Chicago: Smell the Glove

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.

I've decided that I'm finally going to see something at the Madison film fest this year, so I'm going through the movies.

Self-important Emp1r1cal Film #3, with Voice-over
Wisconsin’s Own

USA, 2005, 5 min, Color, DVCam
Madison Premiere

Directed By: Dav3 Andra3
Sponsored By: travelwisconsin.com, Eastman Kodak

A clinically depressed filmmaker takes his audience on an irreverent, self-deprecating journey through his innermost thoughts and anxieties, complete with voiceover. Dave Andra3 is a graduate of UW–Milwaukee.
- Travis Gerdes

HAHA. I went to high school with this dude, and OF COURSE this is the sort of film he's making. And I'll be it's really not that self-deprecating.

Mardi Gras: Made In China
Y'all Gonna Learn Chinese

USA, 2005, 71 min, Color, BetaSP
In Mandarin, English with English subtitles

Directed By: David Redmon
Producer: David Redmon
Executive Producer: Deborah Smith, Dale Smith
Cinematographer: David Redmon
Editor: David Redmon
Music: Matthew Dougherty
Cast: Ms. Pearl, Roger Wong, Ga Hong Mei, Lio Lina, Qui Bia, Ling Ling, Dom Corlone

Sponsored By: UW Asian American Studies Program

In a squalid Chinese factory, Ga Hong Mei spends eleven hours a day yanking strings of hot beads out of a dangerous machine. She struggles to fill enough bags to prevent her wages from getting docked. On the other side of the world, New Orleans native “Ms. Pearl” squeals with delight as she catches her zillionth tangle of glistening bead necklaces from a Mardi Gras float. Mardi Gras: Made in China portrays the immense disconnect between the factory and the consumer that arises in a global economy. The cultural and economical differences are stunning, as is the Chinese workers’ reaction to the sticker price of the beads and the astonishing way people “win” the beads. In tracing the path of the disposable commodity of Mardi Gras beads, filmmaker David Redmon tells a story about globalization in which CEOs aren’t really the bad guys, we are. Official selection, Sundance Film Festival, One World International Film Festival, Amnesty International Film Festival, and Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
- Heather Shimon

Maybe because it seems like an easy target? Or because it seems like a tastleless time to be down on New Orleans?

Are "we the bad guys" because, unlike most sweatshop products, drunk sorority girls show their tits to get beads? Not that abusive conditions for factory workers are acceptable, but New Orleans was a poor city even before Katrina and Mardi Gras pumps money into the economy every day of the year.

also: i am at an internet cafe b/c after working on my physiology take home test for SEVEN hours & not finishing it, I'm resorting to "ask the internet" . . . granted, we still have one class left so the information gaps will probably be presented on tuesday, but I'd like to be done with this shit.

I assume the shock over the price is the result of the worker's surprise at how low the price is for something on which he worked so hard?

xpost

Chain
Global Visions

USA, 2004, 99 min, Color, digibeta
Wisconsin Premiere

Directed By: Jem Cohen
Producer: Mary Jane Skalski
Writer: Jem Cohen
Cinematographer: Jem Cohen
Music: Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Cast: Miho Nikaido, Mira Billotte
Production Company: Antidote Films, Gravity Hill Films

Sponsored By: UW Global Studies Program

Chain, blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, examines the world and the influence of homogenization and corporate culture. A Japanese executive travels to the United States on business to research amusement parks looking to create a similar one at home, while an American drifter haunts a shopping mall looking for work and a place to sleep. Both move through a vast, imaginary American city created from footage shot all over the world, though no one locale is discernable from the next. Chain stores, fast-food restaurants, and featureless parking lots abound as regional character and charm slowly disappear. Chain features an incredible score by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Recognized by the 2005 Independent Spirit Awards as “Someone To Watch,” Jem Cohen won numerous awards for his feature Benjamin Smoke (2000).
- Joe Beres

(tater)

Anyway I can't criticize a film I haven't even seen-- though I just did.