so i get a call from c.i. 'rebecca, have you checked your e-mail?'
not yet today. what's up?
seems a ed lorenzen felt the need to kind of, sort of write me.
i say 'kind of, sort of' because with most people pushing 'centerist' thinking, ed can't quite figure out what it is that he wants to do.
i'm reading over it while c.i.'s on the phone and i say, 'isn't this supposed to be to me?'
i mean right there at the start, big ed's saying could you forward this to rebecca?
but it's not written to me. it's written to c.i.
i'm in 3rd person in the e-mail supposedly sent to me. such are the zany ways of the 'centerists.'
before i get to the e-mail, i want to go over a few things.
1st my e-mail is up on my profile and has been for some time now. c.i. always forwards things meant for me that are sent to the common ills. that's because c.i. helped me set up this site and felt guilty that the e-mail didn't display at the start. but it does now.
so let me deal with that first.
ed, when you e-mail me, write to me. forwarded or not, take your problem up with me, not with c.i.
i'll deal with it or not as i see fit.
you probably don't realize this, ed, but at the common ills, c.i. gets a lot of e-mail. we spoke a little after mid-day and i said, 'c.i., what's the count on the unread e-mails?' 651.
in the course of a day a thousand or more e-mails will come in at the common ills from members or visitors.
now besides the fact that c.i. does have a life, there's also the fact that members of the common ills, of which i am 1, are in the midst of an election.
for that reason, members' e-mails need to take priority right now. while shirley is answering questions about instant run off voting, every question along the lines of 'what does this plank mean?' or 'when is the absolute latest i can send my vote in and have it count?' are going to c.i.'s mail box.
ed, that's on top of the e-mails that members compose where they share something - personal or for the community.
let me repeat, c.i. does have a life.
c.i. also has work and last week alone that mean two flights out of town. twice leaving on a jet plane, twice coming back.
with that and health that is, thank god, improving, c.i. still manages to post several entries a day.
so as a friend of c.i.'s - and i've been a friend since before this blog or the common ills - i'm saying don't plead your case to c.i.
as a community member of the common ills, i'm frankly wondering why you wrote me in the 1st place.
like the common ills, i am of the left, not of the 'center.'
you're bothered by an entry that's old, really old. now look, i love all my fans and readers. even the slow 1s. even the really slow 1s. but ed's upset about an entry from april 3rd and my calender on the wall says it's june 6th. somebody want to explain that to me?
ed, and this is most important, you're clogging up the community pipeline.
i asked c.i. 'did you write him back?'
no.
good for c.i. i hope the plan to stick to writing only those who need a reply stays because otherwise there won't be any posts at the common ills anymore with the rate the e-mail keeps increasing.
but ed, you didn't write me. you wrote c.i. you vented and griped. now if you were a common ills member, i'd say nothing. lots of people e-mail c.i. to vent about something going on in the world. but really now, who are you to write c.i. and gripe about me?
did you think you'd get a papal blessing?
or a presidential pardon?
or maybe you just thought c.i. would clamp down on me.
c.i. saved a reply to you to draft. i said, 'send it my way.' so while we're on the phone i'm reading it and c.i. writes 'rebecca can write whatever she wants.'
amen.
here's the reason c.i. called, ed's mother has had some health issues. i won't go into them here because c.i. asked me not to. but ed, if it hurt you that bad that i asked obvious questions (does your mommy cut your hair, do you still sit on the phone book?), i'll say 'i'm sorry.' i hope your mother gets well.
now tell me ed, is your next issue going to be that you had an aversion to fashionable hair cuts? will you next tell me how mean i am (or tell c.i. and ask that it be forwarded to me) because when you were a little boy, while everyone else was playing cops & robbers, you were in the sandbox playing 'let's privatize social secuirty' and therefore my comments on social security touched on an issue with you?
i didn't insult your mother. i did insult your hair cut. now maybe you want to go through life looking like an overgrown d.j. tanner from roseanne. hey, emo phillips has, maybe you could pursue stand up?
i thought your e-mail was pretty sad, ed. it couldn't have been more sad if you'd written 'does rebecca not know that i grew up in an orphanage and never knew my mother!'
to quote a line from sleep with me, i don't know you from the beginning, edsie, i only know you from the middle. that would be when you decided privatize, privatize! tag sale on social security!
you're sometimes bothered by my 'personal attacks' and at other times less so. (but note to his fellow fence sitters at centrist.org, he never takes a moment to defend any of you.)
but what's coming through loud and clear from your e-mail is this: 'i would have been fine if she'd just debated policies with me! i enjoy that! that's what she should do! that's how it is done.'
good for you that you enjoy it. we all need a hobby.
but maybe you missed that it would be hard to debate your half-baked policy recommendations from your presidential commission report since you refuse to allow quotes for it. (as i noted in my april 3rd post.) oh sure, you post it online. but, as i said on april 3rd, you play the riaa coming down on napster saying 'do not quote!' now if i can get your permission, i can quote from it.
you say you read my entry from april 3rd. so if you were taking all the trouble to write me (or write c.i. to bitch about me), you could have taken a moment to say 'tell rebecca i give permission to quote from that report and then we can have a real debate.' you didn't do that, did you ed?
but, and pay attention to this part, i don't have to do what you want me to.
somewhere along the way you decided that every 1 must behave as you do.
you are mistaken. again.
to pull a c.i., 'in fairness.' in fairness to ed, i will note that his photo i commented on was taken at a very stressful time in his life. i'm sorry that it was a stressful time. but ed, let's go over some of what i wrote about you (directly or indirectly):
which brings us to eddie lorenzen who might want to be called 'big ed' but would have to first give up that peter pan, bowl cut hair do. does mommy still cut your hair in the kitchen, eddie? are you a big enough boy now that you don't need to sit on a phone book while mommy cuts your hair? horizontal striped tie, blue shirt with vertical white stripes and what appears to a dark shade of pea green jacket (maybe it just needs dry cleaning?) you're look is all you ... because no one else would have it.
folks, these are the fashion disasters who want to steer our party to the right. they'd be kicked out of applebeas but somehow they think they can be power players in d.c. it's sad. looking at them. real sad.
do you get the point? none of you dresses well. none of you's a fashion plate or has a good haircut. i looked at your photos, which your organization elected to post online, and noted how out of it you all dressed. guess what, ed, women can talk about fashion and haircuts. feminists can. it may not fit your stereotype of feminism (which i'm sure is negative) but we can do that. and some of us do.
ed, i didn't start a blog to be a wonk (or a wonkette).
i started this site to speak my mind.
that's what i do hear.
i don't claim to be 'miss manners.'
ed, what kind of site did you think you were going to when you saw sex and politics and screeds and attitude?
i mean, come on now.
as i've noted, and kat has as well, the common ills is very in on college campuses. they get a variety of readers (some of whom become members). me, i'm popular on the high school campuses. i get a vareity of readers (i have no members). but more and more, that's where my audience comes from.
where does your audience come from? people steered to you from the new york times that presents your group as a democratic 1? (we covered that april 3rd - they are non-partisan.)
maybe you walk on egg shells but i don't.
'screeds,' ed, it's in the title. so is 'attitude.'
here i talk about sex. i do my sexual analysis of men. i talk about politics. i talk about fashion. i talk about hot guys. (no, ed, you didn't come up because you were hot.) and mainly, i talk about who you should trust and who you shouldn't.
blue-dog dem that you are, i would never tell my audience to trust you.
you want your policy debate.
guess what, ed? i don't.
i don't want to waste time going over your 'destroy social security' plans. your ilk has been pushing the unfounded notions that social security is on the verge of disaster for over a decade now. it's a nice myth, ed, but it's not reality. you can check out the daily howler for reality about social security.
i'm guessing you supported the invasion, am i right ed? i didn't.
you're probably still stumbling around on your hands and knees like scooby doo's velma trying to find her glasses. only you're trying to find that center road. keep looking, ed.
i'm guessing you're trying to find that 'common ground' on abortion as well.
now maybe all the ladies in your life (don't write me to tell me that your wife, girlfriend or anyone else is sick) (and don't write c.i.) nod and say 'good for you, big bad ed.' i don't.
i'm your worst nightmare, eddie, i'm the woman you can't control.
i'm the woman you can't shut up.
i'm the woman who doesn't waste her time assuring you that it does happen to every man. that it's not really a problem.
i'm the bad girl you fantasied about but knew was way out of your league in high school.
sure you'd get your rocks off cruising my tits at the pool during summer break, but you knew you couldn't speak to me. maybe that's why you spoke to c.i. about me?
ed, i've done entries here on michael phelps' sexy butt crack.
you think you and I have common ground? not unless you're gay. (if you're gay, please write back. i love talking the male body with gay men or straight women. hell, i love talking sex with any of my readers regardless of the parties involved.)
ed, i am your nightmare.
i will not vote for whatever 'centerist' you push in the primary. i won't donate to them either.
ed, in the words of a carly simon song, 'i'm no virgin' - does that shock you?
i wasn't a virgin when i married. i continue to have sex now that i'm divorced. and i use birth control and don't fret that i'm going to hell.
again, i'm your nightmare.
i'm the woman who won't eat your shame.
i'm the woman who won't back down.
i'm the woman who belives her place isn't in the back room or 2 steps behind a man.
i'm the woman who's front and center and in your face calling you on your shit.
i don't play nicely in the sandbox with those who want to destroy social security or dismantle a woman's right to privacy.
i don't tolerate the right's attacks on america and i won't tolerate the actions of people who want to aid them.
again, i'm sorry about your mother. i hope she's better.
but you lack sincerity with regards to a real debate since you refuse to allow people to quote from your posted online report (without permission!) and you write, supposedly to me, to say that you long for a debate.
you weren't.
but that's cool because i'm not interested in debating you.
i'm only interested in alerting my readers to the fact that your organization isn't for those of us on the left.
i'll offer you a tip as well, if you're having a bad day when it's time to take pictures (apparently every 1 in your group was), you say 'no, just run an old photo.'
as for the way i speak or don't speak, guess what, if i'm the first woman who's ever made fun of your chili-bowl haircut (at your age! no less), then you haven't heard many women's conversations. trust me, your haircut's been discussed by women in your life, whether you've heard them or not.
this is my space. i come on here, i talk about what ever interests me at the moment. and i speak the same way i do when i'm talking to my girl friends. that's why i will talk about sex here. i'm not embarrassed to. women do talk about sex, ed. not just on hbo, but in real life.
and we will talk about hair cuts as well. and clothes.
you can call that gossiping or dishing but it's as valid as a steroetypical male talking sports statistics or how a game went.
and i've talked about sports here, ask sherry. we talk about our mighty cornhusker and the joy of seeing him and the cornhusk move around in those red shorts.
that's what i do here.
we'll talk about issues as well and i said everything i needed to say on social security some time ago. but you weren't mentioned in that entry so it didn't interest you - and they say women are vain!
all you were interested in was letting me know that you had a bad patch and there wasn't time to get a good haircut.
ed, take it from me, you've posted that photo online, it was a mistake. take a new photo. or put up an old 1. you're not helping your 'centerist' cause with those bad photos.
i am sorry you had a bad patch. i do hope it's improved.
but don't write c.i. about what you think i should have written.
i'll write what i damn well please.
to my readers who've had to suffer through this long post, you know this is a topic i've gone over before. some guy discovers the site and feels the need to write in with tips of what i need to talk about or how i should talk about it.
a lot of men have a really inflated sense of self. (ladies, straight ladies, a lot of that is our fault. we've done way too much stroking and i don't just mean egos.) that's why they think they can come along and say 'you can talk about this but do it my way.'
that's not how it works, little ed.
not here.
maybe in your world every woman bows and scrapes. (if that is the case, hopefully - like celie in the color purple - they're planning their own revolt against mister.)
maybe maxi shoulder pads in your group chuckles at every 1 of your 'jokes.' she has a queen bee look to her so i wouldn't be surprised. (please, talk to her about those shoulder pads -- the 80s did not have a come back!)
you can talk however you want. i'll note it here if i want to. but i don't fire off e-mails telling you how you should talk or what you should talk about.
but then i'm not a man who thinks he can push women around.
this is my space. if you don't like it, don't read it.
i started to post ed's e-mail in full because i'm sick of men feeling the need to share how i need to speak or what i need to say. because it went through c.i.'s inbox 1st, i won't. this time.
but ed, you don't like my site, you don't like the way i talk. what are you doing reading me anyway? is it vanity or are you one of those timid types who come here for the sex talk but can't cop to it?
quit thinking it's okay to tell women how to write. it's not. i'm not maureen dowd, i don't need a daddy mentor. i'll say what i want the way i want.
this is only your 2nd mention at this site.
i felt the need to warn my readers that despite what the times said, your middle of the road org. wasn't a democratic 1. it's full of republican and democratic refugees from the cultural wars. the people who are always the 1st to sell out women's rights in my opinion.
i don't support that.
i firmly support a woman's right to choose. i firmly support a woman's right to never have to explain that choice. not to a judge and certainly not to some middle of the roader.
ed, i hope you don't end up road kill. playing in the middle of the road puts you at that risk.
but i hope, even more, that you learn you don't control women. or, at least, you don't control this 1.
again, i'm your worst nightmare. i won't be brow beaten. i won't be shamed. i won't be silent.
next time you want to recommend writing tips, wait to be asked.
i know i'll hear from female bloggers on this. i do every time i write on this topic. ed, a lot of us are sick of this crap. of men coming along trying to tell us what to say and how to say it.
go play with your bull mooses (meeses?) and any 1 else who wants to betray what this country stands for. but i'm not ready to act out margaret atwood's a handmaid's tale, even though you appear ready to direct the production.
chip away at social security, women's reproductive rights and whatever you want to somewhere else but don't expect me to play along.
stick to your wonky circles, on the outside peering in - i'm sure - and i'll stick to speaking my truth here, the way i choose to.
i'll decide what's 'unwise' for me to write about and what isn't.
i didn't ask for your advice.
i'm especially pissed that you involved c.i. in this because that strikes me as cowardly. you can claim you couldn't find the e-mail address. but there's no excuse for an e-mail supposedly to me that says 'ms. winters' did this or 'ms. winters' did that.
you go into your personal problems. c.i.'s recovering for surgery. so maybe it's 'unwise' for you to dump all this crap on c.i.? to present your problems with me to c.i.? maybe instead you could have written to me in this way:
i couldn't find ms. winter's address, so please forward this to her. ms. winters, i am offended by your statements _____ and _____ and ____. i think it is unwise for you to write in that manner. policy debates are what i enjoy so i think in the future you should stick to discussing those.
you didn't write me. you wrote c.i. you ran to c.i. and tried to hide behind c.i.
if you thought you were going to have some 1 on your side, you were wrong.
the fact is that c.i. and i go way back. even when we disagree, and we do disagree from time to time, we do not turn on each other.
maybe you didn't realize how far back c.i. and i go? well then perhaps it was 'unwise' of you to write that e-mail? perhaps you shouldn't whine about me to my friends?
you asked that it be forwarded. it was. because you mentioned your mother (and because c.i.'s mother passed away a few years back), c.i. phoned me to make sure i read the e-mail.
i asked c.i. 'do you think i need to apologize?' c.i. said 'you need to speak in your voice about what you believe.' guess that didn't work out quite the way you wanted, did it?
i have disagreed with c.i. here (and in roundtables at the third estate sunday review) and it's never been a problem between us. it's never resulted in directions of what i need to do or how i can be more effective. see, some people just want people to speak in their own voices. others, such as yourself, want to play gatekeeper and tell me what i can write and how i can write it.
i wonder how many men your centerist organization writes to with advice on how to discuss something? i can't imagine it's very many. but you see 'rebecca winters' and apparently think, 'oh i can offer advice because i'm a man.'
all you'll get from me is that i hope your mother is better. on the issue of what i should say and what i shouldn't, your organization is online. why don't you make up a list for women of what they should and shouldn't say? that ought to get you a lot of traffic from other men who think women just don't know what to say or how to say it until a big, strong man comes along to tell her how it's done.
you don't like what i wrote.
readers, ed didn't like what i wrote. there i've informed them of that. not that i have to.
ed thinks i need to stick policy discussions.
i don't.
and let's point out something else, ed wrote me, i didn't write him.
obviously, my writing got to ed. which means on at least some level it was effective.
but see, that's why, dear readers, centrist.org exists. to try and silence the voices that people respond to on the left so that they, the center, and the right can dominate the discussion.
i won't be dominated.
no 1 will give me orders on what i write or how i write it.
i'd post something in my heading like 'this is conversations from the ladies' room' except that would exclude some of my really great readers like wally who aren't threatened by a woman speaking her mind in her way.
so i guess i'll have to continue to put up with the boys who want to play the big man by telling some woman what to write about and how.
i'm of the left, ed. you're in the sandlot with republicans. when they play rough, don't come crying to me. i won't kiss your wounds or pretend you were working to protect my rights. centerists are the 1st to sell out women.
you sell our our right to choose, you sell out our right to be heard. you reduce our issues to 'special interests.' check the electorate, ed, we are the majority. we aren't a special interest.
and, not that you asked, i do quite well. i have readers. i have people who respond to what i write. you aren't 1. well then you've learned something, you shouldn't read what i write.
although i wasn't able to discuss your presidential report (because 1 needs permission to quote from it), i did provide a link to it. i'd argue that was much more fair than anything the centrists do. but i never promised to play fair.
my only promise here is to speak in a strong voice and defend a woman's right to choose and a woman's right to be heard. i'm a feminist ed, not some adult woman calling herself a 'girl' and giggling each time a man manages to string three or more words together.
my heroes are people like gloria steinem, jane fonda, alice walker, maxine hong kingston, sandra cisneros, janeane garofalo, robin morgan and the margarets (cho and atwood). i doubt you or your oganziation could make a supportive statement about any of those women without a 'qualifier' or 2. that's what comes from being in the middle and obsessing over what some 1 might think about you.
each of those women had to learn what all women should learn, that we have to be true to ourselves. i'm being true to myself. (which isn't to suggest that my writing is on the level of any of the ladies above.) i owe them that because of all i have learned thanks to their examples.
i owe you nothing.
if you'd made your e-mail about how i hurt your feelings, i'd be more receptive. but when you felt the need to weigh in on how i should write and what about, you blew your right to a fair hearing. especially since you were unable to speak to me directly but instead elected to direct your comments to c.i. and ask that your comments to c.i. be forwarded to me.
it's so strange that 'civil' in your world includes attempting to dictate how things will be done.
that's not 'civil' that's controlling.
again, ed, i am your nightmare.
accept it.
