"In vacant or in pensive mood..." I am: Bekah; 24; Law Student / Favorite Things: Carbs (so there!), Johnny Damon, Smiling at babies, Grilled cheese, Comfortable silence / Favorite Supreme Court Justice: Brennan / Favorite Wilson: Owen by an inch / Today's Special: Song: Elliott Smith, "Bled White"; Quote: "You know, there's like a butt-load of gangs at this school. This one gang kept wanting me to join because I'm pretty good with a bowstaff." Please love me: mmbekah@yahoo.com

 
I've spoken with a few people about my post today, and I think I should make a few things clear: 1) The rumors are true, I do tend to exaggerate sometimes. The JC Penny commercials do not actually make me livid. I am not writing a strongly worded letter to the president of JC Penny, or going on a hunger strike outside of their store at the mall. I am not distributing flyers denouncing JC Penny as sexist or communist or fascist or anything. I merely think that their commercials perpetuate annoying ideas about what women and men can/should be doing. 2) I love babies. Eventually, I want to have lots of babies. Babies probably make me happier than anything in the world. Especially when I see them taking naps, their chubby cheeks flushed and smooshed against their Daddies' shoulders and their little curls stuck to their hot foreheads. I also want to take care of my babies when I have them--I just think I should have some help in that department. 3) My main point is that if both parents work (which is the norm today), both should help with house stuff. It's like with my parents. My Mom always cooks, but my Dad always does the dishes (such a good boy). That being said, the household duties were definitely skewed, and I still think my Mom is Superwoman. I honestly want to kick myself when I think about how much I complained when we had leftovers for dinner (leftovers of a superbly prepared meal which she cooked for us after a full day of work), or whined about having to do my own laundry when I was still at the tender age of 15. Now go hug your Mom and we'll be done here.

posted by Bekah at 6:10 PM :: |

 
We Can Do It! (If By “It,” You Mean Laundry!)

No matter how much progress women make in society (my law school class, for instance, has more women than men), leave it to television to consistently throw us right back into the 1950’s. Commercials are the single most detrimental force against feminism. They continuously perpetuate stereotypical views about both women and men, and hinder any attempts to achieve an equal society. I’ve absolutely, completely, and totally had it. There are some basic themes running through commercials today that I just have to address.

1. Shaving. Yes, as one would deduce from commercials on the subject, the act of picking up a can of shaving cream, applying it to one’s legs, and using a sharp object to shave said legs is clearly beyond the realm of women’s capability. (Cut to a shot of a woman in a bathtub spraying herself in the face with some unruly shaving cream. You can just imagine the caption: “Oh, it comes out of this end! Now I get it!”). Because of the difficulties associated with shaving, one of the newest razors on the market seems to be much easier for women to “grasp.” It even has a no-slip handle. Essentially, this razor purports to have built-in shaving cream. But it’s not really shaving cream; it’s just goo. As my friend Melissa so aptly put it, the problem with shaving without real shaving cream is that “you can’t tell where you’re going or where you’ve been.” I think I’ll stick with the challenging, but ultimately more effective, two-step process.

2. Childcare. There are a bunch of JC Penny commercials going around that make me absolutely livid. They feature assorted doltish Dads attempting to perform strange, alien feats such as dressing and feeding their children. Those little brats just won’t behave, and the exasperated fathers exclaim, “Where is your mother?” Oh you guessed it folks, she’s at Penny’s shopping up a storm. I find these commercials offensive to both men (is feeding a kid peas really that gender-specific an undertaking?) and women. If the makers of that commercial wanted to answer the husband’s question realistically, I think they’d be better off showing mom hard at work at a job where she works harder and more efficiently than all the men but still gets paid less. Or maybe she’s having an affair because her tool of a husband can’t even get their kid ready for little league.

3. Laundry. Yes, you guessed it, “Mama’s got the magic of Clorox bleach.” I’m sure women around the country really appreciate that. In addition to their full time jobs and exhausting attempts at mastering the art of shaving, it’s good to know that women are still the only sex with enough time to do laundry. I have a news flash for my future husband: I don’t know how to iron, and I don’t intend to learn any time soon, so you better figure it out. Also, when we get married, whoever has the dirtiest clothes is doing the laundry. Enjoy that flag football game, k? I’ll be at work.

4. Beer. For a long time, I really liked the beer commercials featuring different groups of guys hanging around telling stories about funny stuff that happened to them. Like the one where the guy hitches a ride in an Eighteen wheeler in which there’s a ventriloquist dummy maniacally screeching “Eeeeeeeeee!” for the duration of the ride. The guy explains how he jumped out of the moving truck, and then everyone in the bar laughs. That’s funny. But then the commercial people tried to do a “women’s version” which consisted of a group of “girlfriends” sitting around coming up with original ways to get back at an evil ex-boyfriend, such as hitting him in the balls with a golf club. Ooh, good one! (Or not). The moral of the story: girls have nothing better to talk about than evil ex-boyfriends, and they’re not creative or funny either. Cool.

5. Cooking. “Choosy moms choose Jif.” Choosier moms choose a partner who’ll help shop for peanut butter once in a while.

posted by Bekah at 9:31 AM :: |

 
Confessions of an Aging "Camp Kid"

Have you ever seen Wet Hot American Summer? The movie with Janeane Garofalo, Paul Rudd, and that guy from Law and Order: SVU? Well, that’s where I went to camp, give or take a talking vegetable can or two. The talent show scene in that movie is absolutely priceless. It’s the most accurate depiction of summer camp I’ve ever witnessed, right down to the thunderous applause for each and every questionably “talented” camper. You see, we cheer vigorously for everyone at camp, regardless of whether or not they understand what “talent” means, because we want to make the kids feel good about themselves. That way they understand that when they go out in the real world and play “The Circle Game” with their belly buttons, people will think they’re cool and will accept them.

I’ve spent the majority of my summers at camp (“Jew Camp” as my friend Josh affectionately calls it, although come to think of it that doesn’t really sound good), and I have to say that right now I’m feeling a little nostalgic. As I sit in this air-conditioned, caffeine-saturated, technological mecca in the middle of July, I can’t help but think one thing: I’ve been out of school for over a month, and I haven’t gotten so much as a mosquito bite or a sunburn. Granted, the evil Westlaw computer screen is burning painful holes in my retinas, but it’s just not the same. For starters, the holes in my retinas definitely aren’t turning into a tan anytime soon.

This whole “spending the summer indoors” thing is starting to take its toll. I’m getting lazy and sluggish. Boiling water to prepare instant oatmeal is often too daunting a task. I need sunshine! I need lanyards! I need someone to start my lanyards! I need a huge pool filled with campers’ pee (and, once or twice a summer, poo)! I’d even settle for fake poo, like the kind my campers put in my bed one summer! (Did they really think I’d believe that one of them would take a crap on my pillow? I knew that even they—a group of twelve and thirteen year old girl-demons—weren’t capable of such a monstrous deed). Man, it was fun to say “It’s poop again!” though. Good times. It just doesn’t feel like summer if you can’t say “It’s poop again!” Maybe I’ll work that into my research somehow.

I know in my heart of hearts that my camp years are over—that I’m officially too old and too law-school saturated to ever return. But it’s still hard. In all seriousness, there is nothing like sitting down with a camper and really helping her deal with something awful that’s going on in her life. Or like having a pack of twelve year olds jump on you and tickle you until you wake up from a well-deserved nap. Or like being in a relationship that is disastrous in the real world, but seems just right in the camp world. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never have any of that again. But I’m not too concerned. The memories Westlaw and I are making this summer will surely bring me joy for years to come. Oh, don't worry. I'll make a scrapbook.

Update: Um, yeah, I just remembered that it's actually the middle of June. Thanks for filling me in guys...yeesh.


posted by Bekah at 8:07 AM :: |

 
As long I'm taking things seriously, I'd like to report one of the most disturbing statistics I've ever come across. I really don't know what to say about it, except that it scares me and makes me sick. I think some women (and maybe some men?) will be surprised:

"Virtually every study of male college students has found that a substantial number, typically around a third and sometimes close to half, acknowledge that they would commit rape if they could be sure of not being caught."
-- Bartlett, Harris, and Rhode, Gender and Law: Theory, Doctrine, Commentary, Aspen Publishers 2002.

posted by Bekah at 4:41 PM :: |

 
Two Reasons Why I’m Going to Become a Public Defender (Warning: I Do Take Some Things Very Seriously)

1. Attitudes Like This:

“No doubt grand juries err and indictments are calamities to honest men, but we must work with human beings and we can correct such errors only at too large a price. Our dangers do not lie in too little tenderness to the accused. Our procedure has been always haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted. It is an unreal dream. What we need to fear is the archaic formalism and the watery sentiment that obstructs, delays, and defeats the prosecution of a crime.”
– Judge Learned Hand, United States v. Garsson, 1923.

This is a dangerous and unrealistic view of the criminal “justice” system. In America, we pride ourselves on valuing the rights of the individual. We consider ourselves civilized because, before putting someone in prison, we are supposed to guarantee that the government has proven his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Given the dangers of over-zealous prosecution, biased judges, adulterated evidence, corrupt cops, and mistaken witnesses (the figures on this last group are astounding), I firmly believe that it is much more important for us to protect individuals than it is to make sure every guilty person rots in jail.

There was no excuse for Judge Hand’s belief in the infallibility of our justice system in 1923, and there is even less of an excuse for it now. If you have not done so already, please visit The Innocence Project’s website. The Innocence Project is a group of lawyers who use DNA and other types of evidence to exonerate innocent prisoners. 131 actually innocent people have been exonerated thus far. “Actually innocent” means that it can be conclusively proven that the convicted person did not commit the crime. Read Actual Innocence by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and Jim Dwyer for some horrifying instances of wrongful convictions, often resulting in decades of unjust imprisonment.

According to Judge Hand, to fear conviction of the actually innocent is “archaic formalism” and “watery sentiment”—an “unreal dream.” He couldn’t be more wrong. It’s not an unreal dream. It’s a nightmare. And “the ghost of the innocent man convicted” should haunt us all.

Update: Turns out, I'm in good company: "We have to choose, and for my part I think it a less evil that some criminals should escape than that the government should play an ignoble part." --Oliver Wendell Holmes. Elementary, my dear Holmes.

2. Judges Like This:

“This is one of the worst crimes that a person can commit. I just get so disgusted that I just figure what is the use? You are just an animal…I don't know why your parents haven't been able to teach you anything or train you. Mexican people…after 13 years of age, its perfectly all right to go and act like an animal…We ought to send you out of the country--send you back to Mexico. Maybe Hitler was right.”
– Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Gerald S. Chargin, addressing a young Mexican-American he convicted of having sexual relations with his stepsister. Cited in: Sambhav N. Sankar, Disciplining the Professional Judge, 88 Cal. L. Rev. 1233 (2000).

Res ipsa loquitur.

posted by Bekah at 9:40 AM :: |

 
A Window to the Soul

The driver side window of my car broke over the weekend. I think a pack of angry Dutch people, enraged by my previous post, smashed it in with wooden clogs. I could tell it was them by the "Foeck u, stoopid Uhmerican!" scrawled across the door. Ok, fine, there were no Dutch people, and there was no vandalism. The window itself didn't even really break. But the mechanism that makes the window go up and down stopped working, and my car made a horrible, painful grinding sound whenever I pushed the up button. Interestingly, this convenient little flaw came to my attention on Saturday, a good two days before the dealership was available. Also interestingly, it rained all weekend, so I had to leave my car in a parking garage and walk anywhere I wanted to go. In the rain. As a final bit of excitement, the VW dealership in this town is run by a quite spectacular collection of incompetents, idiots, imbeciles, and assholes. Diversity is a beautiful thing. I will just share a few highlights of my experience with you.

Because the window broke on a Saturday, I thought the most intelligent thing to do would be to go to the dealership's website and fill out the online form requesting a service appointment at 8:00 a.m. Monday. After doing this, I got an email saying they'd received my request and would get back to me shortly. When I called Monday morning to inquire about my appointment, the woman who answered the phone asked who'd contacted me. I responded, "Whoever runs your website." To this, she responded, "Our website? I didn't even know we had one." Merciful Christ. So, she took my name and number and said she'd get right back to me. I waited an hour, and then called back. Someone else answered. I explained my situation. Again. And then I heard it. A question no one should ever be asked.

"Did you want to speak to Chuck, or to Cha Cha?"

At this point I had several thoughts, including: 1) Is this person speaking English?, 2) Who/what the hell are Chuck and Cha Cha?, 3) Did I call American Bandstand instead of the car dealership?, and 4) No good can come of this. After a few seconds, I stifled my fear and replied honestly, "I have no idea." I eventually got Chuck, who took my keys and gleefully scribbled down my problems on his little clipboard. Then I suffered through the Montel Williams show (yes, he is your baby daddy) while waiting for the shuttle, until a nice lady and I gave up and decided to split a cab. After keeping my car all day, Chuck finally came through and the window is functional again. I shudder to think what would have happened if I’d asked for Cha Cha.

posted by Bekah at 9:36 AM :: |

 
How do you say "You sound like you ate paint chips as a kid" in Dutch?

Note: This post is, for lack of a better characterization, irreverent hyperbole. It is not meant to offend any nationality, race, creed, people, tribe, ethnicity, gender, club, organization, society, conglomerate, or amalgamation. Not even people on crack.

In preparation for my European excursion (now to include all of the following locales: Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, hopefully Scotland, and maybe Germany), I’ve been reading some travel books. I don’t know if I’m tired, giddy with anticipation of my trip, or just exceedingly immature, but I cannot look at Dutch/Netherlandish/Flemish words with a straight face. At the risk of sounding horribly ignorant, I have to say that the Dutch language looks and sounds to me like English on crack: it is as though someone took English, spelled everything as inaccurately as possible, and tweaked the pronunciation to the point of absurdity. When I try to verbalize Dutch words, I sound like a drunk 4 year old with a cold and an unfortunate speech impediment. Why can’t these people just admit that they tried to speak English, failed miserably, and ended up sounding like their Mommies and Daddies just didn’t read to them enough when they were little? Observe some examples from the phrasebook included in my travel guide:

good morning: goedemorgan
thank you: dank u
how much is…?: wat kost…?
hot: heet
cold: koud
drinks: dranken
men: mannen
there: daar
chocolate milk: chocomel
coconut: kokosnoot (!)
twelve: twaalf

And the best word ever:
orange juice: sinaasappelsap (!!) (I’m totally ordering some).

If all goes well, my uneasy marriage of English and Dutch will go something like this: “Hallo! Goedemorgan, goed mannen! I am heet. I want koud dranken, preferably sinaasappelsap or chocomel. Oh, and wat kost the kokosnoot? Twaalf euro! Dank u, but nee dank u!”

I understand that Dutch is a very rich language with a rich history, and that I’m representing myself as a silly, sheltered American by mocking it. But you have to admit: some of those people in New York subway stations who seem a little off at first listen might just be from the Netherlands or northern Belgium.

Update: I just received the following note from my dad: "Incidentally, you should know that you are of Dutch descent. Your great grandmother's (my mother's mother's) maiden name was Conover, which is a anglicization of something really Dutch like Van Coewenhoewen. So watch it." Figures.

Update #2: Tenaya, a fellow law student, was kind enough to issue me the following warning: "I thought I should warn you, before you stroll though certain parts of Amsterdam, that the Dunglish (Dutch + English) 'I am heet' essentially translates to 'I'm horny.'" Who knew? Thanks, Tenaya!

posted by Bekah at 4:39 PM :: |