GET THE BODY YOU'VE ALWAYS WANTED!

Learn all about how I lost 57 lbs and became several shades tanner in a little over 4 days by tricking my body into processing donuts differently...


My life was so hard. I used to eat lots of food and not gain weight. Then, one morning, I looked in the mirror and realized I had gained 57 lbs. I tried everything imaginable to ditch the weight: diet pills, miracle drugs, feng shui, even hypnosis, but nothing ever seemed to work. Then one day I learned about this cool opportunity over the Internet. It's called the "4 day donut diet."

Basically, it works through a scientific mechanism known as "compositional simulation channeling." You see, the rubber tire shape of society's donut actually mimics the way those pesky extra pounds distribute themselves in the overweight person's body. In other words, by consuming literal donut "rubber tires," you actually trick your body into getting confused, and not knowing which wheel-shaped structure to cling to. Ergo, the more donuts you consume, the better your chances of tricking away larger masses of body fat.

The skin tanning mechanism has to do with how your body absorbs the frosting and sprinkles on the donut. I really like sprinkles, so now, even though I am white, most people mistake me for biracial.

A New Century for the Struggle

Clinton's loss is not the last stand.

At this moment in the race, when Hillary Clinton’s climactic Primary exit and ensuing media-wide VP speculation are on the public mind, the gender stakes could not be higher.

Clinton has been rightly accused of cannibalizing some of the gender double standards that have plagued her campaign: exaggerating the real sexism she has faced to the detriment of American feminist (and her own) interests. That gender has confronted her campaign as an obstacle in substantial and insidiously complex ways is not under question – so much is obvious. What remains to be seen: how will we narrate and learn from the role that gender has played in shaping political prejudice during this campaign?

Of the many pitfalls, one strikes me as the most troubling:

We learn nothing. We relapse into a retrograde dialogue of Second Wave clichés: glass ceilings, several strategically hyper-visible examples of women who have defied glass ceilings, patronizing pundit verbiage, boiling anger, rigid and polarized discourse – greater marginalization.

The media has depicted Clinton’s die-hard female support base (many of whom are now threatening to vote out of vindictiveness and against their own interests for John McCain) all too accurately as angry and bitter. If feminist discourse in this country is to vitalize itself again, to rise above the old lackluster clichés, it has to transcend its emotional impulses.

Of course, in many examples it already has. Unfortunately, codified media representations of gender have a flair for making visible feminism’s emotional displays above its intellectual ones.

This is a moment ripe for evoking old feelings about gender – ones that inspired action and social change in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s in unison with the Civil Rights Movement and a radicalized political landscape – and infusing them with fresh insight and political context. After several decades of silence, stigma and redundancy, feminism cannot afford to squander this opportunity on bitterness and anachronism.

We’ve come all too close before to undermining our own efforts during the final stretch:

In 1914, the Woman’s Party started campaigning against Democratic Congressional candidates – even those who supported woman’s suffrage – in order to establish the legitimacy of the women’s power base, and thus presumably to inspire fear in its male political allies. In 1916, the WP even opposed Woodrow Wilson’s reelection. (Wilson’s support during his second term proved utterly intrinsic to the legislation of women’s suffrage). The women hoped to light a spark under the Democrats, who, despite their vocal support for suffrage and Congressional majority, had failed to pass any pro-suffrage legislation during Wilson’s first term. Instead, the WP risked alienating its vital allies and undermining the successes of its own campaign for enfranchisement.

We now stand on the brink of making major strides for women, but we have a long, long way to go.

Professionally, women still earn less than men for performing the exact same work, with the exact same responsibilities and under the exact same titles; even very successful women also face greater difficulty than men in achieving executive positions. Women still feel pressure to abandon their career aspirations in exchange for traditional domestic stability. Women endure sexual violence (both physically and psychologically), rape and body image pressure. The trafficking and bondage of impoverished women currently fuels over 10 percent of Asia’s economy, and certainly afflicts many women on the American home front. Women are patronized when they enact stereotypical gender roles, but then face ostracism and ridicule when they do not.

While our struggle is complex and temporally indefinite, there is a lot of ground that we stand to gain. Women alone are not condemned to fight the battle for gender equality. Barack Obama could and would do a lot more than John McCain to advance feminist interests in this country.

I voted for Hillary Clinton, was (and still am) impressed by her political resume and deeply identify with her psychologically; but it's time to move on. Although we cannot change the past, we can ensure that we will repeat the past by choosing to ignore its lessons. Let’s harness this moment of national attention and remind Americans of the urgent need for greater gender equality in this country.

(It looks like Nick Kristof and I are on the same page. Read his 6/12/08 New York Times op-ed).

MTV's "The Paper"

Teenage reality journalism

MTV's latest addition to its bustling repertory of American suburban high school teen reality drama, The Paper, is rapidly becoming a cult phenomenon. Unlike the Laguna Beach crowd, these neophyte Floridian journalists do not hook up with each other's boyfriends, sexualize themselves in tightly fitting designer apparel, or use the word "gnarly" upwards of 7 times in one sentence. Yet, the intensity of their drama rivals even the most fraught of 17 year-old beachside love triangles.

The Paper airs Mondays on MTV at 10:30 PM, riding the coattails of its MTV reality alter-ego, The Hills: a reality institution which depicts the plights of several hotshot Hollywood 20-somethings, who live in posh apartments while not having real jobs and drinking alluringly-hued cocktails that match their eyeshadow. Although I tuned in at 10:29 PM, I still caught the last several minutes of the season finale of The Hills, which managed to spill several minutes over its allotted time slot. Audrina and Lauren were sitting on opposing plushly upholstered furniture items. Audrina narrated her insights into how society can be manipulative while we viewers were confronted by the rawness of Lauren's emotional reaction. The anxiety was overwhelming: all of America bit its lip in anticipation of whether Lauren's tears would undermine the integrity of her liberally administered eye makeup. (It was a cliffhanger).

But I digress. The Paper follows a group of precociously ambitious Florida high school newspaper editors. In the first episode, several outstanding contenders vie for the coveted Editor-in-Chief position.


The Contenders

Amanda
Watching Amanda, one must forcibly stifle the urge to blurt out: “her nails are just like buttah!” Think, Barbra Streisand, but 17, Floridian and with a flair for high school journalism. Amanda’s bedroom confessionals, during which she vents her anxieties to a sympathetic household terrier, essentially structure and establish our loyalties in the bitter newspaper office rivalries. Viewers cannot help identifying with this neurotically quirky, teenage Woody Allen-cum-Streisand – one episode culminates with Amanda downing an entire venti of Starbucks latte when the boy she likes delays in answering her phone message. She brims with personality, and, although several inches taller, possesses all the spirited vitality and aggression of First Republic France’s Napoleon Bonaparte.


Adam
Although a self-proclaimed rival of Amanda now, in several years, when Amanda Lorber becomes an international gay icon, and her former classmate Adam Brock comes out of the closet, he will worship her. Adam is the Cypress Bay Circuit’s ruthlessly savvy Business Manager. With a penchant for ad sales, musical theater and unelicited, high-intensity emotional outbursts, Adam earns himself the merited distinction of Cypress Bay High’s “Most Dramatic” in the newspaper’s Superlatives Issue. Well deserved, Adam.


Giana and Trevor
Like the “It” couple in a B Hollywood romance flick, but with slightly less character depth. Trevor and Giana hold down the prerequisite irreverent teen eye roll and makeout quotas for the show. Our indifference quickly turns into revulsion when these two express their own interests as antithetical to protagonist Amanda’s. Presuming they ever reach higher levels of psychological maturity, I predict these two will feel the most embarrassed down the road when MTV airs the reruns.


Alex
Amanda’s Machiavellian #2 rarely sports his jeans less than 4 inches below his hips. He may be skinny, but that don’t let that fool you; he is also a coward. Alex grapples with his simultaneous desires to be liked by Adam, Giana and Trevor (Amanda’s opponents) and to agree with things Amanda says when they have conversations. He will be most remembered for designing an Amanda look-alike avatar in a virtual boxing video game and KO’ing her as revenge for surpassing him in the Editor-in-Chief competition. Schadenfreude’s a bitch, Alex.


Why Watch?

We all have our guilty pleasures. It is healthy for the human mind to unwind in front of a shallow mirror. The tensions endemic to the Democratic Primaries have grown as monotonous as an ‘80’s Michael J. Fox spin-off in its 3rd season. Yet, the conflicts in MTV’s The Paper are new and ripe to our reality-dubious gazes. This show, although blatantly edited to advance a recognizable storyline, literally glamorizes teenage diligence, academic sobriety and budding eccentricity. Furthermore, unlike its West Coast reality rivals, The Paper’s dramatics are over-the-top to the point of self-awareness. Can it be? Has lowbrow media “irony” finally transcended its grizzly fate of Morissette malapropism?

At least The Paper explores more interesting questions than some of its reality predecessors. Which 17 year-old striving journalist will prove her/himself the most meticulous at copy editing? Whose meta-confessional will be the most articulate? Will the editors agree on grey scale for the paper’s graphic design layout? Will the Business Manager set a new record for ad sales?

Watch and find out, my friends. Stream full episodes of The Paper right now and then tune in to MTV for new episodes on Mondays at 10:30 PM.

Gender in Race

On the facebook.com, there is a group titled, "Hilary Clinton Shouldn't Run For President She Should Just Run The Dishes." Abysmal spelling and grammar aside, really, this is sexist. If you disagree with me or believe I am overreacting when I say I am deeply offended, let me ask you, how would you would react if a similar facebook group existed about Obama with the insinuation that black men ought to be limited professionally to capacities like restaurant dishwasher, the way they were before Civil Rights Movement? Do you find that flavor of prejudiced jibe more distasteful than these reckless claims that a woman as professionally revered and accomplished as Hillary Clinton would better suit a more domestic sphere than Oval Office?

It seems to me that Hillary Clinton's campaign has been haunted by a host of double standards. There are the well publicized examples:

1) Hillary Clinton is a frigid pillar of political androgeny.
2) So called "crocodile tears" are shed.
3) My God, she's a hysterical woman!! Call Dr. Freud, Herr K.'s at it again.

There are also the subtler double standards. At first, her gender seemed like an impediment to her foreign policy credibility. Now, the simultaneity of her gender and Iraq War record somehow reduce her to a loathsome hypocrite -- you know, a lot of Democrats voted for war when Clinton did. Based on Obama's record, if he had been in the U.S. Senate at the time (which he wasn't), he most likely would have voted "present."

Abstract relationships between Hillary's gender in the context of Bill Clinton's promiscuity make her the object of widespread white male American hatred. This, her "enlightened, non-hating" opposition argues, undermines her electability and therefore definitively means she would not be able to defeat John McCain. What about how Ronald Reagan launched his candidacy in the late '70's by race baiting segregationist white Southern towns and talking about States' Rights? When did this tautology gain credibility that a marginalized gender is electorally inferior to a marginalized race? And whenever people use that argument, why can't they ever speak on behalf of their own beliefs and impressions? It is not persuasive to say you are voting against your own convictions to follow the sway of "ignorant and superficial party voters" because this somehow predicts and addresses presidential “electability” 9 months from now.

If Hillary is so unelectable, why do so many G.O.P. pundits and strategists favor Obama?

Why does Obama elude responsibility for his team's flirtation with dirty campaign tactics, while the smallest whiff of foul play from the Hillary side is heedlessly interpreted as incontrovertible evidence of her treacherous character?

Why am I the only who cares about the Exelon nuclear scandal while so many people are pointing fingers at the Clintons' corporate ties?

How do Obama's lack of administrative experience, repeated legislative abstentions, centrist politics, corporate/lobbyist ties, bitter and divisive engagements with Clinton, campaign slurs against Clinton and ability to mimic rhythmically the oratory tendencies of Martin Luther King Jr. yield him the "higher moral ground?"

One feels tempted these days to treat it as an inevitability that the next U.S. President will not be the woman. Historically, they are not too far off -- black men won the vote in this country half a century before women.

According to the Fifteenth Amendment, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State, on account of race, color, previous condition of servitude."

As suffragettes such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott argued, It would have been so easy to include the word "sex" -- which was deliberately omitted.

Why couldn’t the word “sex” have been included?

Frederick Douglass suggested an answer to this question in an 1869 speech comparing the plights of women to those of Southern freedmen:

“When women, because they are women, are dragged from their homes and hung upon lamp-posts; when their children are torn from their arms and their brains dashed to the pavement; when they are objects of insult and outrage at every turn; when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down over their heads; when their children are not allowed to enter schools; then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot.”

In response to a member of the audience’s inquiry, “Is that not all true about black women?”, Douglass answered, “Yes, yes, yes; it is true of the black woman, but not because she is a woman, but because she is black.”

Is that how we feel today? Do Americans believe that Obama’s race gives him a more legitimate claim to his political “transcendence” of his race? Whereas Obama is admired for his ability simultaneously to embody and transcend his race, isn’t Clinton often mocked and scorned for at once representing and defying cultural and biological (these two are not the same things) presumptions about her gender?

I am not suggesting that the history of gender vs. racial adversities in this country somehow entitles Clinton to the presidency over Obama – that is the last thing I would ever propose. I do not believe it is a good idea to advocate a candidate on the basis of her/his race or gender. That is not how a successful Democracy operates (even though America is technically a Republic with a long track record for stolen elections).

When you are next struck by the instinct to react critically to Hillary Clinton, challenge yourself to understand whether you would/do hold Obama to the same standards.

From Myth to King

I do not particularly dislike Obama as a candidate. It is true, I think Clinton would make both a more electable Democratic nominee and a more administratively competent leader than Obama. I do not deny this. I will tell you what compels me to rally behind Clinton: Obama’s support base (of course, with some exceptions) really seems to miss the point of Obama’s candidacy.

When did Obama become the radical, civil rights activist, African-American preacher reverend of the new millennium? Obama is a far cry from the Reverend King Jr. (meticulously rehearsed speech delivery rhythms and intonations aside), or from Medgar Evers or James Meredith. Let’s get this straight. Obama’s domestic politics lean towards the center. He will not stand up to the corporate lobbyist on behalf of the little guy. For example, he has already made significant nuclear reform concessions that favor Exelon, one of his major corporate campaign donors (read about it).

Obama’s longstanding anti-Iraq War sentiment has helped launch his popularity among youth voters, many of whom are getting involved in presidential politics for the first time – it is unfortunate that poll-speculating and sign waving seem to constitute a legitimate “interest” in politics these days. Obama’s antiwar platform has somehow led to his fallacious equation with JFK (who stole the election from Nixon and then started the Vietnam War) or Bobby Kennedy – who, before his assassination, ran on an antiwar platform not against a Clinton, but against Hubert Humphrey, who believed that we should continue the war in Vietnam. Clinton’s current position on Iraq essentially mirrors Obama’s.

The country is apparently tired of the same old party legacy candidates – another Clinton?! Yet, somehow this fatigue with the status quo has led us blindly to the pseudo-status quo. As with his race, Obama dexterously manages to transcend in the eyes of voters what he literally, physically embodies. Because Obama votes “present” on a vast range of controversial pieces of legislation (including a bill advocating reproductive rights), is this supposed to elevate him above the party politics that, until now, he has made only token gestures toward combating? Or is it his lack of Congressional experience that makes him appear such a radical candidate?

By Obama’s racial transcendence, I mean that white Democratic and Independent primary voters do not seem to feel threatened or marginalized by Obama’s Kenyan heritage. Male voters apparently find Obama’s race less of a barrier than Clinton’s gender in terms of identity politics. Why shouldn’t they? Obama and his advisors are currently toying with the idea of advocating class-based affirmative action over race- / ethnicity-based policies as a strategy for luring more working class white voters away from Clinton.

On most domestic issues, Obama is even to the right of Clinton – healthcare, energy policy, job creation and subprime regulation to name a few examples. Yes, Obama opposed the war from the beginning (when he was in the State Senate) while Clinton (in the US senate) voted for the war initially. They are both against the war now, and neither proposes immediate troop withdrawals. Let’s not forget, it was Bush’s incompetence that made Iraq such a fiasco. Even after duping the senate, history shows that a Reagan- or a H.W. Bush- leaning conservative leader would have withdrawn the troops after war’s initial signs of adversity (e.g. Lebanon and the Gulf War). If we really want to pull off this troop withdrawal, we need administrative competence. Based on what experience would Obama’s efforts to end the war be better orchestrated than Clinton’s? Based on his eloquent rhetoric? Or perhaps his earlier opposition than Clinton’s to the initial Iraq invasion five years ago when Obama was still in the State Senate?

I think both Clinton and Obama represent the interests of status quo party politics. Except these days, the status quo has been transformed by Bush’s hawkish, partisan, war-waging, tax-cutting, recession-inducing ineptitudes. Right now, we do not need the change (then maybe we would have nominated Kucinich or Gravel, or even Edwards); we need a change. Believe it or not, Obama is not the only Democratic candidate capable of change – in so far as “change” denotes a shift from Bush’s neo-conservatism. Please, if you are going to support Obama, at least be realistic about the degree of change his candidacy represents.

Why I support Hillary Clinton

I strongly support Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate.

Why you ask?


1) Her positions on the issues are closer to mine than Obama's. She is to the left of Obama particularly on domestic issues -- e.g. healthcare, energy policy, job creation, how to handle the subprime crisis, etc.

2) I believe her experience would make her a more effective and competent leader than Obama. At the debates, Hillary's legislative experience is apparent in her detailed and concisely articulated strategies for how she would address a host of pressing issues after taking office. Despite Obama's remarkable eloquence, he sounds to me less like he is speaking from political experience (state senate does not provide rigorous training and Obama has been far less active than Clinton in the US senate), and more like he has just been listening to too many policy wonks.

3) I do not deem "electability" a compelling basis for deciding my vote. To revise my use of gender in this explication, I am skeptical of the circular, gender-involved reasoning I frequently come across from voters who have decided on Obama in spite of a closer sense of alignment with Clinton's platform.

For example, people tell me they are choosing Obama because they think other Americans hate Clinton enough not to vote for her. Gender, the Clinton marriage, past White House sex scandals and so forth frequently emerge among the reasons why people whom I know argue that other Americans would not vote for Clinton.

This is all very tautological and confusing, I agree. A byzantine line of sophistry that makes me suspicious of whether certain voters hide behind "ignorant Americans’" reasons for disliking Clinton, perhaps as a way to avoid their own.

4) I think either Clinton or Obama is capable of beating either Romney or McCain. It is fallacy that Obama is the only candidate who could win for the party.

5) It makes me skeptical of the Obama base's degree of longstanding commitment (the trendy youth activism for example) how little so many of his supporters seem to recognize Obama's position on many of the issues. A lot of voters believe that Obama is to the left of Clinton, which just isn't true.

6) The G.O.P. smear campaign media blitz will be a powerful force in this election. We know what they have against the Clintons and can feel confident that Hillary is arming herself against their ammo. She has the resources and experience to deflect whatever dirt they throw at her.

Now, this is where I think Obama's candidacy is a serious risk for the party's future. We don't know what they will use against Obama. His reputation has not really been through the mill yet.

Do not forget what happened to John Kerry in '04. The Dems chose him on the basis of his Vietnam War record, hoping to exploit Bush's evasion of active war duty. Voters simply did not anticipate how the Bush team would "Swiftboat" Kerry and discredit his candidacy on the basis of experiences which should have made him the stronger, not the weaker, candidate. Further, think of how Reagan launched his presidential bid in the late '70's by visiting racist Southern white towns and reassuring voters by making insinuations about his platform's commitment to upholding segregation.

If you are determining candidacy on the basis of "electability," do not underestimate the power of latent American racism. Speaking of which, how will Obama hold up among Latina/o voters?

___
A lot will happen between now and November. I feel I know Clinton better as a candidate: I am as confident about her ability to deliver legislatively as I am about her team's ability to recognize and deflect the immense media smear campaign that the G.O.P. will inevitably orchestrate against either candidate.

Further, I place my support behind Clinton because she represents my left-leaning political ideals. She is more committed to government intervention in:
a) Creating health care mandates and viable coverage plans for Americans.
b) Creating job growth. (Our job market is officially in a recession).
c) Energy policy.
d) Placing pressure on faulty lenders and increasing regulatory pressure in addressing the subprime mortgage crisis.

These types of positions represent my ideals and longstanding political commitments.

Further, I genuinely believe she will make a more competent and effective leader -- she, unlike Obama, has already enjoyed the opportunity to learn from her own mistakes and to establish how her power politics will not intervene with her legislative agendas. I also believe she is the more electable candidate. While, on an abstract level based purely how voters feel right now, I believe either Obama or Clinton capable of defeating McCain, I view Obama as the riskier candidate to survive the 9 month race campaign process. With Obama, who is less tested, less experienced and less able to foresee which obstacles may oppose him 6 or 7 months from now, there is simply more room for error.

I support Clinton.

The Binary Flip Flop

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
-W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”


These past two presidential terms have witnessed a dialectical struggle between the forces of action and consensus, event and its emotionally spun narrative, worthy of Marxism’s emergence from the grips of Europe’s swift industrialization – or fascism’s from Yeats’s post-war Europe.

Whereas the murderous violence of terrorism somehow provided for the mass popularity of war-waging, tax-cutting, border-patrolling conservatism, the nation once again yearns to seek comfort in the arms of its antithesis. The destruction reaped by the attacks of 9/11 shocked us, jarred us and spun us, unbalanced, reeling away from our cores. 9/11 provided an emotional need for a story in which a swash-buckling cowboy protagonist armed its country against the aggressor antagonists of a nascent international islamo-fascismo-jihado-osamamo-terrorist movement. Now that we’ve absorbed our fear and anger by spawning adequate degrees of death, violence and political instability abroad, yet again, we find ourselves reeling.

We’ve sacrificed soldiers while providing for the downfall of a country. We’ve aggravated environmental positive feedback cycles, generating unprecedented increases in the Earth’s carbon reflectivity, thus melting the ice caps and moreover, irreversibly and progressively increasing the rates at which the ice caps melt. We’ve left hardworking American citizens, befallen by cancers and medical tragedies, bankrupt in trying to fend for themselves because their government did not take adequate measures to secure their health coverage. With our faulty loans crises, astronomical military spending and top-down taxation, we’ve brought our nation to the brink of recession. Middle class Americans, the very backbones of our national pride, are afraid to buy themselves holiday presents because of growing doubt and uncertainty about their economical stabilities.

If not in the discounted shopping aisles of American malls and department stores, where can our nation seek solace and put its over-taxed, under-represented, weary souls at ease?

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

As a nation still reeling from its last attempt to will its self-reconciliation by forcing coherence upon its polarities, the last thing we need is to place our confidence in further hollow ideology and smooth-talking rhetoric.

I say we stop talking about change and start enacting responsibility.

It is precisely not the time for ruptured change, Barack Obama; it is time for stability. It is time to subvert the consumerist flip flops that charge our political imaginations and replace them with something more practical, or at least with something that has better traction and ankle support.

Hillary Clinton may not spout idealisms with Obama’s eloquence; her platform may strike us as relatively status quo; we have a right to be skeptical that her administration would not attempt as radical degrees of change as Obama’s might initially. Yet, perhaps !CHANGE! – over-announced, under-rehearsed, keenly antithetical – will just send us spinning farther afield.

Perhaps what this country needs right now is reality: something tested, predictable and feasibly stabilizing.

One step at a time, America. We’ll get there faster in sturdier footwear.

To invoke Kerry and Edwards’ dueling 2004 campaign slogans – Kerry preferred “help is on the way” to Edwards’ “hope is on the way” – whereas there is always a future for hope, today our country needs help.