On Speaking Up

By: | November 13, 2017

I ran into my own Harvey Weinstein at the supermarket last week. He stopped me in the vegetable aisle with a “hey, I know you . . .” His brow furrowed as he tried to work out the connection. “Weren’t you so-and-so’s roommate?” he asked. I was. His face didn’t look familiar, but then he said his name and the memories came flooding back. The basement. The beer breath. The weight of his body.

“How are you?” he asked. “Do you live in the neighborhood? Married? Have kids?”

I answered him. I stood in front of a pile of avocados and had a very polite conversation with a man who once sexually assaulted me. And then I tried to politely end it. “Well, better get going. Nice to see you,” I flashed a wan smile. Then, I stuck out my hand for a handshake. He bypassed my hand and enveloped me in a bear hug. And I let him.

I did what women have done—what women have been told to do—for generations. I shut up. I grinned and bore it. Because if you can’t say something nice, why say anything at all? Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | November 11, 2017

November 6 – 10, 2017

Somebody killed a wolf named OR 28.  Is this to be seen in the context of populations and therefore a slight matter? Is this to be seen in the context of individuals and their families and therefore a terrible thing?  Emma presented the argument, didn’t take sides.

The Humanities 110 syllabus: should it be the usual dead white men, beginning with Homer? or should it be more inclusive and diverse, living non-white men and women?  Michelle’s undergraduate college is arguing this right now.  Michelle takes sides.

The biological scientists tried to save the beautiful little vaquita and failed. Like, the vaguitas are now gone.  Erik thinks the biologists should have talked to the social scientists all along. Plus he really liked the vaquita, and now I’m sad too.

Craig and his girlfriend move in together.  On the tidiness scale, they occupy opposite ends (doesn’t every couple?)  Craig reads a book with a plan for getting along, and he thinks it’s working.  Until she nearly eats the can of dog food.

The San Francisco Bay area:  brisk, good food, smelling of jasmine and eucalyptus? or cold, traffic-jammed, smelling of pot and pee?  Helen and Cameron disagree violently but their argument is nevertheless civil and ends well.

Battle of the Bay: A very mild argument that ends with mint lemonade

By: | November 10, 2017

 

Cameron: Dear Helen, the last time I saw you was in Berkeley, and it was 2012 (really that long ago?!) and you were sad. You said you hated Northern California, and then I was sad, because I love it. And so I also knew I wouldn’t see you last month at WCSJ in San Francisco. I missed you! So let’s argue about it.

 

Helen: Oh man, that 2012 trip was truly, epically bad. Except for the part where I got to see you. I just reread my journal for that weekend to make sure I remembered the full terribleness. It included: being cold all the freaking time, because why is it always so dang cold indoors in California; losing my phone; and having my Kindle stolen right out of my hands. I was sitting there looking at it, and suddenly this pair of hands appeared in front of me and it was gone. And I didn’t feel like I got much out of the narrative journalism conference that we were there for. I already didn’t like Northern California, and that weekend was really the nail in the coffin. I don’t think I’ve been back since.

Continue reading →

When My Girlfriend Almost
Ate Dog Food

By: | November 9, 2017

The two of us moved in together a few weeks ago. With a moving truck, towering boxes of books, and every edible thing she could remove from her previous household, we merged lives. Whose tea strainer should we keep, whose collapsible metal steamer, whose box of African rooibos?

When she found a dead silverfish hanging by a spider web on the bedroom wall, she shouted, “Jesus, what the hell is that, a trilobite?”

The process of moving in together is a telling moment for a relationship. Will such an endeavor last or not? A 2014 Atlantic article followed scientists who tracked couples, some of whom stayed together over time and some who didn’t. The article says that one of the main indicators of success or failure is how partners reacted to ‘bids’ from each other. A bid is where one says, oh, look at the sunset, or, I read something interesting today. Does the other person engage or not? The article reads, “Couples who had divorced after a six-year follow up had ‘turn-toward bids’ 33 percent of the time. Only three in ten of their bids for emotional connection were met with intimacy. The couples who were still together after six years had ‘turn-toward bids’ 87 percent of the time. Nine times out of ten, they were meeting their partner’s emotional needs.”

By oil lamp and some electric light at night, we sorted our belongings and talked, little bids dropped like breadcrumbs. Whiskey was sipped, and sometimes we didn’t speak for hours, busy in our tasks between laptops and putting up bean cans.

It was when I left for a few nights that it happened, when my girlfriend almost ate dog food. Continue reading →

Goodbye to the Friend I Never Met

By: | November 8, 2017

Saturday was the day I finally gave up. The last hope for the vaquita marina, the world’s smallest and most endangered cetacean, is gone. On Saturday, biologists working in the Upper Gulf of California announced that the latest animal they had captured in an effort to save the species had died in captivity.

For the first half of 2017, I was knee deep in a story I’ve been following since I got to Mexico six years ago. In summary, an animal that had found itself on the wrong side of rampant poaching practices is all but wiped out and the last option is a Hail Mary plan to round them up into captive pens and hold them until such time as humans stop sucking at ocean stewardship. (For a full review of the vaquita’s tragic tale, I really encourage you to read the story.)

But there was always a problem with this strategy – no one had ever tried to catch one before. It was possible they wouldn’t go quietly into pens.

“If captivity fails, then, well, we tried,” NOAA biologist Barbara Taylor told me in the spring. “It’s game over.”

After Saturday, I think it’s game over. The vaquita doesn’t do captivity. The first animal caught by biologists got so stressed out that it had to be released. The second died within hours. We have now officially done more harm than good in our attempts to save the vaquita. In fact, this whole effort has been one long lesson in throwing the porpoise out with the bathwater. From the beginning, it feels like we’ve tried to help the vaquita with the best of intentions and have only made things worse.

Continue reading →

What I Learned in Humanities 110

By: | November 7, 2017

My alma mater is, for better or worse, the undergraduate equivalent of a cult film: Most people have never heard of Reed College, and the few who have really like to argue about it.

So it’s disconcerting when arguments usually confined to the Reed campus attract national attention. In recent days, a Washington Post column and a much-read Atlantic article have described, in disturbing detail, ongoing student protests against the perceived Eurocentrism of Humanities 110, a rigorous, year-long examination of the ancient Greeks and their neighbors required of all first-year Reed students. Since the protests began, in September 2016, protesters have repeatedly disrupted classes, intimidated lecturers, and bullied other students both online and off. (To be clear, the mission of Reedies Against Racism, the campus group that started the protests, is broader than Hum 110 reform, and its stated demands are less extreme than some members’ rhetoric and behavior suggest; that context is little comfort, however, to the students and professors who have been insulted and harassed.)

Many Reed alumni—most of us no strangers to political protest—are appalled by these tactics, and plenty of current students are, too: this fall, a large segment of the incoming class, led primarily by students of color, has called for the restoration of order to the Hum 110 lecture hall.

Obscured by the campus cacophony, though, is a worthwhile—and necessary—discussion about whether anyone should read the ancient Greeks in the first place, and if so why and how. That discussion has been underway at Reed for decades, and with any luck it will continue for decades to come. As someone who took Hum 110 more than twenty years ago, the news from campus has made me reflect on what I learned in the course. The answers, both equally true, are that I didn’t learn very much. And that I learned everything.

Continue reading →

Redux: A Wolf Dies

By: | November 6, 2017

Recently, a bounty was announced for the poacher of wolf designated as OR-33 that was shot in Klamath County, Oregon. Rob Klavins, a staffer at the non-profit Oregon Wild, wrote a eulogy for the animal, in which he lamented that “[O]f all the wolves I’ve been privileged to have some deeper understanding of, not a single one has yet died a natural death.” This week, I have a long feature out about the life and death of another wolf, OR-4–though he was ultimately killed by the state.

Here’s an essay I wrote about another poached Oregon wolf, OR-28. It was originally published on October 25, 2016.

A black wolf, photographed midstride, with a prominent GPS collar
OR 28. Photo courtesy of ODFW.

Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | November 4, 2017

Did you miss anything from last week’s LWON joint? Have a look at the offerings.

Craig gave us sand—in our hair, in our teeth, in the minds and hearts of children. He waxes poetic about his family’s tackling of Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Eric, in a Redux, opens a window to a very personal side of illegal immigration—and shows us the door to a more neighborly way of being.

Guest poster Sarah Webb started a science café in Chattanooga that quickly became a refuge of reason in unreasonable times.

Michelle describes an extraordinary ornithological find, one of just two bird species known only to Cambodia, right at the edge of the capital city.

And I (Jennifer) discovered a biologic explanation for my own winter brain mush in an unlikely place: the head of the common shrew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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