Mami! mami! cries the child
En donde estas?!
No te puedo ver, ni puedo hablar contigo
No me oyes?
The voice cracks at the fault lines of fear
And here and there a tear may fall, but never more than one
She used to say: No llores mijito, No seàs lloròn
Lagrimas no cambian las cosas
Mami?! mami?!
En donde estas?!
Perdoname, estoy llorando
Lloro proque cosas cambian sin duda
Y sin duda no regresàs
Mami?! mami?!
No me oyes?!
A recent (April 22, 2012) editorial in our local paper, the Kingsville Record and Bishop News, responded to Erin Gloria Ryan’s piece at Jezebel.com in which she places Kingsville, Texas among the “scariest places to have ladyparts.” I reproduce C. Maher’s response here to make it available free to the public, that is those that do not currently subscribe to the paper’s webpage. I want to emphasize the data offered up by Mr. Maher in this Editorial and not the somewhat condescending tone with which he chose to engage E. G. Ryan. In no way do I lump “bloggers” and, indeed, Ryan herself, into the same milieu that Maher does. I simply want to convey the facts of his piece. The tone is utterly and completely his alone.
Kingsville makes “news” elsewhere
I was pondering topics for my column Wednesday, when an unexpected gift was dropped into my email inbox. The gift was a link to a blog post on the website Jezebel.com, in which little Kingsville, Texas, of all places, was named one of “The Ten Scariest Places To Have Ladyparts In America.” I briefly hesitated to write about it for a couple of reasons. The first is that you’ve never heard of Jezebel.com, and by criticizing the obscure, I run risk of drawing attention to something that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. The second is that it’s just plain cheating to pick on bloggers. It’s already sort of understood that they don’t have to rely on things like facts, coherence or grammar. Pointing out the faults of a blogger is like saying that sewage stinks. It’s true, but it’s really not new information. However, I needed a column topic, so I decided to pick the low hanging fruit.
Jezebel.com, by the way, is a site that includes forums on celebrity gossip, women’s issues, fashion and sex. The article that mentions Kingsville was written by Erin Gloria Ryan, a staff writer for the site. To give you a sense of the tone of Jezebel.com , Ryan’s article is in the same “Roe V World” category as another article, “Tim Tebow Can’t Shut Up About Not Being Aborted.” Ryan provides an unspecific system for assigning points to regions of the country based on access to abortion and emergency contraception, parental consent laws, and rape statistics, among others. She then provides her first worst place to be a woman in America – Kingsville. Kingsville was picked, it seems, in part to serve as a stand in for Texas’ abortion laws and domestic violence rates in general, and in part because of the town’s lack of abortion clinics. “Women who live here are about three times as likely to get raped than women who live elsewhere, and once the U.S. Army conducted an exercise here that involved live ammunition,” she wrote. I’ve lived here for more than 20 years, and I’ve never heard of the live fire incident. Apparently, Ryan’s non sequitur to a 1999 incident in which the Army conducted some training downtown, which scared some neighbors. I’m not sure what that has to do with “lady parts,” but it was important enough for Ryan that it received one of only two source references in her section on Kingsville. I was amused that her link was to a World Net Daily article citing an “investigation” by Alex Jones. I figure the inclusion of a decade-old reference to a local interest story is either a strange case of free-association or Ryan won a bet that said she couldn’t work Alex Jones in as a reference for a pro-abortion piece. In any case, I’ll move on from that mystery and focus on the unsourced part of her statement, “Women who live here are about three times more likely to get raped than women who live elsewhere.”
It’s a strange declaration, in that it not only does not provide a source, it doesn’t even provide context. Who are all these “women who live elsewhere” who are automatically safer than if they were in the streets of Kingsville? “Elsewhere” is a pretty big place, and I think there are women in other countries”elsewhere” who would disagree with Ryan’s assessment of their security. Since the article’s title includes the qualifier “in America” perhaps we can assume “elsewhere” is just somewhere in America other than Kingsville. Still a pretty big elsewhere, but a little easier to evaluate.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations compiles crime statistics from across the country in a Uniform Crime Report, which it makes available under a “Crime in the United States” section on its website. (http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/violent-crime/violent-crime). (If, by chance, you have read Ryan’s article, you may not be familiar with what you just saw in parentheses. It’s called a “source” and it let’s people know where you got your information when you make claims to things. That’s a free tip to all you other bloggers out there.) Table 4 (here), “Crime in the United States by Region, Geographic Division and State,” provides data on a number of violent crimes in the country, including “forcible rape.” According to the report, there were 84,767 incidents of forcible rape reported in the United States in 2010, a rate of 27.5 per 100,000 people. In the West South Central Region, which includes Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, the rate was 32 per 100,000. In Texas, the rate was 30.3 per 100,000. In the same region, Arkansas and Oklahoma both had significantly higher rates than Texas, at 45 and 38.7 per 100,000 respectively. By comparison, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, and South Dakota all had rates of 43 per 100,000 or higher. The FBI’s database does not go down to the county level, but the Texas Office of Court Administration does. Data from 2010 is not on their website, but data from 2011 are available. According to the OCA, there were five cases of sexual assault of an adult on the district court docket in Kleberg County in 2011.
To give a little context, we can multiply that out times the 25,000 people who live in Kingsville cited in Ryan’s article, which would put the rate at 20 per 100,000, well below the state and national average. (You can duplicate my work by going to http://card.txcourts.gov/ReportSelection aspx and selecting “District Court Data Reports” for the period of January 2011 to December 2011) I know those are a lot of numbers to digest, and numbers are boring, but providing real information sometimes isn’t as entertaining as making sweeping, unfounded generalizations. Ryan spends most of the section decrying abortion laws in Texas in general, and writes about the hassle Kingsville women face of driving to the nearest abortion clinic, in Corpus Christi. Apparently, not being able to get an abortion within the city limits of Kingsville is creating a hardship on women and endangering their right to terminate a pregnancy. Of course, Ryan can’t be bothered to offer any data to back up that claim. The Texas Department of Safe Health Services had birth information by county through 2008. For that year, 638 women in Kleberg County between the ages of 15 and 44 years reported a pregnancy. Of those pregnancies, 122 ended in abortion, a rate of 19.1 percent.
By comparison, Dallas County, which has a more urban population with presumably easier access to abortion clinics, had 54,679 pregnancies reported, with 11,337 abortions, or 20.7 percent. (http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/chs/vstat/latest/t14a/shtm). That’s 19.1 percent abortion rate in the land of no clinics and 20.7 percent in the big city. Although I’m sure Ryan would contend that just one opportunity for an abortion lost is one too many. I don’t think a 1.6 percent difference is enough to bring national condemnation. Ryan goes on to take pot shots at cities from Georgia to Oklahoma, as well as the entire state of Mississippi. By their omission, I can only assume the Southwest and West Coast are excellent places to have ladyparts. I’ll let writers in other areas targeted by Ryan take her to task for her shaky logic against them. For my part, I’ll just ask the lady to leave Kingsville out of it, and focus here attention “elsewhere.”
April 10, 1912 (Wednesday)
- RMS Titanic, the largest ship ever constructed up to that time, began its maiden voyage from Southampton, England at noon, with a final destination of New York City. [15] On its exit, the ship caused the American liner New York to break free of its moorings. [16] It arrived in Cherbourg,France that evening at 7:00 pm, took on more passengers, then departed two hours later. [17]
- The French liner Niagara, sailing from Le Havre to New York, struck ice while sailing near Newfoundland. The ship’s bow plates were dented, the ship began to leak, and an S.O.S. was sent. The steamer Carmonia rushed to the rescue, but the crew of the Niagara was able to make repairs. [18]
The amazing gift of hindsight allows us to wallow in the dark similarities of these two events of not quite a hundred years ago. On the day the Titanic embarked on her maiden voyage into history, the French liner Niagara “struck ice … began to leak, and an S.O.S. was sent.” In the end, as we gleefully see, Niagara was able to make repairs and keep afloat. Alas, poor Titanic…
In other news, while hurrying to get breakfast this morning (wanting to get back home and enjoy my day off – online!) I exited the restaurant location on the corner of Santa Gertrudes and 14th St. (that’s police parlance for “left the parking lot”) with stark intentionality. I had noticed, Constable lights ablaze, a funeral procession headed my way. Not wanting to get caught up in deference to it, (again, I want to hurry home!) I only slightly bumrushed the gas pedal on my truck to get ahead of the line of cars.
Speaking of unintended consequences, I traveled about a half mile to the stop light and got caught by the red. So there I am, still; occasional, if intense, glances in the rear view mirror my refrain. An impending funeral procession behind me, I anxiously await the green light: Tick, Tock … Tick, Tock Then, finally, red gives over to green and I hastily take the nearest turn, take a deep breath, and proceed home to enjoy my breakfast and this blog.
Blessings are in the minutiae of life.
In an attempt to get used to incorporating hyperlinks into my blog posts, I wanted to share some undercurrents that are, well, currently active in my life.
Art
The past week I’ve been really moved by two artists, one past and one present. A website dedicated to the work of Bruno Shulz has introduced me to his wonderfully intimate style of sketching and writing. I would describe my favorite ones as romantic surrealism. It refers to the emphatic way Shulz’s work highlights what Nella Cassouto calls, “active femaleness.” There is a stout feminism that circumscribes his work, a world where women have all the power and the male lies prostrate at her feet.
Being a momma’s boymyself that grew up in the company of sisters, I identify with the blatant submission toward women. And as a male that leans toward romanticism, the sheer power women have over us resonates. Like his sketches, Schulz’s writing is replete with intimacy and candor, almost as if he is letting you in on a secret:
I liked to stand between my father’s legs, clasping them from each side like columns. Sometimes he wrote letters. I sat on his desk and watched, entranced, the squiggles of his signature, crabbed and awhirl like the trills of a coloratura singer. Smiles were budding in the wallpaper, eyes hatched, somersaults turned. To amuse me, my father would blew soap bubbles through a long straw; they burst in the irridescent space or hit the walls, their colors still hanging in the air. Then my mother materialized, and that early bright idyll came to an end. Seduced by my mother’s caresses, I forgot my father.
–The Book
The other one is the Brooklyn based artist Vik Muniz, whose recent documentary Waste Land (the trailer can be seen here) struck many chords in me. His depiction of the lives of catadores at Jardim Gramacho, Rio de Janeiro’s largest landfill, provoked many questions in me about my own place in life. And, what I’m doing with what I have. It would be impossible to capture these characters here in words. Suffice it to say that when even on the brink of subsistence, one can have dignity and hope. This, it seems to me, is what Muniz’s art accomplishes so beautifully, the dignity and hope of ‘the least of these.’
The truth I gather in these two artists is how they manage to capture a vast swath of humanity “in one fell swoop,” as they say, leaving the viewer with a sense of inclusion.
I thought I saw you in the sway of the tree
Your lovely form it took when it danced in the wind and caused within me a sigh
A sigh like you used to
There in the sharpest break of green and blue
And in the softest hiss of its song
I knew you once again
And I was happy
New From Junot Díaz – NYTimes.com.
I can hardly express my love for this news! Junot has transformed my writing life. Both “Drown” and “…Oscar Wao” were monumental books for me. And the fact that it’s another short story collection, well, that simply elates me! Share in my joy and read more Junot Diaz!!
“His happiest moments were genre moments…”
“You sure are quiet aren’t you?” she asked, indulging in the obvious. But she was not to be had, “Maybe that’s your problem, you’re afraid to open up.”
So long has it been
the time we shared is like a dream once occurred
and I wonder if it ever was
it dissipates like mist in torrential seas
but the longing that remained reminds me
that potency is eternal
and therefore mine alone to see
did you sense the immensity of me?
I wonder…
do you remember?
the couch, the porch, the tree
does it lead you in long, winding roads of reverie?
can you hardly fathom you without me?
do memories of that time let you be?
like dreams that speak of ancient seas
scars of unknowing
“love is so short, forgetting so long”
do you replay that abiding song
I wonder…
88 days without you was a gift
compared to this long season adrift
and I cannot tell you, and I cannot tell you
we are but strangers, mere strangers
in the ever gathering dark
I starve in the absence of you
I crave in the absence of you
I live in the absence of you
I cannot shake the haunting melody of you
come back, my dear come back
I wonder…
It wasn’t like she knew me. Not at all, we’d just met the week before. But the connection was real, the chemistry, as they say, was apparent. And not only to me. It was like the time she said I was amazing and meant it, if only in her momentary lapse of reason. We had gone to the club that night and all along the way I kept glancing toward her in disbelief. She was in my truck! A crisp, efficacious entity that was full of youth, beauty and vigor contrasted the usual dull visage of glaring music and an empty seat. I’ll remember that night the rest of my life. It was like I had won the lottery. And despite all the guys that came to say ‘Hi’ and hugged her, held on to her for that extra second of nourishment, she stayed with me. We sat on those couches, the ones you sink into, and talked as best we could over the music.
Do you like this song? No, I said, It’s not really my genre.
I told her how glad I was that we came out for drinks. That I hadn’t planned on asking her. How I was afraid she’d say “No, I have to wash my hair” or some such thing. But that I remembered what she told me the day before, about how she prized confidence in men above all else. I told her how I turned my truck around in full bravado, like I was running off a cliff, when I knocked on her door earlier to ask her after I had driven by her house several times but chickened out.
Why would you think I’d say no, you’re amazing!
It’s strange but I immediately thought about that scene in John’s gospel where Peter tells Jesus: where unto shall we go, for you have the words of life. I remember the proximity above all else. How she had to lean up close to my ear so I could hear her speak. How after the first drink or two, her lips would touch my ear as she spoke, her breath would crawl up my nose, her hair would tickle my neck. And how I lost myself.
Do you dance? No, I said, not really. I can’t dance. But her words spoke to me again: confidence.
But I will with you!
The maze of the dance floor always eludes me, never the music. And especially within the grasp of a country Two-Step. But she led the way and I followed. It is only now, years later, that the metaphor haunts me. But we danced, and not once did I step on her toes. Afterward, she mocked my words. I can’t dance, she’d say, in her best whiny-kid-voice. And the night went on in laughter, drinks and dances.
The lights came on abruptly and ended my movie; last call. It was time to go, drove her home via all the main roads despite my inebriation. I was brave that night. When we got to her place, the typical rituals ensued. Walked her to her door, exchanged pleasantries and emphasized the great time we had and how we should do this again. Then came the moment of the puddle in the path – the goodnight kiss.
Again and again, her word spoke to me: confidence. It reverberated within me like cannon fire. Each time the feeling reached a fever pitch within me and I mustered a semblance of courage to go all in, I would cower and think of something to say: you look great tonight … you dance really well … you wanna grab some coffee tomorrow? Anything to avoid the possible consequence of ill conceived confidence turned to stupidity. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, faith gave way to fear, confidence gave way to conformity and I found myself again. I turned and walked away.
Heraclitus was right, you know. You cannot step into the same river twice, new water is always flowing through. In the flow of time, an opportunity lost is lost forever. She’s gone now. As for the kiss, a thick soup of regret is left to me. But hers words linger: confidence and amazing live with me until this day. They nourish me as a kiss never could, even a first kiss from such a one as she.
shall we say the memory of you is as bitter as the liquor that falls upon my lips tonight
and confess little truths
often wish you were a slut
loose limbs and looser morals
woman of wide open spaces
would hang those victories upon the fridge
little sweet mementos of me with you
and of you and you and still more you
rather this: my Dear, you are the very sinews of an ancient land
where myths are born like rivers from an endless sea
calm and assured as time
Calm and Assured as the absence of you.
impenetrable as unknowing
and my victories elope like mist in a mighty wind
shall I say that the memory of you is as bitter as the liquor that falls upon my lips tonight
and confess the truth
