Blogging for Choice: Trust Women

Dr. George Tiller's murder on May 31, 2009 sent shockwaves through the pro-choice and women's rights movements that are still vibrating. Not, as the anti-choice movement would have it, because we're bummed about not being able to easily murder really-soon-to-be-babies anymore but because a good man was gunned down for spending his career doing something he believed in: helping women.

That the "pro-life" movement has branded itself as the only side in this fight that respects human life infuriates me. Do they think it's easy for a woman to decide to give up a child she hasn't had a chance to know? Do they think it isn't gut-wrenching to be told that, if a woman goes through with a pregnancy, she and her unborn child are likely to die? Do they think forcing a rape victim to carry her rapist's baby to term is somehow going to help her recover, rather than sending her into a psychological tailspin of despair, hatred and fear? Do they not realize the heartbreak involved when a pregnancy that brought joy to a woman or a couple has to be terminated because the fetus has stopped growing and the mother's life has been put at risk? Do they not see the courage it takes for a woman to admit that she isn't capable of caring well enough for herself to give birth to a healthy child?

I have been firmly pro-choice since I understood what it meant. I have never questioned my stance on this issue. And I cringe when I think of an abortion as applied to me, my body, my child. There's nothing easy about it.

From all accounts, Dr. Tiller was a man who understood that. He apparently often wore a button that read "Trust women," a phrase that really struck a chord with me. Why do so many people refuse to trust women? Why do they doubt our ability to know what's best for ourselves and our families, to make the best choices we can, to live our own lives, in our own bodies, as we see fit? Why do they think that what happens inside my bedroom and inside my body is their business? It isn't - it's mine.

Society trusts women to carry their weight - to pay our taxes, cast our ballots, care for our families and be generally responsible citizens. In fact, in developing countries, women are often considered better bets for investment than men. More microfinance lenders trust them because they're more reliable about repayment and they're more tied to the community than men. So what's the holdup, in the United States of America of all places, in trusting us when it comes to our bodies and our futures?

Yes, there are irresponsible people out there and some of them are women. We hear about irresponsible people every day - people who rob convenience stores, who grab people's wallets and purses on the street, who murder doctors. You wouldn't take it upon yourself to personally ensure that everyone who went for a walk anywhere showed no sign of being a mugger. (And as far as I know, we have yet to outlaw convenience stores in order to protect their owners.) You just keep an eye out when you and those you care about are out on the street. This isn't any different - you aren't responsible for the bodies or the actions of women you don't know. And when it comes to the women in your life you have a say, but decisions about their lives are ultimately up to them.

So trust us. Trust your mother, your sister, your wife, your girlfriend, your best friend to make their own choices and live their own lives. Trust them. Trust us. Trust women.

This post was written as part of NARAL Pro-Choice America's 5th Annual Blog for Choice Day, on the 37th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. To add your blog, click here. Blog for Choice Day 2010 is also taking place on Twitter, using hashtag #bfcd.

Team Tuffy Tofu Rocks Arizona!

If everybody had an ocean across the U.S.A., then everybody’d be surfin’ like California... 

At any other time, two women running down the middle of the street, belting out The Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ U.S.A.” at the top of their lungs would be cause for concern. Sunday, it was pretty much par for the course since these women were into the last third of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona marathon and were loopy on a combination of adrenaline, aching legs and starved muscles. They also happened to be me and my mom.

My mom was a pretty fearsome athlete before she had me. She ran three marathons in less than two years, regularly placing in the shorter 10K and 5K races she ran. After mostly avoiding the water in her childhood, she took swim lessons in her 20s and 30s, determined to become a stronger swimmer – which she did, moving from marathons to triathlons, including one in Portuguese Man-of-War-infested waters in south Florida.

She kept up her running after I was born, and talked/walked/jogged me through one 5K a year starting when I was about 8 (I could have sworn I’d never want to do a longer race than that first 5K). She encouraged me as I started to run more seriously in college and, with my dad, (and some of my colleagues!) acted as cheerleader through my first marathon in 2008.

She turned 60 in August (don’t worry, I got her permission before typing that) and had been talking for a couple of months about doing another marathon to celebrate. It would be her fourth - and her first in almost 30 years - and I was running my third in October. I started to think that a mother-daughter fourth marathon might be pretty cool.

In September, my mom registered for the 2010 Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona marathon. When she called to tell me she was really going for it, I mentally cheered, registered before we had hung up, then called my dad the next day to tell him he had to keep the whole thing a secret for four months.

As she sweated and shivered and paced through her training miles at 6,600 feet in the Arizona mountains, I did the same in Virginia and Washington, grumbling about the unusual December cold snap and fibbing to my mom about how many miles I was running. I nagged her into making the drive down to Phoenix on Friday rather than Saturday, saying I’d feel better if I knew she had more time to acclimate to the warmer weather and wouldn’t be rushed. And on Friday night, when she arrived at the house of a friend who was in on the surprise and very generously offered to put us both up for the weekend, she cried when she realized I was there to run with her.

Sunday morning, we pulled on our matching “Team Tuffy Tofu” tanks and were ready to go. “Tuffy Tofu” is the nickname my dad gave my mom when they were dating and she was a vegetarian putting an insane number of miles on her feet every week. Then I was born, and was christened “Tuffer Than Tuffy Tofu” (which was completely unmerited, but funny). My dad had shirts made for us, and the joke came up repeatedly over the years, making it the perfect team name for a mother-daughter marathon.

And there we were, at mile 20-something, bobbing along to our own personal soundtrack of The Beach Boys and waving at the cars that passed going the other direction, cheering deliriously at every mile marker that got us closer to the finish line. We crossed it hand-in-hand, whooping at the top of our lungs. And as we walked off with our medals, I looked at all the people younger than my mom finishing behind us and looking in much worse shape than either of us.

My mom is 60, and she just ran a marathon. How awesome is that?

Helping Haiti

As you've probably heard from six different news sources by now, a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti - about 10 miles from the capital in Port-au-Prince - shortly before 5pm yesterday. No one has a solid grasp of the damage yet, but with multiple aftershocks of 4.0 and higher, it's going to be bad. The New York Times' latest update gives Haitian president René Préval's estimate that the death toll will be in the thousands.

Getting aid to Haiti quickly is crucial, and complicated by the fact that many of the aid organizations with offices there are searching for their own missing and coping with the deaths of their colleagues. The global outpouring of support started almost immediately: the German government has sent €1 million, the World Health Organization is deploying a 12-person team of health and logistics experts, Iceland has sent a search-and-rescue team, Switzerland has sent an emergency response team and China is sending $1 million in aid, to name just a few of the relief efforts already underway.

If you want to help, here's a quick-and-dirty list of links (N.B. Humanitarian websites and donation pages get jammed with unusually high levels of traffic after a disaster, so if any of the links won't load right away, be patient. Try reloading every few minutes until you get through.):

• The U.S. Fund for UNICEF - unicefusa.org/haitiquake
• Text "Haiti" to 90999 to make a $10 donation to the International Red Cross (With mobile giving, the organization sets an automatic amount - either $5 or $10 - that's connected to a numeric code and the keyword you send to it. The donation is sent to the organization immediately, and the amount is added to your monthly cell phone bill.)
• Friends of the World Food Program 
• CARE
• Direct Relief International's summary of the situation and donate page.
• Habitat for Humanity International is gearing up its response, and is accepting Haiti-specific donations here.
  

These are the humanitarian organizations working in Haiti that I know the most about and in whose work I have a great deal of confidence. If I've missed any you know and support (and I'm sure there are dozens), please post them in the comments. To stay abreast of the global relief effort, check ReliefWeb's latest updates.

What's next?

Even though I'm not a fan of making resolutions on New Year's, the end of the year is still a good time to look forward, right?

If I'm neurotic about anything, it's planning ahead. For me, part of the fun of any new adventure is having time to work out the details in my head and get excited about it. Plus, by planning ahead, I can usually avoid that awful "I have no idea what's going on/where I'm going" feeling. So I search early and often for plane, train and bus tickets, haunt the websites of papers local to a potential new destination, buy a guidebook as soon as I know I'm going somewhere new, think about possible life scenarios years in advance and always have a backup plan. Or two.

As a result, there's a new guidebook on my shelf this month, and it's called The Rough Guide to Australia. (And I'll be adding Living and Working in Australia - thanks Santa! - and In a Sunburned Country - thanks big brother and sis-in-law! - to the travel shelf when I get back to DC next week.) Why? Because in 13 and a half months - February 2011 - I'll be starting my grad school program at Macquarie University, located just outside Sydney.

(I've said or typed some version of that statement at least a dozen times since I received my official "letter of offer" earlier this month, but it still makes me want to jump up and down, shrieking.)

So, why am I going down under, not for a vacation, but for a degree? The answer to that starts somewhere in my senior year of college, when I decided that pursuing a career in translation was a definite possibility. I hoped. Actually, the answer starts with my English to French Translation professor during my junior year abroad, Francesca Manzari - one of the most broad-minded, encouraging, quietly brilliant people I've had the pleasure to meet - but that's a longer story.

I looked at programs in Paris and Geneva, but the red tape for non-citizens of the E.U. was daunting. Added to which, translation is a much younger profession in the U.S. (well, much more recently recognized, anyway) than in Europe, and American companies and individuals tend to have a blended definition of translation (written) and interpretation (oral), while in Europe they're two very distinct disciplines. Given that I want to be able to work in the U.S., it made more sense to try to study both.

So I started looking for combined T&I (a common abbreviation for the two industries) programs and found one at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. It sounded like an amazing program, although the price tag made me nervous about the loans I'd have to take out. T&I is one of the sectors that's actually expected to continue experiencing job growth for the next decade or so, but it can still be difficult to break into, especially in the U.S., where people are sometimes convinced that a machine can do the job just as well. (Which it can't - machines and nuance don't mix.) What if I came out of school with a Master's from a stellar program, close to $100,000 in loans...and no job?

By poking around the web, I found another combined T&I program at some school called Macquarie in Australia, and kept it in the back of my mind as a less expensive option. I mentioned both schools to a friend from my study abroad program, and he found another program at Macquarie: a dual Master's in T&I and International Relations. It was the perfect combination of disciplines for me, since translating and/or interpreting for NGOs and international organizations is one of my top career choices. And it was still a two-year program and only marginally more expensive than Macquarie's T&I program alone.

Throughout the last year and a half, I've argued with myself countless times about whether to consider Macquarie or Monterey my first choice. They're both well-rated schools with international reputations. Monterey is more expensive; Macquarie is literally on the other side of the world. Monterey is closer to my family and friends than I've lived in a long time; Macquarie would be an unparalleled experience for me. This summer, I finally sat down and did some serious research. Annual tuition costs and cost-of-living estimates, average annual tuition increases for the last few years, plane ticket prices at various times of the year, average prices of apartment rentals listed near campus, internet and cell phone prices, the cost of buying a car in California vs. the cost of a bike and public transportation (and possibly a car) in Sydney...

Somewhat surprisingly, Macquarie came out as the less expensive option, even with two Transpacific trips per year. And since the program fits more exactly with what I want to do than Monterey's, I finally decided a few months ago that I would apply to Macquarie first, and to Monterey only if I wasn't accepted.

The school year in Australia runs from February to December (logical, when you consider the weather puts that at something like August to June in parts of the U.S.) but I didn't want to start in early 2010, so I asked if I could apply insanely far in advance for the 2011 school year. I collected my transcripts, got a copy of my diploma notarized, filled out the few pages of the application and sent it all off, mentally wringing my hands. With no letters of recommendation, how would they know I'm a good student, a dedicated one? With no résumé, how would they know what I've been doing with my life? Without a personal essay, how could I explain how completely the lone translation course on my transcripts changed the direction of my life? (On the other hand, not having to run around getting all of those things together felt really good, if I could ignore the nerves.)

Two weeks after the school had notified me that my application had been received, I opened my inbox to find an email titled "Macquarie University - Conditional Letter of Offer for Jessalyn Pinneo." My heart jumped into my throat. They wanted me! Sort of? I had to take a French language exam, and as long as my scores were acceptable, I would be admitted to the program. I tried not to get too excited, because it seemed like just the sort of thing that could jinx me into failing the exam.

Not quite two weeks later, I got another email that sent me jumping around my apartment with my hand clapped over my mouth to muffle the elated shrieking that might alarm my neighbors. It began, "Congratulations from Macquarie University!" and pretty much made my year right there.

So, Australia is what's next for me. Thrillingly, nerve-wrackingly, somewhat surprisingly next. There's still a lot of time before I go - a lot of planning to do (woo hoo!) and a lot of changes to make. Some days the fact that I'll be most of the way around the world in a little more than a year doesn't seem real. Other days, I can't believe it's still so far away. Either way, tomorrow is one day closer to my next new start, and I'll be taking today's lessons - and all of yesterday's - with me.

Making Connections

The general pattern for winter weather forecasts in Washington, DC is as follows:

1. Forecast snow.
2. Predict that it will be the biggest storm in a decade, liable to keep everyone at home for days and make it impossible to get anywhere or do anything.
3. Send broadcasters to report on every single snowflake that falls on or near the District.
4. Make it sound like the world is coming to an end once the first quarter-inch is on the ground.
5. Pretend nothing was ever mentioned about a snowstorm once the snow stops after reaching a total accumulation of approximately half an inch.

As a result, DC Metro area residents have taken to rolling their eyes at all reports of incoming winter weather and sarcastically refer to forecast snowstorms as "Snowpocalypse [insert current year here]."

This year, however, Snowpocalypse 2009 actually arrived (on December 18th/19th - I know, I'm very late and have been very bad about posting lately) and sent the area into a frenzy with about 16 inches of snow in less than 24 hours. Which happened to be the same 24 hour period in which I was attempting to leave the area to visit my parents for a couple of weeks.

The snow started Friday evening, but it was drifting down so slowly and looked so pretty that I wasn't worried. Until I tried to schedule a pick-up for my 7:00am flight on Saturday and was told by every cab company in Arlington, VA that they weren't accepting reservations for Saturday - I would have to call as soon as I was ready in the morning and take my chances. Okay, so the cab companies were spooked. No big deal, they were overreacting, just like the weather forecasters, right?

Wrong. I woke up to a terrible scraping noise at 3:00am and looked out my window. A pick-up truck with a plow attached to its grille was clearing my building's parking lot of the four or five inches of snow that had accumulated. (Yes, for normal people in places that acknowledge that they get winter weather, that amount of snow is nothing to worry about. In DC, which - when it comes to weather and food, at least - is adamant that it's Southern, two inches is enough to shut down the streets and send people into a panic.) Oh good, I thought, the city was (inexplicably) starting with my parking lot, but then they'd start plowing the streets and everything would be fine in a couple of hours. I got up a little early and got ready to leave, spent 10 minutes on hold with a cab company and, at 4:50, was given a pick-up time in 30 minutes. A little long for a company whose drivers often park/idle next to my building at night, but no big deal.

By 5:30, I was worried. No cab yet, no call from the company telling me when the cab was coming and their lines were now so jammed I couldn't get anything but a busy signal. I took all of my stuff downstairs (Did I mention that my cat, a total stranger to air travel, was included in my luggage?) and flinched when I looked outside. The wind had picked up since I'd gotten out of bed, the snow was coming down harder and it was quite clear that the streets had not been plowed. Another resident was pacing around the lobby, trying to get through to any cab company while the security guard on duty looked up bus schedules for him. I offered to share my cab, if it ever arrived, and paced in the opposite direction, on hold with the cab company again.

By 5:50, my partner in panic (his flight was also at 7:00) had decided to give either a bus or one of the nearby hotels' shuttles a try. I was ready to walk at that point - DCA is literally down the street from my apartment, 1.7 miles by car according to Google maps - but I had no idea what Nala's tolerance for cold might be and I didn't want to risk giving her hypothermia by spending more than a couple of minutes either walking or waiting for a bus in the snow. I promised my fellow traveler that when (if) the cab showed up, we'd circle the block to look for him.

Shortly after he left, a woman came downstairs headed for the J.Crew sale at the nearby mall, which apparently started at 6:00. She was debating driving or walking and I was desperate enough at that point to offer her $20 to drive me to the airport. She decided she'd rather avoid driving in the snow and opted to walk to the mall.

Another resident pulled into the lot just after 6:00 and I briefly debated physically throwing myself in front of his Jeep and begging for a ride (without letting go of my cell phone, of course - I was still on hold with the cab company) before deciding it was on the edge of too late anyway. He came in as I was debating running back upstairs to call the airline from my land line to ask about a later flight, and the security guard - who had been on hold with another cab company for about half an hour at that point - asked if he would consider driving me to the airport, since she knew him. He was clearly reluctant, having just finished work and a long, snowy drive home, but when he looked at me his expression wavered (I have no idea what my face looked like, but it was probably painful to look at) and I pressed my momentary advantage, launching into a series of - polite, I hope - pleas interspersed with explanations of why I wasn't already outside dragging my luggage through the snow.

This gentleman turned out to be the nicest person on the face of the planet and said he'd drop his work gear upstairs and come back down to drive me to the airport. We left at 6:15, with me thanking him profusely approximately every 12 seconds.

It took Mr. NPE (Nicest Person Ever) and I 15 minutes to drive that 1.7 miles, and we only saw one cab (not from the cab company I was waiting for, which, incidentally, never did call to tell me they weren't coming), trying very hard not to slide backward down the ramp into the airport. Everything else on the road was SUVs. After thanking him one last time (okay, maybe it was more like six last times), I gave Mr. NPE my apartment number for anything he might need in the future - cereal, a cup of sugar, a kidney - and dashed into the terminal at 6:30, crossing my fingers and trying not to jostle Nala.

I got checked in with no trouble thanks to the minuscule size of Reagan National and at 6:45 tore off in the direction of the escalators and the security line, which turned out not to be a line at all, thanks again to the tiny size of DCA and the fact that a number of people were having the same trouble I had getting to the airport. (And, I found out later, to the fact that Delta had canceled all its flights the night before.) I scooped up a confused and fairly terrified Nala and clung to her for dear life while TSA ran her carrier through security, coaxed her back inside, grabbed a bottle of water and pelted down the concourse to my gate, stopping just long enough to hand my boarding pass to the gate agent, who was in the process of opening up all the unclaimed seats on the flight to stand-by passengers.

Fortunately, the woman sitting on the aisle in my row liked cats and cooed over Nala as much as the flight attendants had while I got her situated under the seat and we exchanged "getting to the airport" stories. One of the stand-by passengers claimed the seat between us and joined the conversation. While we laughed with relief over our good fortune in having made it onto a plane that was apparently going to take off, the stand-by passenger looked thoughtfully at Nala and said, "You know, I think I was on a shuttle with one of your neighbors. This guy was trying to get the driver to go past this apartment building because there was a woman there who couldn't make it to the shuttle because she couldn't take her cat outside. He even offered the driver $15, but he couldn't deviate from his route." My partner in panic hadn't forgotten me!

Neither of my seatmates nor I had eaten breakfast, but once we had been de-iced, anti-iced and cleared for take-off, they each bought snack boxes (which, when it came my turn to ask for one, turned out to have been the last two on the plane) and our row had a mini-party with them and the magazines we'd all brought. In between snatches of sleep, it was definitely the most fun I've had on a plane since high school Model UN trips. And although we took off an hour and a half late (de-icing takes a while, and before that the taxiway had to be plowed), we arrived a mere 27 minutes behind schedule.

That Saturday started with the potential to be the worst day in recent memory, but through the kindness, generosity and good humor of strangers, it turned out to be one of the best. Nala and I will definitely be baking a batch of "thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!" brownies for Mr. NPE when we get back to DC. And I'll be happily paying forward all that good cheer with every stranger I meet for a long time to come.

What happened to "Girl Power?"

I've been thinking about this since my Metro ride this morning. I averted my eyes from the girl standing across from me after one glance, because I didn't want her to think I was judging her. She was probably 16 or 17, was wearing more makeup than I used to wear on stage, had intentional bedhead hair - perfectly curled and carefully tousled - and wore a push-up bra that was beyond extreme and showcased by her shirt, which was unbuttoned to the top of her ribcage.

As I stared out the window, wondering why so many young women feel the need to call attention to themselves in such negative ways, I started to feel sorry for her, and then to feel sad. Teenage girls like her have a sense of self-worth that's obviously wrapped up in their looks, and I feel like they're in the majority these days.

I went to middle school and high school with some girls who dressed similarly to the young woman I saw on the Metro, but the majority of the girls I grew up with valued their minds and personalities above their perceived attractiveness or sexuality - at least most of the time. We came of age with The Babysitters' Club, the first wave of American Girl dolls and books, Jewel's first three albums and Martina McBride's powerhouse voice and feminist message.

Yes, we felt immense pressure to be thin, to be pretty, to fit in, but we were encouraged at least as often to be ourselves, whatever that looked like. We embraced female artists with individualist tendencies, like Natalie Imbruglia and Dido, and snickered at cookie-cutter pop divas like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson (even if we did sometimes sing their songs). We were still figuring out who we were, but we celebrated the parts of ourselves we knew and did our best to accept the aspects we knew were still changing.

One of my strongest memories that evokes the positive message I remember growing up with is from my 14th birthday party. My girlfriends and I were at my house and, having pushed the dining room table and chairs out of the way, were taking turns lip-synching/singing and dancing to our favorite songs, blasted on my parents' boom box. Five of us got up to do a Spice Girls favorite (I don't remember which one, but best bets are "Wannabe," "Spice Up Your Life," or "Stop"), arms around each other, singing at the top of our lungs into plastic spoon "microphones," grinning and laughing the whole time. Someone snapped a picture and every time I look at it, I remember how strong and happy and loved I felt at that moment.

The Spice Girls' motto was "Girl Power!" It's a pretty good expression of society's attitude toward young women in the 90s, and the women I know who grew up during that time took it to heart and remember it fondly. I haven't been a teenager in a while, nor do I know many anymore, but that positive, affirming outlook doesn't seem to be as evident in today's society. Gender equality was never in question for me, and I think that holds true across most of my generation; the idea that being women meant we had to look or dress or act a certain way never occurred to us. Our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers had fought to be fully-functioning, completely equal members of society and had won (back then, I didn't hear much about women earning less than men). We were lucky enough to live in a time when all we had to do was enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Now I wonder if we're forgetting, as a society, what those women fought for and why. Women's suffrage and women's lib aren't subjects that are often covered in history classes. In fact, I only learned about the history of the women's rights movement in a classroom twice: when I selected women's suffrage in the U.S. as my topic for a history project in eighth grade, and when I studied Roe v. Wade in American Government in high school. Combine that lack of attention with the number of Americans who identify as anti-choice actually increasing and girls being inundated with air-brushed images of chemically and surgically altered models and performers, and I'm not sure how we can expect being a woman to continue to carry a positive message of independence and strength.

What happened to girl power, and why does it feel like we're slipping back to a time when a woman's face was more important than what went on behind it?

A year, already?

One year and 78 posts ago today, There Is No Spoon was born. (Happy birthday, blog!)

Most of you who visit know me personally, but some have stumbled across the site via a random Google search. The two most popular searches that land people here? "Netflix vs. cable" takes people to an early post about my love of Netflix vs. my hatred of Comcast, and some variation of "fairy tales bad influence" will land you on this summer's defense of fairy tale princesses. (The puzzling thing about the fairy tale search is that 95% of those hits come from the UK, Australia or New Zealand. Any thoughts on why that might be? I'm coming up blank.)

I'm really enjoying hearing your thoughts on issues from whether or not the Kindle is a good idea to the unfairness of some of the U.S.'s immigration requirements - and I love having a reason to write more often. So keep reading and telling me what you think and I'll keep writing. Deal?

(On a side note, a big thank you to Kathy Sena at Parent Talk Today! After I emailed around asking for help getting the word out about Running for Life, she posted about the campaign and the general awesomeness of charity: water. Check it out!)

Faith healing, or religious roulette?

Despite the fact that I may not be the most devout of worshippers, I'm not "anti-religion" and never have been, but there are some things done in the name of religion that drive me nuts, and a few that absolutely infuriate me. Most notably in that last category are parents who rely solely on faith healing for their children.

Every time this comes up I'm infuriated all over again, and reading Jonathan Turley's take on the issue in The Washington Post this morning was no exception. If we're picking sides, Turley and I are probably on the same one. He doesn't outright say that he disapproves of faith healing itself, but it's implied in his argument that the parents of the children who die from a lack of medical care essentially get a pass from the law:

In the past 25 years, hundreds of children are believed to have died in the United States after faith-healing parents forbade medical attention to end their sickness or protect their lives. When minors die from a lack of parental care, it is usually a matter of criminal neglect and is often tried as murder. However, when parents say the neglect was an article of faith, courts routinely hand down lighter sentences. Faithful neglect has not been used as a criminal defense, but the claim is surprisingly effective in achieving more lenient sentencing, in which judges appear to render less unto Caesar and more unto God.

Turley writes specifically about the Neumanns of Wisconsin, one of the most recent of these cases to be decided. Their daughter Madeline had diabetes that went undiagnosed and eventually killed her at age 11 last year. He compares the Neumanns to the Washburns of West Virginia, who don't practice faith healing and whose baby boy, Alex, died of an undiagnosed head injury after falling and hitting first his head, then his chin. In both instances, a child who could have been treated - and likely saved - by a doctor died because their parents didn't take them to one. The sentences? The Neumanns will serve one month a year in prison for the next six years and will be on probation for a decade. The Washburns relinquished all parental rights to their remaining children and will be in jail for three to fifteen years. Um, hello, double standards!

I agree with Turley that the "more lenient sentencing" for parents whose neglect of their children involves faith healing needs to stop, but my anger with this issue doesn't end there. I'm not a parent, so I can't fully appreciate the parent-child bond, but I'm on the receiving end of it from my parents and a familial observer of it between my brother and sister-in-law and my niece, and I cannot wrap my head around what kind of logic these supposedly loving parents are using as they watch their children suffer and die.

Faith or no faith, I don't see how any parent who watches their child's life slip away without running - screaming - for a doctor and demanding immediate treatment can possibly claim to love them or to be acting in their best interest. More than that, they're imposing their own religious restrictions on a child who isn't yet old enough to decide whether or not he or she agrees with them. "Making" little Susie or little Johnny give up their Sunday morning to go to Sunday school is one thing; ending their life because you believe if God doesn't save them they were supposed to die is another thing entirely: negligent homicide.

Yes, faith is central to the lives of many people. Yes, many parents can't imagine that their children would ever not carry on the religious traditions of their family. Yes, parents absolutely have the right to impart their beliefs - religious or otherwise - to their children. But no one has the right to watch a child die without exhausting every available resource to save them. Adults have enough knowledge of the consequences to say "Stop, that's enough, let nature take its course" or to sign a DNR. Children don't.

Play religious roulette with your own life, parents; until your children are old enough to decide for themselves whether or not faith healing is for them, take them to the doctor and keep them healthy the conventional way. It's kind of why mankind has spent so much time and energy throughout our history developing medicine. And doing everything in your power to care for your children - including taking them to a doctor when they need one - is one of the most basic responsibilities of being a parent.

Newsflash: 26.2 ≠ 26.2!

This morning, one of my co-workers sent me the link to a New York Times article written by Juliet Macur and entitled "Plodders Have a Place, but Is It in a Marathon?" He rolled his eyes at the snarky article; I was infuriated by its message.

Macur talked to several "elite" runners who say they can't stand the fact that running a marathon has become such a popular thing on people's lifelong "to-do" lists; that if you're going to take six or seven hours to finish, it isn't a real marathon and detracts from the accomplishment of the elite athletes who finished in under three hours.

Purists believe that running a marathon should be just that — running the entire course at a relatively fast clip. They point out that a six-hour marathoner is simply participating in the event, not racing in it. Slow runners have disrespected the distance, they say, and have ruined the marathon’s mystique.

Excuse me, but in an individual sport where except for the top five or ten competitors of each gender everyone is basically racing himself, isn't participation the point? And 26.2 miles is 26.2 miles. What am I missing here? Most of what elite runners talk about when it comes to speed is their PR - personal record - for varying distances. And breaking that is often their primary goal, win or lose. A win when a seriously competitive runner doesn't break his or her own PR for the distance is a little bittersweet - they beat the field, but they didn't beat their own best time. A PR always feels good, whether your PR is 2:05:38 like the current American Marathon record holder, Khalid Khannouchi, or 7:14:30 like the last person to finish last year's Marine Corps Marathon.

Training for a marathon is an extremely demanding process, both physically and mentally. It affects every aspect of your life and takes up a lot of time. You train in pouring rain, in high humidity, in cold weather, in gusting winds and in soaring temperatures with one goal: taking the last step of those 26.2 miles, the one that puts you on the other side of the finish line. The race itself is no picnic, either. Many runners hit "the wall" around mile 20, making that last 10K feel like the rest of their lives. Between leg cramps, swollen feet, blisters, broken toenails and finding the balance between dehydration and hyponatremia, figuring out how to convince your body to finish a marathon without wanting to collapse immediately afterward is a science - with some luck tossed in - no matter the pace.

One thing I've always respected and admired about runners is that they're such an open, friendly bunch. Yeah, the "elites" blow past everyone else with tunnel vision but most runners - fast or slow, trying for a PR or just out for some fun - are a rowdy, cheerful crew of jokers who are more than willing to lend a helping hand or encouraging word should the need arise. And that's what this article - and apparently some of the world's elite runners - doesn't get.

Crossing the finish line at a marathon is a personal victory, one that isn't impacted by anyone else's race, which is why I don't understand the point of view of the "elite" runners Macur interviewed on the topic. Because regardless of whether you walked, ran or wheeled your way through the course, one thing holds true for every participant: finishing a marathon takes stamina, endurance and a whole lot of heart.

Why do we keep putting education on a back-burner?

I was raised to believe that there is nothing more important in a child's life than his or her education, whether via the multiplcation tables or a visit to a national park (those sneaky parents, slipping bits of history, geology, geography and environmentalism into something fun!). And that learning doesn't stop when you grow up.

As the daughter of an engineer whose definition of fun includes thinking up new ways to do things that get his name sent to the U.S. Patent Office and a teacher-turned-psychologist who got a second Master's in Industrial Hygiene before diving into the non-profit world of corporate real estate...well, I certainly got the point that education isn't something that's ever "finished." My family wasn't unique in my town: with five out of five elementary schools recognized as California Distinguished Schools and the only middle school and high school (and one elementary school) each recognized as National Blue Ribbon Schools, the school district I grew up in and most of the families who lived there were serious about turning out well-educated students.

What I didn't realize was surprising about my education until I got to college was that it was public. As a Community Facilitator and then a House Proctor in college (two of GW's versions of an R.A.), my residents assumed I had gone to private school K-12, as many of them had. About a year and a half after I graduated, primary education came up in conversation with my boss, who was floored to find out I had attended public schools until college. The stellar teachers, myriad extra-curriculars and demanding course load I had taken for granted were, it seemed, a very tiny exception to a very depressing rule.

I knew public education was underfunded but assumed the ratio of good to bad schools was skewed toward the good, even if "good" didn't always quite reach the quality of education I received. I mean, school was school; it was where I went every day, yawned through some classes, laughed through others and hung out with my friends before going to band practice, a Model UN roast, dance class or home to do copious amounts of homework. Wasn't it pretty much the same for everyone? When I kicked off college in Washington, DC by reading Ron Suskind's heart-wrenching A Hope in the Unseen, I quickly learned that the answer was "Not by a long shot."

The public education problem is nationwide, but DC has a reputation for having some of the worst schools in the country, from reading levels to graduation rates. In a city that is home to inspiring historical moments, beautiful landmarks and some of the most powerful and best-educated elected officials, activists, lobbyists and lawyers in the country, DC students are one of the most striking examples of the dichotomy between city natives and transplants - and one of the many "dirty little secrets" kept about what life is like for those who grew up here. And they know it.

I spent part of the summer after graduation teaching some of the kids considered DC's best and brightest high school students and I left every day wanting to cry in frustration. They wouldn't answer questions unless I refused to say anything else until they did (and sometimes not even then), the few who took notes never looked at them again and - most frustrating of all - 90% of them failed their final project because they plagiarized it.

My students drove me crazy, but I was more depressed than mad at them. Some of them knew what plagiarism was, but most of them had never been told that copying and pasting from a website is wrong (yes, even if you change the sentence or word order). Some of them were very bright, but had never been expected to actually retain anything or put in serious effort, so they didn't know how. Some of them were genuinely interested, but lived in a world where school was a joke and pretending disinterest was self-preservation. Some of them just didn't care.

The program through which I taught these kids was only six weeks long and while I'd like to believe sitting down and talking to them about what plagiarism is, why it's bad and the repercussions it can have made a difference, I know most of them probably forgot about it five minutes after they left the room for the last time.

After all, it has been made crystal clear to DC students (and, I would argue, a large percentage of public school students nationwide) that their education is not a priority, despite the lip-service paid to its importance. They've been shifted from school to school, teachers have been fired, teachers have been moved, and overwhelming numbers of teachers have been "let go" due to a supposed budget crunch (despite the fact that the DC schools' budget for fiscal year 2010 includes a $14.9 million net increase from 2009). In an environment that changes from one day to the next with no warning, how are these kids supposed to learn? And how can any government, local, state or federal, justify giving them such an unstable learning environment?

In a country that demands a college degree, if not a postgraduate one, for the overwhelming majority of middle class jobs but can't be bothered to make those degrees affordable, how are today's students supposed to become the leaders they've been told they need to be? Our education system is broken - has been, for a long time - but it receives very little government attention anymore because we have "bigger" problems. Are there issues facing the U.S. that are going to come to a head sooner than this one? Definitely. But what could possibly be more important than ensuring our country's future - in both a very realistic having-people-who-know-how-to-do-stuff way and a completely idealistic fulfill-your-dreams way?

Blog Action Day 2009: Blogging for Climate Change

Human impact on the environment - particularly the catastrophic changes our behavior is wreaking on climate systems worldwide - has been an issue of increasing concern throughout my lifetime.

I remember the advent of AOL, Facebook and the commercially available hybrid car, but I don't remember a time when the ramifications of global warming weren't discussed as something the human race needs to confront immediately.

The Kyoto Protocol, first adopted in December 1997 in an attempt to combat global warming beyond the borders of individual countries, is one of the first issues that sparked my interest in international affairs, which eventually became my major in college. This document has been around for roughly half my life. As of 2009, despite its assorted problems, it has been signed and ratified by 183 countries, with another half-dozen who have not yet decided whether or not to sign. The only country that has no intention of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol? The United States. The largest emitter of fossil fuel-generated carbon dioxide per capita? The United States.

Committing to move away from the internal combustion engine-powered consumer culture that has been both the root and the expression of our country's wealth for decades isn't easy. We're lazy, we like things to stay the same and we certainly don't want to give up our luxuries when there's no immediate benefit. But we have to do it, and we have to start now.

In my lifetime, which isn't even the blink of an eye in the earth's history, climate change has progressed from one of those issues society worries about for future generations to something that is happening now and picking up speed seasonally. The increase in tsunamis, hurricanes and droughts, the shift in weather patterns, the fluctuating temperature extremes and rapidly disappearing polar ice caps - these are all documented and scientifically linked to our world's changing climate, which is linked to our abuse of its resources. But perhaps the most frightening thing about climate change is that we no longer need charts and graphs and projections to see that it's happening:

Growing up in the L.A. area, we joked that it was the smog that made for such spectacular sunsets. Flying into LAX in the last five years has become a painful experience. The city is so obscured by smog that the skyline has been all but erased by pollution - even downtown's tallest buildings are difficult to see.

When my parents lived in South Florida 25 years ago, it was a given that January and February would be comfortable enough to turn off the air-conditioning. During my brother's last winter in the same city in 2008, he and his family were only able to turn it off for a week.

During the 18 years I lived in Southern California, any wildfires that started were controlled fairly quickly and never came anywhere near the beach communities that line the coast - even during the seven-year drought the state experienced while I was in elementary school. In the last few years, wildfires have raged out of control throughout the region, decimating communities that have never been considered at risk before.

That the climate is now changing so rapidly that its shifts are visible to the casual observer makes an irrefutable case for the fact that it has moved from a worrisome "potential" problem into a very real danger zone. The U.S. government, led by California's new emission standards, is finally beginning to take action but right now it's too little, too slowly.

The potential for a massive shift in cultural perception is there: in President Obama's plans for green jobs, in the movement toward reusable water bottles and grocery bags, composting and recycling efforts, higher-efficiency lightbulbs and appliances and in the fact that this is one issue where - at least in my generation - party lines are beginning to disintegrate. But this isn't something we can put off until "tomorrow" any longer.

We have the intellectual capital to make the shift to not just a climate-conscious but a climate-protecting society. We have the added urgency of the world's current financial difficulties - some of which could be alleviated by the boost an expanded green industry would give the global and national economies. We have absolutely no reason not to begin this shift right now. Don't you think?

This post was written as part of Change.org's Blog Action Day 2009. There are more than 9,400 blogs participating worldwide right now - to add yours, click here. Blog Action Day 2009 is also taking place on Twitter, using hashtag #BAD09.

Ooh rah, runners!

The 34th Annual Marine Corps Marathon is less than two weeks away and I'm starting to go into overly-excited hyperdrive mode. I printed my e-confirmation card this morning, drooled over this year's blue-and-white bib - much prettier than last year's army green - and perused the online race program. I signed up my cell phone to receive text message updates of my progress so my mom, who will be carrying my phone, will know more or less where I am on the course.

One of my favorite things about the Marine Corps Marathon is its history: more than 380,000 people have run this race (the 400,000th finisher will receive their medal this year), among them politicians, journalists and a Supreme Court Justice. It's the fifth largest marathon in the country with 30,000 slots that sell out within a few weeks every year (this year, the field was 70% full by noon on April 3rd, 48 hours after registration opened).

The MCM is also full of compelling stories, a handful of which are featured in the annual program. Retired Master Gunnery Sgt. Tom Knoll will be running his fifth MCM and 187th marathon on October 25th. Yeah, you read that right: 187 marathons - that's roughly 4,900 miles in races alone. His reason for running so hard? He wants to raise $1 million for charity over the course of his lifetime. He's past the $800,000 mark at this point, so I'd say he's closing in on his goal. Gerard Michel, a Frenchman who's flying out for this year's race, is running as a tribute to the kindness of an American soldier who handed him an orange in Paris when he was a boy, in the midst of World War II.

This year's MCM is my first repeat marathon and I'm looking forward to feeling less nervous on the course. Rather than wondering where the next turn will be (or staring in dismay up a disconcertingly large hill just after I'd picked up my pace at mile 9, like in Seattle this June), I can put a mental overlay of my memories from last year's race over the course map: I know that the first 10 miles are the hardest, both because they contain the hilliest portion of the course and are the most residential (i.e. have the fewest spectators to keep the runners smiling). But you're still pretty relaxed, swapping jokes with the runners around you and cheering your head off for every wheelchair participant you see straining to make it up one of Arlington's killer hills.

Around the halfway point is when the Marines start to put on the pressure and you find yourself straightening your shoulders and picking your feet up a little higher. By mile 16, near the Lincoln Memorial, the crowds form a solid wall on both sides of the street and you're high-fiving lines of kids (and their parents!) every few strides. Mile 20 is the longest because the entire thing is run across the 14th Street Bridge (really it's the Rochambeau Memorial Bridge, but no one actually calls it that) and all you want is to get off that obnoxiously boring block of concrete.

By mile 23 you're exhausted, your stomach has threatened to revolt when those well-meaning folks at the beginning of Crystal Run offered you beer and you've probably seen at least one runner carrying shoes that their feet are too swollen to wear. But the finish line is closer with every step and by mile 25 you're bearing down, finding energy you didn't know you had and using every ounce of it to push yourself forward. While your mind is still focused on the hill that came out of nowhere at mile 26, you're crossing the finish line and on your way to a "Congratulations, ma'am" from one of the 253 2nd Lieutenants carefully placing a medal around each finisher's neck.

It may be a little sick to get so excited about something that drains your body of all nutrience, tears up your muscles and leaves you feeling like you could sleep for a full day...but I can't wait! During the next ten days I'll be sleeping more, getting all the potassium I can and obsessing, somewhat neurotically, about keeping my feet and legs injury-free. (And continuing to fundraise for Running for Life - it's raised more than $600 so far and I need 177 more people to donate $26.20 by December 3rd to reach my goal.)

Whether or not you're a running enthusiast, I encourage you to go watch a race in your area - a marathon, if there is one. The crowd's enthusiasm is contagious and watching people reach their goals is inspiring, whatever the venue. And without a doubt, your presence will put a smile on a runner's face (especially if you're giving them some much-needed cowbell).

Ooh rah, runners! See you out there!