Chicago: Smell the Glove

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I will continue posting back and forth to myself until 2 AM.

I am here until TUESDAY AFTERNOON, I think.

I'm living to Eminem. I'm getting ready to pay my $100 parking ticket from my RENTAL CAR. I just say that the fine for a late payment is EQUAL TO THE ORIGINAL FINE! Fuckin' A, man.

I got up at 10 this morning because I'm in that habit, despite having drunk a bottle of wine last night to KILL THE PAIN IN MY SOUL.

XOXO, Jesse

I am debating what to do today. I would go to Hyde Park and wander around various bookstores, but it is not very convenient to the public transit. I mean, busses, urgh.

When I first moved here I was intimidated by busses, I guess because of the number of bus lines and stuff. In cities I visited in the past I always took the trains and subways but never ever busses because they seemed confusing.

Busses are slower than trains, except for God's Own Busses, the Express busses.

I think I am off to Hyde Park. If anyone wants to meet up later, give me a call. If you don't have my number, get it from Jaoyhmnc, Jesse, Jenny, Nick, or whoever else has it. Who knows! It might be fun.

xpost I don't have your number.

*My students are referred to frequently as "the stoods"

Either way.

Apparently this evening we are going to [have dinner? hang out] with B.'s current "fling", who I haven't met yet. I really want Jesse to come along with, otherwise it will be hard to endure.

You're not being completely frustating but you are being a little oblivious - what that article describes and what I pasted are the challenges facing foreign-born women who are in the US as mail-order brides when they try to leave abusive relationships IN THE US. Those challenges are not in place for a woman in her native country where she speaks the language, has citizenship, knows other people, and is familiar with the culture and the currency. It does take logic to get from point A to point B, but it's not difficult to figure it out.

Another statistic that might help is to look at the number of mail-order brides who are killed by their husbands (it's in those links posted above). If it's so easy to leave, I doubt they would end up dead - they'd just leave.

I haven't been trying to say that they get married, move to America, land of the free, and suddenly it's all milk and honey for them and they can easily get out of the abusive situation and get the services they need and open a bistro. That is very much NOT what I am saying, but it feels like you're arguing as if that's what I'm saying.

What I'm reading is that you're saying that it is easier for an immigrant woman to leave an abusive relationship once she arrives in the US than it is for that same woman to leave an abusive relationship in her home country. And to be quite blunt, you're wrong. The freedoms here in the land of the free explicitly apply to citizens and not documented immigrants, and explicitly do not apply to immigrants with faulty documents . The services that these women need are few and far between and very difficult to navigate for native born women, much less women with the oft-listed vulnerabilities (as a matter of fact, HR 4437 aka the Sensenbrenner Bill would make it a felony for any individual or organization to assist undocumented immigrants; this would make providing domestic violence services to a woman without legal status a felony).

So, just to summarize - the US is a bad place for women suffering from domestic and gender violence. The US is a bad place for immigrants. The US is a bad place for immigrant women. The US is a really bad place for immigrant women suffering from domestic violence. QED

See, and I really should let this drop, but you're doing the same thing again -- you're saying that A is worse than B, and then you're describing how terrible A is, and I completely agree with you about how terrible A is, (and in fact the whole point of my first comment about how "sadly it might be better" doesn't come across unless you're on the same page about how bad things are in the US -- and we are on the same page there!) but you're not saying how B is better.

Because, for instance, above you refer to deportation as one of the likely bad effects of women trying to get out of their abusive relationship -- which just makes me wonder how much worse it must of have been in their original country!

So, just to summarize - the US is a bad place for women suffering from domestic and gender violence. The US is a bad place for immigrants. The US is a bad place for immigrant women. The US is a really bad place for immigrant women suffering from domestic violence. QED

I have been agreeing with this all along.

-- Casuistry (chri...), March 5th, 2006.

Awwww....I just blushed so hard I bled on my keyboard.

Errol Morris is pretty awesome.

Tomorrow, Milwaukee!

On your mark, get set, and go now,
Got a dream and we just know now,
We’re gonna make our dream come true.
And we’ll do it our way, yes our way.
Make all our dreams come true,
And do it our way, yes our way,
Make all our dreams come true
For me and you.

Jesse, we're going Milwaukee mostly to go to a bookstore, possibly to go to a museum, and B. wants to check out some antique stores, if we find any good ones.

So it's not the most glamorous trip we're planning! Plus we're probably going to miss the Oscars, no? Also it's B. and A. and me going, which dampens any rrrrromantic factor, although I suppose we'd have the back seat during the drive...

I do agree that it would be a hundred mazillion times funner if you came along, though.

I met someone new. He's taking me to Madison.

XOXO,

Jesse.