Monday, December 01, 2008 - Posts
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Well, I never wanted the Clintons to divorce on our account and don't think they ever will split up, either—for one thing because she would get all of the art and all of the friends while he would get the "art'' and be stuck with the "friends.'' (B: "No, you take Terry McAuliffe.'' H: "No, darling, you.'') But as fantasies go, Emily, it is fun to imagine her throwing him out because she can and because she might just take up with that 24-year-old Sharon Stone broke up with after losing her custody battle. (You know, the one in which her ex accused her of suggesting that their 8-year-old son use Botox to fight foot odor.) Now that it's official for Hillary as secretary of state, I do want her to do well there. And to enjoy this moment, with or without the Mr.
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I'm with you, Susannah, on Alex Kuczynski and her (college-educated!) rent-a-womb. There are worse villains to vilify at a time like this, Internet haters! Right? Why does it continue to be so profitable for self-respecting media institutions to incite reader rage over harmless rich socialites who are not asking for as much as a penny of TARP funds? (I mean, imagine if wealthy men got pregnant! Imagine what impoverished, uneducated communities they'd be outsourcing the job to. Oh wait, there's a thriving surrogate industry in India as it is.) Which is to say, um, was there not something off-putting about the economics of it? In vitro, while certainly not covered by most health care plans, is covered by some—and in any case, it's certainly a tax-free expenditure of a hundred grand. And for a quarter of that, Kuczynski finds a whole woman—a college-educated woman!—willing to carry around Kuczynski's child in her own goddamn womb for nine months? Hey, and now she's written a story about it; she can write off that money, too! (Plus, she probably made about exactly $25,000 writing the piece anyway.)
God, so what does it mean? Well, on one hand, that's the free market at work, folks! And yet, on the other hand, Kuczynski—who wrote a book about cosmetic surgery and a regular Times column critiquing fancy retail "experiences"—has this way of positioning herself smack in the middle of industries that thrive off the most loathsome markets! Take in vitro and cosmetic surgery: Both draw in some of the nation's most talented doctors by freeing them from the migraine that is haggling with insurance companies, the same insurance companies that have helped make basic health care costs so expensive that regular college-educated ladies like Kuczynski's surrogate are willing to be implanted with alien zygotes and carry them around inside her for the better part of a year. (Oh yeah, and did I mention, quit drinking? While Kuczynski gets to … not quit drinking? ) It's just no faiiiirr, not to mention creepy, and while I'll gladly admit it's a bit of both to the anonymous cow whose teat to which I fully intend on outsourcing my milk production if and when I ever have kids, it's a little different when you're talking about people, right? And I guess I'd just feel better if it seemed like Kuczynski had thought about it this way. Because there are a lot of people in this country who are wealthy enough to spend 25 grand outsourcing their pregnancies, and there are hordes more who are desperate enough to rent out their wombs, but once upon a time we lived in a country where the former camp would have been more inclined to adopt from the latter half. At least, that's what I've always been told.
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Here's a post from Slate contributor Nina Shen Rastogi, who's having technical difficulties:
Susannah,
I think the galling thing about Kuczynski's Times piece wasn't her decision to have a child via gestational surrogacy—I think lots of people can relate to the intense desire to have a baby that's genetically related to you. (As Shakespeare noted ominously: "Die single"—i.e., childless—"and thine image dies with thee.") What was upsetting about the piece was her sheer tone-deafness. Take the following passage, for example:
When we came across Cathy's application, we saw that she was by far the most coherent and intelligent of the group. She wrote that she was happily married with three children. Her answers were not handwritten in the tiny allotted spaces; she had downloaded the original questionnaire and typed her responses at thoughtful length. Her attention to detail was heartening. And her computer-generated essay indicated, among other things, a certain level of competence. This gleaned morsel of information made me glad: she must live in a house with a computer and know how to use it.
A lower-income person who's "coherent" and knows how to type—gee, that's just like finding a mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy! Kuczynski just ends up seeming patronizingly elitist and sort of oblivious throughout the piece. I found myself wanting something deeper, more insightful—some real, felt evidence that the experience had actually taught her something. I would have also been happy with a nice middle-finger retort to anyone who would question her choices—but her faux-genteel, halfway-apologetic stance didn't fly with me. (Though I will say, I did really like this line on Page 8: "She could be seen as the fertile, glowing mother-to-be as well as the hemorrhoidal, flatulent, lumpen pregnant woman. I could be the erotic, perennially sensual nullipara, the childbirth virgin, and yet I was also the dried-up crone with a uterus full of twigs.")
But honestly, Kuczynski didn't have a chance in hell of winning my sympathy once I saw the accompanying photos. There's Cathy, the birth mother, literally barefoot and pregnant on a dirty porch. And then there's Kuczynski, looking regal in her neat separates, on the lawn of her sprawling Southampton home, while a black "baby nurse"—seriously, that's what the caption says—stands smartly at attention (but without pulling focus). Even the cover is a doozy—couldn't someone have ironed Cathy's khakis? Or at least told her to close her mouth?
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Last Monday, British singer Amanda Palmer wrote on her blog that her record label wanted to reshoot scenes from her music video for "Leeds United." She says:
they thought i looked fat. i thought they were on crack. dude. i'm a vain motherfucker. i know when i look fat. ... but THIS?? this was just nonsense. i thought i looked HOT.
The music industry's insistence on well-toned abs is nothing new. (See: the uproar about Britney Spears' so-slight paunch at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards; the plus-size Martha Walsh being swapped out of the video for "Gonna Make You Sweat" in favor of a svelte lip-syncer.) But this case is genuinely puzzling. Palmer did look hot. Her bared stomach looks lovely to me—I'd wear those abs proudly. The cabaret-style video doesn't dwell on her body, anyway. Most of the shots are long, taking in the rest of the performance and the audience as opposed to focusing on Palmer. And shouldn't record execs have people on hand at shoots to check out the costuming and ensure that their strict standards of acceptable appearance are being met?
I'd never heard of Palmer before this—my knowledge of music is sadly limited. But I do love that song now. The blogosphere outcry on her behalf has got to be good for her sales—and her self-esteem. A little misogynistic endorsing of unrealistic body ideals can be a good thing if there's enough of a backlash.
(via Feministing)
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In last weekend's New York Times Magazine, beauty writer, Botox fan, and Beauty Junkies author Alex Kuczynski writes about how, after she'd spent more than $100,000 on in vitro fertilization and suffered multiple miscarriages, she hired another woman to carry her baby for her. So far, there are more than 400 comments on the article, many written by women, most blasting Kuczynski for having the gall to rent a womb. You should have adopted! You're a spoiled brat! You're a kept woman who sees a baby as one more purchase! I say: Give her a break. She was infertile. She'd lost multiple babies in utero. She had the means—thanks to her writing career and her wealthy husband—to have her egg and her husband's sperm implanted into the womb of a woman who was willing to carry her baby for $25,000. I'm not sure what Kuczynski's bashers expected her to do. Follow their directions? Suffer silently so as not to offend anybody with her money? Do ... nothing? Something about this outpouring of female vitriol reminds me of the tarring and feathering of Sarah Palin. Maybe you don't agree with this woman's choices or that woman's beliefs, but who are you to deny her the choices that she has the right, power, or money to make? Sounds like envy to me.
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Isn't it time for Hillary Clinton to get a quickie divorce from Bill (it can be done; it took about 20 minutes for Madonna to dissolve her marriage) before her confirmation hearings start? The New York Times reports that over the last few weeks of negotiations between Obama's representatives and Bill, he has agreed to various restrictions on his business and philanthropic dealings to keep Hillary from getting mired in a bunch of scandals and conflicts. He promises to "submit his future personal speeches and business activities for review by State Department ethics officials and, if necessary, by the White House counsel’s office." Yeah, that should work, because if we know anything about Bill Clinton it's that a) He responds well to being on a short leash, and b) He's really good at filing timely paperwork.
Surely Hillary will not have trouble getting confirmed, but her hearings will be all about Bill—Sen. Richard Lugar virtually promises that. As her presidential campaign made clear, not only does Hillary not need Bill anymore, he has turned into a liability (except financially, and she would come away with a big settlement). And just think, if she divorced him, it would be the first time that their relationship made sense.
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