The truth about job searching…

Posted on January 19, 2010 by lnicks

…is that it’s really depressing.

Intellectually, I know that it has nothing to do with me.

I know that when I apply to an “entry-level” position requiring a “bachelor’s degree” and “0-3 years experience,” the company probably receives 300 applications, 100 of which have 3 years of experience and another 100 of which have master’s degrees. Therefore the only logical thing for the company to do to keep its human resources department from going crazy is simply trash the other 100 resumes of the poor, helpless souls otherwise known as “recent graduates” and move on with the hiring process.

I KNOW that, but it doesn’t really help make it less depressing. Having an explanation for it does not give me any money, personal development, or the ability to move out of my parent’s house. This is more than slightly upsetting.

And you know what, even though I know all that, and understand all that, and maybe even sympathize a teeny tiny little bit with all that those poor, employed human resource staffers have to deal with…I honestly don’t think it’s too much to ask that they at least send us a rejection letter, even if it actually says “We are about to throw your resume in the trash, just fyi.” Then at least I’d KNOW not to keep hoping to hear back from the hiring director of my dream job the interesting, exciting position the basic, tedious, entry-level job somewhat related to what I want to do with my life the first hit on a monster.com search for “entry-level engineer” McDonalds.

It just seems like common courtesy, you know? Thankfully, I happened to still be job searching in January, which is the blessed time when about 5% of companies do general reorganizing and cleaning up of their job bank systems. On January 4th (the first Monday of the New Year) I received no less than three rejection notices relating to positions I’d applied for over the past 6 months. This is about as many as I received in those previous six months combined. Thank God for New Year’s, it literally doubled the amount of closure I’m getting in my job search. One of those three messages read:

I am sending you this email as you either applied directly to (GE Business Name) for the position of Smart Grid Test Engineer, Job Number 1078551) or your resume was in our database and you were considered for this position.

We wanted to inform you that this position has been filled.

Despite the fact that they FAILED TO FILL IN THEIR OWN BLANKS on this all-purpose rejection form letter (“GE Business Name” was supposed to be filled in with “GE Corporate” or “GE Energy,” etc, as appropriate) I was still grateful to at least know that the position had been filled. (Also notice the mismatched closed paren where they failed to remove all traces of what surely used to say (GE Position Title).)

I didn’t mean for this to turn into a tangent about job application replies, but I can’t help myself. It’s infuriating. I can’t believe it’s not considered standard practice or even common courtesy to inform people of your hiring decision. It can be an automated process, for Christ’s sake. I don’t even want a long letter. One sentence is fine. “Unfortunately we are unable to offer you a position at this time.” It doesn’t even have to “wish me the best” or anything.” Hell, it doesn’t even need to be a full sentence. Consider the following:

Dear Ms. Nicholson,
Unfortunately.
Sincerely,
A. Company

That gets the message across extremely efficiently. I’d be happy with that. This is how low the bar has been set. I’d be happy to get a one-word rejection letter.

You know why? A rejection letter at least means that the company in question that I applied for a position. It doesn’t even mean they read my resume, but knowing that even a mad-lib generating script read my name is the most satisfaction that I can get out of this godforsaken process.

Well, that’s not strictly true. I’ve had a handful of replies to my applications. One company even flew me out to their office for an interview. (They then predictably failed to inform me of their hiring decision. I had to call them three weeks later, despite the fact that they assured me in person that they would contact me within a week.)

Since I’m interested in sustainable development, most of the replies I actually get are from NGOs with 3 employees that can only afford to pay me either $100 a month, living expenses, or nothing. Half an hour ago, before I started this blog entry, I was about to reply to an email from the Product Manager of this NGO developing solar products in SouthEast Asia. They’ve offered me the opportunity to work with them for 4+ months, tweaking the design of a low cost solar system for rural homes. It would be a great opportunity- real experience in what I’m actually interested in doing- but they can only cover partial living expenses. At the time the best path for me seemed to be to take this internship for 5-6 months, then come back and enter the master’s program at the Technical Institute of Monterrey in Mexico. This would be a great way to go- I’m really excited about all of these things for a lot of reasons. In my email response, I was going to tell this program manager that I was really interested but had to think about it.

I started explaining that it I had to consider the $2,000 this internship opportunity would cost me, and the logistics of scheduling so I could potentially start grad school in September. Then I started thinking about how ideally I’d have to be back in August so I could figure out the loans and financial details of paying for this master’s degree, and remembered that I have to start paying off undergrad loans in March, and I almost broke down in tears. I scrapped the whole email. (I would like to emphasize that I have absolutely nothing wrong with this company- this is an underfunded NGO doing good work for very poor people who need it. They can’t afford to pay their interns, and that’s no fault of their own, and does not change the awesome and wonderful things they’re doing. It just sucks for me.)

What the hell am I doing? I’m 23 years old, I live with my parents, and I have $5,000 to my name. I can’t spend $2,000 on an internship while paying off student loans only to then come back to the US hoping to start a master’s program which will also cost me money- especially since I won’t be able to officially secure a spot in this program before leaving for the internship anyway, so I’m likely to come back $2,000 poorer with 4 months of experience to add to my resume which won’t do jack to tip it into any of the piles that don’t get immediately trashed by human resources.

This was the best plan in my mind, and it sucks. I can’t do that. I need to find a real job. A job that actually pays money. (That is the definition of a job, right?) But I literally can’t find any of those, and I’ve run out of places to look. I started to go back to the beginning, looking at some energy companies that I might be interested in working for. Then I realized that I’d already applied to all those companies, and had even gotten a mad-lib rejection letter from one of them.

I sit down to do some job searching and I can’t even begin. I just literally don’t know what to do next.

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Book Review: Al'America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots

Posted on January 18, 2010 by lnicks

There is nothing I love more than gift certificates to bookstores. I have received some amount of money in this form for every Christmas and birthday since I was old enough to read; in fact, it’s what I ask for. (Complaint from family: “But gift cards are boring!” Response: “Has a Barnes and Noble gift card ever failed to make me happy?”) Especially given my circumstances, i.e., unemployed and so depressed by months of fruitless job searching that I don’t even know what to do about it anymore, I try not to spend too much money on books. I probably spend more time at the library than the grocery store. So a Barnes and Noble gift card is great, because it forces me to buy a brand new shiny book to take home with me.

I spent a lot of time wandering the shelves a few weeks ago, wavering between a couple of choices. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, one of my new favorite novels that I would like to own? A science fiction book I haven’t read before, to explore something new? A real-life exploration of game theory?

Ultimately I decided that I couldn’t resist the urge to spend what was effectively my very Republican aunt’s and uncle’s money on Al’America by Jonathan Curiel, a book which seeks to “[cut] through fear and misunderstanding” surrounding Arabic and Islamic culture to reveal that they’ve already woven themselves into American life with no ill effects. (I especially enjoyed picturing what my uncle’s face would look like if he could see merely the title of the book I was purchasing with his gift money.)

It was ultimately a good choice: vivid and detailed, if somewhat lacking in analysis. I finished the book with quite a few new interesting facts in my arsenal, but would have enjoyed even the glimmer of some new and interesting insight.

This much-needed book from The New Press highlights Arabic influences on American culture in impressively varied areas- from architecture to language to fashion. After touching on the unfortunate displays of anti-Arab and anti-Islamic sentiment in the US in the wake of 9/11, Curiel sets out to demonstrate that Arab and Islamic culture isn’t fundamentally incompatible with American culture, as some red-faced screaming pundits (who shall remain nameless) would have you believe. On the contrary, elements of Arab culture can be found woven into the facades of buildings inspired by Moorish architecture (notably the Twin Towers) and in the background of the lives of some of our country’s most famous icons (again demonstrating remarkable variety, those famous icons include both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Elvis.) After all, isn’t that what the melting pot is all about?

It is particularly telling that this thesis isn’t obvious. I couldn’t say if it’s a current problem or just a timeless hypocritical quirk of the American psyche- we are simultaneously proud of being a nation built by immigrants and fearful of outsiders who might continue that tradition.

Al’America is a rich and detailed story, spanning hundreds of years and several continents to reveal the winding paths of cultural exchange. Although the number of examples is somewhat small, the scope is impressive, reflecting a surprisingly broad range of fields in which Arabic influence can be seen, heard, and felt.

My only real complaint about the book is that it fails to reach just a little further. This is somewhat unfair of me, since the book perfectly achieves exactly what its subheading proclaims it to be: “Travels Through America’s Arab and Islamic Roots.” However, I found myself occasionally wishing that the author would curtail some of the detailed history in order to squeeze in more analysis or discussion of American sentiments about these cultural elements. It does me no good to know that there are buildings in the US with Islamic style arches if I don’t know whether Americans tend to love or hate them. It’s hard to see how half a chapter devoted to the storied history of coffee (fascinating as it may be, and eloquently as it may be related) does much to promote the author’s ostensible goal of convincing American readers that they should welcome Arabic culture with open arms. The author attempts the difficult task of showing rather than telling, and on occasion he fails when the text seems to wander into detailed history of a solitary example without relating much of it back to the impact on contemporary American culture or the consequences of that influence.

However, when he succeeds, the book becomes a fantastic and eye-opening tour of important cultural history. It is at its best when it surprises us- more than once I felt my jaw drop (“No way the best-selling poet in America is a Persian cleric!”) or resisted the urge to smack myself on the forehead (“I can’t believe I never realized that song has Arabic influences!”). It is even better when it draws a human face over its research- for example, describing the young white man from a small town in Pennsylvania who speaks fluent Arabic and defends his Arabic calligraphy tattoo to skeptical Americans who confront him about it.

The book’s closing pages quote Nizar Qabbani, a Syrian poet who attended a 1976 conference on “Arab and American Cultures.” His words sorely need to be heard across the world, in America, Saudi Arabia, and France, both for content and context:

Any culture should be open to all other cultures. It should affect them and be affected by them continuously…Culture should strive to bring the world together and unify its dreams.

In those moments of cultural surprise and personal touch, the book’s message gracefully transcends its examples- not that varied cultures share a few details, but that they share a common humanity.

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xkcd makes me lol

Posted on January 18, 2010 by lnicks

Here’s an interesting predicament I just found myself in:

Check out the latest xkcd comic.

I burst out laughing when I read that.

…that’s ok, right?

I foresee plenty of controversy from this, but I think it’s…well, tasteful is an overstatement, but non-offensive, at least.

And honestly, laughing over the political fallout of 9/11 seems much healthier than crying, or the fruitless expression of rage. Right?

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News tidbits and snark

Posted on January 14, 2010 by lnicks

I want to strangle Microsoft.

This is my way of saying, “Hey again, I have an actual legitimate excuse for not writing for 3 weeks this time!” Namely, very serious Computer Trouble.

I am a relatively tech savvy person, and I am pretty comfortable messing around with computers and trying to fix them. The after school job I had at MIT was as a computer support technician, for crying out loud. I should be able to handle most problems.

I suspect I was victim to some kind of virus, because one of the first things I did once my computer started freezing randomly (and obnoxiously often) was to run a virus scan. It took care of a couple of trojans, but that had apparently already done their damage, because it didn’t help my system performance whatsoever.

So I started from the beginning, virus checking, check disking, malware byting, registry cleaning, diagnostic running…the works. I even defragged my hard drive.

Nothing.

So, I gave in- backed up my data, wiped my drive, and started over.

It’s nice to start with a clean slate. Just imagine how much hard disk space I’ve cleared up.

Unfortunately, in the past couple of days, my system started freezing again.

It’s enough to make me want to throw this damn thing through a window. This computer passed every hardware diagnostic known to man, and yet a complete OS reinstall somehow did not completely solve the problem. You have no idea how infuriating this is. Granted, right now the problem is bearable. The system only freezes every once in awhile, whereas before it would literally become inoperable every 5 minutes. I can deal with this for now, until I figure out how to partition my hard drive and install ubuntu, at least. (For the life of me, I can’t properly create a bootable disk. How sad is that, after all of the techno-savvy bragging I just did?)

Of course, the one thing I didn’t backup was all of the internet session data, which shouldn’t have been a problem, because I have all of my passwords memorized, right?

Oh, except for my blog login password, which is reset through my blog email address, which is accessed through my web hosting account, both of which passwords I also forgot.

But now, it’s all sorted out. So here I am, back again, ready to…bore my two readers with my rambling comments on current events. Just a couple of tidbits to get us caught up:

Apparently, whatever Republican is running against whats-her-name-the-Democrat for the open MA senate seat told Obama to stay out of the campaign. I tend to rather agree with him, in that national figures as well as political figures of neighboring states should mind their own freaking business when it comes to local elections. Of course, I only came to this opinion when I was forced to think about it for the first time when Republicans from all over the place were trying to stifle the democratic process by asking the independent candidate for governor to drop out of the race in NJ. My conviction that all politicians are the same grows with each passing day. Also, apparently there’s actually a chance of the Republican winning? As a staunch independent who doesn’t even pretend to live there anymore, I don’t really care much, but MA, what the fuck is going on up there?

This next news story is pissing me off by not being a news story. By which I mean, I’m really ticked off that the awesome story of the NYC taxi driver who found a designer handbag with $21,000 in cash, thousands in expensive jewelery and several passports in his cab’s backseat, drove 50 miles (TWICE!) in order to return it, then refused to accept a reward is being reported almost exclusively in foreign news sources. A google news search returns 12 recent results- one from The Guardian, two from Arizona news sources (hmm, weird), one from something called Sideways News (which is a self-proclaimed “indie” sort of news organization, dedicated to reporting cool stuff that otherwise flies below the radar, and another 8 articles in 8 distinct languages- namely, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Slovak, Chinese, and Indonesian.

So…people in Indonesia care more about this story than people in the US, where it actually happened?

Hmm, I wonder if it has to do with what you’ll actually type into the google news search bar to find stories about it- the guy’s name.

Mohammad Asadujjaman.

Uh oh. Mohammad. Red alert! Sounds like a Muslim!

Well, probably because he is. He claimed he couldn’t accept a reward because of his faith.

But I mean, good deeds aside, Americans just don’t want to hear about Muslims, unless they’re trying to blow us up or something. We just can’t handle the truth of a complex world where not everyone who follows a particular religion have the same interpretation of it. It’s not like there are multiple competing denominations of Christianity or anythinglol! But more importantly, Arabic/Muslim culture is just completely incompatible with this great country.

So we Americans don’t care that Mohammad is driving a cab to support his education. Or that he only started working as a taxi driver “about three months ago after his hours were cut back at a factory.” He says he wasn’t even tempted, even though he could have used the money for school, saying “I’m needy, but I’m not greedy.”

Because, seriously. Incompatible with American values.

“My mother is my inspiration,” he said. “She always said, be honest and work hard.”

Get yer filthy, incompatible-with-the-American-dream, good-for-nothing religion and culture outta my country!

In other news, we’ve all heard about the disaster in Haiti, which really pulls on my heartstrings because…man, like Haiti didn’t already have enough to deal with. What a fucking world we live in. Of course, this depressing sentiment was validated even further by D-Bag Extraordinaire Pat Robertson, who said,

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. Haitians were originally under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal. Ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other.”

This blog entry, written by a true Christian, which is an inspiring response which asks us to pity Robertson for his clear and tragic inability to make meaningful connections with other human beings which are based on love and respect rather than controlling anger, almost inspired pity in my heart for him.

Key word: almost.

Instead, I will say, unless there was another book added to the Bible around the time of the Napoleonic Wars of which I am not aware, I am forced to conclude that the only reason that Pat Robertson has personal knowledge of a pact made between the devil and the (entire country?) of Haiti(?) is that he is the devil himself.

It makes a LOT of sense.

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Book Review: Good Catholic Girls: How Women Are Leading the Fight to Change the Church

Posted on December 20, 2009 by lnicks

I used to be a “good Catholic girl.”

I mean really, I used to be quite faithful and religious when I was younger. Then I grew up and my faith didn’t grow with me. I blame a lot of things. My completely worthless religious education was the most substance-less, trite waste of time ever and gave me no foundation upon which to grow spiritually. I am by nature a somewhat contrary and rebellious person, and I doubt it was likely for me to stay strictly within the pre-approved confines of the Church for very long. My grandfather is a terribly overbearing evangelist- I have no doubt that he believes in God and honestly wants to save all of us from eternal damnation and whatnot, but it forever puzzles me that he doesn’t try a less obnoxious approach that would be sure to garner more success. You can’t trick or guilt or browbeat people into loving God, only into pretending. (As an interesting sidenote, a few days ago I was discussing this over lunch with Adelaide at Trident, this cafe/restaurant/bookshop in Boston. After we finished our meal we were browsing the bookstore and this young man came up to us and said, “Excuse me, I’m sorry but I couldn’t help but overhearing your conversation earlier and I just wanted to apologize if some Christians don’t represent Christ well.” At first I couldn’t decide if that was really weird and creepy or really sweet and touching, and finally settled on perhaps equal parts of each.)

In any case, I’ve been trying to deal with my lack of faith lately. It’s intriguing because I honestly feel very little confidence that there is in fact a God, and I can’t stand a huge number of things in the Catholic faith, but I can’t quite bring myself to say, “I’m an atheist,” or even “I’m not Catholic.” I suppose it’s just so ingrained in me that it’s hard to let go of. It might even just be plain old nostalgia- when I was a kid I enjoyed my faith. If it’s hard to look back and say, “Wow that cartoon I loved was STUPID,” then it’s no surprise that it’s hard to fully break free of religious traditions you wish you could grow out of.

So I’ve been pondering this predicament, and wondering if I might be able to find some other way of expressing spirituality. There’s more than a little bit of Hermione in me, so my immediate reaction was to head to the library and read up on various religious teachings and history. It was there that I stumbled across this book, which the dust jacket claimed described the various religious women who were standing up to a Church that they loved- except for the part where it didn’t love them back quite as justly as it should.

The author seemed to be reading my own mind when she opened the book with her love for the religion as a child followed by her disillusionment as an adult, and “how miserably the Church failed to live up to its own ideals, deeply instilled in me, of justice and equality…I have long known that born a Catholic, I will die a Catholic. I had resigned to dying with a broken heart.” Preaching to the choir, as they say.

So I really wanted to enjoy this book.

And I did. Sometimes.

Perhaps the subject is just too divisive, but I found myself agreeing with her vehemently in one chapter and scratching my head the next. Some of the descriptions were more than enough to raise my ire- numerous examples of the real-world misogyny of the Church much more tangible than the esoteric teachings. For example, she describes how Mary Ramerman, who became an ordained Catholic priest by having a bishop of the Old Catholic tradition perform the ceremony, receives strong rebuke from the Vatican about how her breach has wounded all Catholics worldwide. In contrast, the Vatican says of Mel Gibson, who is also starting his own “Old Catholic” following, that they disagree with him generally but are sure his heart is in the right place. I had always known that Church teachings were misogynistic, but had never really encountered modern misogyny that way. I rile easily, so ironically, many of these passages just made me want to give up altogether. If I had been wavering before, that and many other descriptions of (sorry, God, but there’s no other way to say it) bishops being sexist assholes seemed to make up my mind- screw the whole religion.

On the other hand, some of the passages of women standing strong in the face of such injustices almost brought tears to my eyes. The soaring descriptions of the first woman to be ordained as a Catholic priest made me proud to call myself Catholic- just look at all these other deeply religious women who are able to say in complete confidence that Jesus would not treat them as poorly as they are currently being treated. Surely that is what I should aspire to.

Then again, other passages had me rolling my eyes in disgust.

Obviously the title implies that the book would focus on women, but it suffers greatly for the lack of a male presence. Some passages were so disdainful towards men that the feminist in me cried for the bridges being burnt. Sometimes the lack of men wasn’t just misleading, but downright stupid. Writing several pages about women suffering from STDs because of the Church’s outdated and unrealistic sexual ethics without a single mention of men borders on the nonsensical.

Despite the fact that this book gave me bipolar disorder (Screw everyone! No, fight for justice! Ugh, I quit. No, you can’t quit when such lofty ideals are at stake!), I appreciate that it gave me a good overview. She profiles some really fascinating feminist theologians. I can’t wait to get my hands on their books, which sound like they will effectively be instruction manuals for people like me about how to affirm that Jesus wouldn’t approve of a lot of the crap currently going on in the Church- which, despite my youthful naivete, I’ve been saying for many years.

So while I appreciate it in that sense, I can’t rate the book too highly overall. The author’s desire to make her point can get in the way, and lead to woeful inconsistency. At times she artfully tugs at the heartstrings, at times she strikes logical arguments for equality with such magnificent clarity it’s hard to imagine the Pope himself mounting a logical response, at times she grasps at straws, and at times she gets so excited about criticizing everyone that she doesn’t realize she’s argued both sides of the same issue.

My recommendation? Skip the book, read the bibliography. Or Amazon’s “Customers who viewed this book also bought:” feature. Surely there are other books on the topic out there which are more academic and less political.

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Letting go of John McCain

Posted on December 20, 2009 by lnicks

Sarah Palin was seen on vacation wearing a McCain for President baseball cap with his name crossed out.

Honestly, I don’t give a shit about that. But according to this article, his response was: “Can’t you take her at her word? She’s going to be a force in the Republican Party for a long time and the hysterical attacks on her from the left continue to validate that.”

I used to have a lot of respect for John McCain. I lost most of it the moment he chose a woman as his running mate in an obvious ploy to get Clinton supporters on his side, and most of the rest of it during the rest of the campaign, when he refused to do anything to stop the racist anti-Obama hysteria caused by his lunatic running mate calling him a terrorist. I was torn over these developments, because I had wanted to be able to vote for him, and honestly believed that he did what he did out of an honest desire to solve the country’s problems. I wanted to forgive him, and go back to respecting him the way I used to.

But what that quote says to me is that he has no remorse for unleashing a maniacally ambitious, immature, and unqualified person and giving her the legitimacy to masquerade as a legitimate leader in this country.

So goodbye, John McCain. I’m very sad to say that you have lost my respect forever.

Considering how few members of Congress are worthy of respect at all, it really is heartbreaking to lose you.

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Shellie Ross is a human being

Posted on December 19, 2009 by lnicks

I find myself getting very agitated reading people’s idiotic comments about Shellie Ross, who wrote a post on Twitter asking people to pray for her dying son.

Apparently she is a relatively well-known blogger who has a substantial following on Twitter. Her son fell into the family swimming pool and drowned. She called 911, performed CPR, and while in the waiting room agonizing over the situation, posted on Twitter: “Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool.”

Reports are conflicting, but it does seem as if she might have been writing twitter posts moments before the child fell in the pool, or that perhaps she left her 11-year-old in charge of the 2-year-old for a period of time.

Responsible? Of course not.

But I find it really sickening the cadre of “holier-than-thou” jackasses who feel the need to slander her on the internet.

I’m not excusing her behavior or actions- mostly because I’m not omniscient and wasn’t there, so I don’t actually know what those actions were. It would be quite ego-maniacal of me to excuse someone for something of which I literally have zero knowledge. This apparently does not prevent others from holding others accountable for actions of which they have zero knowledge.

My point is more about the disgusting displays of pure meanness. Even assuming the worst, that she took her eyes off her child to send a text to her Twitter feed which resulted in the death of the unsupervised child- don’t you think she feels badly enough as it is? And even then, she shouldn’t be. This is something that could have happened to anyone. She’s no more guilty than her detractors, who I am sure at some point looked away from their children for a couple of moments to grab the phone, or take dinner out of the oven. The difference is, those children didn’t happen to fall out of a window or wander into the street in those few moments. That’s true in 99.9% of cases- luck saves us from our mistakes.

In a perfect world, all small children would be supervised every single moment of their lives. But this isn’t a perfect world, and parents are human. Any reasonable person is perfectly aware that this standard is not met, and can never be met.

So I find it truly horrific that people are taking this tragedy as an opportunity to get on a hypocritical soapbox and paint this grieving mother as a horrible person. Instead they should be giving thanks that their children are alive.

I just find it absolutely sickening the way hordes of assholes find their way to articles about the incident to post nasty comments about how this “mother killed her baby” and “allowed her child to die because of her own vanity,” and even one almost unbelievable commenter who claimed a “99% probability” that she willfully murdered the child and that the Twitter posts were just some weird scheme to make it look like irresponsibility instead. (Um, what?)

Because the bottom line is, this woman’s two year old child is dead. And yes, perhaps she holds some portion of the blame for that. (Please note the word “perhaps,” which expresses possibility but not certainty. Again, I was not there, and do not know what happened, and I’m not making any claim either way.) But I’m sure she’s heartbroken enough as it is, having to BURY HER BABY and all, without your help. In a better society, people would be talking about the need for safety fences around pools and other aquatic safety measures (I’m a lifeguard, don’t get me started) and expressing condolences to a woman who lost her child in a tragic accident.

Instead, we live in a society of people who seem to get off on criticizing others during some of the worst moments of their lives.

In short, have some fucking compassion, you assholes.

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Support Equality of Marriage

Posted on December 9, 2009 by lnicks

I just wrote the following letter and sent it to all of my state legislators. For me that’s Senator Kyrillos, Assemblywoman Handlin, and Assemblyman Thompson.

They are all Republicans. Obviously I know they themselves won’t be reading this, but I can’t help but wonder if a Republican would find my love of country refreshing or think my “lofty ideals” theme is intellectually elitist. Hmm.

The Garden State Equality website has this page, where you can search for your own representatives by zip code. It’s actually a very good interface. (But check out the photo that they use of Obama. It looks like it was taken when he was 25 years old. I definitely did a double-take.)

Dear [Representative],

I am writing to you today to express my support for the Freedom of Religion and Equality in Civil Marriage Act.

I firmly believe in the ideals of this nation and this state, among which is the principle that all are created equal and must be treated as such under the law. Belief in such ideals leaves no room for the unfair exclusion of one portion of our population from the rights, privileges, and benefits enjoyed by another portion.

I understand that you, as well as many others, might have objections to this bill on religious grounds; however, I also firmly believe in another of the tenets of our great constitution: the separation of church and state. So long as marriage is a civil institution which bestows civil benefits on those who enter into the union, the state must treat it as such and forgo religious arguments. Further, some religious groups who wish to perform same sex marriages are being forbidden to do so in clear violation of another founding principle of our government- that of freedom of religion.

Our nation was founded on lofty ideals which are exceedingly difficult to achieve in practice. In fact, at the time of our founding the implementation of those ideals might well be described as shameful, with the exclusion of women from public life and the insistence that those of darker skin color were not even real human beings. However, throughout our history, forward-thinking members of our society have refused to accept injustice or the idea that simply because equality is difficult to achieve that we must accept an imperfect version of it. Those ideals are the reason I and many others love this country, and now is the time to stand up for them, and to take the next step towards perfecting their reality.

Please vote in favor of the Freedom of Religion and Equality in Civil Marriage Act, not only for the sake of those who are currently being discriminated against, but for the sake of equality, freedom, justice, and our constitution.

Sincerely,
Laura A. Nicholson

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Go, Jersey, go!

Posted on December 7, 2009 by lnicks

As I write this, the New Jersey State Senate Judiciary Committee is having a hearing on a same-sex marriage bill. (Text of said bill is available here.) The bill is widely expected to clear committee but whether it will pass the actual vote is a complete toss-up.

That ticks me off on political principal alone. New Jersey is a progressive state, and should have no problem passing such a bill. But the Democrats have suddenly lost their nerve, and started backing down from pushing it through at all. The only reason it’s moving forward is because a couple hundred important Democrats signed a petition telling them to get a move on. Completely separate from the content of the bill itself (which I wholeheartedly support), it really ticks me off that these elected morons might not enact legislation that they all actually believe because they’re afraid of political blowback.

But I digress. I’ve been listening to the public testimonies (which are being streamed live at http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/MEDIA/OLS_MEDIA_PLAYER.HTM?wma=!{A}http://rmserver.njleg.state.nj.us/ENCODER4!) on and off all afternoon, because I’m a huge nerd like that. Read on for some thoroughly disjointed notes from my observations.

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond came to testify (which is pretty awesome, I have to say), and said about civil unions versus marriage, “U.S. history has taught us that separate is never equal.”

This made me squeal in dorky happiness, because that was almost word-for-word my Anti-Prop 8 rally sign last year. Win!

(Speaking of said Prop 8 rally, this has got to be one of the best gay rights posters of all time. Of all time. Take that, Beyonce.)

Random funny factoid: you know you’re in Jersey when the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairperson says “After each testimony, senators will have the opportunity to ax some questions” instead of “ask some questions.”

Senator Lesniak, one of the bill’s sponsors, sounds like a pretty awesome guy. I drooled all over his speech because it was passionate, dripping with self-righteous patriotic ideals about freedom and liberty, and referenced several different Founding Fathers. Also because he said this: “I’d like to be the fly on the wall when someone comes home from work and tells their spouse, “Honey, we need to get a divorce because a same gender married couple lives down the block.”"

At one point Senator Weinberg (the bill’s other sponsor) questioned a Catholic bishop who was testifying in opposition to the bill. She said that some religions and religious ministers wished to perform marriages between members of the same sex, and asked him if he would ever tell any member of a different religion that they may not practice the rituals they desire in their own place of worship because it was in opposition to his own religious views. He said that no, he would certainly not say that to anyone.

Wam!

Damn, it’s weird rooting for Senator Weinberg. (NJ context: she ran as Lt. Gov on the Democratic ticket. For weeks I campaigned my heart out for the long shot Daggett/Esposito independent ticket that ended up with less than 6% of the vote. I had a fantastic time sitting in the audience of the Lt. Gov debate, entertaining my compatriots with snarky comments on her trainwreck performance.)

Listening to this testimony has been very enlightening. I have no idea if the bill will pass the whole legislature in a few days, although I certainly hope so. But the more I hear of these testimonies, the more I’m convinced that marriage equality is only a matter of time. I certainly hope it comes sooner rather than later, but I have no doubt that it will happen within my lifetime. For example, apparently the local branch of the Catholic Church has changed their stance on civil unions- they were opposed before the civil union law was enacted, but have now backed down, recognizing that the state has the right to bestow whatever civil benefits it sees fit. I have no doubt that devoutly religious people will continue to hold ugly opinions about sexual and gender “deviance,” but it seems as if it’s only a matter of time before even they will begin to understand that marriage is a civil institution and officially none of their business.

In the meantime, I am crossing my fingers extra hard in the hopes that my state will get something, anything right lately by passing this bill. I love this state, whether it deserves to be loved or not, and I want it to live up to that for once.

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MTV's version of the Jersey Shore

Posted on December 4, 2009 by lnicks

Oh.

My.

God.

I don’t even know what to say. Yes, I did just watch all two hours of the premiere of MTV’s new “reality” show “Jersey Shore.”

First let me make one thing abundantly clear: New Jerseyans most certainly have an attitude, but that is not it. The “guido” stereotype is an imported commodity. All but one of those idiots is actually from New York.

Second of all, I already love, hate, love to hate and hate to love this show.

Because let’s be honest, who doesn’t love watching idiots like this with the smug satisfaction that you are, always were and always will be better than them in every way? I certainly enjoy it. Maybe that makes me a horrible person, but remember- I’m actually from New Jersey.

At the same time, I hate it. As a relatively intelligent person, I’m just hard-wired to hate things that kill so many brain cells so quickly and effectively.

But as for the show itself, I do find it entertaining.

For example, the first episode contained a truly epic sequence of the drama queen being totally incapable of operating the telephone. That’s quality low-brow entertainment.

The outpouring of misogyny is undeniably impressive. (Which yes, I do find entertaining because I have no shame in yelling at my TV. I have a long and proud tradition of yelling at everyone from characters on favorite TV shows to baseball players.) One guy refers to one of the girls as a “shady bitch” for neglecting to mention that she had a boyfriend within the first 6 hours of meeting him. Another says, “Girls are supposed to cook, and guys are supposed to eat. That’s how it is.” And the King of Sexist Jerks spends two straight days flirting with one girl while spending the intervening nights hooking up with random strangers in the hot tub, only to throw a complete hissy fit when she hooks up with someone else instead. It’s abundantly clear that this guy actually views women as his personal playthings. (And that’s not something I’d say lightly.)

So in general, definitely entertaining. Definitely wonderful, definitely awful. But also most definitely NOT Jersey. I gotta defend my home.

Some other choice quotes:

“I feel this job [working in a t-shirt store at the boardwalk] is beneath me. I’m a bartender. I do, like, great things.”

“How do you go in the hot tub in a thong? Wear a thong bikini, that’s a at least a little bit more classier, if you’re going to wear anything at all.”

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