My Resources

I seem to be wanting lately to fuse entirely different trains of thought -- entirely different stories. Partly that's just how I always work in writing -- maybe it's just my own attempt at globalization... of course we all know where that can lead. A definite need for a rollback is on the horizon -- still, I'm going to give it another shot this morning.

Yesterday in Alaska, a superior court judge ruled that Alaska had, indeed, had the right to tell Exxon it didn't accept a plan to build a massive pipeline to support the drilling of an enormous amount of reserves. Exxon and partners hold a lease for the land under which holds 8 trillion to 9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and hundreds of millions of barrels of liquids, both crude oil and natural gas liquids.

The Court did say that Exxon had another shot at trying to figure out a plan, disallowing Alaska's attempt to revoke the lease altogether.



Photo by Alaska Stock

Pipelines are big, leak, stay forever...

Okay -- here's the second thing occupying my brain. Yesterday I engaged in a conversation poorly -- and irritated afterwards, I wrote a friend for a little girl power. The issue was sexism, how we respond -- the problem is that any engagement in the conversation feels like a defeat -- as does any avoidance of the conversation...

My friend works for Care, and here was part of her amazing response...

A colleague whose public health work with sex-worker populations challenged me recently to take a position on the Indian government's latest effort to do the right thing for gender equality and public health - rather than criminalizing the sex worker, criminalize the client - what did I think? My head was spinning - of course, criminalizing the client is still reinforcing the notion that selling sex is wrong. But we know that thousands of women don't want it seen as a sin, just a reality stripped away of its deeper meaning. and criminalizing the client is another way of penalizing the sex worker - of threatening her chosen livelihood, and casting her trade as a menace to decent society.

I met the head of a sex-worker's organization in Peru, who says "I'm a decent hooker" - by which she means, she plies her trade with integrity, respect for herself and her client, and with no shame. Is she exploited? Surely, she is - not only because the system uses her trade as a reason to deny her all sorts of human and civil rights, but also because her very existence is fodder to reinforce the myths about women as sexual playthings which, even if they don't reflect the reality of her, get projected onto her and all women. But on another level, if she stands toe-to-toe with a congressman in demanding decent life insurance, a pension, labor standards, and an end to police brutality for sex workers, isn't she fighting back against that plaything image?

I think the question is the same: if we use what we have, do we still maintain any rights? If our only means to income resides in the body, in the land, in the resources of those things, how do we then fight later for protection -- for respect -- for autonomy to make the decisions about how exactly we are going to allow ourselves to be used?

When we trade what is most intimate in a public arena... shame and regret and pollution... and can we maintain ownership and rights and respect?

My Rooms

I'm still stuck on this idea of connection and disconnection. I'm interested in learning more about why and how I do things --

I think it's easy for me (us -- people -- countries -- friends -- consumers) to get entirely out of sync with what's even in my own home. What do I do daily?

There's a complaint of Americans -- of American poets -- of women and of women poets -- that we are too narcissistic as a culture -- I,I,I,I and on that way forever. But I think there's a backlash too -- and as is the case with anything like narcissism the problem is not thinking about the self, it's the size and scale we see that self become. Grandiose and nothing.

By the same token, I'm trying to figure out some bit of my own attachment to this life. There have been, over the last few years all sorts of experiments by authors looking to follow this same line of thought -- someone living off food only from their community -- someone living exactly as the bible says. Because if we don't look at what we do -- if we don't take it out of the norm -- than we can't understand it; even the little bit that we can. I want to have an idea of a Nigerian home and also of my own. A poet said to me last year -- the trick is to really understand our own privilege and learn how to appreciate it and to use it -- not to our own benefit but to everyones.

It's really hard to balance -- there is something out of alignment if we say I have an impact; there is something out of alignment if we say I don't have an impact.

In the pursuit of balance, this morning, I went through and found one thing in every room I love made out of oil and one thing I think is completely wasteful. I did it in the order I generally wake up and start the day --

My room.
I have a ring I love that is inlaid with rubber -- I bought it from a RISD student in a street fair 20 years ago.
Yoga pants.

Kids Rooms.
Markers.
Baby Alive.

Bathroom.
Toothbrush.
Sample packets from Kiehls.

Kitchen.
Garbage bags.
Zip lock bags.

Office (my dining room).
Plastic bags that allow my journal to be sold in bookstores. (ack)
Disposable mechanical pencils.

Living Room.
My slippers. They have really heavy soles and I wear them everyday.
Plant holders.

Bodies of Power

Five years ago a group of women in Nigeria shut down an oil refinery by threatening to take off their clothes.

"Our weapon is our nakedness," Helen Odeworitse, a leader of 600 women who peacefully seized control of an oil terminal in Escravos, Nigeria, told the Associated Press. Odeworitse and other women held 700 western oil workers hostage and shut down a facility that exports half a million barrels of oil a day. link
(also, the search originated from a roundup in the oil drum)

Their complaint was simple -- the villagers were extremely poor, the oil companies were very rich -- people working for the oil refineries were treated better than everyone else. The women demanded that ChevronTexaco employ some of their sons and invest in the community.

There, women taking off their clothes is a traditional shaming gesture. Can you imagine? Here there is certainly some power in that action, but it's a little different... though maybe there is a sameness in that the subject of women's bodies is always political if men are in charge.

Triumphs like this, learned years later, are subject more to history and less to the beauty of the moment. Five years later Nigeria is in great upheaval -- and much protest is not non-violent -- as I'm sure is not the reaction from the oil companies. In May an American-owned Chevron plant was shut down by protesters -- armed with sticks and machetes.

I'm picturing all of this -- sticks and machetes and naked breasts. Oil giants. Arms v. arms.

Old news. What we are taking and from whom...
So I think, this morning, as I turn on the lights, turn on the stove, get ready to warm up the car -- about women in Nigeria.

My oil, my country, my children's lives.
Their sons, their bodies, their lack of power.

Hysteria

I decided when I started this project that I had to follow my interests of the morning, wherever they led. Today, they led me into a debate about men and women, and how conversations transpire around politics in this strange arena of language and the language of the media and the blog...

Yesterday, I got another tip from my friend in Texas. He sent some blogs to take a look at. (Incidentally, he posted a funny piece yesterday about rats in space -- he worked for NASA for a long time...) He pointed out the blog at the Times, where the editorial board posts added info, personal accounts etc.

Yesterday they ran a piece about Bush's response to the energy bill -- they pointed out that while Bush is not in favor of this bill, as governor of Texas he passed a similar bill -- which, among other things, encouraged Texas to be one of the leading growth areas for wind energy.

What interested me was not the hypocrisy or the impact. What interested me was the course of comments that ensued:

• 1.
  December 7th,
  2007
  12:41 pm

  George Bush flip flopping? Oh, PLEASE. He has always favored big oil, big business, tax cuts for his donors, friends, and family. He doesn’t give a damn about the average American AT ALL. My definition of a Moron is a Republican making under $500,000.00/yr. Why would anyone making less vote for this clown?
  Bush is a traitor, liar, criminal, and fool. What we need is a DOJ that will pursue a full investigation of this Administration. Bush belongs in Gitmo. Forever.

  — Posted by PJ

• 2.
  December 7th,
  2007
  2:12 pm

  PJ: Please, tone down the rhetoric. Yes, we need accountability. Yes, it’s no surprise that Bush is opposed to a progressive energy bill. But it’s difficult to dispel the myth of histrionic liberals when one goes flying off the handle, and it’s hard to argue that Gitmo needs to be shuttered when you’re insisting that the President should be sent there. Thanks.

  — Posted by Mike

The Times blog comments largely turned into a debate defending one side and then the other of the perceived over reaction of PJ -- who may or may not have been a woman (though it kind of sounded like a she to me...).

I'm interested in the male -- female interaction in publishing, writing, politics, public.

A recent discussion on Harriet, The National Poetry Foundation blog, seemed to me to go in the same direction. One commenter noted that blog comments by women are less likely to be answered than those of men. There is an article in the most recent issue of the Chicago Review about women in publishing, which pointed out that while some things have gotten better, the landscape is still extremely biased.

The word histrionics comes from the same root as hysterectomy -- hystera -- the Greek word for womb.

Furthermore, the notion of the "emotional woman" seems to be in clear opposition to the controlled, patronizing and formally exacting form of Mike's post.

More than the singular of this post, I think it implies a swell of rhetoric I imagine will funnel into full cyclone this year. It is important that we remember language is often inserted into public conversation quite deliberately.

Is the weakness of the democratic party somehow related to the weakness of the woman -- is the weakness of the woman the off-spring of her womb?

Is it a coincidence that this language is working its way into the general lexicon in a year that is the first a woman has a decent shot at the presidency?