Small Town Wren

I needed turbinado sugar this weekend, which prompted a visit to Trader Joe’s.  I happened to find a bottle of wine.

Hmm, can we get a close up on that label?

Oh, right. Chariot Gypsy 2007. Obviously. Because that’s not problematic at all.

Being gypsy myself, I had to buy it. Being that it was only $6, I can hardly complain about being gypped, now can I?  Much like how a friend’s (black) mother collects racist images of “them negroes,” I find myself drawn to ill thought out representations of gypsies.

I have to say: I’ve seen worse. While this lady does have the headscarf, earrings, and giant mole, her lack of prominent and absurd gold jewelry is somewhat refreshing.  But let’s not kid ourselves, this woman is wearing a lot of odd ice, none of which is based in fact and a lot of which is based in racism and stereotype. Awsm!

On to the wine itself: I was surprised it had a cork. My usual Trader Joe’s pick lost its cork for a screw cap about a year ago.  It was a wet red, which is about all I’m qualified to say. It was a bit sweet and I’d probably drink it again. Coming from me about a red, that’s a lot. Reds tend to be my least favorite kinds of wine.

But back to the racism: haven’t we learned over hundreds of years of colonialism and all those civil rights marches and what not, that it’s not okay to market miscellaneous shit based on racist images of subjugated people and their history?  What if this was Chariot Jews 2007?  Granted that would have excellent pun potential, but that doesn’t make it an okay thing to do.

Law & Order is one of my guilty pleasures, though it’s not exactly guilty.  One of my favorite undergrad professors worked as a producer and writer for Criminal Intent, so I can’t bash it as a series/franchise by any means.

Tonight’s Law & Order episode, “Dignity,” took on the abortion debate.  The New York Times posted an article today about the franchise’s history of abortion coverage, which has been spotty at best.  This isn’t surprising consider the issue is, um, abortion.  Not exactly a bed of roses issue for prime time television to waltz through without thought.

It started out very promising: an obvious take on the tragic murder of Dr. Tiller. From there, it went downhill in its attempt to cover way too many aspects of the pro-choice/anti-abortion debate. A shout out to Mom Martyrs/Shamers was nice, but the detour into Jill Staneck crazyland that didn’t point out that babies being murdered after surviving abortion is a big fat (obvious) lie kind of killed it for me. And then they tried to divide the DA’s office along the pro-/anti- lines in a way that didn’t feel right for any of the characters. The show refused to explicitly say that their Dr. Tiller stand-in had as much right to his life as any that could be argued for unborn fetuses.  And that, ladies and gentleman, is where the EPIC FAIL lies. Law & Order completely failed to stand up to everything it has postured itself to believe in: that murder is wrong, that crime is wrong, that justice is what is important.

I watched this episode with my father. It was nice to hear him agree with my complaints. I like to think that he enjoyed my explanations of the nuanced references this episode made.

So I think this is quite good.  Um, huh?

I live in the heart of IL-14, so we often get some crazy things happening around here. Granted, we (finally) elected a Democrat* to congress, which gives me hope, there’s still a lot of right wing crazy around here.  But sometimes we get things right out here in Kane Co. I’d say this is one of them.

I’m pretty sure it’s not a secret that pretty much unilaterally, government is having some budget issues. I find it thoroughly refreshing to see a progressive and fair way to help with that issues.  Sliding scales are what we need more of in this country.  And before you come marching in saying that making richer criminals pay larger fines is unjust, need I remind you of the link between poverty and criminal activity?  How is exacerbating that problem of any help?

* This is my childhood best friend’s dad. Pretty cool, huh?