USA – Page 3 – Les said, the better II

Writing letters

Dear Mr. Tony Cochran,
Yesterday was Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day in which transgender victims of hate crimes in the previous year are memorialized. Alas, last year had no shortage of names. The killers don’t often face justice. When they do, they often argue that the “deceit” of the victim as a motivation for their crime. In other words, they say that transgender people deserve to be hated and murdered for who they are.
The comic you ran yesterday almost perfectly illustrates the thought process of hate and bigotry. The comic would have been transphobic on any day of the year, but your timing was exceptionally insulting. Probably, more kids yesterday saw your comic than heard about the memorial services. But the ideas it participated in promoting will grantee that they’ll have many more chances in future years.
Sincerely,
Les

The comment form is at http://www.creators.com/write/comics/agnes.html. Background information is at a previous post. If your newspaper runs Agnes, I encourage you to write a letter to the editor.
I’m really tired of the cultural background noise of anti-trans hatred. Normally, I just ignore it, but this timing was crap, and I think it’s worth speaking up.

Edit

The author of the comic left a comment on my previous post:

I assure you, until just now, I had absolutely no idea there was such a thing as Transgender Remembrance Day. My wall calendar only lists days like Easter, Christmas, Flag Day, etc. All my strips are written 6 months in advance. I apologize for the coincidence, and only for that.Agnes is just upset that a young boy was trying to sneak into her girl group. That’s all. No inuendo. No mean spirited transgender hate.

The comic has somebody who is passing as a girl. When s/he’s outted, the main character of the strip calls him/her a “deceitful little creep.” What’s the difference between trying to pass and trying to “sneak in?”

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance. Once a year, there’s a candle-light vigil for every transgender person around the world in the previous year who was killed in a hate crime. Alas, there is never a shortage of names on the list. Shakesville has a list and some other background information in a thoughtful post.
One thing she mentions is that often, the killers of trans people, if they’re even brought to trial, try a “trans panic” defense, where they claim that discovering the other person was transgender was just so traumatic that murder is acceptable. It’s the old “gay panic” defense, resurrected. In Philadelphia, in just August of this year, in the 21st century, this worked.
Which brings us today’s very timely Agnes:
What a fitting newspaper comic for today, eh? What could be better than a kids comic which depicts rage against a trans person for “keeping secrets”? How fucking great. Fuck you too, Agnes.

Write Letters

Dear Senator Feinstein,

I am writing to ask that congress investigate whether the president has violated Posse Comitatus. I’ve just read, in the Army Times, that an infantry brigade has been deployed domestically on a permanent mission. This would seem to be in direct violation of H.R. 4986, Section 1068, signed into law on 28 January 2008, which restored the Posse Comitatus to it’s original wording. I believe strongly that the army should not be used domestically and that the president should obey the law. I hope that congress will take action on this issue.

The Army Times article is here: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/

Thank you for your time,
Céleste Hutchins

Posse Comitatus was a law passed in 1878 which prohibited using the Army for domestic law enforcement. There’s a lot of reasons that this is a good idea. Police Officers, for all their short comings, are employed by the area that they police and are subject to review by several layers of government. The National Guard is under the control of the governor of their home state and generally only deployed in emergencies. They are under review by the national government in addition to the state government. And really, they only ever should be mobilized during emergencies.
Police Officers, ideally, are trained in doing police work. Recently, they’ve been toying with becoming a military force, but their job is supposed to be public safety, which means that they use force only as a last resort and use non-lethal force whenever possible. The army’s job is to kill people. They are trained to be an occupying force. In the army, to “pacify” a situation means to kill everybody who is upset about it. People who have been doing a lot of killing overseas are not really the best folks to do police work at home or anywhere. Furthermore, the army’s chain of command goes up to the Commander in Chief. George Bush. They are loyal to the president.
Deploying the Army domestically is a violation of an important law. This is a blatantly illegal act. Their mission is contrary to our democracy. Action must be taken.

Nationalize, Not Bailout

With 700 billion dollars at hand at any time, Wall Street’s party isn’t over, it’s just getting started.
There’s a plan afoot to take our tax dollars and give them away to huge companies that have made poor choices. We buy off their bad assets, sell them at a huge loss and then sit around waiting for them to have more bad assets. It’s a $700 BILLION pool of money, that never goes dry. We can’t have national health care, because that’s too expensive, but any hedge fund in trouble can have cash when they need it.
We infuse huge amounts of tax dollars, what will turn out out be trillions, over time, and in the end, have nothing. The uber-rich, however, have a huge safety net. They can make no wrong choice. If they bet on prices going up, and they go up, big win for them. If they bet on prices going up, and they go down, our taxes make up the difference. It’s a hell of a party when you don’t have to pay for it.
The idea is that some businesses are too big to fail and too important to our economy and therefore, it’s in our shared, public interest to help them out. And this could well be true. Large banks are an essential part of any modern, market economy and having tax payer backup for them is an important tool. But if we’re paying for them, we should own them. Companies that are so important to our well-being that they need public support, should belong to the public. If they’re central to the government’s mission, they should be part of the government. If we pay when they lose, we should profit when they profit. Things like health insurance, banks, and public utilities are too important to be run like a card game. If we need them, then the people in charge should be answerable to the public who relies on them, not on shareholders who place bets as if it’s poker.
Companies that are not vital to our interests, but so big that they can’t fail are too big. Break them up! Don’t just hand over our money. This is class warfare. they want to squeeze every drop of cash out of the middle class and the poor and use it to buy themselves third, fourth and fifth houses, while leaving the federal government to foreclose on our sole homes. Don’t forget that these “bad assets” are our homes! Professional bankers and mortgage brokers advised private individuals to take poor risks. These professionals committed fraud. They lied to us. They lied to their superiors, who were only too happy to look the other way. A whole lot of deception went into this mess. Nobody in the banking industry was shocked when their loans starting going bad. They knew they had been making bad loans. They also knew they still got to keep the huge bonuses that they paid themselves. And they knew they could count on tax payers to bail them out. The same tax payers who are now also facing foreclosure and are suffering generally under the credit crunch.
The people who made this mess should be the ones to pay for it. The rich made money off of this. Tax them! They can spare it. Tax the war profiteering corporations who have been making billions off of our tax dollars by not rebuilding Iraq. Tax the oil companies. Tax the profiteers!
I think safety nets are an entirely reasonable part of an economy. But they should be there for people who need them. If I get sick and get laid off, I lose my house. If we can afford to help out robber barons, we can certainly afford to help out people who are having a rough time. How many people could get healthcare for $700 billion? How many kids could go to college? How many unemployed people could have an extra month of breathing room while they look for a job in a crap economy?

We’re in the credit crunch because of fraud, certainly. But we’re also here because of deregulation. Regulations are there to prevent things like this. They need to be re-instated. Our houses, our jobs, our economy are not playthings for speculation. Banks and insurance companies need to be kept separate. Our currency is not a toy for speculators. Our manufacturing sector hasn’t gone offshore because of the magical free hand of the marketplace, it’s gone offshore because of changes in tax laws. We have the power to control how we allocate our money, who gets and how resources are managed. We could re-instate the tariffs that used to protect our manufacturing sector and thus create jobs and reduce the carbon footprint of global shipping. We could start enforcing the laws that are supposed to protect unions and make safer, better workplaces. We could stop government outsourcing, so that people who provide public services are loyal to the public and when disaster strikes, we’re not at the mercy of private firms, Blackwater and mercenaries. The government could actually govern! It could provide services. It could stabilize the economy. It could use our resources to help us, not the rich friends of corrupt officials. Things do not have to be like this.
The bailout is the wrong answer. If we have to save a company, we should own it. Nationalize, not bailout!

American Politics: Why the Continuing Democrat Contest is a Good Thing

People say it’s bad. Pick up a newspaper, that says it’s bad. turn on a TV, that says it’s bad. But seriously folks, when is the last time the mass media said anything even remotely accurate about progressives in America? (I hear crickets chirping).
First of all, why not ask the voters in states with late primaries? I bet they’re not unhappy to be making important votes. I bet they’re pleased as heck. For years, everybody only cares about New Hampshire. Now, suddenly, somebody is paying attention to them! More democracy is good! Let the late voters have their say.
Secondly, Clinton and Obama are vying for the Democratic vote. If the Democratic nominee were already selected, ze would be vying for the mythical swing voter. Or worse, Republican voters. Instead, the Democratic candidates are forced to talk about issues that actually matter to their party. They have to define themselves in opposition to each other, not just as slightly less-bad Republicans.
There are more Democrats than Republicans in America. If you look at party registration, you can see that. If you go out as a pollster and start asking people, “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?” the gap gets really wide, more than 10%. Most people don’t vote. A huge number of eligible voters aren’t registered. But, even unregistered, they consider them selves to be Democrats. It’s sad. Why don’t they vote? Well, in a normal election cycle, their issues are completely ignored in the mad rush for swing voters. Why should they vote if they get offered nothing?
So, suddenly, the left exists. The left’s issues exist. The majority of people in America suddenly exist. Clinton and Obama are forced to talk about issues important to the left. And as this drags on, they become associated with their pledges to the left. They can’t just suddenly forget about us. We made them address the Pentagon’s illegal domestic disinformation campaign to sell the war. Every issues that they address, which McCain ignores, that’s an issue that they well might have stayed silent on. And maybe they force him to address it. The political discourse in America is being pulled in a direction which appeals to Democrats.
I hope this goes all the way up to the convention. I hope they have to keep paying attention to the party they represent all the way through it, through November, through two terms in office. Progressive issues matter! Progressive issues are vital to the health of the country and the planet.
Of course, I write all this from a distant land, where I don’t get inundated with it. But every time I see the candidates jockeying for progressive votes I smile. And then I change the channel.

Edit

Nevermind. Arg. This is why I don’t pay attention. And moved across an ocean.

Berkeley Politics

My home town, the city of Berkeley, California is in the public eye for objecting to a US Marine Corps recruiting station downtown, near both the university and the high school. The right wing blogosphere went kind of nuts at this and you can read more about it here, at the Berkeley Daily Planet.

I went today to see the protests. The anti-war group, Code Pink was set up in front of the City Hall. They had camped over night. This is a women’s group and most, but not all, of the women seemed to be retirement age. There were also a lot of very energetic young people running around, most ly on the other side of the street.
Also across the street were a bunch of right wing pro-war types. Even in Berkeley, alas. They had a very loud sound system set up playing Sousa marches and country songs. While I was mingling with the Code Pink types, somebody I knew from Mills came up to me. She said that when the pro-war folks showed up at 5AM, they started chanting “Burn! Burn! Burn!” at Code Pink. “They just seemed very angry.” She said.
Parked behind all the action were a bunch of news vans. Whenever the police started herding people around, something they were fairly aggressive about, the news cameras sprung into action.
I didn’t stay at the demo long. I was enlisted to help distribute water to the Berkeley High students. Many of them had cut class to go protest. I heard one girl telling her friends that her “mommy” had given her permission to skip school and protest. The kids involved seemed to be very diverse – girls and boys, many races, many teen sub groups. Skaters, goths, and jocks were all out there, all having a good time.
I quit distributing water when the kids started throwing it on each other. I’m not going to carry several liters of water around on my shoulder so they can play with it. As I got on my bike to leave, I went very near one of the news vans. Inside, I heard the anchor ranting about how this sort of thing has been going on for 40 years. The unbiased media was full of scorn for the peace movement. Isn’t it tired to spend the last 40 years advocating for social justice and non-violent conflict resolution?
Even if some individuals have been advocating the same thing in the same way for almost half a century, that doesn’t make their cause less right.

Racism vs Sexism: This is not a Contest!!

I’ve talked before about why I like Obama. It was mostly emotional. He talks about the future. He links it with the civil rights struggles of the past. He invokes destiny and progress in nifty ways. A big component of this is that he stays positive. His charisma is a whole big ball of being positive.
When he gave a speech on MLK day talking about the need for queer equality, that was a strong statement and it was specifically against the queerphobia found in some black churches. But it was positive all the way. He’s a uniter. Emotionally, he tells folks they’re wrong without ever telling them that they’re wrong. It’s like he’s got a great big tent set up and keeps inviting people in. And he’s not telling folks that they’re wrong as much as he’s asking them to scoot over a bit to make some room for the new folks coming into the tent.
I wish everybody on the Democratic side would stay positive. Not just the candidates, but everybody. When pundits or whoever try to frame this as white women against black men, that especially gets my hackles up. Sexism and racism are related. It’s not meaningful to argue about which is worse. Historically, advances for People of Color have been linked with advances for women. The same folks who worked to end slavery worked on suffrage. Many of the same folks who worked in the civil rights movement worked in the women’s rights movement.
Ok, not everybody who is anti-racist is anti-sexist. And not every feminist anti-racist. That second case is getting a lot of attention right now. White, second wave feminists tended to ignore black women’s issues and write about white women as if all women were white. Some of these folks are writing op-eds now that have this same problem and it’s incredibly annoying. Gloria Steinem wrote a piece that, yikes, I wish she hadn’t written it. Unfortunately, though, when folks react to this kind of op-ed, well, their reactions can be problematic too. Instead of arguing with the specific author or even the school of thought of the author or even second wave feminism in general, they paint with a broader brush. I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to blame all of second wave feminism. There were influential and important black women in the movement. And, with a broader brush, I really don’t think it’s fair to blame all feminism. Third wave feminists are specifically anti-racist and feature more contributions of POC writers and also tend not to see things solely in terms of white vs black. (Shockingly, there are additional races in America.) I know third wave feminism has it’s own problems which will probably seem glaring in a generation, but right now, there’s a conscious effort to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, especially in regards to racism and homophobia, etc. Going yet another step further, it’s really, really unfair to blame white women in general as a group.
There are pundits on TV that start talking about white women as if they’re a homegenius group of suburban, middle class soccer moms, all implicitly or explicitly racist. Many of these pundits are white men! Yo! Get off the high ground, Mr. Chauvinist Pig! Right, contrary to what many seem to think, white women vary in age from 18 to over 100. They vary in income from grinding poverty to extreme wealth. They live in rural areas, in the city, in the suburbs. Not all of them are, will be, or want to be moms, soccer or not. Not all are straight. Not all are cisgender. So white, male pundits, complaining about racism, treat white women as a big group of identical, interchangeable, (not quite) people. Ironic!
The brilliant part about this is that it lets white men off the hook. Who profits when the disadvantaged fight each other instead of the advantaged?
So, can we all stop arguing about whether racism is “worse” than sexism or vice versa? They’re different beasts! But they serve the same purpose of maintaining inequality and keeping the rulers up top. Instead, let’s talk about who is going to help the most.
Position-wise, Obama and Clinton are pretty much identical on feminist issues. I don’t want to cal them “women’s issues,” because it’s kind of foolish to assume that these issues only effect women. If abortion is illegal, that increases unwanted fatherhood, not just unwanted motherhood. Every man that’s tied economically to a women gets hurt by income inequality. Heterosexual men don’t bear many of the direct costs of sexism, but they bear costs. Feminist issues are good for everybody, not just for women. And Obama and Clinton are both great on feminist issues. A single-issue voter can go for either of them and end up doing well policy-wise. Of course, somebody who actually IS a woman, well, if I were a single-issue voter, that would push it over the edge for me.
But, position-wise, Obama and Clinton are not equal on race issues. An anti-racist, single-issue voter would pick Obama.
There are a lot of reasons to back Clinton. There are a lot of reasons to back Obama. There are other policy differences,although not overly many. How about we keep it positive, eh? And can we lay off white women? (If we start in on sexist black men . . . .oy, let’s not do that.)

Public Service Announcement

For all of you who switched your registration to vote on Super Tuesday, don’t forget to switch back to the Green Party. We need you to stay on the ballot, not just in national races, where maybe voting Green isn’t s useful, but in local races. We’ve got folks in state legislatures. We almost got mayor of San Francisco. Stay Green!

Obama

I just watched the Obama victory speech. Commentary below the embedded content.

transcript here

Damn, that man can talk! When he started with, “You know, they said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high.” my gods, he brought tears to my eyes. I’m not registered Democrat, but if I were, I’d vote for him.
A few days before Christmas, I went to Cody’s Books in Berkeley and there were some older white women selling hats and scarves that they’d knit. They were raising money for Obama. Even in Berkeley, this is unusual. I stopped to talk to them and asked them why they were voting for him. They couldn’t really say. One of them talked about how she felt after his speech at the Democratic Convention 4 years ago. She said she thought, “why aren’t we running him?!” Which is exactly what I thought at the time.
It’s hard to immediately pin down what’s so completely compelling about Obama. My girlfriend says he has Jedi mind powers. He has an emotional appeal more than a logical one. But I think the logical one is there. Even though he’s not the most left candidate. That title belongs to the (now Nader-esque) Kucinich or maybe Edwards, who lost last time and who looked silly debating Cheney.
Obama is compelling because he is the 21st century. We’re supposed to have flying cars and wear silver clothes and all be fabulously wealthy. This is what we were promised in the Jettsons. But instead we got terrorist attacks and fear and war and poverty and politicians apparently nostalgic for the 19th century. We got leaders who seemed to think the centuries tick backwards instead of forwards.
Obama instead invokes the struggles of the past, especially the civil rights struggles and paints himself as the next logical step in that progression. He is forwards where Bush was backwards. There were those who -trapped in the past – said this day would never come. But it has come. The future is now.
And as he talks about hope and universal healthcare and employing scientists to solve problems, he’s talking about the shiny future that we wanted. The one where we can watch videos on our laptops and not have to worry about facing foreclosure because our kid got sick.

[Y]ears from now, when we’ve made the changes we believe in, when more families can afford to see a doctor, when our children — when Malia and Sasha and your children inherit a planet that’s a little cleaner and safer, when the world sees America differently, and America sees itself as a nation less divided and more united, you’ll be able to look back with pride and say that this was the moment when it all began.

I want a flying (carbon neutral) car. I want scientists making the world a better place. I want the mythology of America, the one where anybody of nay race can be president, to be true. I want the mythology of America, the one where we do good things in the world, to be true. I want the mythology of America, the one where we work hard and it pays off and things get better, to be true. Not only is Obama promising all that, he is all that. The first black man to win a primary caucus. He embodies all of our positive mythology and our hopes for the future. He is reaching out and grabbing a mantle that we all want somebody to seize, like Arthur drawing Excalibur from a rock.
That’s his emotional appeal. That’s more than a Jedi mind trick, that’s a combination of everything that can be good that politicians say.
I don’t know how he is from a policy wonk perspective. In some sense, it doesn’t matter as much. Nobody implements that platform that they campaign on this early. If all he has now are broad, general ideas, that’s all he needs now. What he can actually implement and what he will do come from a few factors including how willing congress is to work with him and how willing he is to respond to constituents. His record is good on both counts.
He’ll be Clinton-esque, like Bill was. He’ll say that he feels our pain and we’ll believe him. He’ll triangulate and take credit for popular but bad conservative ideas. He’ll bomb Kosovo, but we’ll think he meant well. I never thought I’d miss Bill Clinton, but I do. And this guy is the closest thing to that that we’ve got. And when he says that if he wins, it will be profoundly huge and wonderful for America, he’s right. It will be profoundly huge. It will make some of our most noble mythology become prophesy. We’ll be as good as we said we were.
This is a guy who can win and should win. Somebody trying to bring us forwards. I want my flying cars. I want Obama in 2008.

Happy Thanksgiving

Every 4th Thursday in November is the American holiday of Thanksgiving. It is basically a harvest festival where people gather together with family and friends to stuff themselves with food and feel grateful for things that are going well in their lives. Traditionally, people eat turkey and other autumn foods like cranberries and pumpkins. It became a federal holiday in 1941. There’s a cultural idea that this festival dates back to early colonial times. It’s true there was a feast of thanksgiving back with the Pilgrims, but it was in honor of a military victory and not repeated the next year. There would be similar festivities to celebrate other victories and these were held at any time of year. The had mostly fallen out of favor by the mid 1880’s, until Lincoln declared two of them in honor of Civil War victories.

Some folks who I’ve talked to described hearing this like learning there was no Santa Claus. Sorry. Personally, I like the idea of having a harvest festival and having a national holiday that is secular and non-statist-patriotic. It’s a cultural disaster that we’ve established this connection to that particular feast with the Pilgrims. It’s as if Germany established a holiday and said it commemorated their successful invasion of Poland. So I’d like to reject the Genocide Day aspect tacked on to what ought to be just be a harvest feast.
One of the traditions associated with the holiday is making a list of things that they are thankful for. I’m thankful that I get to see my family today, since it’s unexpected for me. Also, that I have the resources to deal with my immigration problems and will (eventually) be able to return to my school. I’m thankful that I had a useful telephone conversation with the foreign student office. I’m thankful that I will soon be getting one last needed document in the mail. I’m thankful for their advice. I’m thankful that stupid “anti-terrorist” restrictions on who can learn about what kind of technology in the UK won’t apply to me. Indeed, I’m grateful to have the opportunity to laugh at the idea of a Silicon Valley native sneaking overseas to get access to sekrit British technology. I mean, not that they don’t have any. ~~At one time, they had a total monopoly on the secret of excellent musket design.~~ It’s just that, well, the silicon wafer computer chip was invented in my neighborhood, so to speak. The ipod was invented in my home town. (My dad worked on the nano.) Alarmingly, as the US now spends very little money on R&D, it may be the case that Brits do have some advanced technology not available here. Um, but we invented MySpace. Anyway, I’m getting off topic.
As soon as my admission letter and proof of lodging come in the mail, I forward them off to my visa service who goes and stands in line at the British consulate in LA and then I should be able to travel very shortly afterwards. I want to believe it will be like a week longer, but that’s overly optimistic. I need to get plane tickets (it turns out that same day sales are rather pricey (my credit card bill is for $1500)) but I don’t want to do it until I have a better idea of when exactly and at the same time, I need to be concerned about financial details. Maybe I can fly standby. So, yeah, I’m thankful that it’s all going to work out, hopefully soon.
Sometimes people say “Happy T-day” where the T stands for both Thanksgiving and turkey. However, I’m a vegetarian. My friend Sarah sent me a poem in honor of this:

The turkey bird,
it cannot fly.
I’d rather have
a piece of pie.

Continuing From Where I Left Off

When last I typed, I was sitting on an airplane which I had been placed on by British immigration agents. I wondered if the cabin crew was aware of my situation. They didn’t act like it. They offered me wine when they offered everybody else wine and did not treat me differently than other passengers. When I asked if they had any extra vegetarian meals, the woman handing them out found me one and then started to give me a form to request one for my next flight. So perhaps she didn’t know.

When we landed, I hit the call button. The airplane aisle was was jammed with people. One of the cabin crew caught my eye and made hand symbols to ask if I was asking about my passport. He told me to go to the front of the plane. So I guess they did know.
I got off and there was a man there holding the envelope that I knew to contain my passport. I asked for it back, but instead he brusquely told me to follow him. The people working in detention in Britain had all been fairly friendly and scrupulously polite. They explained what was going on and what was about to happen. Nobody got cagey until I asked who was paying for my ticket home. This man, however, did not explain anything, but walked ahead with his lips slightly pursed. He wore an airline uniform, but seemed to consider himself some sort of diplomatic, immigration agent. He took me to American immigration, and gave the border agent my passport. He spoke about me to the agent as if I was not present. I began to detest him. Some people are just doing their jobs and some people see themselves as above you. He was the latter. Since he treated me as invisible burden, I will do the same to him for the rest of this story as a sort of a petty revenge for having to spend time following his wordless, brisk-walking arrogance.
I had to go to a secondary interview to get back in the US. I had hoped that I would just get back my passport and be on my way, but alas. I was told to sit in a big room with many chairs and two or three american immigration agents, seated behind tall desks. There were only a few people in the room. I looked at them and guessed they were foreign. I wondered what would happen if the US wouldn’t take me either. Didn’t they have to? After a short wait, I was called forward. A sympathetic agent said, “so what happened?” I explained about how the NYC British consulate’s web page gives incorrect information as to how they accept visa applications and my mistaken belief that I could get in with a tourist visa. She was entirely empathetic, but then pointed out that America would have done the same thing. “I know!” I said, “you have to stop doing that! Well, I guess it’s what you have to do by law, but still.” She blamed George Bush. For being required to hassle foreigners and for my having experienced the same. Damn him.
She stamped my passport and returned it to me. Huzzah. It has a refusal stamp in it, something that will probably cause me problems in the future. Or not. I think Britain has a reputation. From immigration and customs, I went to ticketing. To pay for a last-minute transatlantic fare. Well, that answered that question. The fare was a bit over $1000. My credit card was denied. I called them and they asked, as a security question, for the cell number I had when I was in Connecticut. I failed security. Finally, the officious jerk who had been leading me everywhere, and seemed to think my fare to be far too low, grew impatient and left. The ticket agents didn’t like him either. The guy I was talking to, who was clearly family, said it happened to everybody. The woman next to him said her niece had been sent back when she went to study at the London School of Economics. And she had a visa! The friendly ticket agent said even some cabin crew had been caught up in British immigration. He blamed George Bush. The other agents concurred. Damn that guy!
My credit card company relented and I paid my ticket. The guy I was paying told me to fly west with Jetblue, since they would have the cheapest tickets and the most flights. Then he took me down to the baggage office. He was so nice. “It happens to everybody!” he kept saying. Then he said that he used to live in San Francisco and if I did fly an affiliate airline, he would tell everybody to be nice to me. I gave him a bag of reeces pieces.
The baggage office, also friendly and polite had more bad news. My bike hadn’t made the flight. I explained that I was continuing onward via an out-of-network airline and they took my address. My bike will be arriving via fedex delivery, probably tomorrow.
I went over to the Jetblue terminal at JFK airport and walked up to a customer service agent and purchased a ticket for the next flight to Oakland. “Do you have any bags to check?” “No.” I said ruefully. The last minute ticket was $120 or $130, I forget which. I was amazed at my good fortune. I spend two or three hours waiting in the airport. I called Nicole who empathized and Ellen, who offered me a ride from the Oakland airport and finally my dad my said, “You know what you should do?!” in the tone of voice he gets when he’s got an outside-the-box idea. “You should go see if there’s an Irish consulate in San Francisco.” He left a pause, waiting for my reply.
“But I’m trying to go to England.”
“You should find out how Irish you have to be to get an Irish passport.” He was giggling now, very taken with his suggestion.
“I’ve got just as many British ancestors, but that didn’t seem to help much.” Indeed, I had mentioned them to the immigration agent who interviewed me.
“But Ireland needs labor! You might have to promise to work in Ireland!” he giggled more.
Suddenly, the exhaustion of having gotten so little sleep and then being up for so many hours hit me. I told my dad that I regretted not having his phone number memorized, since I therefore couldn’t have called him from detention. As I type this, I wonder what suggestions he would have had for while I was detained. Mostly, I think I wanted somebody to know where I was. We hung up.
I got on the next airplane. It was a much nicer plane than the last two. I had a row to myself and lay down across it and slept for the entire 5 hour flight. Ellen met me at the airport and took me home, where I now sit. Still tired. I need to contact a consulate, either the one in New York or the one in Los Angeles or both and ask what to do. I need a copy of my Mills College transcript, to send it with my visa application. I need to make copies of my house keys, since, of course, I didn’t bring them, since I wasn’t going to be in Berkeley at all. I need to take a nap.