own:

What if, in multiple states, 4 or 5 or more, [Green Party candidates Dr. Jill] Stein and [anti-poverty activist Cheri] Honkala received 5% or more of the votes? That would be a victory. It would say to the Democrats that there are a growing number of voters who are looking for something other than centrist, system-supporting candidates. More importantly, it would say to the American people that there is a political force in the electoral arena other than the Tea Party that is consistently progressive and growing.

New York State, for example, is ripe for a serious campaign to get at least 5% of the vote for the Green Party. The latest realclearpolitics.com polling results show Obama ahead of Romney by 25 points.

Voting for Barack Obama in New York State, if you are a progressive who gets it on how problematic the Democrats are, is a completely unstrategic, wasted vote.

It’s the same in a state like Utah, where polls show Romney ahead by 42%. In Idaho there are no polls at realclearpolitics, but it’s solidly red for Romney.

Other states where a smart 4th or 5th grader can predict who’s going to win on November 6: California (Obama by 17%), Illinois (Obama by 21%), Arkansas (Romney by 24%), West Virginia (Romney by 21%) and Massachusetts (Obama by 19.2%).

As Glick says:

Of course, these candidates are not going to win. But it would be, strategically, a positive thing for the independent progressive movement, broadly defined, if, in a number of states, they won a decent percentage of votes.

I agree.  If your desire is to keep Democratic politicians in power and push them leftward, this is a good tactical strategy in states where the outcome of the presidential election is all but certain.  A real and growing liberal voting bloc is a very scary thing to conservative Democrats.  It forces them to make a choice:  they can either actively represent the interests of their liberal constituency, risk losing their seats to more progressive candidates in primaries, or just get it over with and change their party affiliation to Republican.  Or, you know, they can always go with lashing out like petulant little schoolyard bullies.

It is virtually assured that Barack Obama will win New York State in the November election.  He doesn’t really even bother campaigning here—unless, for example, he comes to the city on a mission to undermine my congresscritter Jerry Nadler, a diehard supporter of having a public option in the president’s health care law.  Unfortunately for Mr. Nadler (and for everyone else in the country except health insurance executives), Barack Obama had already sold out the public option in a secret deal with the industry.  The president is always happy to swoop into town for big ticket fundraisers, of course.  In fact he was here last week collecting whatever’s left of Wall Street’s bribe money after the Romney campaign depleted its coffers.

The only way to “waste my vote” in New York State is to vote for Barack Obama.

__________

RELATED:
Mystery Series Part 1:  The RNC Platform.

Security: Ur doin’ it rong.

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A piece this morning by Adam Goldman for Associated Press should have been headlined:

Your tax dollars at work: eviscerating constitutional protections and civil rights of U.S. citizens while accomplishing precisely nothing.

Instead, AP went with this pithy if regrettably bland heading:

NYPD: Muslim spying led to no leads, terror cases

Here’s the story:

NEW YORK (AP) — In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloguing mosques, the New York Police Department’s secret Demographics Unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation, the department acknowledged in court testimony unsealed late Monday.

The Demographics Unit is at the heart of a police spying program, built with help from the CIA, which assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and catalogued every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames.

Police hoped the Demographics Unit would serve as an early warning system for terrorism. And if police ever got a tip about, say, an Afghan terrorist in the city, they’d know where he was likely to rent a room, buy groceries and watch sports.

But in a June 28 deposition as part of a longstanding federal civil rights case, Assistant Chief Thomas Galati said none of the conversations the officers overheard ever led to a case.

“Related to Demographics,” Galati testified that information that has come in “has not commenced an investigation.”

That’s right: “none of the conversations the officers overheard ever led to a case.”  In six years.  I mean, it’s been a while since 9/11 so I may be a little bit fuzzy about the details, but I seem to recall that most of the terrorists involved came from Saudi Arabia, and not, say, Brooklyn.  Further, it came out in the aftermath that there were numerous reports by law enforcement of their alarming activities in the States prior to 9/11 and that these were provided to highest levels of the Bush adminisration, but they were completely ignored:

Consider the briefing that landed on George W. Bush’s desk on Aug. 6, 2001: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”

…Bush’s subordinates—the people who were responsible, after all, for identifying and thwarting terrorist threats—knew that Zacarias Moussaoui had been taking lessons on how to fly a 747. They knew that an Al Qaeda intelligence report said that something “very, very, very, very” big was about to happen. And yet, because of some failure “of imagination,” as the 9/11 Commission Report put it, they didn’t sound an alarm loud enough to save the 2,976 people who died that day.

Seems like a better use of everyone’s time (and money) to remedy that little “failure of imagination” problem—if that is indeed what it was.  But what do I know?  I’m just a New Yorker whose neighbors are being infiltrated and spied on by the NYPD (and the CIA).

And I would be remiss if I did not point out that more terrorist attacks have been thwarted by everyday citizens than by this entire boondoggle.  Remember Richard Reid, the would-be “Shoe Bomber”?  Despite all the security theater (and x-ray doses) to which commercial air travelers are now subjected, this @$$hole still managed to get a bomb on board an American Airlines flight to Miami.  When he tried to set the thing off, passengers smelled smoke and called the crew’s attention to him.  What happened next?

Reid was next subdued by several passengers on the airliner, and then bound up using plastic handcuffs, seatbelt extensions, and headphone cords. A physician on board the airliner administered to Reid a tranquilizer that he found in the emergency medical kit of the airliner.

Then there was Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square Bomber.  How was that plot thwarted?

[A] T-shirt vendor on the sidewalk saw smoke coming out of vents near the back seat of the S.U.V., which was now parked awkwardly at the curb with its engine running and its hazard lights on. The vendor called to a mounted police officer, the mayor said, who smelled gunpowder when he approached the S.U.V. and called for assistance.

The car bomb was diffused, but what happened the next day is instructive:  lapses in security theater allowed Shahzad to board an airplane.  As soon as it was determined that he was a suspect he was put on the no-fly list, but law enforcement didn’t know he was planning to leave the country, and they lost track of him before he drove to the airport.  The airline didn’t check the no-fly list when Shahzad made a reservation, or an hour later when he picked up his ticket at JFK airport—paying for it with cash—and he was later allowed to board the flight.  Hours later, when the plane had already pulled away from the gate, a routine post boarding check revealed that Shahzad was indeed on the no-fly list.  Minutes before takeoff the plane was recalled to the gate and Shahzad was arrested.

It’s bad enough that invasive, expensive security procedures are largely ineffective.  But officials lying about the effectiveness and even the existence of these programs is not a good sign:

Galati, the commanding officer of the NYPD Intelligence Division, offered the first official look at the Demographics Unit, which the NYPD denied ever existed when it was revealed by the AP last year. He described how police gather information on people even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing, simply because of their ethnicity and native language.

…

After the AP began reporting on the Demographics Unit, the department’s former senior analyst, Mitchell Silber, said the unit provided the tip that ultimately led to a case against a bookstore clerk who was convicted of plotting to bomb the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan. Galati testified that he could find no evidence of that.

…

John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, has said he is confident the NYPD’s activities are lawful and have kept the city safe.

No, John Brennan.  Whether these activities are lawful is for the courts to decide, not you.  But they have not kept the city safe.  Look, it says it right there in the headline:

NYPD: Muslim spying led to no leads, terror cases.

Worse still, according to the FBI these programs actually harm national security:

Documents obtained by the AP show the unit conducted operations outside its jurisdiction, including in New Jersey. The FBI there said those operations damaged its partnerships with Muslims and jeopardized national security.

Here’s just one example of how ridiculous the NYPD-CIA program is:

In another example, Galati said, eavesdropping on a conversation in a Lebanese cafe could be useful, even if the topic is innocuous. Analysts might be able to determine that the customers were from South Lebanon, he said, adding, “That may be an indicator of possibility that that is a sympathizer to Hezbollah because Southern Lebanon is dominated by Hezbollah.”

I just want to highlight a few key words here.  So, eavesdropping at a local Lebanese coffee shop, “Analysts might be able to determine that the customers were from South Lebanon,” and “That may be an indicator of possibility that that is a sympathizer to Hezbollah because Southern Lebanon is dominated by Hezbollah.”

It is not a crime to be a sympathizer to Hezbollah.  But if indeed that were a real concern, I would hazard a guess that it is possible to make Muslim-Americans more sympathetic to Hezbollah, perhaps by having police infiltrating their schools, mosques and businesses and spying on everyone in their communities when there is no evidence of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

Security:  Ur doin’ it rong.

Random musings on a rainy afternoon.

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Sun showers.  I saw a sun shower today.  The rain came down like silver needles, and  exploded into blinding white star bursts on the Hudson Street asphalt.  It sounded like a fountain, too:  a soft, rich, ambient white noise, suffocating the grinding din of afternoon traffic for the tiniest, transient moment.

Did I ever mention that I love sun showers?  I love sun showers.

__________

Assholes.   Here’s a keeper for the Palace Quote collection:  “Few people become assholes reluctantly.”  From this excellent piece by Geoffrey Nunberg at Alternet, an excerpt from his new book “Ascent of the A-Word.”  [h/t SJ]

__________

Misogynist dumbass Todd Akin.  Misogynist dumbass Todd Akin wants to ban the so-called “morning after pill.”

Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri, wants to ban the morning-after pill, considering it to be a form of abortion, he told a Kansas City radio station Wednesday.

“As far as I’m concerned, the morning-after pill is a form of abortion, and I think we just shouldn’t have abortion in this country,” Akin said Wednesday.

Hey, misogynist dumbass Todd Akin!  We have always had abortion in this country, in all countries, at all times, everywhere.  So I think it’s safe to say that you, misogynist dumbass Todd Akin, have no realistic hope of ever changing that fact.  Outlawing abortions doesn’t stop them, it just makes them unnecessarily dangerous for the women who are going to have abortions anyway.  This is just one of the many reasons why my statement “Todd Akin is a misogynist dumbass” is a statement of fact, not an opinion.

Here is another:  Those who are not misogynists and/or dumbasses would, I think, probably wish to learn something, anything, about emergency contraception before promoting a ban on it.  And those who made even a minimal effort to learn something about it would quickly discover that that the “morning after pill” is actually regular old birth control pills; ergo, Todd Akin wants to ban regular old birth control pills.  And if they persevered in their investigation for more than, say, fifteen seconds, they would also find that emergency contraception does not cause abortion.  It’s actually impossible.  If a woman is already pregnant and takes emergency contraception, “there is no known harm to the woman, the course of her pregnancy, or the fetus.”  The reason that emergency contraception is “not indicated for any woman with a known or suspected pregnancy is because it is not effective in women who are already pregnant.” [citation][citation][citation][citation][citation][one more citation][another citation][ooh look! another citation!][and yet still another citation.]

Why, if one were not personally inclined toward misogynist dumbassery, one might go on to make the logical link and conclude that emergency contraception actually prevents abortions.

Just FYI, from the post about misogynist dumbass Todd Akin:

The PollTracker Average currently shows Akin ahead of [Democrat] Sen. Claire McCaskill, 47.7 percent to 44 percent, based on surveys conducted before Akin won the GOP nomination.

[h/t Truthteller]

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The Red Planet.  From an unsourced email which I can only assume originated with NASA:

Beautiful and incredible images from the latest batch of photographs sent back from the Mars Lander:

[h/t topcoat]

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Cops.  Okay, here’s a headline you don’t see every day:

Cops Strip Search Mom, “Forcibly” Pull Tampon Out of Her
for Maybe Rolling Through Stop Sign

I am not going to comment on this or excerpt text from the linked article because RAGE.

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Veterans health care.  “The VA’s backlog of claims is so massive that the weight of the files are compromising the structural integrity of VA offices.”

At the VA’s Winston-Salem Regional Office in North Carolina, an estimated 37,000 claims folders had been stored on top of file cabinets, according to the Inspector General’s report released last week. Those piles had been stacked two feet high and two rows deep. The file cabinets were so close to each other that drawers could not be opened completely. More files had been stored in boxes on the floor and stacked along the wall.

A load-bearing study found that the weight of the files exceeded the floor’s capacity by 39 pounds per square foot.

…

Staff tried to transfer or retire 50,000 files in recent years, as well request more storage space. The office was denied extra room because of a lack of money and few external storage options.

I guess this is what “support the troops” looks like in action.

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I have certainly enjoyed randomly musing on my blog today.  I really ought to randomly muse more often.

Police state profits for NYC.

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New York has not only developed a state-of-the-art police state, it’s selling it:

NYPD, Microsoft Launch All-Seeing “Domain Awareness System” With Real-Time CCTV, License Plate Monitoring

The New York Police Department is embracing online surveillance in a wide-eyed way. Representatives from Microsoft and the NYPD announced the launch of their new Domain Awareness System (DAS) at a lower Manhattan press conference today. Using DAS, police are able to monitor thousands of CCTV cameras around the five boroughs, scan license plates, find out the kind of radiation cars are emitting, and extrapolate info on criminal and terrorism suspects from dozens of criminal databases … all in near-real time.

…

The City of New York and Microsoft will be licensing DAS out to other cities; according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City’s government will take a 30% cut of any profits. “Citizens do not like higher taxes, so we will (find other revenue outlets),” said Bloomberg.

Perhaps citizens do not like higher taxes when they lack basic health care and social services, and instead pay for endless imperial wars, invasive surveillance, and police state infrastructure?

Bloomberg continued that “I hope Microsoft sells a lot of copies of this system, because 30% of the profits will go to us.”

Hey!  Maybe then we can have our hospital back!

According to publicly available documents, the system will collect and archive data from thousands of NYPD- and private-operated CCTV cameras in New York City, integrate license plate readers, and instantly compare data from multiple non-NYPD intelligence databases. Facial recognition technology is not utilized and only public areas will be monitored, officials say. Monitoring will take place 24 hours a day, seven days a week at a specialized location in Lower Manhattan. Video will be held for 30 days and then deleted unless the NYPD chooses to archive it. Metadata and license plate info collected by DAS will be retained for five years, and unspecified “environmental data” will be stored indefinitely.

…

Although NYPD documents indicate that the system is specifically designed for anti-terrorism operations, any incidental data it collects “for a legitimate law enforcement or public safety purpose” by DAS can be utilized by the police department. The NYPD will also share data and video with third parties not limited to law enforcement if either a subpoena or memorandum of understanding exists.

Maybe the Palace can get a memorandum of understanding.  How hard can it be?

The DAS system is headquartered in a lower Manhattan office tower in a command-and-control center staffed around the clock by both New York police and “private stakeholders.” When this reporter visited, seats were clearly designated with signs for organizations such as the Federal Reserve, the Bank of New York, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, and CitiGroup.

Oh, good.  All of our overlords appear to be well-represented.  If there is any lingering doubt in your mind as to whom this surveillance system is intended to benefit, please re-read the above paragraph.

Kelly praised DAS as a next-generation law enforcement tool. Civil libertarians, however, are concerned.

Ya think?

In response to a question about civil liberties at the press conference, Bloomberg and Kelly noted that similar systems have been used in the private sector for years–and that mobile phone companies track the intimate, granular details of users’ locations.

Jeezus.  Do the mayor and the police commissioner really believe that there is no meaningful distinction between mobile phone companies tracking the intimate, granular details of their customers locations, and the police doing so?

Yes, that is a rhetorical question.