Courting the Feminazis: Gov. Sarah Palin

"Governor Palin ... will remind women that if they are not welcome on the Democrat's ticket, they have a place with Republicans," - Gov. Mike Huckabee

John McCain picked Alaska governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate today. I've made it pretty clear that I'm an Obama supporter over the past few months, and his VP choice wasn't going to change my mind, but I can't help feel I've been cheated. Maybe it's just how transparent this whole scheme is that's really bothering me. It seems so clear that this has nothing to do with anything but trying to steal votes by luring women to John McCain.

It must have been Limbaugh that really tipped me off to the absurdity of this all. As I was running some errands today, I had Rush on the radio, as is my wont. (Yes, I'm liberal, but the man is good listening.) Right at noon, with no qualifying statements, Rush jumped right on to the Palin bandwagon. This is the man that popularized the term "feminazi", praising a decision made for the sole purpose of attracting feminists to the ticket. I know that Rush has to play along, because he has to push for his guy to win, but that kind of turn around is upsetting. Maybe it's fitting, though. I personally think that choosing Gov. Palin is an anti-feminist choice.

First, let's go into why Palin is an absurd pick for VP. McCain makes such a fuss about experience, so it's asinine that he's picked someone with so little of it as his running mate. She was the mayor of a small Alaskan city for a few years before ascending briefly to the governorship of a state which is barely important: the only reason it's even a state is oil. And that's another thing: for a candidate that talks about energy independence and getting off fossil fuels, picking a candidate with such strong oil credentials is offensive. But more than any of this, John McCain is old and has a history of cancer; if there was any candidate in recent memory that needed a VP ready to take over at any time, McCain is the guy. I don't see that ability in Sarah Palin.

So why is Palin an anti-feminist choice? Because this decision makes clear a lack of respect for women. Sure, she fits into the "reformer" image McCain's trying to push. And, of course, Palin deserves respect for being a high profile working mother and for her achievements. She does not, however, deserve to be used. The quote from Gov. Huckabee above is essentially a neon sign boasting about the pandering to women embodied by this choice. Much of Palin's speech was devoted to drawing to link between the women who flocked to Hillary Clinton and the significance of this choice. Republicans are so obviously aiming to exploit a voting block already thrown into chaos by the Clinton campaign. (Plus, they're exploiting the misconceptions that Clinton would have liked to be VP or that she had the nomination "stolen" from her.) Additionally, if Palin is to be a feminist icon, she is a curious one. By my own calculations, she was no older than 19 when she had her first child. She is anti-choice and an avid huntress.

If John McCain and the Republicans think this is "change," there may be no better indicator of just how superficial their idea of change really is. Gov. Palin is a worthy woman, but she's been unfairly reduced to a cheap gimmick.

Update: Either I'm losing it, or the boundless wisdom of Wikipedia lead me astray. As it happens, Sarah Palin's oldest son did not turn 18 in 2001 but in instead in 2007, meaning that she did not have her first kid at 19. But apparently, she will be a grandmother at the ripe old age of 44 or so.

Rebooting

So last time around, when I was studying abroad in Shanghai, I wasn't especially diligent about this. In retrospect, I regret that, and have decided to make a much better effort to get this going as I prepare to move back to Shanghai later this fall. Last year, in what few entries I posted, I mostly stuck to China-centric topics. This time around, I'll be covering a larger swath, getting into not only my experiences with China, but more personal touches: things I find interesting, political stuff, etc.

Hangzhou (杭州)

About Hangzhou. So far, most of my Chinese experiences have been with bustling cities or in small rural areas, but with big groups. This past weekend, I went to Hangzhou, a city about an hour and a half train ride from Shanghai. Hangzhou is a fairly old city, known most famously for the West Lake (西湖).

　
The city hasn't developed as much as other cities, such as Shanghai, but is clearly fairly wealthy. I think it's better off not becoming a booming metropolis, personally, because it has so much character in all of the gardens and greenery throughout the city, something sorely Shanghai lacks.

These pictures come from various places in Hangzhou, including locations around the West Lake and the Hangzhou Botanical Center. The hostel I stayed at was right in the heart of the scenic region of Hangzhou, near the former home of a famous Beijing Opera singer. And yes, the sky really is white (not blue).

The First Two Weeks

It's hard to believe that I have already been here in Shanghai for two weeks. To a large degree, it seems like I haven't had time to relax since I got here. I've now had my first full week of classes and two weekends to explore. Everything has been great so far.

As I've walked around, I've noticed so much. This city is very busy- there is always something to see, something to do. One of the first observations I made was how vertical everything is here. Many of the small local neighborhoods have been demolished to make room for massive, identical apartment complexes. At home, I've been known to lament the rise of "big-box" stores, franchise restaurants, and boring suburban developments. I hate the Targets, Wal-marts, and Olive Gardens that are slowly making every town in America exactly the same. I hate that the local driving range is going to become a neighborhood made up of 20 houses from the same exact blueprint. I hate that I have to drive all the way to Eastchester or White Plains to find a decent record store because they've stolen all the business from the little guy.

Here in Shanghai, though, this process has been taken to a completely new level. My apartment complex has three buildings; they all look exactly the same. Ditto for the complex across the street. On the ride from the airport to the CIEE office, I felt like I was watching the Flintstones- the same background passing by over and over. Here, it is like the Pete Seeger song they made us learn in Mr. Goldberg's class plays on repeat. They're all made of ticky tacky and they all really do look just the same.

One thing I found interesting, however, was that only residential buildings had this monotony. Shanghai is developing a prominent skyline, and I think it is very indicative of the nature of modern priorities here that only commercial interests have unique attention paid to design.

Then there's the issue of brands. In my neighborhood alone, there is a Papa John's, a Pizza Hut, two "Hello Pizza"s, three KFC's (two of them in the same mall, mind you), two McDonalds, two Starbucks, and a Dairy Queen. And those are just the ones that I've found. There is also an "Grandma Wu's" fast-food dumpling restaurant, and a place that we've began affectionately calling "Kentucky Fried Mao", because it is essentially a Chinese KFC, with a Chinese colonel and everything. Ticky tacky, ticky tacky.

There are, of course, other problems to this. The rapid building results not only in a cookie cutter city, but in a faulty mold. To the best of my knowledge, most of these buildings are constructed without insulation or central air. Consequentially, they waste a lot of energy with individual air units for each room that have to work extra hard. There is the issue of eminent domain, and many more that are for different times. I'm supposed to be learning about many of these in my classes, and will probably discuss them at a later date.

It was recently announced that the official population of Shanghai is 18 million people, and with the large migrant population, the actual population is surely much larger. It is growing quickly, too. While the construction might be necessary, I think it is also a bit of an autarkic cycle- the development encourages more people to come, which results in a need for even more development. I also think that history will look back on this development unfavorably.

Ticky tacky, ticky tacky...

(And now some pictures...)

You might notice that the umbrella is sponsored by Coca-Cola.
Underwear hang drying from people's windows.

"Why're you goin' to the airport? Flyin' somewhere?"

And here I am with less than 12 hours until I'm in the air, beginning my journey to Shanghai. I've been sitting here for a bit, trying to think of what I had to say, but nothing's coming. You might think that after all the time I've spent thinking about this finally getting here, I'd have something to say, some deep observation or emotional polemic. And yet, I have been too overwhelmed.

For the last week, despite beginning to pack and saying my good-byes, I haven't really felt like I was actually leaving. After all the time I've waited, it just seemed so likely that this break would never end. That all changed around 10 PM tonight.

I'm very open about my television habits. I regularly watch several shows- some very good, others that really aren't. Few shows hold my dutiful attention and command my presence in front of the TV. For whatever reason, "The OC" was one of those shows. Every week, I sat down to watch "The OC", and every week, I talked about it with my friends afterwards. Tonight, I think the show's finale is what lead me to the realization that I really was leaving. I've always been a sucker for sentimentality and nostalgia, and "The OC" capitalized on that. When it was over, it had hard to believe that I had really spent one hour a week, twenty-four weeks a year, for 4 years, and then that was it. I can only speculate that it was that thought that got the ball rolling. I began thinking about so many of the others parts of my life that I've devoted time to- friends, hobbies, even places. Will they all one day just end, too? What happens when it's over?

I think the show did right by its fans by not ending in the present- not only did tonight's episode begin six months after the previous episode, but it ended (presumably) four years in the future. Sandy becomes a professor, Ryan becomes an architect, Seth and Summer get married. Even Julie Cooper goes back to school and finally has a happy ending. I suspect this touched a nerve, as well. After all, as I prepare for the next big step of my life, I'm finding myself wondering what will happen to me and my friends in four years? Will we still be together, going to each other's weddings? Will we be happy?

I now remember that, towards the end of the episode, there was a commercial for a new movie starring one of the actors from "The OC". It seems fitting. After something ends, we pick up and move on. That's it. As I was thinking about all of this, The Grapes of Wrath came to mind as an appropriate source for a good, deep quote. Or at least better than "Dumb & Dumber". (See above)

"'Ain't you thinkin' what's it gonna be like when we get there? Ain't you scared it won't be nice like we thought?'

'No,' she said quickly. 'No, I ain't. You can't do that. I can't do that. It's too much- livin' too many lives. Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes, it'll only be one. If I go ahead on all of 'em, it's too much. You got to live ahead 'cause you're so young, but- it's jus' the road goin' by for me. An' it's jus' how soon they gonna wanna eat some more pork bones.'" - Chapter 13, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, pp. 168-9

汽车彩铃： "Car Ringtones"

According to a recent podcast from one of my favorite websites, Chinesepod.com, a new fad in Shanghai is having "ringtones" for your car. In other words, just like your cell phone can now play songs whenever an event happens, such as a call, message, or alarm, your car can now play a song whenever a driver is turning or driving in reverse. While my experience with Chinese traffic says that these kinds of sounds are not altogether gratuitous- any warning a driver can get about another driver is a helpful one- this seems like it could quickly get out of hand. Traffic in large Chinese cities is very dense, and as a result is already loud and obnoxious, and these so called ringtones can only amplify that. Although I am kind of excited to see this for myself, I hope this fad goes the way of the pet rock. I, too, was briefly proud that my phone could play Wu-Tang when someone called, but before I got my $1.99 worth I had already reverted to vibrate. Ringtones simply get annoying. If Chinese drivers are as inconsiderate with their ringtones as they are with their driving, it may be a long, headache-filled semester.

Fighting City Hall

Recently, I took the absurd action of going to Village Parking Court with the intention of contesting an unjust- at least in my own opinion- parking ticket. Instead of having my fine thrown out or even reduced, I was shown swift and vicious justice.

Normally, I would not spend my time on such a trivial matter. Frankly, I usually have better things to do, even if I could save some money by going to court. These are not ordinary times anymore. Two weeks ago, I was heading in to work at the wine shop and found a strong lack of available parking spots. I made my way to a side street where I've parked legally many times before. Apparently, the Village decided to remove some valuable parking spaces for the new year. Getting rid of parking spaces is inconvenient, but bureaucracy strives for more than that. To really lay it on thick, DPW decided to leave the old sign indicating "One Hour Parking" up and simply placed the "No Parking Here to Corner" sign on the same signpost right below the old sign. (All of this is for an area only large enough for one car- not for a whole street) The signage was (and still is) vague enough that I incorrectly assumed the Village intended for drivers to not block a nearby driveway. I parked and went to work, where I was immediately informed by a co-worker that I was parked illegally. When I arrived at my car, not five minutes after parking, Officer Vasquez was ticketing my vehicle. While she was writing, I struck up a conversation with her and she told me that, in fact, many people are very confused by the poor signage. She felt that I should go contest my ticket.

I arrived at Village Court half an hour early. With me were two pictures of the ridiculous sign situation. However, the Judge would have none of it, and quickly informed me that signs- good or bad- were not her concern and that I still had to pay the fine. She added that I should bring up my problem with the sign to the Traffic and Parking Commission if I cared that much. Resisting the urge to tell her that I didn't come to court as a concerned citizen, but as a cheapskate, I left scowling. (Incidentally, despite her hasty decisions, the judge did not make it home in time for "Ugly Betty" anyway.)

While I'm sure that the Village's judge is from an educated law background, I was reminded of a series of articles in the New York Times from 2006 about the State of New York's terrible local justice system. As it turns out, it is not a requirement that a municipal judge in New York knows anything about The Law, and so it happens that many justices, in fact, know nothing about The Law and act accordingly. While my opinions about our Village Justice's professionalism are skewed by trite bitterness, many New Yorkers do have legitimate grudges against bad judges.

The reason I bring this up is because China's judicial system isn't much different from this. Several nights ago, PBS ran a documentary about all of China's negatives. The film focused on the bad environmental situation and the rampant poverty. It also touched on China's legal system. In China, judges do not- and often are not- trained in legal matters; they are civil servants under the People's Republic of China. The documentary made the argument that often times, regardless of the actual law, cases are decided by unprofessional judges influenced by the short term goals of the Chinese Communist Party. In other words, there is no "rule of law" in China such as we have in America. According to the documentary, unlike the American system where generally the law is the law no matter what situation is, Chinese law generally places the rules as subordinate to the desires of the judge and the government. The film, as well as other sources I looked at after viewing the documentary, have pointed out that this is less and less frequent as China prepares for a new era of subjugation to international norms. As China finds itself more active in world bodies such as the UN and is preparing to enter the WTO, it is slowly moving towards domestic governance more in line with the rest of the modernized world.

But while that happens, I'm going to have to find out when the Parking Commission meets...