V-Day in New Orleans, Pinay-style

Ever see Eve Ensler's fascinating, over-the-top, and unabashedly in-your-face multi-character performance piece, The Vagina Monologues? B. and I saw it with a couple of our friends a few years ago at my alma mater, and boy, was that...interesting. Not in a bad way, but definitely in a thought-provoking, what-the-hell-is-this, hmmm-this-is-awful-awesome-heartrending-terrifying-utterly damning kinda way. You can't walk out of it without your head spinning one way and then another, like the earth out of orbit, whacked out of its own axis. A million variations exist, as each company that performs it inevitably -- hopefully -- takes it apart and puts it back together again with its own unique interpretation. But it all comes down to one single, singular theme, that of reclaiming that which makes us women, that center of our bodies and souls that terrifies men, inflames passions and provokes war. Yeah, we're talking the vagina here, but more than that, it's about the woman who possesses it and the power she holds but is often too afraid to wield.

Check out the V-Day Web site of the New Orleans staging of the show. Jane Fonda, Ali Larter, Rosario Dawson, Jennifer Hudson, Faith Hill, and many other celebrities joined thousands of New Orleans current and former residents to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Vagina Monologues. Many women of the so-called New Orleans diaspora returned specifically for this event, and the site showcases dozens of photographs of the event and the parade. Plus, bonus here: renowned Filipina stage actress Monique Wilson (who served as understudy for Lea Salonga in the original London/West End production of Miss Saigon) performed alongside three other international actors in a segment praising -- in four different languages, including Tagalog -- Cunt (Engish)/Cono (Spanish)/Fica (Italian)/Puki (Tagalog). You can see the video here.

Plus, I also found Washington, DC-based Code Pink's blog. Code Pink, of course, is a global, grassroots peace movement with the goal of ending the war in Iraq and "all future wars." I found the DC site primarily from my Google Alert for "comfort women," and found a lengthy report of Ret. Col. Ann Wright's speaking tour of Japan. I don't necessarily agree with everything she says -- I think that Japan's Article 9, while admirable, won't work globally, if only because there will always be rogue state leaders and military honchos who will take advantage of another country's lack of defense (that's the realpolitik student in me coming out) -- but I understand the appeal and still believe in its principles. I suppose as a young 'un I would have been right up there alongside Col. Wright as an ardent pacifist, but now I prefer to think of myself as a peace activist, one who would like to see a world governed by wise stateswomen and -men with the intention of maintaining peace at all costs but without succumbing to the naive belief that it can be achieved solely by a unilateral laying down of arms. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

I was happy to see, though, that she also met with representatives working on behalf of the Japanese comfort women, and that she has singled out in particular the horrendous abuse inflicted on the local Okinawan population by the American military. I was living in Japan in 1995 when the gang-rape case involving American servicemen and a 12-year-old school girl exploded all over the news media. I've no idea how much attention it received here, but it definitely dominated the Japanese media for months. From what I understand, it's still very much a raw wound in Okinawan society today.

For more info on this case and many others like it involving the US military on Okinawa, check out the link to Wright's travel report above.

Two in one!

I got two bylines in the local paper today: my regular weekly column and a feature article on Frank R. Hayde, a friend of mine who recently published his first solo work, The Mafia and the Machine: A Story of the Kansas City Mob. (He co-authored a book about Zion National Park a few years ago. It's available for sale at all U.S. National Park bookstores as part of the Story Behind the Scenery series.) Frank's currently a park ranger at Colorado National Monument but had somehow managed to find time to research and write a history of the Kansas City Mafia and its ties to local politics.

And I complain about not having enough time to do everything.

Had a fantastic conversation with Tom Acker, a professor of Spanish at Mesa State College and a well-known immigration activist. KEXO, the only local station that broadcasts Spanish-language programming, is threatening to pull all of that if they can't bring their advertising revenues for the programs to $15,000/month. They're asking for a monthly "sponsorship" of $500 from at least 20 businesses in order to keep the lights on for Alex Martinez and Esmeralda Martinez, the two DJ's who run the shows. Acker is a fantastic resource for just about anything you want to know about immigration and the local Hispanic community; I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by the magnitude of the issue, the fact that -- according to Tom -- 20% (!!) of the local population is Hispanic (when I thought we were talking single-digits here) and that they're so invisible, despite their purported numbers.

I hope to learn more as Tom introduces me to others in the community familiar with the issues at stake. I have a feeling there's a huge amount of information about minority issues in our region that remains hidden -- deliberately or not -- from the rest of us.

Bloggers Unite for Human Rights: Responsible Philanthropy

The brilliant Deborah Siegel over at Girl with Pen wrote a post today about the Bloggers Unite for Human Rights challenge today, in which bloggers are encouraged to write about a particular human rights issue on their sites. I've seen the Web site and have read through some of their articles but have yet to really delve into it. Still, I love the idea and am hoping that others will step forward and promote the cause. The immediacy of blogging, the global reach of the Internet and the passion with which so many bloggers write can only help to shine the spotlight on some of the more egregious violations of human rights around the world.

My own "pet" causes revolve primarily around the human rights of women, whether we're talking about violence against women (in peacetime, in the home and during wartime), poverty, human trafficking, female genital mutilation, and a myriad of other injustices waged against 50% of the world's population every single day. For today's post, though, I'm going to focus on responsible philanthropy. I wrote a comment on just this topic on Deborah's post but will reiterate and elaborate on it here.

The devastation wrought by Mother Nature on China and Myanmar the last two weeks have galvanized millions around the world to send donations to the region and to charities involved in the relief efforts. It reminds me of the outpouring of support and grief that followed the Asian tsunami in December of 2004. Even B. and I tried to get involved at that time. We immediately donated money to Doctors Without Borders but also wanted to do much, much more. As someone who's worked in nonprofits for most of her professional career, I knew that what charities needed most of all was money, so rather than piling bags of rice and food into shipping containers and spending hundreds of dollars and expending tons of fuel to transport them across the oceans to Southeast Asia, we instead decided to organize an art show, with all proceeds to be donated to the International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. After two months of frustrating red tape with B.'s church (the pastor of which had originally agreed to host the event), we ended up having to abandon the idea because of fears by the church elders of liability, logistics, blah blah blah. Their council ultimately rejected our proposal, and by then it was months after the event. We knew that we wouldn't be able to stage the event as well as we would have liked had we chosen to hold it elsewhere, given that months had already passed since the tsunami and people's attention would be focused elsewhere. The sense of urgency had passed, even if the need was still great -- if not more so -- and we didn't have the confidence that we could still "sell" the event to artists and the community.

What the church did instead, however, was organize a food drive that included tons of bottled water, among other things. Now, if you'll remember correctly, the Red Cross and other aid agencies had managed to restore safe sources of potable water supplies within weeks after the tsunami hit. Still, that didn't stop well-meaning but misguided donors from continuing to throw millions of water bottles to the region. Much of it ended up cluttering the warehouses.

The church wasn't the only one to practice irresponsible philanthropy. Reports evaluation donor response after the tsunami revealed countless other examples of useless donations by donors from outside the region who bypassed the aid agencies intimately familiar with the disaster and instead directly sent whatever they "felt" the victims needed. Some sent used clothes and expired medicines. Others sent teddy bears, ostensibly for the children affected by the tsunami, but there was little thought or consideration of whether or not the items would actually be welcomed by a culture not familiar with the toy, much less whether they were appropriate, given the more pressing needs for permanent shelter, medical assistance and psychological evaluation.

When you consider the amount of money required to transport these goods -- whether via air or sea -- from great distances, you're looking at potentially millions of dollars that could have been used to provide the victims with the assistance they really needed. Months, even years after the fact, many tsunami victims still have not been able to build permanent homes for themselves. The devastation tore families and communities apart -- the post-traumatic stress of such a disaster required considerable psychological counseling, but not everyone was able to receive it. Aid agencies well-versed in the logistical, social and economic needs of the communities affected by the disaster would have been excellent sources of information on what the people really needed. Unfortunately, many donors chose not to use them and instead sent whatever they felt the victims needed based on their own flawed, ill-informed judgment.

This isn't to knock America's well-known and well-deserved reputation for philanthropy. We're the most generous nation on earth, and for that we should be commended. But I urge donors to any disaster to consider the impact of their donation, and whether or not it is truly needed. If you're not personally familiar with the situation on the ground, please don't succumb to the knee-jerk reaction to just do something for the sake of doing it. What aid agencies need the most is money. Their experience dealing with disasters has provided them with the knowledge on how to best handle relief and recovery efforts. (A friend of mine who once volunteered with the American Red Cross had to undergo weeks of training in order to be familiar with the process of disaster relief.) Relief isn't just a matter of throwing things at a catastrophe and hoping they'll find a good home. It involves intricate coordination among dozens, if not thousands of other charities, government agencies, the military, and yes, the affected communities in order to ensure that much-needed supplies and assistance reach those who require them the most.

So before you gather up your used clothes, Star Wars action figures, water bottles, half-empty aspirin bottles, chocolate bars, and winter jackets to pack up and send to remote China or Myanmar, pick up the phone and call any of the established agencies already working in the region and coordinating relief efforts. Ask them what they need. If they need dried beans, rice or Viagra, they'll tell you. If they need compact fluorescent bulbs, high-heeled shoes or battered old suitcases, they'll tell you.

What they will always tell you is that they need money. Don't make the mistake of thinking that "donating money" is a lower form of philanthropy. (How that idea took hold, I'll never know.) Unless you're an engineer or medical professional or someone else with the skills critical for rebuilding the region, the best thing you can contribute to the relief effort is money. The aid agencies can best determine where the funds will go and how to maximize its impact. No amount of teddy bears and canned fish can replace that.

Three well-known, well-established and experienced organizations you might consider donating to are:

Doctors Without Borders/Medecins sans Frontieres

International Committee of the Red Cross

Save the Children

I'd call this guy a moron...

...if I didn't believe that I'm capable of doing something similar myself.

Still, way to go, dude.

How to Beat Stress Without Really Trying

These are what I should do when I'm stressed:

• Meditate, even for just 5 minutes. Even better, meditate daily, once in the morning and once in the evening, preferably for at least 15 minutes each time.
• Take deep, cleansing breaths. Practice Dr. Weil's 4-7-8 breathing cycle, which takes 2-3 minutes, tops.
• Exercise. Running never fails to put me in a much better, more energized and hopeful mood, one that can often last all day.
• Eat healthy, regular meals with 1/4 protein, 1/4 carbs and 1/2 colorful veggies.
• Snack on fruit and avoid caffeine and alcohol.
• Get at least 9 hours of sleep (minimum my body requires).
• Take a 30-minute Epsom salt bath. Add a few drops of lavender oil for extra relaxation.
• Adopt an attitude of gratitude: be thankful for all the blessings in my life, including having the best husband in the world, a roof over my head, a full pantry, and a relatively healthy body.
• Write my thoughts in a journal, practicing meditative, free thinking.
• Read a thoughtful/spiritual book like The Tao of Pooh.
  
• Drink lots of water, at least 8 glasses a day, preferably sparkling mineral water.
  
• Drink soothing herbal teas like lavender and/or chamomile.

Alas, these are what I actually do when I'm stressed:

• Engage in such intense thoughts about the situation/problem in question that I end up breathing like a boxer in the 12th-round of a match, i.e., very, very shallow breaths.
• Lie on the couch and watch movies. Some of my favorites: The Devil Wears Prada, Breakfast at Tiffany's, How Stella Got Her Groove Back.
• Lie on the couch and watch TV. Some of my favorites: Friends, Three's Company (if I can find it), Reba, King of Queens, The Nanny. Basically, any TV show on Lifetime, the so-called cat lady network.
  
• Lie on the couch and read fluff magazines like InStyle, Lucky and MarieClaire, each of which will end up making me feel bad about myself and how fat and ugly I am. (Stress increases dramatically at that point.)
• Lie on the couch.
  
• Eat bags of M&M's (regular), Cheetos and/or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, preferably the Big Cup.
• Spend half the night tossing in bed, then eventually get up and do any of the above elsewhere in the house.
• Complain to best husband in the world about the sad state of my life. Cue whining.
• Read more fluff magazines, maybe Harper's Bazaar or the European editions of InStyle and MarieClaire, at the chain bookstore.
• Eat more bags of M&M's.

Sigh.

Email quandary

How often do you check your email?

I have a part-time writing gig involving some freelance articles as well as a weekly column for the local paper. I also volunteer for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America, helping out with events such as organizing the local awareness walk and trying to set up the first support group for patients here in the Grand Valley. I also maintain two blogs (including this one), both of which receive a fair number of emails and comments on a daily basis. And lastly, I do a lot of my research for my novel online, doing everything from scouring Web sites related to World War II/Singapore/comfort women, to subscribing to Google Alerts for any articles or blog posts that may come up that have anything to do with those subjects.

In other words, even without a full-time "day job," I still get upwards of dozens of emails a day. Some of them pop up in my "personal" email address, which I've had for about nine years and which only a few friends know about. I never use it to subscribe to anything, nor do I use it for any business-related purposes, so I never get junk mail in that.

I do, however, have a "public" email address which I use to subscribe to online newsletters, sign up for contests and other events that I would like to keep track of. That's the oldest, currently-existing email account that I have, dating back to 1997. I get at least 50 emails on that, mostly newsletters but also some junk.

Then there's my work email address. That's the one I use for job applications, sending queries to editors/publications, responding to emails from readers to my column/articles/writing blog, and other work-related correspondence. It's not nearly as widely known as the public email address I use above -- I try to keep them separate and not clutter up my work address with even work-related subscriptions -- but it gets its fair share of traffic.

And of course, there's the email address associated with my other, even more active blog. I have a good number of subscribers on that one, which means comments that need responding to and which show up on that email on a regular basis.

All in all, the number of emails I get per day is generally anywhere from 50-100, sometimes even more. That's not an especially daunting number for many people, especially those in high-ranking executive positions, who may get literally thousands of email a day. Still, even a dozen emails addressed personally to you can take your entire morning -- if not the whole day -- just to read and respond to.

I use Mozilla's Thunderbird email program, a fantastic and very stable open source software program that's very similar to Microsoft Outlook. So similar, in fact, that Outlook users searching for an alternative will find it super-easy to make the transition. In any case, I've generally gotten into the habit of opening Thunderbird first thing in the morning and basically just keeping it open throughout the day. I only shut it down when I turn off my laptop, usually before going to bed.

I have it set to notify me of new mail every ten minutes. I've always been of the belief that one should respond to email as soon as possible, especially if an answer can be written in less than five minutes. It's one less thing you have to worry about, right, not to mention the fact that in the process of doing so, you adhere to that classic time management rule: Handle each item on your to-do list no more than once. Get the email, read it for content, respond, and voila! You're done with it.

Of course, as I'm sure you've found, jumping to answer each email the moment it drops in your box can have the exact opposite effect of rendering yourself incapable of completing any task you've set out for yourself that day. Studies have shown that it can take someone a long time to reorient oneself to the project at hand once one succumbs to the allure of the Inbox, the telephone and the occasional random visitor dropping by "to say hi." Before you know it, the day's over, you've answered all your emails and telephone calls but have yet to get to the second slide on your 45-slide PowerPoint presentation.

The phenomenally productive Trent over at The Simple Dollar allows himself two email sessions a day; the rest of the time, the email program isn't just ignored, it's turned off altogether. I know of someone else who answers email only once a day -- first thing in the morning -- after which he shuts Outlook off and doesn't look at it again the next day. His clients have gotten used to that and are now in the habit of calling him if something is truly urgent. Even then, he only returns phone calls in the late afternoon, around 4:00. Is he productive? Hell yes. Has he lost any clients because of his lack of 24/7 availability? Perhaps. But he doesn't really need them because he's plenty booked now. His clients appreciate the fact that when he's working on their project, he's not constantly being interrupted by unrelated phone calls or distracted by a barrage of emails. When he's working on a project, he's single-minded in his focus.

I think I'm going to start doing that myself. I've found that my day can easily go down the drain with nothing to show for it but a handful of answered emails. I keep checking my half-dozen email accounts every hour, sometimes every half-hour, and when Thunderbird buzzes me with yet another message, I drop everything I do to read it, even if it's not urgent.

I'm going to try and experiment with writing and answering emails only once a day, in the late afternoon, between 3:00-4:00. My energy levels tend to flag around that time anyway, making me less productive in the truly challenging and creative projects I have on my plate. I think that that may be the best hour for me to respond to emails and comments, as they generally don't require the full-speed brainpower of, say, my novel or my writing assignments.

What about you? How often do you check email? Do you have an email response system that has worked for you?

Oh, to be happy and gay

Gee, I don't know about you, but I suspect that the Virgin Mary has better things to do with her time than to worry about some gay men posing as female saints. Er, not to mention that -- considering that the Philippines is now struggling with soaring food prices and a rice shortage -- the cleric should be spending their time on far more pressing issues that surely matter more to their congregants. I'm just sayin'.

If nothing else, I won't have any part in a religion whose gods have no sense of humor about these things. I can only imagine that Jesus and Mary are having a rollickin' good time up there watching these guys celebrating life and love and all that other good stuff the Church has scorned for so long.

What's really important

I didn't hear much about the immigration protests scheduled for yesterday (May Day). But I did hear lots about Barbara Walters' "confession" that she had an affair with Republican Senator Edward Brooke.

Feh. I don't know why I bother reading the papers.

I love you, Liz Lemon!

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned Battlestar Galactica (Friday nights on the Sci-Fi channel!) on this blog before. Considering my near-obsession with the show (okay, it's a total obsession), I'm surprised I don't mention it more often.

My favorite broadcast show of late, though, is definitely Tina Fey's award-winning and uber-fantastic 30 Rock (Thursday nights on NBC). Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), c'est definitely moi. Funny, insecure, neurotic, passionate about her work, ambitious, creative, loud, opinionated -- I mean, what can you not love about this woman? She's a proud feminist chick who broke ground by becoming the first woman head writer at Saturday Night Live; who revitalized that tired old show with her memorable stints at the anchor desk on SNL's Weekend Update (first with Jimmy Fallon, then with partner in crime Amy Poehler); who parlayed her sharp wit and even sharper intellect into a successful and critically-acclaimed prime-time sitcom; and who has now become a creative force to reckon with onscreen, first with the hugely popular Mean Girls, and now the box-office hit Baby Mama. Dear God, how could you not love her?

Liz Lemon is the complete opposite of my other hero, Battlestar Galactica's Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff). While Starbuck wouldn't hesitate to deck a man -- or even step into the boxing ring against him, as she did in Season 3 against hunky Jamie Barber's Major Apollo -- Lemon is more likely to alternate between yelling at him and throwing up in her office. She hates confrontation, but she can somehow manage to her the wild, undisciplined and rebellious cats who constitute her writing staff into creating a funny show week after week (30 Rock is about the shenanigans -- love that word! -- behind the scenes of an SNL-style variety show on NBC). Starbuck is a remarkable physical specimen: fierce, strong, nimble, with a commanding presence on the flight deck. She's the best pilot Galactica has, and she knows it.

Lemon, on the other hand, likes to stroll on her treadmill while contentedly eating a pudding cup. She's small, slight and curvy, and she loves nothing more than to wolf down a bag of orange cheese puffs. (Who doesn't, right?) She knows she's a great writer -- she wouldn't be where she is if she weren't -- but is ambivalent about her career and her ambitions. Heck, the woman contemplated moving to Cleveland to join her boyfriend, for God's sake.

Still, I love love love her. She's everything I am now (albeit with a better apartment and job), while Starbuck is everything I wish I could be. If I could do a mashup of those two women, I'd be happy. But then again, I could just as easily end up with a weird, dysfunctional hybrid.

Oh wait. In a way, even individually these two women, for all their strengths, are exactly that: weird and dysfunctional. And maybe that's why I love them so much.