If I was the boss of the world, I would issue the following memo to all beginning liberal arts college students:

ATTENTION, NEW STUDENTS.

We're very excited that you're here, pursuing higher education in the liberal arts.  Maybe you want to do something good with your life, or maybe you want to help people, but you don't really have any connection to a strong community that you can work with.  you don't really know wtf to do with yourself.  That's pretty reasonable, you've got a lot of time to figure it out.  Maybe you're even politically radical, and have the sense to know that taking a major place in someone else's movement is probably Not That Great, or really, Not Going to Happen.  Do you know how you could be really helpful?

BECOME AN ACCOUNTANT

For real. 

Alternately, you could RAISE MONEY or MAKE MONEY and give your money to things that are considered "unfundable" (note: anybody working with undocumented persons, people in the street economy in non-saving ways, prisoners, and drug users are nice places to start--providing funds for free holistic healthcare for uninsured people is an excellent option--this isn't an exhaustive list.  Anyone doing a good job probably has no money to do what they need to do, anyone extremely well funded over the long term is probably not doing something all that great)

If you could do that without a fuss, and offer your services at a reasonable cost, or better yet, free,

you would make a big big big difference.

Friends, I had a difficult weekend, but really, this made things a lot better:

I'm not here to make friends

ETA: Link Fixed!

Today is the 60th anniversary of al Nakba.

It is No Time to Celebrate for Jews.

I'm at the beginning of Ali Abunimah's book. 

I am mourning, and considering what is the best place to take action.

Anyone have any ideas about something to do with A LOT of scallions?  Six bunches or so?  Recipe searching has been a bit fruitless, as many many things have a few scallions in them.

This is funny. 

One of the reasons that Wendy Brown is on my interests list is that she is a legal scholar who writes in mostly academic spaces but who is really concrete about explaining the ways that politics and policy actually impact people.  So, imagine my excitement when I was driving to work last week after taking a practice test and heard that she'd be on our local NPR news show Worldview.  I sent people text messages about it. Yes, I am the sort of person that sends excited text messages regarding theorists.*  You can listen here. Or, in case you are ever asked: "What is neoliberalism, and why are people always complaining about it?" you will have a nice answer for the questioner.

So, the other person on the broadcast is Naomi Klein.  sleepingjpb and I have had at least one conversation about why both of us are bothered by her projects and work, but I can't figure out why.  If any of you have thoughts, feel free to suggest. 

Ok, back to studying!

*Look for an upcoming series of posts tagged with I Am Boring

I remain sadly and unhealthily obsessed with reading prostitution related newsbits in the wake of the Spitzer scandal.  The same old boring ass arguments over and over again.  Is prostitution fun, should it be regulated, is it structural violence. 

It's the capitalism, stupid! (and the racism, colonialism, and heteropatriarchy which are its buddies and inseparable bffs)

As long as we need money to get by, there's going to be the paid sex trade.  Pictures of the ideal world of nurturing sex healers or the world where no one ever has to trade sex aren't going to happen until everyone has everything they need.  Telling people that porn is disgusting won't change that.  Diagnosing people with PTSD won't change that.  It's the capitalism.

Until then, there will be migration for labor, farm labor, unpaid labor, domestic labor, the drug trade, sex for money, and all kinds of other parts of the informal economy--ALL OF WHICH ARE BOUND UP IN EACH OTHER.  Maybe not for individuals, but you're mistaken if you think that these economies don't overlap and can be meaningfully dealt with apart from each other. 

Legalization is untenable.  Legalization just creates a parallel informal economy--what's going to happen to a 16 year old, do they get a work permit?  We need people not to be arrested, no one to register, for everyone to have the ability to take care of themselves, worker based responses to violence and community-based protection, and ways out for everyone who wants it. 

I just finished Agustin's Sex At the Margins, which I'll maybe tell you to read some time this weekend.  It's a good start.

You know, this whole "I have experience" business that HRC is on about the Clinton Administration.  CPH3 and I ended up talking about it for far too long last night, so I want to write it down so it's not still in my brain all day.

How come no one is discussing the fact that the morass in Central Asia and the Middle East, while certainly the fault of the Bush Administration, had its genesis in the politics of the Clinton Administration, who was busy camp-bombing, Iraq bombing, Saudi Arabia base building, etc.  Of course the US has had a bad and well deserved rep in the Middle East for a long time (60 years or so, ahem), but Bin Laden didn't get obsessed with obliterating the US when Bush got elected, you know?  And his focus is not about Israel/Palestine, that's tangential.  Bush made significant and awful decisions, but it didn't come out of nowhere. US aggression in the region(s) just had a different form.  I wonder about why Obama is not making this argument, my only guess is that it's a savvy calculation about just how much anti-Middle Eastern sentiment is around in this country.

Hi, I can't post at work and it's March, the worst month for being me.  So, I'm plopping it out all at once!

via BfP