Relic of my past

Gather 'round children, it's time for me to ramble a story at you.

I've been playing with my new camera lens a lot, exploring its features and trying to become more proficient with the camera itself. The other night, I dug deep into my closet and found my old Civil War reenacting uniform, deciding to use the hat as the subject of a photograph. In the process, I managed to dig up quite a few memories, too.

For some reason I've never been able to fully explain, I've been fascinated by the American Civil War era since I was very young. I've always been a history buff. I love studying humanity: our triumphs, failures, inventions, misdeeds, everything. The personal stories of regular people tend to interest me the most. Still, my specific focus on mid-nineteenth century America came out of left field. I suppose the impetus of my obsession can be traced back to the older brother of my childhood best friend. He was a reenactor, and I often saw him coming or going from various events, dressed in his blue uniform and looking, I thought, super cool.

It was during this time, too, that the movie "Glory" first came out. I still contend (with little dissent) that it's a great movie, and I remember watching it several times when it first came to video.

Several years would pass, I moved to a new state, and eventually became friends with a boy whose family was interested in Civil War reenacting. It was through them that I eventually had my chance to participate. And between my love of history and my love of acting, it quickly became my number one hobby.

Happily, my parents were pretty supportive of me. I suppose having a kid who likes to learn about history, play dress-up and go camping every weekend is a lot better than some alternatives. Still, it's not exactly cheap. I spent a lot of time saving my allowance to afford the various pieces of my uniform before I could officially start reenacting. It was (is) very important to appear "authentic" - or as authentic as any 20th century person can be, anyway.

Keep in mind, too, that I had no desire whatsoever to portray a member of my actual sex. Hoop skirts and bonnets had absolutely zero appeal to me, so I would, quite naturally, act in the role of a young girl who dressed as a boy and went off to soldier. And contrary to what several older gents tried again and again to convince me of, my portrayal was quite authentic. While not super common, there are hundreds of documented cases where women passed as men so they could go off to fight in the war. They did it for every reason under the sun: to follow husbands and sweethearts, to get away from home, to fight for their country, to find adventure. They fought on both sides, north and south, and a handful even managed to become officers. Some served as spies, others as musicians, many as regular enlisted soldiers. They fought, they were wounded, killed, captured--some discovered for what they were, plenty who made it through undetected.

There was at least one documented case of a woman bringing a baby to term, only to be discovered when one of "the boys" gave birth in the middle of camp one day. A fellow soldier, remarking on the occasion in his diary, said that the Union would certainly win if they could keep up their numbers simply by having other soldiers give birth to new ones.

Point is, I realized very quickly that I was more "authentic" than the many late-middle-aged, overweight guys who were out there with me. I had just as much of a "right" to be there, and did my best to maintain my subterfuge. There were plenty of people who never suspected that I was actually a girl, and plenty of people who did know and had no problems with it. Sadly, however, there are still reenactors who don't believe women should be allowed to portray men, and it can be hard to find a unit to join up with. Luckily, my unit was comprised of friends, and it wasn't an issue.

Being that I was too young to drive, most of the reenactments I attended were near my home in Illinois. But in '92, I convinced my folks to take us on a "vacation" to Gettysburg, PA, where my unit would participate in the annual recreation of the famous three-day battle there. I still look back on that trip as one of the best things I've ever done. My unit, the 8th Illinois Cavalry, Co. E., took part in the first days' reenactment which, for the first time in several decades, the park was allowing us to do on the actual battlefield. Even a torrential downpour couldn't dampen my excitement. The accompanying lightning, however, brought an early end to our day.

We spent the following few days touring the park, wandering through the various encampments, and generally exploring. It was a blast, and I promised myself that I'd come back some day (which I did).

And though I stopped reenacting by the time I hit high school (it had become much harder to pass as a boy right around then), my fascination with the time period never ended. I still get this unexplainable thrill every time I read a book or watch a movie or stumble onto a reenactment of the era. And I've kept my uniform. The pants don't fit anymore, but (miraculously) some of the other pieces do. I won't lie: some day, I'm going to find a way to hit the field again, hardtack in one hand and a beeswax-lined canteen in the other. For whatever reason, I'm always drawn back to it--to take a photo, wander a battlefield, read a book, or just to reminisce on my stupid blog.



Further reading about women in the Civil War:

• "They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War" by De Anne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook
• "All the Daring of a Soldier" by Elizabeth D. Leonard

Smoking hot Mexico City

Add Mexico City to the list of locales banning smoking in all public places.

MEXICO CITY, April 3 (Reuters) - Mexico City on Thursday banned cigarette smoking in all public places, from bars to office buildings, to reduce the amount of carcinogens inhaled by residents of the smog-filled capital.

The city, home to some 18 million people in the metropolitan area, is the latest large city around the world to pass a smoking ban to improve public health and protect nonsmokers from secondary smoke.

From small towns like Marshfield to major metropolitan areas like New York City, people are catching on to the notion that secondhand smoke is a danger to public health and should be regulated accordingly. This is good news.

On the other hand, you have poorly sourced research that alleges a link between smoking bans and an increase in the number of drunk driving incidents. An article in today's Capital Times sports this headline: "Study links smoking bans to OWIs."

I don't know about you, but something smells fishy when the authors of a study reach a conclusion based on nothing but a comparison between numbers of incidents before and after smoking bans. There's no control group. There's no way to know just where these drunk drivers were headed to or coming from. There's no way to know if their being out and about had anything to do with smoking, or even if they were smokers themselves.

It's not unlikely that smokers who live in a smaller area with a ban might be inclined to travel to a nearby town without a ban to do their drinking and/or socializing. It's a mighty leap, though, to publish a study that purports to show a significant rise in OWIs with the blame placed squarely on bans (not to mention the idea that smokers are more inclined to drive drunk). Even though this conclusion might make a good argument in favor of a more comprehensive, say statewide ban, I wouldn't be comfortable using it. Does it stand up to any kind of decent peer review? I doubt it.

(h/t Kyle)

Stranger at the gate

What's so terrifying about homosexuality?

Is it something in certain peoples' deep, primal psyches that takes issue with their inherent inability to procreate together? Bigotry and fear instilled by a religious system that decided to stigmatize homosexuality because its original oppressors (see: Romans) practiced it so freely? Ignorance? All of the above?

It can't be because it's "unnatural." Homosexuality exists in several species of animal--bonobos, dolphins, various birds, elephants, even lizards and fruit flies--and has been a recorded part of human history since we started keeping track.

It can't be because it's "harmful." Harmful to whom? I can't find a shred of unbiased research that shows any significantly higher risk of medical problems for homosexuals. Contrary to common stereotypes, gays and lesbians are no more or less promiscuous, prone to mental illness or likely to molest children than people who identify as straight. If anything, the only extra harm involved in being gay is that which comes from discrimination and hatred by other people.

So why is it, then, that homophobia is still so rampant?

Today, I read about Tammy Baldwin's partner being initially denied permission to fly with her on a military flight for a congressional trip to Europe. It took the intervention of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to secure an exception. Now, whether or not you agree that members of Congress should be allowed to bring spouses along on these trips, the fact remains that Baldwin's spouse was specifically disallowed because the Pentagon/military doesn't recognize same-sex partnerships.

This is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as our military continuing to use the "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" rule.

Then, I read about further investigations into the US Attorney firings at the Justice Department, and how in at least one case, it looks very much like a highly qualified attorney was fired specifically because of rumors that she was gay. This part is especially telling:

The Justice Department's inspector general is looking into whether Hagen was dismissed after a rumor reached Goodling that Hagen is a lesbian.

As one Republican source put it, "To some people, that's even worse than being a Democrat."

Worse than being a Democrat. Is that how we want to run our country? By firing highly skilled professionals based on personal prejudices and then replacing them with less qualified partisan sycophants? I wouldn't want that to happen regardless of the political party that was doing it, period.

Gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in all levels and branches of the government and military, no exceptions. They're already there (and have always been), doing what they believe is their duty to their country, regardless of what the rules say. They should be judged for the positions applied for in the same manner as anyone: by their actual skills, records of service, etc--you know, qualifications for the job. Anything less is not only mean-spirited, it's short-sighted and detrimental to the improvement and safety of our country.

This sort of institutionalized discrimination should never be tolerated, especially so in a country founded on the idea that everyone should get a fair shake in life.

The finger pointing aftermath

Everybody seems to have something to say about the recent Gableman victory/Butler loss. Those of us who are more liberal leaning are justifiably unhappy about the situation, while some more conservative voices (though not all) are pretty pleased with the outcome. Fair enough--that's all pretty par for the course.

Things get interesting, though, mostly in the comments sections of various blogs. Hyperbole is running rampant, and lots of finger pointing is being done. Both sides of the debate are guilty of it, but what has especially caught my eye is the frequent refrain by certain conservative voices that "Butler lied about Gableman!" This is usually in reply to someone pointing out the many documented cases of the Gableman campaign and/or its supporters spreading falsehoods about Butler.

I don't fool myself into thinking that Butler's campaign came out squeaky clean in this mess of an election. Still, when I ask these voices to provide some evidence of these alleged lies about Gableman, I have so far been met with resounding silence.

The only thing I've been able to dig up on my own are stories about the Greater Wisconsin Committee (GWC) airing an advertisement that critics say misrepresent his record and reversal rate. As far as I know, this is what all the commentators are referring to, so this is what I'll address.

From a press release issued by the Gableman campaign:

The new GWC television ad states, “And Gableman’s decisions are ruled incorrect and overturned by higher courts about 1/3 of the time.”

Judge Gableman’s actual record and reversal rate is as follows:

23,545 cases presided over.
44 cases have been appealed.
Of the 44 appealed cases:
23 cases affirmed.
13 cases dismissed.
6 cases reversed.
2 cases affirmed in part/reversed in part.

Judge Gableman has been reversed 6 times in 23,544 cases (.02%). Even of the 44 appealed cases, 77% of them have been affirmed and only 13% have been reversed – not 33% as the GWC falsely claims.

So is that the lie everyone's crowing about? Because if so, the issue isn't as cut and dry as all that. The 23,545 figure cited as the total number of cases presided over includes 8,800 uncontested traffic tickets. If you were to remove those cases from the total (which seems like a reasonable thing to do, especially since they were trying to frame the debate in terms of "criminal convictions"), that 33% figure seems somewhat less, well, untrue.

Maybe I'm missing something, though. What lies did Butler tell about Gableman? I'm open to being proven wrong. Again, I think both sides in the election comported themselves rather disgracefully (though I'm certain you can tell which side I think was worse). Still, the evidence seems to weight rather heavily against Gableman and his supporters, and I don't think trying to compare Butler's tactics to his is doing a whole lot to bolster the pro-Gableman cause.

In the end, if we're to continue electing our Supreme Court Justices, it would be extremely preferable to do so based solely on the merits and qualifications of the candidates. If we were to remove all of the attack ads, traffic tickets, moneyed business interests and partisan bickering from the equation, I think the outcome would be quite different.

Disappointment.

I take voting seriously. I've voted in every election since I turned 18, from major presidential contests right on down to local races. I do this because I was raised to believe that voting is a right (not a privilege, as some would have you believe) afforded to me by the great struggles of the men and women who came before me. It's important. I don't get to whine about the state of things if I don't, at the very least, vote.

That said, it has been a very difficult near decade of voting for me. I realize I haven't been around the block quite so many times as some, and I have no intention to stop being involved in the political process, but damn it can be disappointing.

Take the first election I ever voted in: 2000. That pretty much sums up my voting experience up to the present day. Twice I've voted for presidential candidates that didn't win (granted, neither were particularly compelling, but I firmly believe either would have been a thousand times better than what we ended up with). I voted against the state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages. Disappointment with how that turned out would be an understatement. There have been several other disappointing votes, too. And yesterday, I added one more when I voted for Louis Butler.

I am disappointed in the people who voted for Gableman, an ill-qualified candidate whose campaign preyed on people's fears and misunderstandings about what the title of Supreme Court Justice actually entails. But I'm angry, physically angry, at the Gableman campaign, and those shady special interests that ran dirty, wildly inaccurate and downright fallacious advertisements.

And now Gableman has the audacity to claim he ran a "positive campaign"? You've got to be fucking kidding me. Not only is this guy unqualified for the job he just bought, but he's apparently also completely delusional.

At this point, I'm not even sure what should happen next. We seem to be slowly but surely giving away our system of checks and balances in this state, allowing businesses to shape the laws in their favor, and limiting the ability of wronged parties to seek justice and redress. We've acted against our own self-interests, and when the time comes (and it will) that we need to seek legal recourse to right the wrongs committed against us, we'll hit a wall of our own making.

This isn't just because of this one vote, or any one vote. I won't give Gableman that much credit. It is, however, symptomatic of a much larger trend and problem--one we've been fighting since the beginning of time: money makes the rules. And if you don't got money, you're screwed.

Immigrant Punk

An interesting and somewhat troubling immigration case has recently bubbled to the surface here in Madison. Tope Awe, a Nigerian-born graduate student at the School of Pharmacy at the UW-Madison, was unexpectedly taken into custody by the Milwaukee office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week, and is now being held in the Dodge County Jail awaiting deportation.

According to the Capital Times:

Friends said she had gone to discuss her immigration status. Awe reportedly came to the United States with her family at age 3, and friends said she knows no one in Nigeria.

ICE spokeswoman Gail Montenegro said Monday that Awe was an immigration fugitive with an outstanding removal order against her. Immigration fugitives typically do not have the right to a hearing before deportation, Montenegro said.

The 22-year-old student's father, Samuel Awe, lost an appeal for political asylum in 2003. That decision in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that Samuel Awe's removal from his 1993-1995 stint as Nigeria's agriculture secretary, reportedly for not paying bribes to supervisors, and accusations that the frequent resident of the United States had ties to the CIA did not rise to the level of persecution.

Samuel Awe, his wife and three children were originally notified in 1998 that they had overstayed their visas, according to court documents. In denying Awe's appeal, the court granted the family voluntary departure to Nigeria.

Tope Awe was in custody Monday at the Dodge County Jail, which contracts with ICE. Also in custody was her brother, Oluwagbenga Awe, also seized on Thursday. He is a recent graduate of UW-Stevens Point and, according to family and friends, is married with a young child.

Samuel Awe and his wife, Julianah, live in the Milwaukee area where he is receiving medical treatment, according to published reports.

It's difficult to get a firm handle on the situation, as the details of the Awe's visa status are still murky. The family claims that the father's B-1/B-2 visa, for business and medical purposes, allows them to stay here until his treatment is finished. It is unclear, however, if 1) the visa applies to just Sam or to the whole family and 2) the visa is good until the completion of treatment. Sam Awe has kidney disease and has been undergoing treatment for it in Milwaukee for a number of years. I can't imagine he'd be able to get the same level of care if sent back to Nigeria.

Perhaps more confusing is Tope's student status. Having lived in Wisconsin for several years prior to enrolling both as an undergraduate at UW-Milwaukee and as a graduate student at UW-Madison, state residency was apparently not a problem to prove. But if the Awe's were notified in '98 that they were supposed to leave the country, how did they manage to stay on (and, for the children, attend state schools) for another 10 years? How did this never come up during enrollment?

Personally, I believe that anyone who has proven a commitment to being a contributing and law-abiding member of society should be granted permanent resident status. The Awe's seem to have done just that, but were instead rewarded with a denial of either an extension to their stay or a path to citizenship. Tope appears to have been an exemplary student, highly involved in campus life and advocacy while pursuing her studies. That she was asked to come in for a meeting to "regularize her residency status," voluntarily complied, and then simply arrested seems sketchy at best.

Still, all of the facts remain to be seen, and for better or for worse, the law is the law. So the trouble may be less that the law was enforced, and more that the law is broken.

This family clearly wanted to stay in the United States, and were, from what I've read, doing everything they could to do so legally. They paid taxes, registered cars, contributed to their communities, and plead their case all the way up to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals--only to meet with a door slammed in their faces. I can't blame them for fighting tooth and nail to stay here. Unfortunately, with the way the laws work now, they may have little to no recourse in this situation.

It is heartening to know that a significant number of Tope's fellow students and teachers are going to bat for her, pushing for her to be allowed to stay in the country at least until she graduates in 2009. An online petition has already garnered hundreds of responses, a number of UW officials are advocating for her, and state representatives have at least been contacted about the case.

This all just serves as yet another reminder of how complicated and dysfunctional our current immigration laws are. We really do need to find a way to get past all of the jingoism and knee-jerk reactions to the subject, and find a way to meaningfully debate and rework our policies. Policies that should have nothing to do with xenophobia and "dey took er jerbs!" style fear. We are, after all, a nation founded by immigrants (I'm talking about the nation founded long after the first inhabitants arrived here--which is a whole other story, of course). Ignoring that heritage, willfully or not, is hypocritical at best, dangerous at worst.

Happy Julian New Year, all you April Fools!

Don't forget to vote today!

The origin of April Fools Day is somewhat shrouded in complexity and mystery, but the general idea seems to come from very old celebrations of the vernal equinox. Back in the bad ol' days, the coming of spring also marked the start of a new year according to the Julian calendar. When various nations began to officially mark the new year on January 1st, instead (especially so when the Gregorian calendar was instituted in 1582), those people who continued to celebrate on/around the first of April began to be referred to as "April Fools." Pranks were played, and a new tradition was born.

Some pretty amazing jokes have come of April Fools' past, including a few that swept up significantly large numbers of poor, gullible souls who believed them to be true.

Two of my favorite pranks of years past:
The Independence of the Island Nation of San Serriffe
Spaghetti Trees

Current (awesome) online pranks:
Youtube wants you to roll with Rick (click on any of the Featured Videos)
Google and Virgin want to settle on Mars
dane101.com, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Myspace.com (this one is just plain mean)

Found any others? Let me know!

And be sure to thoroughly investigate all milk cartons before drinking and salt shaker tops before pouring. C'mon, don't be a foo'.

EDIT TO ADD: Just noticed good old madison.com is getting in on the action, and in a predictably Wisconsin-ish manner.

The Badger Herald is up to their old tricks, breaking out the Dirty Bird for another run.