Game Night: Make Mitt Romney's Tax Plan Add Up!

Washington Post has a glorious new interactive feature: Make Mitt Romney's Tax Plan Add Up! Can you do it? I am going to attempt!

Challenging God

So I'm working on this paper about redemption in the Bible, and the different ways that feminists challenge traditional theologies of redemption. One method that Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson uses is by citing Vatican II's statement that the Bible is inerrant only in matters which are important "for the sake of our salvation." She argues that degrading women isn't salvific, and therefore if the Bible says things which degrade women, it's probably just wrong. Since a lot of feminists argue that a model of redemption which understands Jesus as a sacrifice or scapegoat is harmful to women, the Bible might just be wrong about that.

I was writing that in my paper, and was struck by the thought - but wait, isn't that a bit arrogant? I mean, you could argue that the Bible (or the tradition through which you interpret it, more specifically) is just right, and that reconsidering it in light of feminism or whatever is just failing to accept the truth of it. If Jesus really did die for the sins of the world or whatever, it doesn't matter how problematic that is in the here and now, because the fact that it makes you feel icky won't matter in the next life.

And then I thought, no, I still think it's right to challenge that notion of salvation. Because I really can't believe in a God that would require such a violent act to be able to be loving and merciful towards his people. If that really is how God is, than he doesn't deserve my worship. And if my intuition of the divine is right, and it's not actually like that at all, than it's doing good work to try to understand how something like redemption might work in light of a less violent God, even if it doesn't get to the "right" answer.

A Thoughtful Response to Some Serious Bullshit

Republicans seem to be just crawling over each other to say the most offensive thing about rape and rape victims lately, most recently Richard Mourdock's comments that pregnancies resulting from rape are a gift from God (note: That link is to a theological analysis, not a political one, though I can provide that too if anyone needs it.) So I really enjoyed reading this reflection from a former Army Chaplain on the problems that a theology of omniscience and omnipotence create in horrible situations like rape.

“The God that I know would never, never, never punish any conceivable sin with rape.”

There are reasons that I am no longer a Southern Baptist, and they are not social or political reasons.  They are theological.  While I will defend to the death their right to be wrong, I came to the belief that the theological premises of conservative and fundamentalist Christianity are not only damaging, but wrong.  These theological errors lead people away from the compassion that I believe was at the heart of the message of that poor carpenter from a little village in Galilee.

I'm writing a paper about redemption and atonement right now, so I've been thinking about issues like these a lot, and while I'm not really a theist so Rev. David's analysis doesn't quite do it for me personally, I agree with the problems he identifies. And the story he tells about standing up to his colleagues who were shaming a rape victim is quite moving. So if you're interested in this theology stuff, I definitely recommend that you check out the whole thing!

Teaching Environmental Theology

So today in Environmental Theology we were talking about something with the environment and theology, and I can't tell you anything about what we were talking about specifically, because I was thinking about the fact that these issues aren't really talked about in churches I've attended and then I was thinking about how they should be included in sunday school lessons and then I spent the rest of the class and the whole walk home dreaming up a sunday school curriculum on the topic. And I actually legitimately think it would be great fun so I'm writing it here.

This would probably work best for early elementary school age children. The basic idea is based on some sermons by St. Basil, but it would incorporate both theistic and atheistic views of the environment.

Take a group of kids to a local park and send them on a mission: Collect as many different variety of leaves as possible. Or, if you don't want them pulling leaves off trees, have them make rubbings of different kinds of bark with crayons. Gather these all together and count how many different kinds of plants they found.

All that diversity is pretty cool, right? It's certainly more interesting than if all of the plants were the same! Some people believe that God created the world this way specifically, to teach us about God through how amazing the world is. Other people believe that the world came to be this way all by itself across millions of years. (And a lot of people believe both!) What do you think, hypothetical children?

Now, let's talk about stewardship! I'm not sure quite what the best way to convey "but all this lovely biodiversity is under threat because we humans screw shit up" to small children is, but I'm sure someone somewhere has written a picture book about it or something that can get that across without traumatizing anyone.

If you believe in God, how do you think God feels about bad things that happen to the Earth? How do you feel about it? Some people think that God gave humans the special job of taking care of the Earth. But even if you don't think God said so, humans still are able to help protect the Earth more than other species can. (There could be clever comments here about can a tree stop you from cutting it down? Nope, but a person can!)

Brainstorm a list of ways humans can help protect other species. Some will be pretty obvious - don't cut down lots of trees or kill lots of animals! But do you use paper towels in your house? Paper towels are made out of trees! What could you do instead to help keep more trees from being cut down for paper towels? I'm sure you could get a pretty substantial list going on in that vein.

And that's how I imagine a fun day in the park could be spent talking to kids about environmental responsibility, what religion says about it, and what they can do. Obviously you could expand it a lot - talk more about appropriate Bible stories or appropriate other-faith/no-faith stories or both, for starters. But the debate is on now so I have to pay attention. Let me know if you'd send your kid to my hypothetical sunday school class! :D

Why Romney Made Fun of Obama Last Night

So last night I stumbled upon this weird thing on TV which I guess is actually a long-standing political tradition, wherein both presidential candidates attend a fundraising dinner in New York and pretend to be funny. Like, they have comedians write their speeches and everything, to present to a bunch of incredibly wealthy Catholics at an absurdly fancy dinner. As you can imagine, it's mostly just sort of awkward and deeply uncomfortable for all parties involved, and Romney did nothing to make it less weird; most of his jokes were about President Obama, whereas most of President Obama's jokes... were also about President Obama.

Melissa McEwen thinks this is because Romney is a terrible person, and I'm certainly not going to argue that point, but I was also wondering if it might have something to do with the fact that the Democrats are far and away better at branding their party and their candidate. In 2008 Obama's "hope and change" thing was endless fodder for comedians, and a lot of his jokes last night referenced parts of his stump speech as well. He's got a pretty solid public image as kind of the sober statesman, which he referenced. He's got a nifty logo and a nice one-word slogan.

Romney, on the other hand, has a boring logo, a slogan that I can never remember, and keeps referencing this 5-point plan thing that no one seems to have heard of. He doesn't have a consistent public image other than "rich guy" - is he the centrist former governor of Massachusetts, or the Super Businessman, or just kind of a confused flip-flopping out-of-touch jerk? He doesn't really tell compelling personal stories the way Obama does, and his surrogates are all over the place. So there's not, like, concrete, recognizable things about him that make for funny jokes without being actually sort of damaging?

This is my theory, anyway. Also, Mitt Romney might just be a jerk.

Binders FULL of Women!

I can't not jump on this one - this is your friendly morning reminder that not only was Romney's binders full of women remark patronizing, but it was a lie.

Via David Bernstein

What actually happened was that in 2002 — prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration — a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.
They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected.
....Note that in Romney's story as he tells it, this man who had led and consulted for businesses for 25 years didn't know any qualified women, or know where to find any qualified women. So what does that say?

 So to summarize, Romney did not seek out these binders full of qualified women - 25 years of business experience apparently had not taught him how. Prior to the election, information about qualified women was put together and handed to him, and his answer to the wage gap was to take credit for that, and then assure us that the Free Market would provide a flexible workplace because there would just be so many jobs that businesses would even hire women!

Uh. Sure. You tell us how that works out for you.

DC is the Best City

This is part of a new advertising campaign promoting respect for transgender people. DC had problems recently with violence against trans people, so I'm really excited to see them responding to it. The advertisements explain that discrimination against people for their gender identity or expression is illegal in the District, and gives contact information for people who have been discriminated against to report it. Good stuff!

FLOTUS at UMW

So, I saw the First Lady today. She's basically the classiest lady ever.

The speech was, among other things, a list of everything you say to someone who asks things like "But what has Obama even accomplished in the past four years, anyway?" It was helpful, because usually when people say shit like that I just want to glare at them and tell them to Google it.

When she said, "We know that the American Dream should be available to everyone regardless of who they are, what they do, what they look like or who they love," I may have gotten kind of emotional.

But being a religion major ruins everything, especially one who focuses on religion and politics. I kept comparing Michelle Obama's lovely speech to all the journal articles I've been pouring over for my thesis. "Ah, yes, that sounds like article I read on liberal spirituality. But it doesn't seem to match up with that other article on American exceptionalism. Curious." Rather than coming away wanting to do some canvassing, I came out of the speech wanting to do some research. And maybe punch Robert Bellah* in the face.

*He coined the idea of American Civil Religion, which is the root of all my above-mentioned problems. I don't just randomly want to punch religion scholars. At least not usually.

Who Needs College?

Today I stumbled across the statistic that the US has more than 100,000 janitors with college degrees. This stat was paired with some information about increasing student debt, presumably implying that it's awful that those janitors got all that education (and paid so much for it) only to have such a low-status and low-paying job.

But because I'm reading a book on the meaning of liberal arts education, my first thought was: Why shouldn't a janitor have a college degree? If you believe the point of a university is to churn out credentials enabling students to command a higher wage in the market because they've learned job skills, then I guess there's no reason for a janitor to have a college degree. And certainly I'd hate for anyone to be pressured by debt or the bad economy to take a job below their aspirations and abilities.

But I also kind of think education could be a good on its own, that should be available to everyone regardless of their career path. There could be some janitors who like their job and also really want to learn about sociological theory, or biology, or whatever just because it's interesting and enriches their lives, and there's no reason they shouldn't have access to that as well. Saying "oh it's so sad, you did all that work just to get this shit job" implies that the only point of education is to get a job, which I just don't think is true.

Environmental Theology Feelings

So I'm taking environmental theology, and today we were talking about if faith traditions can help address climate change, and how. One of the things the article we read talked about was how to attribute blame/responsibility for climate change, and I pointed this problem out.

"I don't think it's helpful to be talking about blame," someone immediately said. "Yeah, like, I have friends who care about the environment but some who just don't care about the earth at all, and you know it's all up to the individual's beliefs so it's not like you can blame them for not doing anything." "Everyone just needs to do their little bit like turning off the lights."

Not gonna lie, all of this made me really angry.

First of all, yes, there is blame to distribute. It's tricky to do so, because it's spread across a few centuries and seven continents, but there are objectively some places and people who are more responsible than others, and failing to take that into account when considering the environmental crisis is incredibly unjust.

Second of all, yes, if your friend doesn't give a shit about the planet, they are absolutely doing something wrong. As people who live in a privileged country which contributed an awful lot to this mess, we have a moral obligation to take some responsibility. We can disagree about the extent of the responsibility - for example, people with more resources probably have more responsibility than those with less - but just not caring is immoral, full stop.

ESPECIALLY when we go to a university that makes basic environmental considerations essentially cost-free. It distributes information on how to recycle properly, and pays for it. It distributes information on unplugging appliances not in use, taking short showers, setting the thermostat at an appropriate level. It provides energy-efficient appliances, LEED certified buildings, and dozens of volunteer and political opportunities to address environmental issues locally and nationally for kicks on a Saturday afternoon if we want. All we have to do is follow directions like we learned in kindergarden, and you can literally avoid sending your garbage to China. Failing to take even that tiny responsibility has a real, concrete impact on the lives of other people. The fact that my classmates failed to recognize that and thought that everyone should just do what they wanted and not talk about blame or responsibility was really upsetting.

Countdowns!

9 days until I get to go see Amanda Palmer with my housemates.
25 days until my birthday.
28 days until my Fulbright application is due. [insert panic here]
106 days until Anne comes to visit.

It's going to be a mad busy semester! So instead of blogging about all of the exciting political things that will undoubtedly be going on in the lead-up to the election, I might just periodically post shit like this. Sorry!

Back To School reading

Have you ever heard of UnCollege? I signed up for their newsletter because when you do you get a free e-book. I haven't read the book yet, but the newsletter is the most fascinating thing in my inbox each week, and possibly the only e-mail I've ever signed up for and then proceeded to consistently and enthusiastically read. It's pointed me to some cool articles about education, and I'm leaving the links here if you're interested. They're pretty dire - the whole perspective of UnCollege is that education as we do it today is at best inefficient and at worse actively harmful to one's actual learning, and I'm not sure I would take such a perspective, because our education system has actually served me pretty wells in a lot of ways. But they're definitely worth a look.

School is Not School - on how the ideal school system, in which people learn to be citizens, turned into something much more boring, with the unfortunate side effect of furthering economic injustice.

The Prison Educational Complex - on "zero-tolerance" rule enforcement, windowless cinderblock high school buildings, and why sometimes school police officers arrest students for "insubordination" and that's really really not ok.

And some bonus, non-education related reading: Undercover at a NOM conference.

Senior Year Goals

I'm a senior now, which means that I have to get in every college-related thing that I want to do before I graduate. So here's a list. :D

• Get a free dinner every night for a week at various campus ministries. Bonus points: Spark a legitimate theological debate without being a dick.
• Attend all 4 school plays. I haven't gone to any since freshman year, which is sad, because our theater department is pretty good. This year I'm going to buy a subscription, so I get tickets for all the plays automatically rather than forgetting and then finding them sold out!
• Write an angry letter to the editor to the school paper, because ridiculous debates sparked by the Bullet are something of a school pastime, and I want to contribute to this charming tradition.
• Attend Spring Formal. Bonus points: Attend Spring Formal in drag.
• Attend Drag Show in drag.
• Attend Victorian Ball in a hand-made ball gown.
• Play a song on guitar at Open Mic Night.
• Go to at least one or two of those guest lectures that I always mean to go to but you know I could be at home taking a nap.
• Participate in one of the campus-wide community service days, even though it means waking up early on a weekend.
• Go to the Fredericksburg Area Museum and the Apothecary downtown.
• Go to at least 2 fancy Fredericksburg restaurants. Bonus points: Get someone else *coughPARENTScough* to pay.

Also, get a Fulbright grant, write a publication-worthy senior thesis, and get into Harvard. You know, in my free time. 

Romney and the Bus Driver

In Romney's speech in my home county today, he made the following comment on Obama's so-called "you didn't build that" speech:

"If a kid makes the honor roll, I know they needed a bus to get to school, but I don't credit the bus driver for the kid's good grades."

Ok sure. But if you cut school budgets so the bus driver isn't paid as much and gut her access to health care and social welfare, her kid is going to have a much harder time making honor roll, and her work will have ended up helping primarily the people who already had resources to support their hard work. Why shouldn't she get some of the credit, and thus expect some of the support back?

Class Dismissed: Awesome Body-Positive Crowdfunded Film!

Sometimes people e-mail me things to put on my blog and I feel very important, but this is definitely the coolest thing that's landed in my inbox in some time.

Aspiring filmmaker Sara Koffi is raising money for a film called Class Dismissed, which she describes as "aiming to be one of the first, consciously created, problematic free forms of entertainment!" It's a story about a pair of college roommates; Christy, a plus-sized escort, and Aubrey, an overachiever who's falling for someone unexpected.

Sara says that she wants Class Dismissed "to be genuinely body positive, genuinely LGBT* positive, genuinely sex positive," which sounds like a pretty fantastic starting point to me. There's a bit more than a month left in her fundraising drive; I don't know how long it will be after that until the film premiers, but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it.

Teenagers and the Minimum Wage

More than 100 House Democrats have proposed a bill to raise the minimum wage, so naturally conservatives are full of reasons why we shouldn't do that, like it'll make it prohibitively expensive for businesses to hire new workers. I keep seeing links to studies claiming that that's bullshit, but it's an argument I understand, at least, and it makes up myth One and Two on ThinkProgress's "Top Three Myths Conservatives Use To Oppose Increasing The Minimum Wage" But number 3 I don't understand at all, and it really made me angry.

3) Increasing the minimum wage only benefits teenagers. Many Republicans argue that raising the minimum wage just hurts teenagers’ ability to gain work experience. But as a new report from the Economic Policy Institute shows, nearly 90 percent of minimum wage workers are 20 years old or older. Plus, “more than a third (35.8 percent) [of minimum wage workers] are married, and over a quarter (28.0 percent) are parents.”

Ok, so ThinkProgress responded to this by saying that most people with minimum wage jobs are adults. But what's wrong with benefits for teenagers?

We're a country with enormously expensive higher education, high teen pregnancy/parenting, and lots of inter-generational poverty. There is absolutely no reason why teenagers shouldn't have a pay raise; I mean, I would probably spend it on movie tickets, but I know friends from high school who could have really used it for the sort of bootstraps-y things that Republicans are into like helping their families and saving for college. So why in the world is "eh, they're just teenagers" a legitimate argument for not raising the minimum wage?

I want to see a Black Panther movie.

Who wishes they were at San Diego Comic Con? Everyone? Oh good, it's not just me. Anyway, Marvel announced their movies for the next several years at the con, and they look pretty badass. New Captain America movie? Yes please! Ant Man? That will be fun! But Marvel co-president Louis D’Esposito talked about the cool possibilities of a super-hero like Black Panther, and the challenges thereof.

“He has a lot of the same characteristics of a Captain America: great character, good values,” said the Marvel exec. “But it’s a little more difficult, maybe, creating [a world like Wakanda]. It’s always easier basing it here. For instance, Iron Man 3 is rooted right here in Los Angeles and New York. When you bring in other worlds, you’re always faced with those difficulties.”

Building Asgard was fine, but Wakanda is harder? Think Progress speculates that the problem wouldn't be, like, building a setting for Wakanda, but rather creating a story in which black people run a technologically advanced country that white audiences would come see. But it would be so cool! And Storm could be in it, and awesomeness could ensue... So yeah. That should happen.

This has been a not very profound post. Hope you all are having an excellent summer!

Know why you can't get a job?

Because you can't walk and sit like a model.

Later this month, Republican State Sen. Marty Golden’s office is holding a career-development event for women in his southern Brooklyn district teaching them “Posture, Deportment and the Feminine Presence.”

That’s according to a taxpayer-funded mailing being sent out in Golden’s district, which an offended reader passed along. The taxpayer-funded event – presented by a “certified protocol consultant” – is part of a series teaching women in Brooklyn “what’s new in the 21st century as it relates to business etiquette and social protocol.” More details are also available on Golden’s Senate website, including the fact that women in attendance will be taught to, “Sit, stand and walk like a model,” how to, “Walk up and down a stair elegantly” and “Differences in American and Continental rules governing handshakes and introductions.”

Secret confession time: I would love to take an etiquette class. I want someone to teach me how to move gracefully and ballroom dance and use the right fork.

But having it paid for by the state government, and telling young women that their failure to walk up and down a stair elegantly is what's keeping them from getting a job, rather than, you know, the shit economy or the disadvantages that women still face in employment?

Is pretty fail.

Katie Talks Economics!

Some money-related bits in the news lately that have caught my eye...

New regulation would force companies to disclose CEO-worker pay ratio: Think it's horribly unfair for a CEO to make 127 times what an average worker does? A new rule under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act would force companies to release information about that sort of thing. A lot of company owners aren't a big fan of this idea - they say it's too hard to calculate, and besides, it's picking on them for making lots of money. To which I say: Damn straight it's picking on you. You have made this mess, and if you won't clean it up yourself, we will publicly shame you into being less greedy.

Kevin Drum says we can't do things that would fix the economy for younger people because of older people. Any big investment in economic stimulus or job creating programs would threaten retirement funds or require a raise of taxes, which younger voters are usually more ok with (being not at retirement age and taxed in lower income brackets) and older voters are so not ok with (for the opposite reasons). This article paints a very rosy picture of older Americans jealously guarding their benefits while my generation lives in unemployed misery while being reviled as lazy mooches. I do like to think things aren't so bad as that, but damn, what a grim way of looking at it. (The comments dissolve into some awful fighting too, which makes me wonder if that's why reporters don't often talk in terms like this.)

Tomorrow's Gonna Be Tense

The Supreme Court decides on "Obamacare" tomorrow. This is personally important to me for a few reasons; if they strike down the entire law, I won't be able to stay on my parent's health insurance as long as I can now, and I'm also more likely to be denied health insurance in the future because I have a pre-existing condition. If they strike down the individual mandate, then there's a good chance that premiums will go up because health insurers will keep having to accept high-risk patients without getting more healthy patients to balance it out, and that would suck for me too when I eventually have to buy health care.

So I'll probably blog about it! But in the meantime, ThinkProgress made a really spot-on observation about the reporting over this which focuses on how it will impact the presidential elections in November:

It is, of course, mildly interesting to speculate upon how tomorrow’s decision could influence whether a man who currently lives in a luxurious house in Washington will continue to live there for several more years or will instead be forced to move to a different luxurious house in Chicago. But you know what matters a whole lot more? Whether the Supreme Court decides to strip millions of Americans of their future access to health care. 

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Americans file bankruptcy because they cannot afford their medical bills. Thousands more are locked into jobs their hate because they cannot risk losing their employer-provided health insurance while they have a preexisting condition. According to one study, about 45,000 people die every year because they do not have health insurance. So, in a very real sense, the Supreme Court is deciding tomorrow whether to allow tens of thousands of people to die every year until Congress is able to pass another health care bill. Something, by the way, which took seventy years to accomplish the first time around.

 So yeah. Cross your fingers, folks!