tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60103396297752086512024-03-16T06:13:28.207-07:00The Critical MomLonely Representative of the Middle ClassThe Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.comBlogger689125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-10853758128506018392024-03-01T05:07:00.000-08:002024-03-02T12:28:34.235-08:00The Elacestrant Extravaganza<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It's the latest in cancer meds for women with estrogen-positive, progesterone negative, Her2 negative or low metastatic breast cancer. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Another funny name of another funny pill. Supposedly it looks like Viagra:</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDuChr2oGL4Adbaey6PCLL6ePkuH1argV31-k5-v7uhGzcnjWp-TcwrsjlEouAzCWYLOn0iZ_AYdhEDvcXl-BN79YGYUttkDK_CBatehw2cN28Ateb641lStnu8kf4I6BRn32p8bNsTcLJa1elKXowZr2tlX8lya7jXpaMiHu1VF81njOIKru1Hsd-8HE/s4032/IMG_3971.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDuChr2oGL4Adbaey6PCLL6ePkuH1argV31-k5-v7uhGzcnjWp-TcwrsjlEouAzCWYLOn0iZ_AYdhEDvcXl-BN79YGYUttkDK_CBatehw2cN28Ateb641lStnu8kf4I6BRn32p8bNsTcLJa1elKXowZr2tlX8lya7jXpaMiHu1VF81njOIKru1Hsd-8HE/s320/IMG_3971.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Needless to say it doesn't have the effect I'm told Viagra has, but how would I know? I'm a Viagra virgin. Never took the stuff, never saw the stuff. Elascestrant might also be compared to "that gentle little blue pill" advertised for insomnia back in the day. Like most cancer meds, it's pretty strong stuff, but the pretty blue patina makes it seem friendly. To me, anyway. And that name--where did they get that one? Elacestrant? Sounds elastic, like a rubber band that'll snap you back to health. The Facebook page for this one sounds like the drug does do that --for some. Hoping to be among those chosen few, I'm happy to report almost no bad side effects. Any tummy trouble is resolved with chamomile or peppermint or fennel-anis-caraway tea--or a couple of bananas. And there are good side effects: I'm getting my eyelashes and eyebrows back. Fuzz is creeping across my cranium. Can't wait til I have enough to buy hairdye.</span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-251135997590946092024-02-21T04:10:00.000-08:002024-02-21T04:10:59.727-08:00Another Fifties-Style Chicken Recipe<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Bored? Want something new? This is easy and tasty. Ingredients:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Chicken drumsticks</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Salt and pepper</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Vegetable of your choice (I used a red bell pepper)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Elephant garlic</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Can of creamed asparagus soup (or mushroom, or anything else you think might go with chicken).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">If you want to get fancy, a container of cream. I didn't happen to have any around when I made this, but it turned out fine. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Steps:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Arrange chicken legs in Pyrex baking dish</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Slice pepper and distribute pieces around chicken. Ditto with garlic</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Salt and pepper to taste</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Pour can of soup over all:</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCXJ7126DiyyubBpALAl_Bi83CII_wcOuySldr2tCiMN9-H8ZbQqOfPhYSzuLZqaqknCArPVsGfTTldMzcrKb-YzpdMGlydp7eHgrWZMQS9l5_9qL9h_wN2l7edNFjsUBf2ryds9kiA_BQmXykROndK_doZt-Oic0yxlQlCJHdxmP924vDoAo2y3-1qOU/s4032/IMG_3951.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCXJ7126DiyyubBpALAl_Bi83CII_wcOuySldr2tCiMN9-H8ZbQqOfPhYSzuLZqaqknCArPVsGfTTldMzcrKb-YzpdMGlydp7eHgrWZMQS9l5_9qL9h_wN2l7edNFjsUBf2ryds9kiA_BQmXykROndK_doZt-Oic0yxlQlCJHdxmP924vDoAo2y3-1qOU/s320/IMG_3951.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Put in oven at about 200º C (about 400ºF) for an hour or less. Serve with rice or polenta:</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWs7l2Ww4xdbuBT4fEb0SVWM7_WCErTPBWW5hC-sDiYkTxzVy29IvSK55F1pqMcNw7mcyHfnPf-6llWH8lP66u2trkdEJfBNhf9Uj4QgGoyarapqKcRrmYKYMAoggIf1WD-7V92wVh_L2FJbdqPQZEmw_aJzWkdhE2VF42pKa5lp6ysWLT3ze5mEg3orY/s4032/IMG_3955.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWs7l2Ww4xdbuBT4fEb0SVWM7_WCErTPBWW5hC-sDiYkTxzVy29IvSK55F1pqMcNw7mcyHfnPf-6llWH8lP66u2trkdEJfBNhf9Uj4QgGoyarapqKcRrmYKYMAoggIf1WD-7V92wVh_L2FJbdqPQZEmw_aJzWkdhE2VF42pKa5lp6ysWLT3ze5mEg3orY/s320/IMG_3955.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Pleasant with white wine, rosé or beer. </span><br /></p><p><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-25124563228712109182024-02-16T05:57:00.000-08:002024-02-16T10:28:50.468-08:00The Death of Aleksei Navalny<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I can only imagine it--what I imagine arises from recollections of reading the English translation of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1962 novel, <i>One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich</i>. Arctic circle cold, near-starvation rations, chains, isolation. For months, Navalny's family has been reporting that he's not getting food--he was allowed to buy bowls of oatmeal, but these were only shown to him. He was not allowed to eat them. Did he just die of starvation or was he killed? After all the man has been through--the poisoning with a Novichok nerve agent, the trumped-up legal humiliations, charges, prison--I somehow still thought he'd survive. I hoped for an outcry, a rescue, a return to civilian life; I hoped he'd be up on YouTube again. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What matters is his courage; no matter the consequences, he said what he thought. I hope he will be remembered; I hope his work will be valued; I hope his sacrifice will move Russia toward the beginnings of democracy. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As President Biden said, </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">“He was everything
Putin is not. He was brave, he was principled, he was dedicated to
building a Russia where rule of law existed and where it applied to
everybody.”</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p><br /></p><br />The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-32390688006698681032024-02-13T10:23:00.000-08:002024-02-13T11:20:34.182-08:00The Perfect Salad<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhuN_u32U3VJarthUnTZNCgtCcuxWq7raQU9DXwaBUOhyphenhyphenIxT1pmI3-PZlccUZMeJAoSg3Rv4WuToOcE6PijCUPHBiAbOerzr5488954ZvtwHdr9ivEZ4Q2_dSxB0sw3XZBVjqqBnpNbd95KruwQej1LzSkuGcbzordyJKsRsDnok68CQg69jtjRdgHtN8/s4032/IMG_3945.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhuN_u32U3VJarthUnTZNCgtCcuxWq7raQU9DXwaBUOhyphenhyphenIxT1pmI3-PZlccUZMeJAoSg3Rv4WuToOcE6PijCUPHBiAbOerzr5488954ZvtwHdr9ivEZ4Q2_dSxB0sw3XZBVjqqBnpNbd95KruwQej1LzSkuGcbzordyJKsRsDnok68CQg69jtjRdgHtN8/w282-h376/IMG_3945.jpg" width="282" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>Ingredients:</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">One elephant garlic clove, pressed (or any large clove of garlic)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Lemon juice from half a large lemon</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Good greek olive oil (slosh it in--a tablespoon or two)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Fresh ground pepper to taste</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Bits of deli chicken slices and/or ham</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A ripe avocado <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Grated fresh Parmesan or Grana Padano</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Most of a head of Boston lettuce (but you could use other)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">First, press the garlic and add the lemon juice and olive oil. Beat all together and add the pepper to taste. Then the meat, the avocado (in small pieces), the Parmesan. Last the lettuce. Toss well. Enjoy with a glass of rosé. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I find this the perfect meal to accompany the binge-watching of <i>Suits.</i> I like pretending lawyers can really pull these stunts. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You might chase your meal with a square or two of Tony's Caramel Sea Salt Chocolonely. Mmm, mmm good. </span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-39210310887099691122024-01-26T10:46:00.000-08:002024-01-26T10:46:40.950-08:00Down By the Old Crock Pot<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Haven't used the thing in a blue moon. But why not? It's there, it does everything for you, and all you have to do is load it up. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I loaded as follows:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A piece of parchment paper (since fish otherwise tends to stick to the bottom of the pot)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A few slices of fresh fennel</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A piece of frozen salmon</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Salt and pepper</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A slosh of white wine</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A handful of cocktail tomatoes <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A few slices of lemon on top: </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqf5t-RrD9eFFVJHvKbUiIxuLTEBCU7wF5D1ZqAwNosNhy53KiiOt5nnUkEazOkAQf2-iBuFO6sLAOH5lG2MulSoXul_LKATJkFxI41DSPhR0P-nGwo8Fl1tj43QmhHaUXIk2kk6-YF_RWmVQV1OirWl-SAecfNegPWmoce_3r3FBikWshDHu9mO2LwXU/s4032/IMG_3868.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqf5t-RrD9eFFVJHvKbUiIxuLTEBCU7wF5D1ZqAwNosNhy53KiiOt5nnUkEazOkAQf2-iBuFO6sLAOH5lG2MulSoXul_LKATJkFxI41DSPhR0P-nGwo8Fl1tj43QmhHaUXIk2kk6-YF_RWmVQV1OirWl-SAecfNegPWmoce_3r3FBikWshDHu9mO2LwXU/s320/IMG_3868.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Took about an hour and a half, since the fish was rock-solid frozen. Over rice, it was quite delicious. A glass of wine, a plate of perfect fish, and Netflix (binge-watching <i>Suits</i> at the moment). </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYc65X5k4ZCiH1MRmSPwmQkQwhS8ZKvTxpkBPb9Z7zJ8p1lo68ptEbnHJnzSkaf4gqzFg9rsRO6VA_XcpnGDs1i1LKRUXyHxnJeeQaNquNeMu7iCg34vWiiRr67exZjzYpVBW2SE2duJirSh4ECyKTQhLmsLoTJtdxVQUVVeXLu4ZfoUPdnE3z_f6FnC0/s4032/IMG_3870.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYc65X5k4ZCiH1MRmSPwmQkQwhS8ZKvTxpkBPb9Z7zJ8p1lo68ptEbnHJnzSkaf4gqzFg9rsRO6VA_XcpnGDs1i1LKRUXyHxnJeeQaNquNeMu7iCg34vWiiRr67exZjzYpVBW2SE2duJirSh4ECyKTQhLmsLoTJtdxVQUVVeXLu4ZfoUPdnE3z_f6FnC0/s320/IMG_3870.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>What could be bad?</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-80263887947997460222024-01-17T08:34:00.000-08:002024-01-17T11:43:19.727-08:00Nikki Haley on Racism: What is Right, What is Wrong<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Nikki Haley said, “We’re not a racist country. We’ve never been a racist country.” <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">That's true and untrue. The Declaration of Independence is remarkably forward-looking. <a href="https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/essay/legal-status-women-1776%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%E2%80%9C1830">In 18th century colonial America, women could not vote</a>--about 60% of men, mostly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_voting_rights_in_the_United_States">white, mostly landowning landowning men </a>could. Having any voters at all was a new, radical idea. And the idea of all citizens voting was there--it just took a while to include women and nonwhite persons.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The famously ambiguous Declaration states: "all men are created equal," a loopily insane statement if taken to mean "of the same talents and attractiveness"--unless you've read through Jefferson's letters and know something of his biography. Unless you have a sense of the personal experiences giving rise to that political remark. Briefly: he was the genius child in a highly unequal group of siblings, two of whom were either <a href="https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/J_Smith_Diagnosing_2007.pdf">very slow learners or intellectually disabled</a>. Keenly conscious of the inequalities in his own family, he tried to even things up, arranging for his slow brother to take violin lessons. He wanted his siblings to be intellectually equal to himself--a tall order.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">His letters show <a href="https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-to-samuel-kercheval/">a more realistic grasp on equality:</a> there, he wanted <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_aristocracy">an artistocracy of virtue and talent </a>rather than the European one of birth and wealth.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So his goal, like Nikki Haley's, was “lift up everybody, not go and divide people on race or gender or party or anything else.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Haley was referring to Jefferson's aspirations--not to the systemic racism that came with slavery and Jim Crow, and which has now, through the legislature envisioned by Jefferson, been vanquished. Long vanquished. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In other words, Nikki Haley is my second choice after Biden.</span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-44951951949832628002024-01-15T11:21:00.000-08:002024-01-15T11:23:54.075-08:00Celebrating Martin Luther King<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In a nuanced <i>Quillete</i> article, John R. Wood reflects on Dr. Martin Luther King's connections to the notion of systemic racism; having fought for basic decency for African-Americans, King wanted to tackle the economic problems of the poor, believing that whites in favor of ending crimes against blacks were not pushing for actual equality. Yet King regretted the Black Power Movement--Wood points to this:<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>“Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout ‘White
power!’—when nobody will shout ‘Black power!’—but everybody will talk
about God’s power and human power,” Dr. King declared in 1967, in the
last year of his life. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">King was well aware of growing up in a middle-class family; his experiences with racism remained matters of coldness and distrust rather than brutality, and he advocated for an affirmative action policy forcing companies to hire a certain percentage of black workers and for <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Operation-Breadbasket">boycotting companies refusing to employ blacks.</a> But he never lost faith in the basic message: win people over with persuasion and love. Seek and find common ground. Identity politics and "affinity" groups based on ethnicity rather than common interests build walls, not unity. Likewise, trotting out dubious statistics about what percentage of "black people" and "white people" think "white people" are superior/part of systemic racism.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The strength and the weakness of King's message was his believe in Agape--love--and its healing power. Yes, that's the right message. But love is far more ambivalent than hatred, because love makes people vulnerable. To find the courage to love, rather than hate--that's an essential feature of any person or institution seeking to reduce racism. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The content of a person's character--the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Content-Our-Character-Vision-America/dp/006097415X">line immortalized by Shelby Steele </a>in the book we would all do well to read, especially today--is what we should think of when we judge people. Not immutable traits like their skin color!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It's hard to believe how necessary it is to repeat this message in 2024. Happy Martin Luther King Day; take to heart his methods and philosophy.</span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-82031482311162497132024-01-11T03:48:00.000-08:002024-01-11T03:48:56.047-08:00Lizard Eyes: Your Looks on Trodelvy<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Side-effects are well-documented; some of us have them worse than others. But we're all bald, and for most of us, that means no eyebrows and no eyelashes. Which means your eyes take on the look of a lizard's--note that many lizard eyes have pupils and irises resembling human ones (apart from being surrounded <a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fa/f9/c8/faf9c8cd004eab48ab2e5159706db2e7.jpg">by Green reptilian skin).</a> But none of those reptiles can bat their eyelashes. Until recently, I had about six eyelashes (a young relative counted them at Thanksgiving). Now I'm down to one, and it looks embattled. A very few eyebrow hairs remain, but they're going too.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Eyeliner does camouflage some of the damage--or I think it does until I see a photo of myself. But the tumor markers are down! Ladies and Gentlemen, the tumor markers are down. I feel okay, apart from needing more naps and forgetting things, especially the day after treatment. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You're also--more ickily--deprived of nose hair. Which means keeping a tissue with you at all times, and strategically deploying it to your nose the nanosecond it tickles, or before. Or all the time. Otherwise, it will drip like a leaky faucet and you won't notice until a few disgusted stares remind you. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Eyelashes aren't just cosmetic--they protect your eyes and make it easy to wear contacts. I think nostalgically of the last time I used mascara. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">There's always <a href="https://www.survivornet.com/articles/the-quest-for-natural-looking-eyebrows-during-chemo-what-is-microblading/">microblading,</a> a semi-permanent tattoo for cancer ladies, but I think I'll go for the low-tech approach--stencils and pencils. Previous experience tells me that once I'm off chemo, eyebrows and eyelashes grow back--curlier, too, like the rest of my hair. So what if it's steel woolish and dry? So nice when it's there!<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-18666179496102306722023-12-23T08:33:00.000-08:002023-12-25T00:13:53.869-08:00Merry Merry Ducky Wucky Christmas Marinade<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">There's nothing like duck at Christmas! Buy a bunch of duck thighs, preferably the French kind. There are a lot of complicated marinades on the net, but this one's easy:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Put plain sesame oil in a little pan. Heat. How much? Oh, around a half a cup. (Not the dark roasted kind! The neutral kind).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Slice in lots of garlic plus one little red onion. Stir. Squeeze a bunch of oranges into the pot; pour in at least half a bottle of maple syrup. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Add a sprig or two of thyme and one or two of rosemary and any other nice-looking flavor packet you have lying around. Somebody gave me organic spice packets and one of them had a lot of rosemary and oregano and thyme; I threw in that one. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Taste. Yum! Maybe a dash more maple syrup, and slosh in some red wine. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Add in the duck and turn it over in the marinade, making sure each piece is coated. The whole thing will look like this: </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVFNHjhzYboeV8jBTCeyybBBJ8qmqiyYzvNSuFZnppQfB6isNaEDJbJK4tVIaj9ZA1AvP7qnaz8FXbh7cKJVxjl8oMyu2H3HX5V_svyp0MxbYvhdcJ1B__iw8qx65KP2M-oHjaxbBk3c5P2QyDIVF8Vr6QewDSwuJTLp3xl9zuArtnsY1RsDz_PAp9jRQ/s4032/IMG_3766.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVFNHjhzYboeV8jBTCeyybBBJ8qmqiyYzvNSuFZnppQfB6isNaEDJbJK4tVIaj9ZA1AvP7qnaz8FXbh7cKJVxjl8oMyu2H3HX5V_svyp0MxbYvhdcJ1B__iw8qx65KP2M-oHjaxbBk3c5P2QyDIVF8Vr6QewDSwuJTLp3xl9zuArtnsY1RsDz_PAp9jRQ/s320/IMG_3766.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Just cover the bowl and let the duck cool its heels overnight in the fridge--later on, arrange in a baking dish; you can sear them in a pan first if you like, then bake at about 350 for over an hour . . . maybe even one and a half hours, depending on your oven. Keep checking. Enjoy. If you're feeling ambitious, make a gravy out of the leftover marinade (add a little flour, stir over low heat until it's a nice consistency). Alternatively (and this is what I ended up doing): lift the thighs out of the marinade, sear them in olive oil in a Dutch oven, toss in a little flour, add the marinade plus a tad of broth concentrate or powder, and cook nearly covered, turning occasionally, for about an hour. It was good!</span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-69255970897232380832023-12-10T10:48:00.000-08:002023-12-10T11:03:49.364-08:00Winter Chicken Serenaded by Vegetables<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> This is generally yummy, but also particularly good for ladies on chemo who have what I call <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFKpNu9SKIs&t=6s">"Mr. Allnutt Syndrome</a>" or worse. You remember the scene in <i>The African Queen</i>: Mr. Allnutt's stomach gurgles loudly while he's enjoying tea and toast with the ultra-proper missionary lady and her staid brother. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">So if the chemo's getting to your digestive tract, here's a recipe that helps--the basic idea being varied vegetables, a round one, a leafy one and a root one at least once a day (and cooked! Not raw). For example, onions, squashes, cabbage are round. Leafy greens: kale, bokchoy, spinach, Swiss chard, mache, lettuces, parsley. Root: carrots, parsnips, celery root, burdock. There are others. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Here's my recipe:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Into a medium-sized rectangular Pyrex dish put:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">•a little olive oil--rub around just enough to coat the bottom of the dish</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">•one or two red onions sliced into fourths</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">•washed, slightly chopped parsley</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">•lightly boiled small potatoes, carrots, chunks of celery root</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">On top of all this, put four (or more) chicken legs that have been salted, peppered, and cooling their heels in a dish in your fridge overnight. Not essential to leave them that long, but the skin will be crispier if you do.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Squeeze a lemon over all and bake at about 190ºC. or 375ºF for 45 minutes to an hour. Check the chicken with a digital thermometer. Should be at 175ºF or about 79ºC.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Enjoy!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ5tUsNH8vKp_FT6aDvaBe661ccCOXRwzfYWzRM5e8bd1UpejU6SX5HQAD7-iB-aE9gx7V9ojyhS_E-9f2YsEYFL1uaywQ7-7DOA3pviMtwC936eLAOWni0ONfF6rrVl08nPk5GLlFroFp1HxYL36FVQQ9NwUIf8mzKHjExEs8NR0ZcpMEg9OCOoTzUaw/s640/IMG_3753.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ5tUsNH8vKp_FT6aDvaBe661ccCOXRwzfYWzRM5e8bd1UpejU6SX5HQAD7-iB-aE9gx7V9ojyhS_E-9f2YsEYFL1uaywQ7-7DOA3pviMtwC936eLAOWni0ONfF6rrVl08nPk5GLlFroFp1HxYL36FVQQ9NwUIf8mzKHjExEs8NR0ZcpMEg9OCOoTzUaw/s320/IMG_3753.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /> </span><br /><p></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-6034428071395668452023-12-06T04:29:00.000-08:002023-12-06T07:11:10.405-08:00Another George Floyd Narrative: The Fall of Minneapolis<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://racketmn.com/liz-collin-alpha-news-wcco-book-george-floyd-derek-chauvin">This </a>is a typical response to Liz Collin's recent film, "<a href="https://www.thefallofminneapolis.com/">The Fall of Minneapolis,"</a> which the <i>New York Times </i>has ignored, but which Glenn Loury and John McWhorter have been discussing, <a href="https://glennloury.substack.com/p/john-mcwhorter-the-truth-about-george">here </a>and <a href="https://glennloury.substack.com/p/derek-chauvin-did-not-murder-george">here. </a>Or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA2GUStM9dQ">here</a>, if it's already been removed from the other places.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The basic thesis--backed up with t<a href="https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-safety/medical-examiner/floyd-autopsy-6-3-20.pdf">he full toxicology report</a> on George Floyd, revealed a heart condition, atheroschlerosis, and levels of fentanyl and other drugs that could have killed him if he'd been sitting home in an armchair. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But he kic</span><span>k<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">ed an officer. He agitatedly resisted arrest--I can see that; the full bodycam videos in the film show him arguing in the confused way that drunks do. He insisted he'd been shot during a previous arrest, which was either a delusion, an irrational fear, or a lie. The cop yelled, "Getcha fuckin' hands on the wheel!" and Floyd continued to wave them around and whine, "Don't shoot me."</span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Both were behaving badly. Language, officer! Narcotics Anonymous, George Floyd!</span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Would George Floyd have died so quickly if he'd been
sitting up? And if he had died sitting up, would his death have been understood as inevitable?<br /></span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I always thought this case was about a sadistic
cop--not racism. But what if it's about a distracted or careless cop, or
a cop who was blindly following the manual, and nobody realized George
Floyd had just swallowed a bunch of pills in order to prevent them being
discovered? There is that moment in the film
catching white stuff dissolving on Floyd's tongue and foam around his
mouth. The toxicology report in the film indicates he had very high
levels of drugs in his system, but the one by a pulmonologist (here's the NPR version of that: <a class="linkified" href="https://www.npr.org/sections/trial-over-killing-of-george-floyd/2021/04/08/985347984/chauvin-trial-medical-expert-says-george-floyd-died-from-a-lack-of-oxygen" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">https://www.npr.org/sections/trial-over-killing-of-george-floyd/2021/04/08/985347984/chauvin-trial-medical-expert-says-george-floyd-died-from-a-lack-of-oxygen</a>)
says the pressure on his body, coupled with his position on the ground,
caused his death. And that he could tolerate huge amounts of drugs,
amounts that would have killed a first-time user, and that he'd have
behaved sluggishly if he'd really felt intoxicated. Then there's the
condition of his heart and the fact he'd had COVID. </span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">My head is spinning.
George Floyd was clearly no angel; I can try to imagine being a cop and
thinking "If I sit him up, he can jump up and kick me again." But then
again, one of the younger cops said, "Shouldn't we roll him over and
check his pulse?" Was Chauvin careless or negligent? Or was he just
trying to prevent Floyd from a greater mobility that would have created
more difficulties --while wondering where the heck the damn ambulance
was?</span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It looks as though George Floyd was an unknown quantity--a large, muscular man who denied being high but who looked high, and who appears to have swallowed a handful of pills as he was being arrested--and these pills were taking effect the whole time, but since he denied being on drugs, the police waited 36 seconds to call the ambulance. Which got there very late--then--and this is on film--the team bungled the treatment, since the oxygen tube was used improperly--that is, not unpacked, so that he did not receive oxgen. </span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What impresses me most is the interviews with the many former police officers of the third precinct, and the few who have remained on the force. They all seemed straightforward, deeply wounded, and not remotely racist. The film is worth watching just for those interviews. <br /></span></span></p><p><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-31435284609524191132023-11-24T13:16:00.000-08:002023-11-24T13:16:45.519-08:00On Being a Covid Virgin<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Which is what I still am! Despite a single known exposure. Yes, got the latest vaccination a month ago. I hopped on the get-one-with-your-flu shot bandwagon, because the nice pharmacy lady recommended it.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Thanks to her, I'm up to my fifth round of Covid vaccinations, but my American compatriots tell me they're on their sixth or seventh. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Here's my theory about why I still don't have Covid--and it's pure guesswork:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(1) I wear an FFP2 mask or a KN95 whenever I'm on the tram or in the supermarket.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(2) I spend lots of my time alone or outside.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(3) At the gym, I take the cross-trainer near the open window.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(4) I eat my vegetables, get my protein, and don't drink to excess.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(5) I have Type O blood.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(6) I enjoy myself.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">That's it! Next week I may be singing a different song . . . </span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-89281595708849558392023-11-06T08:31:00.010-08:002023-11-06T08:32:34.616-08:00Reposted: A Book Review Setting a Record Straight<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Dear Readers, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Whenever I wrote a book review, I'm drawn like a magnet to "just the facts" and that magnet has taken me through a series of unfortunate misconceptions to my fact-based view of things. Since <i>Areo</i> magazine is alas shutting down, I'm reposting my work here: </span></p><div class="overlay-outer">
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<h1 class="entry-title"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A Series of Unfortunate Misunderstandings: Rafia Zakaria’s “Against White Feminism”</span></h1></div>
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Simone de Beauvoir. Image Thierry Ehrmann. Cropped.
Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/home_of_chaos/9334876056
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<p class="pk-dropcap pk-dropcap-borders"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Rafia Zakaria’s <i>Against White Feminism</i>
begins with a story. She has been invited to a “warm and cheerful”
Manhattan wine bar, but worries that the women she is with will find her
“uptight” for ordering Diet Coke and declining to partake of their
pitcher of sangria. The only woman of colour and the only Muslim at the
table, Zakaria announces that she’s “on medications.” Smiling broadly,
she assures the other women that ordinarily she’d love a drink.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">What she tells the reader is different. She feels discomfort, she
writes. The sangria order is, for her, “the first hurdle” of many.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">When the bill comes, she is expected to pay an equal share. Nobody
remembers that she only had a Diet Coke. Zakaria sees that as a slight.
But is there a woman alive who hasn’t good-naturedly split the bill with
her slightly plastered pals even though she herself only had a glass of
water? Zakaria does not think so. She has dedicated a book to the ways
in which white feminists discount and exclude non-western women.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">By the end of the first page, Zakaria has cast the other women with
her at the bar as well-meaning but insensitive. A “noted feminist
author” in the group looks at her “mischievously” and asks
“conspiratorially” what her story is—“as if I’ve been hiding some
tantalizing mystery.” She lets the reader—but not her interlocutor—know
that she hates this question, and believes an honest answer to be
“glaringly inappropriate for the wine bar and my prettily dressed,
slightly soused, fashionably woke companions.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In fact, her story is tragically common. At seventeen, in Karachi,
she agreed to an arranged marriage with an older man. He “allowed” her
to go to college after they moved to the US, but clearly resented her
education, wouldn’t let her go on to law school, and later became so
abusive that she left for a women’s shelter with only her toddler and a
bag of toys.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">When, she claims, she has occasionally “told the whole truth” to
educated white feminists, they have always reacted with serious, shocked
looks and then quickly changed the subject or made a hurried departure.
She diagnoses “an aversion to lived trauma” that “permeates white
feminism.” But this type of reaction is not unique to white feminism.
What Zakaria accurately records is a flawed but frequent human response
to tragedy that will be familiar to anyone who has lost a family member.
How many well-meaning friends, learning of my husband’s death, clutched
my arm, burst into tears and needed me to comfort them? How many, with
round scared eyes, said, “You know, we could cry together”? How many
simply stared, frozen, so identified with my grief they couldn’t speak? I
lost track. It’s not easy for friends to stay calm and say, “Sorry for
your loss.” The more they care about you, the more your friends are
liable to say the wrong thing.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This is a scholarly book. By page 9, Zakaria is quoting Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak’s opinions of Europeans, talking about their
assumptions about the “other,” describing narratives of “white men
saving brown women.” Yet she herself regards the women with whom she
went to the wine bar as “other”—but assumes that she knows them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">While Spivak explores “the ways in which colonial populations … are
unable in any sense to ‘speak,’” Zakaria is “interested in examining how
women of color today are given some chances to speak, but are still not
heard.” But Zakaria’s encounter at the wine bar reveals not the other
women’s unwillingness to listen but her own unwillingness to speak. She
experiences their friendly questions as barbed because she has decided
in advance that they will never understand her. She feels her “rising
anger” at “having to ‘keep it light’ and accommodate the expectations of
people unfamiliar with all the things that can and do go wrong for
women like me.” Her anger grows even as she says “breezily” that she
married young and that he was “a jerk,” rolling her eyes as she reports
that she divorced him and never looked back. When the other women
respond with “good for you,” she feels patronized. She assumes that they
could never have handled the full story, and blames them for the
performance she herself chose to put on, the mistrust that is all her
own. She justifies her behaviour by citing Spivak, whose theoretical
framework “undergirds much of this book.” Zakaria assumes from the start
that the women at the wine bar will never understand her—and that, even
if they do, they will simply want to be white saviours.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Her first chapter, entitled, “In the Beginning, There Were White Women,” criticizes the feminist playwright Eve Ensler, of <i>Vagina Monologues</i> fame. Ensler’s sin? In <a href="https://www.glamour.com/story/rape-in-the-congo">a 2007 article for <i>Glamour</i></a>,
on rape in the Congo, Ensler asks “How do I convey these stories?”
Zakaria interprets this as the writer focusing “the attention on
herself” and setting herself up as a “white savior,” who presumes to
speak for non-white women instead of letting them speak for themselves.
By calling attention to their plight, Ensler is simply “virtue
signalling.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In Chapter Two, “Is Solidarity a Lie?” Zakaria complains about a time
when she was invited to give a “small talk” at an informal college
event. She felt slighted because the white woman organizing the event
chided her for arriving late and was disappointed that she was “not in
your native clothes” (which—if true—is indeed a tacky comment). The
event turned out to be a “free wine” affair, in a hall filled with small
tables, each devoted to a different developing country. Attendees
drifted from one table to another. Zakaria got her own Pakistan
table—but she didn’t get to go up to the podium and deliver her prepared
speech.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This must have been very frustrating. But many of us academics have
experienced similar bait-and-switches: organizers say they want a
prepared speech, but when you get there you’re just expected to chat,
eat olives and drink rotgut wine. Nobody is interested in the talk you
so carefully prepared; you leave wishing you’d stayed at home with
Netflix. But for Zakaria it was traumatic. She recalls sitting in her
car weeping and “can still feel the burning shame” she felt that day.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Zakaria defines a white feminist as “someone who refuses to consider
the role that whiteness and the racial privilege attached to it have
played, and continue to play, in universalizing white feminist concerns,
agendas and beliefs as those of all of feminism and all feminists,”
citing as examples Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millett and Betty Friedan,
who, Zakaria argues, were instrumental in “establishing the white woman
as <i>the </i>woman—the universal subject of feminism.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But Zakaria seems to be confusing western political and social values
with white people. For all de Beauvoir’s insights into existential
philosophy, de Beauvoir, Zakaria claims, was blind to the concerns of
women of colour<i>. </i>She asserts that de Beauvoir’s “belief in
Western cultural supremacy and the essentialization of the white woman
as the model for all women became baked into the very epistemology of
feminism” and that her successors Friedan and Millett understand <i>women</i> to be “[white] women like her.” But de Beauvoir is interested in the universal category of <i>women</i>, which encompasses women of all ethnicities:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Economically, men and women almost form two <i>castes</i> …
the former have better jobs, higher wages, and greater chances to
succeed … they occupy many more places in industry, in politics, and so
forth, and they hold the most important positions. In addition to their
concrete power, they are invested with a prestige whose tradition is
reinforced by the child’s whole education: the present incorporates the
past, and in the past all history was made by males. [Emphasis mine.]
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">For de Beauvoir, women are a class, like the proletariat, but one with even deeper historical roots:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">There have not always been proletarians:
there have always been women; they are women by their physiological
structure; as far back as history can be traced, they have always been
subordinate to men.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Her focus throughout <i>The Second Sex</i> is on the experiences
that all women have in common, by virtue of their shared biology and
history of oppression. This takes different forms in different regions
of the world and at different times, but shares the same origin in the
subordination of one sex to the other.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Zakaria is disturbed by de Beauvoir’s “thoughtless reiterations” of
stereotypes about the Orient which de Beauvoir describes as “separate,
eccentric, backward, silently indifferent, femininely penetrable.”
Alluding to de Beauvoir’s characterization of the history of women in
India and China as a “long and unchanging slavery,” Zakaria asks, “Was
she not aware that, two years prior to her book’s publication, Indian
women had managed to overthrow the British Empire and won the
franchise?” But although Indian women did indeed obtain the right to
vote in 1947, fewer than 3% of them actually voted.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Other oppressive practices also persisted. Individual cases of <i>sati</i> happened <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Woman-jumps-into-husbands-funeral-pyre/articleshow/3587874.cms">as late as 2008</a>.
In China, the practice of foot-binding, though outlawed in 1912, was
still occurring the year that de Beauvoir’s book appeared; in rural
Chinese villages <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuuIoJGPjBA">the practice did not end until the 1950s</a>. A few women with bound feet <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eG2kZ4iM-c">were still alive in 2016</a>. There was indeed, then—and still is—a tradition of brutality against women in many non-western cultures.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Zakaria rightly points out some policy failures on the part of
western feminists working for charities in developing countries—though
she is wrong to attribute these to racism. In her third chapter, “The
White Savior Industrial Complex and the Ungrateful Brown Feminist,” she
relates that would-be do-gooders in India—among them “development
professionals, NGOs, and the United Nations”—launched a scheme to
eradicate wood-burning stoves and replace them with environmentally
friendlier options, such as electrical or gas stoves. “But no one asked
the women who did the cooking whether they wanted the new stoves,”
Zakaria points out. In fact, the Indian women did <i>not</i> want
them, partly because wood-gathering provided them with opportunities to
socialise and because they found it difficult to cook certain favourite
recipes using the new ovens. (Similar instances are cited in Zakaria’s
sixth chapter, “Honour Killings, FGC and White Feminist Supremacy.”) But
this isn’t a white saviour problem—it’s a communication problem.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A sense of victimization dominates Zakaria’s book, although,
curiously, when she discusses girls subjected to female genital
mutilation (FGM), she seems to want to minimize the extent of this
horrifying practice. Zakaria is right that, in the west, “anyone trying
to introduce the complexities of the issue into the debate is
discredited as a secret supporter of the practice.” This is clearly
illogical. “A small nick or cut for cultural or religious rituals,”
while also to be firmly condemned is “not wildly distinct from the
traditional practice of a bris for male Jewish infants.” The most common
form of FGM, which involves making a small pinprick or nick in the
clitoral hood, is less invasive than male circumcision and not, as
Zakaria rightly points out, “the moral equivalent of full
clitoridectomies.” But she is wrong to insist that only a “tiny
percentage” of Arab and African women undergo infant genital cutting. In
November 2019, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-kenya-fgm-idUSL4N2DL299">Reuters reported</a> that one in five women aged 15–49 in Kenya had undergone FGM and <a href="https://somalia.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/shds_report_2020_1.pdf">according to the 2020 Somali Health and Demographic Survey</a>, 99% of women under age 49 in Somalia have been subjected to FGM—most of them at between ages five and nine. In February 2021, <a href="https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/FGM-Brochure-Recent-Trends-Projections-Egypt-English_2020.pdf">the UN Women’s Report</a> revealed that 92% of those Egyptian women aged 15–49 who were or had been married had undergone FGM.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Zakaria is right to suggest that the most lasting cultural changes
usually come from within communities, rather than being imposed from
outside. Yet the history of <i>sati</i> suggests that this is not
always the case. Zakaria argues that, in 1829, when the British
criminalised the practice, it was “rare in India … Large parts of the
country did not practice the barbaric ritual at all.” But some
contemporary estimates put the total number of cases at between 10,000
and 100,000. The scholar Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi that there were
around 33,000 incidents in 1810. There was even the high-profile case
of Roop Kanwar in 1987, which led the Indian government to enact <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12289215/">a new law</a> against the practice.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Zakaria views domestic violence in the west and honour killings in the developing world as comparable:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Honour and ego, no one seems to have
noticed, are iterations of the same forces of patriarchal dominance.
‘Honour’ makes sense to those in a collectivist society; ‘ego’ to those
who live in an individualistic one.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But there is a significant difference between the contexts in which
these two kinds of violence occur. In the west, domestic violence is
considered a violation of a woman’s rights and is punishable by law. In
many countries in which honour killings occur, they are sanctioned by
family, tribe and community and the wishes and rights of individual
women are considered irrelevant. Western law may fail to protect women
from domestic violence—but in many societies in which honour killings
occur, there is not even a credible attempt to prevent these crimes.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Women in such societies who make choices that would be legally
protected in the west—to go to college or choose a romantic partner, for
instance—may be injured or killed. Zakaria asserts that the definition
of <i>honour killing </i><a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/press/2001/04/un_oral12_0405.htm">given by Human Rights Watch</a>—“acts
of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against
female family members who are perceived to have brought dishonour upon
the family”—makes the “implicit white assumption” that such killings are
specific to people of colour. But this ignores the fact that these are
differences not of skin colour but of political and cultural
expectations.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In her conclusion, “On Fear and Futures,” Zakaria expresses
“foreboding” about separating women into “white women and women of
color.” She is concerned, she writes, that white women might read her
words as a personal attack. This white reviewer doesn’t. Many of
Zakaria’s vividly told anecdotes ring true. But she is wrong to blame
white feminism for much of the oppression women of colour suffer—instead
of the oppressive political and cultural beliefs and practices of the
societies they come from. She is right that women in the west are not
always guaranteed fair treatment either. But the culprit is not <i>whiteness</i> nor are white feminists to blame.</span></p>
</section><p></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-3160553566855072962023-10-29T14:38:00.002-07:002023-11-01T14:13:21.756-07:00October Seventh and the Sad History<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Trying to say where the Palestine-Israeli conflict began, some start with the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/History-Israel">Bible</a>, some with the ancient Romans, (for the Hollywood version, see the 1959 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR1ZHKw09n8">Ben Hur,</a> though in some quarters calling the main character, Judah Ben-Hur, Jewis, is <a href="ttps://jewishjournal.com/culture/arts/96564/controversy-l-a-times-gets-called-out-for-calling-ben-hur-a-palestinian/">controversial</a>. For a scholarly version of the story, see <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Atlas-Judaism/dp/0785827463">this</a>) some with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Ottoman_Empire">the Ottoman Empire,</a> some with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_for_Palestine">British Mandate for Palestine</a> and, beginning in 1917, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOJqLTc6RkU">events leading up to the 1948 establishing of the state of Israel.</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Most young people haven't heard of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Rabin">Yitzhak Rabin</a>. Probably not the mobs mixing up Palestine with Hamas and calling for the decolonization of Palestine.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the fifth prime minister of Israel, is where I'd begin: he and President Clinton, immersed in the <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/13/oslo-accords-1993-anniversary-israel-palestine-peace-process-lessons/">Oslo Peace Accords,</a> appeared to be close to forging peace between Israelis and Palestinians when Rabin was shot by a right-wing Israeli extremist. I sat <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7u35IncVIg">watching his funeral</a>, listening to his granddaughter's eulogy, hoping things wouldn't get much worse.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Israel is the size of New Jersey. The Gaza strip is about the size of Las Vegas. And yet these tiny portions of land are the crucible of world politics. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Arabic and Hebrew are
classed by linguists as "Semitic" languages--they are related. To hint at the notion these two peoples are related does nothing to lessen the
violence and bloodshed consuming them, but I wish what they have in common could lead to respect, if not love.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">These things are true: Hamas stands for hatred and destruction, and will sacrifice its own people for anything. Israel believes in love of God and humanity. The only working democracy in the Middle East--even with Netanyahu still in power--it is an ally to Western Europe and the United States. Perfect justice is not possible now, if it ever was. 1948 was a catastrophe for the Palestinian people but it's a done deal. I still believe, even now, it is possible to find a compromise leading to peace. I'm whistling in the dark. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-72545938341355769862023-10-07T08:39:00.003-07:002023-10-07T08:39:21.570-07:00Cancer Lady and Captain Tactful: More Adventures at the Gym<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Bald me in my <a href="https://www.houseofchristine.com/women/brands/christine-headwear">red cancer lady hat</a> was minding my own business on the cross trainer when who should appear but Mr. Foot-Firmly-Fixed-in Mouth, yet again--he of the gracious comments such as "You've gained weight! But, uh, you look good!" </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Fixing me with his customary look of shocked displeasure, he said, "Oh, you are wearing a hat? Did you lose your hair? Are you healthy?"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"Three guesses," said I.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"But you--did you remove your hair? That's uh, a nice hat."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"Three guesses," said I.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">He wandered off with a very puzzled expression. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I upped my limit on the cross trainer, did all my exercises, and headed home thinking "oy, is <i>this </i>the dating pool?" I think I won't get my toes wet. </span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-2492268958673259882023-09-24T13:41:00.004-07:002023-09-24T13:46:31.888-07:00Trodelvy Hair Loss, or Call Me Tufty<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Yes, that's what's left--some tufts in odd places, and if you've seen the Kenneth Branagh version of <i>Frankenstein, </i>you remember Bride Elizabeth after her transformation, when the ambitious young doctor and the monster are fighting over her:</span><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iq8GUfcnaEE/hqdefault.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="360" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iq8GUfcnaEE/hqdefault.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I now share her hairdo--actually, she has a tad more hair than I do. On the upside, my face is more symmetrical. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I hear some lose eyebrows, eyelashes, even nose hair--one guy said, "it's always dripping" since there's nary a hair in his nostrils. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But somebody else got to keep her eyebrows and eyelashes! Me, I'll carry on with the mascara as long as I can. I must say, I like everything about this drug but the hair loss. I had no side effects, and for a week or longer after my second infusion I felt no sign of that slightly crawly feeling . . . as if a tiny creature or two had taken up residence in my scalp and decided to tickle each follicle. Combed my hair like always and it felt normal. Starting to imagine the hospital pharmacy had made some mistake (just given me saline!) I was almost relieved when, toweling off after a shower, I wondered where all that hair on my face was coming from. Oh. My head. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But I'm going to the gym and my tap dance class. A symptom dogging me since my Ibrance days, sudden breathlessness, has disappeared. I actually have more stamina. This stuff is supposed to attack only cancer cells, as opposed to slaughtering other cells who just happen to be in the neighborhood. Maybe the treatment's working? In any case it's nice to have plenty of energy--I can use it.<br /></span></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-27712529946832359412023-09-13T02:16:00.004-07:002023-09-13T02:21:51.734-07:00The Perfect Meal for Trodelvy-ites<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> You've got to see it to believe it:</span> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxtgyrI3H9sYYn3LX_o-FwfdvOJAzKhx324uAFbG6CpR5jqmLjECaDW4-J8rZOgaFIwGf-33eQ1QEUO8Lu5p4R04nFLSf-_q1aSn7oDWPEoS8yi2wsPeXYksW5BlqFRIRPQvLLM7duvJHs3nFxjfCz6J2t4Wo_YH97m9_gSo61a8-wdAZMfymjxXv1Cp0/s4032/IMG-3464.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxtgyrI3H9sYYn3LX_o-FwfdvOJAzKhx324uAFbG6CpR5jqmLjECaDW4-J8rZOgaFIwGf-33eQ1QEUO8Lu5p4R04nFLSf-_q1aSn7oDWPEoS8yi2wsPeXYksW5BlqFRIRPQvLLM7duvJHs3nFxjfCz6J2t4Wo_YH97m9_gSo61a8-wdAZMfymjxXv1Cp0/s320/IMG-3464.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Yes, that's cold (refrigerated, leftover) sticky rice piled high with Kimchi. Yes, these kinds:</span></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqkfdply6KYPNp7Wz9vXhgM_stbU7su6gi9ryaES4lV5VLFfVpUvs6mztQmRV26FqPnhXVXCQr_je8fK77xFGjUBUGoZ_0zL1mZ0zdj3KghbuZ4cFIVLLjfop1lB9x3v92EVSYD9NWvqmKlYIAFjQ6BEImzXu7wEiTG2VE70AnvkJJJkXhskVJfTInU08/s4032/IMG-3465.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqkfdply6KYPNp7Wz9vXhgM_stbU7su6gi9ryaES4lV5VLFfVpUvs6mztQmRV26FqPnhXVXCQr_je8fK77xFGjUBUGoZ_0zL1mZ0zdj3KghbuZ4cFIVLLjfop1lB9x3v92EVSYD9NWvqmKlYIAFjQ6BEImzXu7wEiTG2VE70AnvkJJJkXhskVJfTInU08/s320/IMG-3465.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The one on the left is "mild"--meaning very sour but not the kind setting your mouth on fire. The one on the right with the the lid that makes it look like <i>Bonne Maman</i> jam is full of fire--when I popped the lid, I could see the fermentation bubbling. This kind of kimchi is special; as a Korean friend said, "it hurts going in and it hurts coming out." This is true; you feel that peppery burn at both ends of the alimentary canal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Why is this meal so delicious? Why am I heading back into the kitchen right now, breaking off typing for just one more spoonful of the stuff on the left? "Ha, ha, like a pregant woman!" I said. And a nurse said. And my friends said. Which got me wondering, naturally, what on earth a 66-year-old postmenopausal woman has in common with a pregnant one. You'd think nothing. The whole business of my treatment has been to block estrogen, the hormone feeding the cancer. A pregnant woman's estrogen levels rise sharply in early pregancy. Which is, believe me, not the state I'm in. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">But maybe estrogen, or a need for estrogen, has something to do with my current cravings--and wow, are those cravings strong. I walk into my apartment and can smell the kimchi even before I open the refrigerator. Those jars are tightly screwed shut. "What a lovely aroma!" I pause to inhale, knowing most people would wonder "What's that awful stink?" It's the delicious fermenting heavily garlicked peppery spice of kimchi, elixer of the gods!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Without yesterday's dose of Trodelvy, however, I doubt I'd feel this way. I liked kimchi before, but in small doses, and I didn't eat it all the time. Now I'm gobbling it. Exhilerating. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I listened to a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omodZ5HIDWE&t=1979s">podcast </a>suggesting a beneficial effect of light doses of estrogen in breast cancer. Listening to this while dozing, I woke right up. It turned out the guy who invented Tamoxifen discovered that when the drug failed, light doses of estrogen helped push back the cancer. Can this be?<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Sounds like a hair of the dog that bit you. But maybe. Maybe. </span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-38452687772884556482023-09-04T16:11:00.005-07:002023-09-04T16:26:17.417-07:00Days of Trodelvy and Hair Loss<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It's been great having hair, even if it looks like a toilet brush. But I'll be Yul-Brynnerish sometime in the next twelve days. So long, eyebrows! Been good to know you. Bye-bye eyelashes. Hello, looks-like-I-chugged five Schnapps look (the cortisone to combat nausea). Hello snoring (the anti-allergenic). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"Trodelvy"--they all have such evocative names, these cancer drugs. <a href="https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gynt.png">I think of trolls digging and delving somewhere underground</a>, Grieg's<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nMUr8Rt2AI"> Hall of the Mountain Kings</a> playing in the background. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I'm not far off with "dig and delve" either. My doctor is digging deep for the right drug and everybody's delving for another rabbit to whip out of a hat. But remember that children's rhyme:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">One, two, buckle my shoe,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Three, four, shut the door</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Five, six, pick up sticks</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Seven, eight, lay them straight</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Nine, ten, a big fat hen</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Eleven, twelve, dig and delve . . . . </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The rhyme goes on, but by the time you're on your eleventh or twelfth line of treatment, they're starting the real dig-and-delve. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Trodelvy experience, so far, hasn't been anywhere near as bad as Avastin, Paclitaxel, Epirubicin, Cyclophosphamide, or the capacetabine or the Letrozole or the Ibrance and the Faslodex or the Everolimus/Exemestane combo. Or the Enhertu, which my lawyer twisted my insurance company's arm to get. Thank you, wonderful lawyer! If only the stuff had worked.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Trodelvy doesn't make me feel that bad, actually. Maybe I'll even go to the gym. If it works, yay! If it doesn't, I'm up the proverbial creek without the fabled paddle. </span><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><dl><dd></dd></dl><p></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-17717113461480685262023-08-25T22:30:00.000-07:002023-08-25T22:30:08.644-07:00First Cold After Covid<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I never had it and my rapid test says I don't have it now. But I do have something. I woke up with a stuffy nose, a scratchy throat and the kind of malaise that makes you want to pull the covers over your head and wake up two days later. Hoping to stave off the incipient cold, I had a glass of red wine and a bowl of chicken-flavored ramen noodles when I woke up with the feeling, around two a.m., that I was coming down with something. Both soothed my throat, but the only real cure is time . . . the cups of fruit tea with honey, lemon and ginger I will drink, the mugs of scalding hot water with salt I will gargle, will make me feel I'm battling my enemy. That feeling of being virtuous will decrease the dullness of recovery. It was so hot and humid on the trains returning from Slovenia, which has terrific museums in Llubjana, the gorgeous Julian Alps and the dreamy Adriatic sea, that I didn't wear a mask, but I'm taking up mask-wearing again. Can't hurt. </span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-80970901416483908482023-08-08T11:17:00.000-07:002023-08-08T11:17:40.464-07:00Favorite Three-Second Protein Salad<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmBFkbE8SUA3z9icv_sShngyxKXtjD-nQtv5LeVMV9nEC77k2qd8Lx7Apxs_Uf7G3flXdxDYsKvpZuZYfiXbh32ys28nlhsMG_YrH3zeHmNjYf5wtdm6VYbzOR6ssvf7uVLZFt_5DEIg1MCMPuPuHAs9l9xro9aEQxSIXVJVKbFPLQNmHtUUHcBXjFW7M/s4032/IMG-3347.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmBFkbE8SUA3z9icv_sShngyxKXtjD-nQtv5LeVMV9nEC77k2qd8Lx7Apxs_Uf7G3flXdxDYsKvpZuZYfiXbh32ys28nlhsMG_YrH3zeHmNjYf5wtdm6VYbzOR6ssvf7uVLZFt_5DEIg1MCMPuPuHAs9l9xro9aEQxSIXVJVKbFPLQNmHtUUHcBXjFW7M/w300-h400/IMG-3347.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Colorful, too:</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Assemble: two packs of cocktail shrimp, one ripe avocado, one big lemon, a handful of washed spinach, a dash or two of olive oil, salt and pepper.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Cut the avocado, scoop out by the teaspoon. Open the two packs of shrimp. (This took an extra second, since I got olive oil on my hands). Add shrimp; add spinach. Swirl in a little olive oil. Cut and squeeze the lemon; add salt and pepper. Toss.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Serve with a glass of chilled white wine </span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-72330715094881658872023-07-27T23:39:00.004-07:002023-07-28T00:26:45.806-07:00Sinéad O' Connor: Requiescat in Pace<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It'll be seven hours and fifteen days (at least) before I can think about the apparent suicide of Sinéad O' Connor without a certain resentment. How could she? How could she do that to herself? To her children? After they'd all already lost her son, Shane? The beautiful voice. The guts to rip up a photo of the pope onstage. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I wish she hadn't deprived us all of her company</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">. <span>The despair was all too obvious, but her personality was so large no one succeeded in containing the destructive parts.</span> "Loneliness is a crowded room," is a saying she says she understood after becoming famous. In her 2020 interview with Tommy Tiernan she admitted to having been "very lonesome" and "seriously in danger of dying" and to trying anything, in public, to stay alive. She mentioned a poem a woman wrote about blending into the plaster in her family home. Tiernan brought up "acute pain"and she confessed to this too, and to having agoraphobia. She didn't "nurture friendships," she said, and then most people didn't "like me," and she didn't trust people: "I'm not really good at making friends." </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">She described herself as a Muslim, saying: "Muslims believe nothing in this world should be worshipped but God, and that's how I feel." </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The picture of the pope she ripped up on <i>Saturday Night Live</i> came from the wall of her mother's room. I can see how ripping up what her mean mother worshipped--or affected to worship--could be deeply satisfying; "fight the real enemy" she said, </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8LcmJErI8IQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="8LcmJErI8IQ"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">And yes: a bunch of men and women sworn to celibacy and granted authority are not all bad, but they aren't on a good path. O'Connor dared to say so to a religious American audience in 1992, to make people aware of child abuse a good ten years before most media outlets paid attention to the Magdalen laundries, the dead babies, the abuse of effeminate boys and rebellious girls. Holding that pope responsible was one brave move.</span><br /><p></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-58399690680016180982023-07-23T21:03:00.004-07:002023-09-12T20:06:45.990-07:00New Substack on Banned Children's Books<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Dear Readers, </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>The Critical Mom </i>will continue to provide "every thought I ever had" on current events, personal experiences, and favorite recipes. I've also launched a new substack, <i><a href="https://melissaknox.substack.com/">The Beautiful and the Banned</a>,</i> on favorite but "challenged" children's books. The ones I loved in kindergarten, the ones I read my children, the ones most people--not me--think endorse "colonialism" or "racism," terms whose definition has been stretched beyond recognizability, to the point where they're practically meaningless. For example, the artist, academic and civil rights leader Julius Lester, in his afterword to <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_and_the_Tigers#/media/File:Sam_and_the_Tigers_A_New_Telling_of_Little_Black_Sambo.jpg">Sam and the Tigers,</a></i> his charming version of Helen Bannerman's classic, <i><a href="https://images.thenile.io/r1000/9780397300068.jpg">Little Black Sambo,</a> </i>wrote, "many whites had loved <i>Little Black Sambo</i> as children, and were afraid their love of it made them racists now." Of course it didn't (writes this admirer of one of the best children's books of all time.) Each new post of my substack will explore why some poor falsely accused book should never have been challenged. When I read, "many teachers have removed the book from their classrooms," as I did of Claire Huchet Bishop's fabulous <i>The Five Chinese Brothers</i>, then I'll be urging you to put it back on yours. Enjoy <a href="https://melissaknox.substack.com/" target="_blank"><i>The Beautiful and the Banned</i> </a>and consider becoming a paid subscriber.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"> </span>
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After four months of relative sloth, I was back at the gym on the cross trainer. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"You've changed your hair!" said an old guy I hadn't seen since before chemo. His face, a mask of horror, made me smile; I'm tired of people saying, "Oh, a new haircut!" or "your hair looks so punk!" </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">As if my steel-wool locks could possibly be intentional. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The next time I went to the gym, I'd just done my ten minutes on the cross-trainer when the old dude turned up again, looking me up in down. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"You know, I have to tell you something!" he said. "You've gained some weight!"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I didn't mention the common misconception that breast cancer patients waste away. Our waistlines expand. Maybe it's the lack of activity and the comfort food. Maybe it's the estrogen blockers and the consequent slowed metabolism. Maybe anything. Most of us gain at least two kilos.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"I've been sick," I said. Why didn't I just ignore him? No idea. He startled me. I hate gaining weight. I'm female. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"Did you change your diet or something?" Continued look of horror. "You used to be so skinny!"<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"Uh, no. I guess I did gain around four kilos. I've been sick."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"Oh, but you look good!" said he. With the same expression.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"I will," I said to myself, "after a few months of the gym and no more Prosecco with dinner."</span><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"That guy's been watching you a long time!" said my oldest friend. And we laughed. </span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-44965917188459108762023-07-01T02:35:00.004-07:002023-07-01T06:06:51.389-07:00The Brillo Queen Look: How to Handle Comments on Your Cancer Hair<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">First the tips, then the explanation.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1) Laugh. At least to yourself. Not at the person who was trying to compliment you.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(2) Reflect on the pleasant urge of women to be friendly. It's heartening. It just doesn't tell you anything about how you look.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(3) Consult the mirror. Are things that bad? Surely better than days of baldness. You can even wear mascara now.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As any woman who's been through chemo will tell you, first you're bald and then your hair grows back. Feels like porcupine prickles, so much so that when you lie down, you continue wearing those little cotton caps so the prickles don't hurt. After the porcupine phase comes the kinky hair phase. How kinky? </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Think of Brillo. The steel wool inspiring--I believe--Phyllis Diller's hairstyle: </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UVx56VwLUlU" width="320" youtube-src-id="UVx56VwLUlU"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Didn't she once call herself The Brillo Queen? I love her humor as well as her wisdom: "Comedy," she said, "is tragedy plus time." She added, "There isn't a comic in the world who hasn't come out of tragedy," illustrating the notion with the way an irritant in an oyster shell, over time, creates a pearl. </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Look at her hair! It's pure cancer-lady hair. Mine is shorter at the moment, but she's got my style exactly. When it grows out, I'll try, as I did the last time I had chemo, to tame it with the various greases and glops marketed by my local hair salons and drug stores. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But it will look just like Madame Diller's hair. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And it will provoke the following (actual remarks):</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (1) "Oh, you have a new haircut!" This was meant to be friendly--uttered by a store employee at a place I hadn't been to in months. I explained, "Oh, this is just my hair growing out after chemo."</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I saw I'd horrified her. I should have kept my mouth shut and said, "Thanks." I made her feel like she'd said something wrong, and I know she meant well. But how, I wondered, could anyone think what was corkscrewing out of my skull was an actual fashion statement?<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(2) "Your hair looks great! So punk!" Ladies and gentlemen, the last style I wish to emulate is punk. True, I enjoy looking at punk. Walking through Berlin last weekend, I admired the tattooed people in leather and body piercings wearing black leather, rubber, and what we used to call Hooker Heels. All those people are young. They look to be under thirty. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If you're under thirty, you can do anything you want to your hair and you'll still look like you're under thirty. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If you're my post-menopausal age, you want to look younger. Once upon a time before cancer I had long, flowing wavy hair. That's what I want. Long. Flowing. Not Phyllis-Dillery. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I am told my hair will eventually calm down. It was starting to do just that five years after chemo. Then I needed more chemo. On the plus side, my earrings show more with cancer lady hair. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(3) You look great!</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This one deserves a smile, a thank-you, and a mirror check. It means you no longer look like you're at death's door, but your skin is drier and you have a few more lines in your face. Don't fret! Use moisteurizer and remember: when your hair is longer and contains enough glop, your wrinkles aren't quite as prominent. (I tell myself this. And it's my very favorite delusion).<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010339629775208651.post-30491552130036922222023-06-15T04:50:00.001-07:002023-06-18T03:51:04.472-07:00Your Spinal Biopsy: Six Tips<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(1) Pee before you leave your hospital room. After, they won't let you, unless you're willing to put up with a bedpan.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(2) </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">You'll be lying on your stomach with your head resting on your hands, which is the only pleasant part of the experience. When the technician sends you repeatedly in and out of the CT scanner, your elbow goes clunk-clunk-clunk as it collides with the tunnel. The radiologist told you not to move. But discreetly inching your elbow away is, according to me, okay.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(3) Try not to shriek when they spray something freezing on your lower back. Yelp quietly if you must. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(4) The worst part is the needle shooting in the painkiller. I'm sure I didn't sound worse than the folks who were ahead of me, whom I could hear from out in the hall. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(5) Once the radiologist starts drilling into your lumbar region, pretend it's not you. Visions of the sadistic dentists in <i>Little Shop of Horrors </i>and <i>Marathon Man </i>may fill your head; by the time they do, however, the procedure will be over.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">(6) Now is when you thought you'd get to eat. You won't! You'll lie flat on your back for at least two hours. They prefer four. After two, I begged for food so piteously that they allowed me to sit up and eat. After which--yeah, another two hours. Reading <i>Vanity Fair </i>helped. </span><br /></p>The Critical Momhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05340482094492988140noreply@blogger.com0