“For those who would pray but not dance, fast but not feast, baptize but not splash, flog but not fuck, for those who would buy spirit but sell soul, crown Father but deceive Mother, those men found Herod’s Temple a threatening place at vernal equinox and under a harvest moon.”

(Skinny Legs and All, h/t Leah)

Punishment without celebration, male without female, obedience without thought. This phenomenon is a sad truth not unique to a specific time or place, painfully relevant both to ancient history and modern politics. Though the story here is lighthearted, the message is, undoubtedly, not.

In a recent PolicyMic article, pundit Matty Carville correctly cites political reasons for the recent DHHS overruling of the FDA with respect to the availability of Plan B. Flying in the face of all scientific evidence, women must (still) provide a prescription (or drop $50 of their own money since insurance doesn’t cover pills without a prescription) and prove they are over the age of 17 to receive the morning after pill. The FDA has ruled the pill safe be sold over the counter.

While Carville is correct — this is a political ploy to pander to a more conservative element, to win Obama more votes in 2012 — it is a symptom of something more widespread and damaging.

As a nation, we and our political leaders have been leading a highly publicized war on preventative medicine in the field of sexual health. Everything from the availability of birth control and condoms, to the legality of abortion, to the use of Gardasil (the HPV vaccine), is de facto limited in its efficacy by both the negative press surrounding it and out-and-out attacks on its safety and morality. Reproductive rights and human, particularly female, sexuality are under attack.

In July, the Republican-run New Hampshire executive board voted to defund Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, rendering them unable to provide birth control and other contraception, and making the status of routine pelvic exams and STD screening and treatment rest on thin ice. Their reasoning? “I am opposed to abortion. I am opposed to providing condoms to someone. If you want to have a party, have a party, but don’t ask me to pay for it,” said Raymond Wieczorek about his council vote to defund PPNNE.

When Texas Governor Rick Perry suggested all young women in Texas be required to receive the three-stage HPV vaccine (kudos to Perry, by the way), Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) countered, pandering to her own ultra-Conservative base, by citing unsupported claims of devastating side effects (despite the fact that both boys and girls can take it safely).

And then, of course, there is the right to choose: Billboards throughout the country try to shame and scare women out of this right, and anti-abortion activists spout unsupported claims that abortion causes mental illness and harass women outside clinics. Not to mention the anti-abortion pledge signed by several of the current GOP candidates, in which they “vow to appoint only anti-abortion personnel to “relevant administration posts” and “promise to advance pro-life legislation’ and end taxpayer funding of abortion and de-fund Planned Parenthood.”

These are only a few examples of how all-encompassing the war on preventative medicine in sexual health has become. By outlawing every safe and effective preventative measure, we are wasting money on later treatments and harming the physical and mental health of those who, with adequate preventative care, would not have needed care later on. Until we can understand and, more importantly, accept that preventative medicine will save more money and more lives in the long run, we will continue to fight these superficial political battles while we suffer.

My life is so boring I have to wear Nicole Miller to the library because I don't go anywhere else.

Up until a couple of years ago, I thought all versions of Protestantism were pretty much created equal. Southern Baptists were into fire-and-brimstone, mega-churches liked to proselytize, and the Unitarians loved everyone, but other than that, I thought all non-Catholic churches had one steeple (open the doors and see all the people), their attendees were repressed (like Bree on Desperate Housewives), and they scorned idolatry and decoration. I had visions of preachers who wore black and were stern and preached from a podium overhung by a gruesome wood carving of Christ bleeding on the cross, the agony on his dying face reflected in the faces of the congregation for their self-imposed constant suffering in the name of faith because somehow, someone has them convinced that God wants you to be miserable and forsake all earthly delights because that is how to get into heaven, and heaven obviously exists and the devil is everywhere. Protestantism was a religion of fear, misery, repression, and self-denial. My vision of Protestantism was obviously drawn by The Scarlet Letter and the Salem Witch Trials.

Inasmuch as I understood modern versions of Protestantism existed, I sort of thought for the most part they were bland, boring, dry versions of Catholicism. Not that Catholicism is so thrilling, but at least they have incense and candles and decorations. Catholic priests had collars and wore robes, and there were lots of candles and gold and stained glass adorning every cathedral I had ever seen. Catholics had beautiful architecture and saints. Catholics got to do things like take communion and get confirmed and go to confession. As far as I knew, Protestants didn’t do these things. Protestants went to their plain-looking churches and just prayed really really hard. Of course, Jews aren’t much into idolatry or decoration either, but in my mind Protestant churches were full of uncomfortable wooden pews, blank walls, gruesome renditions of Jesus, and threats of hellfire. Protestants didn’t have any of the pretty things Catholicism or Orthodoxy did; I thought of them as the ascetics of Christianity.

In a nutshell, I thought if Catholicism was gaudy and ostentatious, then Protestantism was depressing and ascetic. Every church I had seen confirmed this suspicion. Cathedrals are tourist destinations, exotic and beautiful and full of lovely, devotional artifacts. I never really went to Protestant churches. I pass by them all the time, but they don’t look as fascinating as the Catholic churches. There aren’t domes or apses or gargoyles. I went to church once when I was little, my cousins were in a Christmas pageant or something, but I don’t remember it being interesting; it probably looked like synagogue, so I thought it was boring and ugly. Once, in Jerusalem, I went into a German Presbyterian (I think) church in the old city. I mean, if you’re going to do church tourism, Jerusalem is a great place to do it. Though there was a lot of white, it was still full of right angles and austerity and German efficiency and plain-ness.

German church, Jerusalem. October 2010.

All of these notions about Christianity in general and Protestantism and Catholicism in particular are thanks to a lifetime of having mostly Jewish, lots of Catholic, but very few Protestant friends. Once I was older and had Protestant friends, I silently pitied them for their god-fearing, fun-less lives without actually asking them what Protestantism was about. Also, they weren’t really very religious, so it never came up. (Sorry, mom, I guess I could have asked you, too.) We learned the history in school, about the Reformation and Luther and Calvin, and about Henry VIII and his creation of the Anglican church, but honestly, that’s sort of where I thought significant deviation in Protestantism stopped, and I still thought they were the same except in name. Also Anglicanism doesn’t really count. So I continued along my path believing Protestantism to be uniform, stark, solemn, and intimidating.

But stereotypes are made to be broken. I’ve recently learned not all Protestants are WASPs and Protestantism is not a modern version of Puritanism. I’ve also learned not all Protestants believe the same thing. Realizing there might be a whole mysterious world out there which I knew nothing about, when presented with the opportunity and realizing I had never actually been to a real church service in my adult life (I went to an afternoon mass in high school once), I jumped.

Let me fill your head with a few more stereotypes: this is the upper Midwest. It is known for passive aggression and repressive niceness. Also, everyone is northern European, tall and blond, and Lutheran. Knowing this, I naturally expected Lutheran church to be filled with a bunch of depressed, repressed, yet painfully nice Germanic Barbie dolls. And free mayonnaise. I thought it would be serious, uncomfortable (because discomfort is the way to God and all that), and bleak.

Well, it wasn’t. First, I have never seen anything so big. I mean, Notre Dame is huge, but it doesn’t have a parking lot, and certainly not a parking lot like this. They must have hired urban planners to build it. I didn’t even know this many people went to church. Heck, I didn’t even know this many people lived in the northeast suburbs of St. Paul. And this isn’t even a mega-church like they have in other places which I am literally scared out of my mind to ever go to. (Watch Jesus Camp and Saved! and you’ll see why.)

We walked inside, and shook hands and said good morning to the ushers at the front door. (What is this, meditation class or church? What’s with the lovey-dovey thy neighbor thing?) The first thing that struck me inside was the people walking around in white gilded robes. They were like members of a Vatican gospel choir. Does. Not. Compute. I thought they were Protestant! I thought they hated ornamentation! I thought they were all supposed to be dressed in dark clothes and be dour and sour and morbidly meditative on God and prayer, all the time, and especially at church! Isn’t church a place you go to be remorseful and feel threatened by God’s wrath?

As we entered the sanctuary, an organist was playing Bach. It was lovely. The room was huge; not just in square footage but the ceiling was unfathomably high and the room was filled with light. There were decorations and ornamentation and light colors and all sorts of things. At the beginning of the service, the congregation sang a hymn about saints, a pastor invoked the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and it struck me that Protestantism really was a) not all the same and b) not entirely about self-deprivation. I had always thought that the fundamental difference between Catholicism and Protestantism was belief versus non-belief in the Trinity. This is obviously wrong and I am very confused: Lutheranism, right, was invented by Martin Luther, who started the Reformation. Obviously Lutheranism is Protestant. So why do they have all these Catholic things, like saints and decorations and belief in the Trinity?*

Sanctuary of Lutheran Church.

Anyway, the (Vatican gospel) choir sang a religious-ified version of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and I couldn’t help but sing along with the non-religious words. I sang quietly, though. Don’t worry. Watching the choir was hilarious: half of the women were gossiping, the men looked bored, and a skinny young man was fervently singing while next to him a heavy-set older man half-squishing the skinny one out of his chair was nodding off to sleep. Someone should make a sitcom about church choirs. The pastors (and there were at least four in attendance) read some things from the Bible—a psalm, some gospel—and then the congregation recited the Apostles’ Creed. This creed outlines some definition of the faith and the practice, as if that was supposed to help me understand what was going on.

The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended to the dead.* On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Holy Spirit? Catholic Church? Saints? What?

Then we sang Amazing Grace, which I actually know and like, so I sang along, and that was fun, although I had to look at the words for three out of the four verses (who knew there were four verses to Amazing Grace?). Participatory religion is always interesting, even when it’s not yours. The sermon was short (thankfully), the pastor told a nice story, but I felt the “Jesus loves you” message was a little heavy-handed. Well, we all know Jesus doesn’t love me and this doesn’t particularly bother me, but still I don’t particularly care to be preached to about the universality of his love and all that.

Sunday was first communion for the little kids, who were all very adorable, but I was still very confused about why Protestants take communion. When I was growing up and my Catholic friends were going to CCD and I was going to Hebrew School, I remember them talking about their first communions and their white dresses and how this was a big deal in Catholicism. So I was surprised to find that not only do these protestant Lutherans take communion, but they don’t wear white dresses. I mean, if you’re going to eat and drink the body and blood of Christ, you should at least wear white, don’t you think?

An additional weird thing about communion at this church, and I think this is because it’s a big church with lots of money, but during communion they had a handbell ensemble playing hymns. HANDBELLS. They were very good, but I felt like I was watching a Jesus-loving Blue Man Group dressed in black. It seemed sort of excessive. But that must just be my Puritanical Jewish upbringing talking. They also had white grape juice and gluten-free communion wafers for people who preferred. Anyway, communion took forever because there were hundreds of people who lined up to be hand-fed little pieces of bread and minuscule cups of wine and be told Jesus died for their sins. I just watched.

After communion, the congregation said the Lord’s Prayer, which I only know from Boondock Saints, feeding some stereotype that only Catholics say this and it is usually associated with killing bad guys. Then there were some more prayers and hymns and then we left, and I’ve decided I now needed to go to a church of every kind because I obviously know nothing about Christianity whatsoever.

What was most interesting to me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about, was the amount of income this church must have. They have six pastors on staff, a huge, beautiful, modern facility, can afford choir robes with gold stitching and an orchestra of bells, a freshly paved parking lot, an organ, and enough bread to give communion to an army. I wonder if other communities support their religious institutions in this way, and why synagogues, at least the ones I go to, seem to be struggling to make ends meet. In that sense, the success of this church’s fundraising and the willingness of the community to give was kind of shocking. There is nothing wrong, of course, with giving to the community, and churches, including this one, often do good work. It’s just not something I’d seen before, and the amount of money people are evidently willing to give in order to be told how to live and about sinners and saints and heaven and hell seemed kind of scary.

In particular, when they passed the collection plate exactly at the end of the sermon, I was reminded of what churches must have been like historically, particularly during the Roman-Catholic-Church-as-a-government phase of European history: by preaching, you are soliciting money to enable the effective spread of your word and keep your church in a position of power. It was, and seems still to be to some extent, political fundraising. The concurrence of revenue-generating with sermons seems subversive of their moral, religious, or spiritual relevance. The pastor or priest or whoever, some religious figure, speaks, and if you like what is said, you pay up. It is, at its most fundamental, a sales pitch, only they’re selling the power and relevance of church to people who, probably, are already buying into it.

Other than making me question religious fundraising, church inspired me to go to synagogue for the first time since high holidays last year. (This still means I have to find one to go to.) Also, despite feeling like an outcast because I’m a brunette, I’m going to go to a different Lutheran church this weekend. I just can’t get enough: once you pop, the fun don’t stop.

*I have since read on Wikipedia that Lutheranism retained many of the practices of Catholicism, and further splits (like with Calvin) engendered the depressed repressed Protestantism with which we WASPs are so familiar.

According to bar-guy, they exist in the Twin Cities. Further research: the only “subway” tunnels that exist are tunnels holding the electric wires for streetcars. Well, that’s almost the same. Wikipedia unverifiably confirms the existence of streetcars in the cities. In this historical document (an automotive industry trade publication) we learn that the streetcars certainly did exist; they even extended to a proposed speedway. This is in the 1910s. They had automotive speedways back then? This website of unclear provenance tells us more about the history of streetcars in the area (they ended service in the 1950s). Here’s the sad story of what happened to the cars. Newark? Wikipedia’s history of the Twin Cities Rapid Transit Company is quite comprehensive, as is to be expected. It confirms this guy’s story, which blames the demise of the streetcar on a Cloverleaf-style takeover of public transportation. Privatization and all that.

In its heyday, the streetcar system was huge:

Of course, the out-of-state takeover by a Wall Street speculator in the 40s was preceded by a 1917 worker’s strike and the rise of the automobile. Street cars were dying everywhere.

The Minnesota Historical Society confirms:

The Twin City Rapid Transit Company (a New Jersey corporation) was incorporated in 1891 as a holding company, with the MSR and the SPCR as wholly-owned operating subsidiaries. The TCRT was succeeded in 1939 by a new Minnesota corporation of the same name. A management change in 1949 brought New York financier Charles Green to the presidency of the Twin City Rapid Transit Company. Green and his associates decided to abandon the streetcar lines and convert to buses as quickly as possible, apparently in order to maximize their short-term profit. The company’s entire streetcar fleet was scrapped and replaced by buses in an aggressive conversion plan completed in 1954 under TCRT president Fred A. Ossanna, a former associate of Green’s who managed to oust him in 1951.

(And a simple chronological history of the streetcar in the Twin Cities. 1949 and 1954 in particular are quite interesting.)

Anyway, the point of this story was that I wanted to find underground streetcar tunnels. Since they were streetcars, though, obviously they won’t be underground (unless, apparently, they were crossing railways, in which case they were to be built underground as subways). Simply etymology. However, the tunnels holding the electric wires are obviously accessible (scroll all the way down) somehow, so maybe not all hope is lost.

The adventure might continue…

(h/t guy at bar)

Biolage is thick and rich and smells like natural oils and soothing butters and is like delicious I-want-to-smell-your-head lotion for your mane. It is opaque white and creamy and is an altogether luxurious experience.

Anyway, my current bottle of said shampoo, which I had bought at Rite Aid (I know Biolage is for sale in salons only, but I’ve always bought it at Rite Aid and it’s always been the real thing), was almost out. Finding myself at Target, it seemed prudent to do my shampoo-shopping there. They didn’t have the normal sized bottle, only the big one, and after some waffling over the $22 price tag I got it anyway. I mean what was I supposed to do, get 2-in-1?

I finally took a shower using my new shampoo. But as soon as I opened the bottle I knew something was wrong; the scent wafting towards me was chemical and plebeian. As the inner liquid emerged, my world came crashing down around me: it was clear and viscuous, and reeked of underpaid Southeast Asian child labor.

I was appalled: how could Target DO THIS to me? ME?! I NEED this shampoo! My hair will be groty and pedestrian if I don’t have it! This is a scandal! This is uncouth! This is devious and manipulative and my god, what is this, knock-off Kate Spades on Canal Street?

Moral of this story: never ever buy anything at Target. It’s fake, probably stolen, and it will RUIN your HAIR. Also they sold me stale Sour Patch Kids.

(I am even going to connect this to OWS:

Isn’t it illegal for Target and retailers to sell, for example, the Paul Mitchell finishing spray that clearly states on the bottle: “Guaranteed only when sold by a professional hairdresser, otherwise it may be counterfeit, old, or tampered with?”
…
“It’s not illegal. We tried to get legislation passed a few years ago (to make diversion illegal) but we were not successful. So, what Target and other retailers are doing is not illegal.”

This questionable economy should be illegal; it harms the manufacturing company’s reputation and legitimate sales and it harms the consumer by unethically hoodwinking them into buying something that is stolen, fake, and/or dangerous. And smells bad. Anyway, the fact that diversion was never outlawed is clearly evidence of the damaging and oppressive influence major corporations, like Target, have on our legislative process.)

WELL.

Explain to me, then, why I have to PRINT a transcript request form, MAIL it to my esteemed alma mater, and they have to PRINT my transcript and mail it and the request form back to LSAC?

And why do I have to PRINT a recommendation request form, MAIL it to my recommenders, and they have to mail it back to LSAC?

The only electronic part of this is the report the law schools get at the end.

Wouldn’t it be much better for the world if the WHOLE THING were done electronically?

Your old boys club is engaging in egregious hypocrisy.

LIARS.

I can’t even fathom these numbers.

That is all.

It costs more money to have these hooligans assemble my credentials than, had I done it myself, my time would have been worth. From a purely my-wallet standpoint, the value of my time saved is less than what they value their service at. That is to say, if my time is worth $20/hour, and I’m going to be shelling out $200 to these fools, it would have to be for a job that would take me more than ten hours to complete to make it worth me paying them to do it. Somehow, I don’t think it would take me ten hours to electronically submit a collection of PDFs to, say, six different schools.

I’m sure my economics and logic are both faulty here, and we can throw in that I am (irrelevantly) terrible at statistics, but I don’t like this. I stand by my position that this is a cartel and a scam and they are preying on the weak and easily-coerced. Or perhaps everyone’s time is just worth more than mine and I should develop higher self-worth.

Never, ever get it into your head that you might want to go to law school.

Here’s why:

1. You have to take the LSAT, which is actually not to terrible, except for the $130 or so price tag. But its horrors are exacerbated by the fact that kids-who-try-too-hard are spending hundreds more dollars and months, if not years, of their lives studying their insecure little tuchases off, which means that even once you shell out the sticker price you are still about to get f***ed because they had nothing better to do.

2. Because the law school admissions process is run by a cartel fondly known as LSAC (law school admissions council), every law school says you have to let them (LSAC) assemble your credentials, with a stupidly-acronymed service-for-purchase CAS (credit assembly service)…for another $124. I mean, come on, I think I am perfectly capable of coordinating a couple documents and sending them to the right place by the right deadline. But no; they’d rather test the depth of my pockets rather than my actual coping-with-the-world skills. F***ers. Look, if you want to be entrepreneurial and try to make money off of kids who are too lazy to assemble their own credentials, fine. But I think it’s akin to extortion to make it mandatory for the rest of us.

Yes, this is a true story.

3. THEN, you have to pay an application fee to each school. Which is pretty much okay, except they run generally about $75, which is high compared to undergrad. But it’s the combined costs of application fees, CAS, LSATs, and the fact that I can’t actually get in to law school because I chose to save my money and my time by not killing myself over my LSAT score that makes this just adding insult to injury.

This whole scheme is morally reprehensible. But the Catch-22 (because there always is one) is that I can’t do anything about it…because I have to use it to get into law school.

F. M. L.