Author: Katrina

Common Decency

September 24, 2011

Imagine someone is sitting on a couch, drinking a cup of juice, watching TV, just chilling, when suddenly she despite all care accidentally spills some juice on the cushion. Someone else sees this and screams at her for doing this. Doesn’t matter the spiller felt bad enough already for having done so. No, this other person felt the need to scream at her.

Goodness, I can see the second person not wanting her couch cushions stained but lighten up!

Oh, have I mentioned the first person is the young daughter of the second person?

Yet somehow that makes a difference here.

And there’s excuses for such different treatment. Had the spiller been the close in age sister or friend of the screamer, we’d have little trouble seeing her behavior as problematic, going nuts on someone for a small accident. Yet when the spiller is a child and the screamer her mother? Suddenly it’s all about “teaching her what she did was wrong”. And if there were a third person seeing or hearing about this scenario and dared to speak up saying “goodness, it was just an accident, not the end of the world” then would come the well-worn “don’t interfere with how I deal with my child!”

It’s considered virtuous perhaps to intervene or speak up, even if a total stranger, when you happen upon someone treating another in a harsh or abusive way. When it’s an adult treating a child in a harsh or abusive way, however, then the “correct” thing to do is ignore it and stay out of it.
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American Innocence

September 12, 2011

So unless you’ve been living under a rock on some distant unknown planet, or maybe even then, you’ll recall yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks. The day contained the usual memories, mild patriotism, moments of silence, etc.

I’ve also seen lots of references to the day that it is “the day everything changed”. And with that, some have said it was the day America “lost its innocence”.

Um… what?

Statements like this, as well as weirdly similar statements about so-called childhood innocence make me seriously think that, well, they keep using that word, and I don’t think it means what they think it means.
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Round 11 Complete!

August 31, 2011

“Sweet days of summer, the jasmine’s in bloom. July is dressed up and playing her tune.” -Seals and Crofts, Summer Breeze

Now for the eleventh time and ten years exactly after the end of the first, here we are on this lovely…

DAY
100

The final day of this eleventh round of the 100 Days of Summer! A tradition dating back to 2001, finishing a round of each day occurring exactly ten years after the corresponding days of the original run. Began May 24 and ends today. Another summer has come by, and goodness, who’d have thought a round of the 100 Days of Summer that begins with me dancing on a giant piano could be so crazy?

Oh, yeah, I danced on a giant piano! Let’s get into the recap.

Day 1, horribly sleep deprived and feverish with an ill-timed late spring cold, I picked up Kathleen O’Neal in Georgetown and headed to Greenbelt, only to get pulled over by a DC cop for going the wrong way down a one-way street. Gah! Despite delay, got to Greenbelt and caught Bolt Bus and by noon we were in New York City! At long last, I got to Ferrara in Little Italy, where I’d wanted to go the last several times I went to the city but wasn’t able to. Then to a piercing place Kathleen wanted to see, then to the Met, then met Gella! Then to FAO Schwarz where I found the Big Piano and played Ode to Joy with my legs. Hehe. And by 7pm we just barely made the bus back to DC.

Day 2, still feverish. Sitting in a hot car fixes that right up!

Day 3, skipped work and went to NYRA office for annual meeting planning.

Day 5, laaaaate night of hanging out with Kathleen!

Day 6, still hanging out with Kathleen since previous day, saw 3am brawl in Adams Morgan, helped buy groceries at like 6am before finally getting home and sleeping! Also, poorly attended board meeting where some troublesome staffing changes were mentioned. And the summer NYRA drama begins!
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Oddities

August 23, 2011

So three hours ago I was sitting here at my desk when I noticed the floor was shaking. Figured something heavy was being wheeled down the hallway… something REALLY heavy! Conference room windows were shaking. Then… I realized nothing was being wheeled down the hallway. We were having a goddamn EARTHQUAKE! Wow!

Goodness, we don’t get those around here, in the DC area! Hit 6 or so on the Richter scale!

*ring, ring, ring*

Oh, hang on, I’m getting a call. *reads caller ID* It’s from California!

*answers*

Hello?

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

*hangs up*

Hmm, that’s weird.
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Driving Is Not Probable Cause

August 19, 2011

Drunk drivers are fucking idiots. The fact that often the penalties for drunk driving are milder than those for underage drinking is absolutely boggling. If you’re going somewhere to drink, have a non-drinker friend drive you. Take public transit (though this is often tough, especially if in DC, where everything shuts down for the night earlier than convenient for late night drinkers). Stay where you’re going overnight if possible. Or at least allow a decent amount of time to pass between your last drink and when you’d be driving again.

All that said…

Sobriety checkpoints?! Seriously?!

I was driving back from the NYRA Annual Meeting a couple weeks ago on Wisconsin Ave, when way ahead I see a lot of flashing police lights. At first I figured maybe a huge accident or something weird going on. Then I pass some signs lit up by flares that said “Prepare to Stop. Sobriety Check Point.”

Oh, HELL no! So I turned right around and went a different direction.

Checkpoints?! What is this, fucking Israel?!
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Issue of Trivial Issues

August 8, 2011

Can there really be any “trivial” issues if they are the result of the same oppressive system that breeds the non-trivial ones?

Been talking to new fellow NYRA Board Members Kathleen O’Neal and Samantha Godwin about this. Is it useless, perhaps even harmful, to work on “less serious” youth rights issues when there are more serious ones?

For example, a few times in NYRA we’ve discussed campaign finance laws, that limit the financial contributions minors can make to political candidates. From a fairness standpoint, obviously, this is wrong because your contributions should not be limited just because of your age. From another standpoint, well, if this rule were changed, would it really make that much of a difference to youth as a whole? Wouldn’t the only youth helped at all be those already economically privileged enough to be giving huge amounts to political campaigns?
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Who Gets to Vote?

July 7, 2011

So… age or intelligence? What should be the basis of who gets the right to vote?

I’m going to say neither of those!

As a youth rights activist and founder of #16tovote on the 16th, I often hear that the voting age should be replaced with some sort of test one must pass to get the right to vote at any age. This way, at least only those smart enough or informed enough will decide the government and it’s not ageist.

Eh… not so much.

Proponents of test-instead-of-voting-age rarely seem to have a clear idea of what this test would be and are dismissive of how extremely easy it would be to abuse it, to end up disenfranchising people based on ideology, location, education level, or just plain test-taking ability.
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Final Boss Defeated

June 27, 2011

And by final boss, I mean the Supreme Court has rendered its verdict in Brown v EMA, formerly known as Schwarzenegger v EMA. This was the case where California has been defending its ban of selling M-rated video games to people under 18. It went all the way to the Supreme Court. On November 2, 2010, day of the oral arguments, we NYRAnians rallied in front of the Court in defense of youth rights and free speech. And Usiel gave this amazing speech, of which I totally shot the video! And after that it was just a matter of waiting and seeing…

And today came the verdict at last…

7-2, in favor of EMA. Two dissenters were Stephen Breyer and (surprising absolutely no one) Clarence Thomas.

WE WON!!!!

Check out the official document here!

I’ve been retweeting a lot of remarks and articles today in response to this ruling, so here’s a nice roundup.
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Laziness Is Universal

June 14, 2011

Now for a sleepy, groggy, snooze-button-hitting edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

Really really getting tired of the trope about teens being lazy, always sleeping in on weekends, not wanting to get up for school, etc. Everything from so-called “teen experts” (who are invariably adults who are so astoundingly self-righteous they think they know teens better than teens know themselves and make a career of it) to Windex commercials mocks teens for – gasp! – still being in bed after sunrise.

Are you people really so goddamn thick? EVERYBODY sleeps in! You do, too, unless you’re one of these people who gets up at 5am every morning to jog or something. In which case, you may notice you’re mostly alone when doing this. This is not normal behavior. Sleeping in until you absolutely have to get up for school or work, or sometimes later, is the normal behavior. Sleeping on weekends until your body decides it’s tired of being in bed and wants to try movement again is what is normal. For all ages. When you deride teens for doing this, you’re deriding them for normal behavior. Why?

Oh, right, you’re the adult, so against any logic or awareness of the world outside of your prejudices, you simply must look down on teens and scrutinize them and marginalize them and make damn sure they don’t feel welcome in Your World. You know, because you’re mature apparently.

This has been Day 22 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 11.

Culture Is No Excuse

May 12, 2011

I hereby decree…

Your cultural traditions are NO excuse for harming others!

In the New York Times today was a piece by Nick Kristof about female genital cutting, and after glancing at Feministing’s mention of it, found a piece from two years ago in American Prospect, Rights Versus Rites.

Rights Versus Rites is about the debate about female genital cutting. That’s right. Debate. As in there’s a side that’s all for it. Seriously, go read it. It’s long and horrifying, but read it.

Okay, seeing as the practice is still going throughout Africa, despite little victories here and there where small areas decided “meh, let’s not do this anymore, seems harmful”, of course it has supporters and lots of them. How do they defend it? Why, with the well-worn: “It’s our culture!”
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