Empty Outrage: Suleman, Child Abuse & A Controversial Bill of Rights

Posted on 02/12/2009 by Jane Devin

A great deal of media attention has been paid to Nadya Suleman, the recent mother of octuplets by IVF. The general consensus is that there’s something wrong with an unemployed mother of six choosing to have eight more children. News pundits, psychologists, and the public have speculated about Suleman’s mental health, her motives, and her mothering abilities. Some have even questioned whether Suleman has had plastic surgery in an attempt to look like Angelina Jolie.

There’s no doubt that Suleman’s story is interesting, not only for its shock value, but because it opens up public debate on issues like parenting choices, child rearing, IVF, ethics, individual responsibility, and more.

I can’t help but wonder which horrific case of child abuse will open up the same kind of national debate. How many tortured children, infant rapes, dead bodies, and light sentences will it take before the public demands substantial changes to child welfare, adoption, and foster care policies?

ngati The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services estimated that in 2006, out of 48 reporting states, 1376 children were killed by abusive parents, relatives, and caregivers. (They estimate 1530 nationwide). In Florida, which ranks among the worst states for child abuse and welfare, 52 of the 140 children killed in 2006 had prior contact with “family preservation” (DCF) services.

Those are the children that died. 885,245 more were known to be victims of abuse in 2006 — a highly conservative estimate since many cases go unreported.

I’ve expressed my belief that child welfare agencies need a drastic overhaul before. It is unconscionable to me that an advanced society still views children as chattel, and confers what amounts to child ownership on the basis of DNA.

“Preservation of the family” methods, such as anger management or parenting classes for abusive parents, largely fail. The mentality of violent parents is not born of short-term frustrations. Even though perpetrators may place the blame on any number of stressors, from job loss to drug use, the essential fact is that the ability to choke, beat, stab, burn, rape or poison another person, particularly a child, doesn’t come from stress, or even from mere ignorance, but from an ingrained mental or character defect. Stress or lack of education does not cause people to throw helpless infants against the wall or immerse them in scalding water. If this were the case, humankind would not have gotten as far as it is now.

There have always been violent people in society, and unfortunately they have never seemed to lack for partners. One of the most appalling trends in child abuse has been pedicide caused by the live-in boyfriends of mothers. In many cases, women are choosing to live with men they’ve known only a brief time, and entrusting these men to care for their children.

haley-marie Haleigh Marie Cain is only one of the many children brutalized by their mother’s boyfriend. Haleigh died from massive injuries at the hands of Dennis Creamer, who was angered by Haleigh’s request for juice and cookies before bedtime.

A course in anger management or proper parenting is unlikely to change men like Creamer, or people like Kimberly Ann Trenor and Royce Zeigler, whose all day torture session of two year-old Riley Sawyers resulted in her death.

While America holds fast to the notion of parenting as a right rather than a privilege, it has yet to provide a national Bill of Rights for its most vulnerable citizens. Individual states such as New Jersey, which recently introduced such a bill, come under fire primarily from conservative religious groups such as The Eagle Forum, which believes that giving rights to children “undermine(s) the sacred role of parental rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children“. The tone of dissent borders on hysteria that the State will interfere with the “rights” of parents to rear, educate, and control their children as they please, particularly when it comes to home-schooling.

One of the fundamental rights of children should be a well-rounded, quality education. While thousands of homeschooling parents immerse themselves in providing this, and ensure that their children have varied academic as well as social opportunities, others are sorely unqualified, largely unmonitored, and use homeschooling as a way to control and isolate their children, rather than to enrich their experiences.

While many would disagree with the State of California, which recently upheld a law stating that homeschooling teachers must be credentialed, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect that parents who wish to teach at home show some qualification outside of a DNA relationship to do so. Even the children-as-chattel mindset cannot do away with the fact that eventually children become adults. There is no recourse for poorly educated, overly-sheltered children when they enter the world of adult work and responsibilities — if they enter the world at large at all.

Homeschooled children from religious cults, like those from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Texas, are taught to fear the world outside of their sect. Most never attend school at all, and what little education they receive is from under-educated parents whose main concern is the indoctrination of their children into a set of cult beliefs and behaviors.

The call of neo-conservative religious groups to hold the rights of parents as “sacred” while denying children their own set of rights is transparent. They want exclusive dominion over their offspring regardless of what society may deem harmful or contrary to the best interests of children.

Unfortunately, the rights of parents are largely put above the almost non-existent rights of children. Thousands of children spend years in the limbo of foster care, unable to be adopted into loving families, while abusive, neglectful, and otherwise unfit birth parents hold onto their legal parental rights. Thousands more live unmonitored with people who have previously been convicted of violent crime such as rape, murder, assault, molestation, or child abuse. Under present laws, custodial parents may live with whom they please, and non-custodial parents don’t even have the right to demand a background check on those who will be involved in the day-to-day parenting of their children.

Social services for children is a nightmare of red tape, inefficiency, and outdated, provincial policies. Who was watching Donald Medsker, who was 26 years old in 1989 when he was granted custody of his 10 year-old half-sister? He started sexually abusing her right away, making her quit school when she became pregnant at age 14. Over the next 20 years Medsker’s sister, indoctrinated by him to believe that their relationship was normal, gave birth to six more children, two of whom were put up for adoption. Where were the social service follow-ups and the truant officers? How did a 10 year old child fall so completely through the cracks? Was Medsker examined and found to be the best parenting choice or was this, again, a case where a DNA relationship outweighed consideration of the child’s best interests?

America could do so much more to prevent child abuse. We could launch more comprehensive education and support programs for parents. Schools could demand yearly physical exams as well as immunization records. We could make it against the law for known violent offenders to live with children, at least without monitoring, and we could do much more for children living in isolation, such as those born into religious cults. We could certainly rewrite the “preservation of family” standard that returns children to abusive homes.

However, as long as children are viewed as chattel, and a parent’s rights lawfully outweigh those of a child’s, we won’t. We’ll just continue to be outraged — in the most empty way — because we’re not really willing or ready to give children a set of rights that would help ensure their dignity, education, or safety.

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In Defense of Facebook’s Hated “25 Random Things” Writers

Posted on 02/06/2009 by Jane Devin

In the last couple of days, I’ve read more negative rants about Facebook’s 25 Random Things About Me meme than I’ve read actual lists of 25 things. Writers from the New York Times and Time Magazine jumped on the anti-list bandwagon, as did writers like Tod Goldberg, who spared no vitriol in his version of the meme, 25 Random Things I Hate About Fucktards On Facebook I Don’t Know In The Least But Who, Nonetheless, Are My Friends. Judging by the comments on Goldberg’s site, and the number of anti-25 Things diatribes that are now being posted on Facebook, it would seem that many people agree: List writers are fucktards. Or, as the New York Times more dramatically stated, “A chain-letter-cum-literary exercise called ’25 Random Things About Me’ is threatening to consume what little remaining free time and privacy we have.”

Apparently, some people take their social media a little too seriously, likening it to an unpleasant necessity, like watching American Idol or taking out the trash. They seem to forget that things like Facebook are voluntary and filled with choices — like who you choose to include as friends, and whose notes you choose to read. It’s not as if 25 Things lists pop up out of cyber-space and grab you in a choke hold until you’re forced to know who likes whitey-tighties and who likes to dress in drag as Madeline Albright on Friday nights. No, in order to read those personal tidbits, readers have to click on a link.

I’m not fond of memes, but I don’t fear that they’re going to “consume” my private life or enslave my being. I think it’s ridiculous that the subject of social media irritants even makes the news in major publications. Then again, I also think it’s weird that photographers fall all over each other to snap Donatella Versace’s bikini-clad body or Britney’s every gas station outing. I think it’s so freaky that I don’t buy those rags — but I totally admit to being a supermarket aisle voyeur. And people who take issue with Facebook’s 25 Things should admit that the only reason they’re irritated with the lists is not because they exist, but because they couldn’t resist the urge to read them.

Maybe they felt ripped off when they learned that some of their internet friends were boring, un-gifted, pathetic, or perverse. Maybe, like Tod Goldberg, they were surprised to learn that the people who liked them, and sent them friendship requests, weren’t necessarily the smartest or brightest people on the internet.

“I hate that sometimes I read your updates and think, Man, if this person is a fan of mine, I need to stop writing books. Because apparently only complete fucktards read my books.” – Tod Goldberg

It seems like the quest for internet popularity often works against common sense. The ability to have thousands of “friends” on Facebook (or followers on Twitter) gives the illusion of interest, often without any interest at all, or at least not the kind that is mutual. Public figures like Goldberg may use Facebook or Twitter as a way to keep fans in the loop, but more commonly, social sites are just that — social. People generally join to communicate, share their thoughts and work, and learn about others with similar interests. Others, of course, join hoping to cross-sell their business or blogs by gathering as many internet friends or followers as they can, wanting nothing more than their links to be spread by Facebook sharing, or Twitter “re-tweets”. These are the people that tend to complain the most. They have no interest in the lives or projects of others, but will send out and accept droves of friendship requests in order to bolster that bottom line number that indicates popularity.

It’s amusing to me that the list writers have been called narcissistic or self-obsessed for sharing some odd facts of their lives in a voluntary forum. It would seem to me that the most narcissistic people aren’t those who wrote the lists, but those who damned them. It reminds me of the Marlon Brando quote — “An actor’s a guy who, if you ain’t talking about him, ain’t listening.” So in defense of the list writers who wrote their 25 Things in the spirit of sharing or friendship, I offer my list of Five Reminders for Snarky, Pompous, and Overzealous Facebook Users:

1. Facebook is voluntary. I think that bears repeating.
2. You don’t have to friend everyone who asks.
3. You can de-friend anyone who bores, annoys, or doesn’t interest you.
4. If you only want a fan page, get one.
5. If you don’t want to read something, don’t click the link.

And if you ever really feel that Facebook is “threatening to consume what little remaining free time and privacy” you have, it might be time to shut off the computer and write a list of 25 reasons you’ve gotten totally ridiculous.

This article also appears on the Huffington Post.

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Waving, Not Drowning

Posted on 02/06/2009 by Jane Devin

In the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, we abandoned Eloise’s Suburban and walked the wet, rutted road that led to her house. It was lightly raining, and there was an orange tint to the sky that made even the sagebrush look beautiful. There was a rainbow forming to the North, and a pair of desert cottontails bouncing in and out of a lone patch of grass.

The laughter in my throat was stilled by the heavy clomp of her boots in the mud. She was angry at her truck for running out of gas, angry at the rain, and angry at the whole world it seemed. She muttered and cussed, and insisted that I thought she must be a real fuck-up. What I was really wondering was how an empty gas tank could trigger what amounted to a self-flagellating tantrum.

“What a great start to your trip, huh? You must think I’m a real idiot.
“That fucking gauge was above E. You saw that right? That it wasn’t below E?
“I bet you’re regretting being here.
“I’m tired of shit like this always happening to me.”

After the third or fourth reassurance, I realized it didn’t matter what I said. Eloise was determined to be miserable. Her hostility was easily tapped, and there was a black hole to her being that she catered to as if it contained the only precious truth left in the world.

A mile-long walk left us standing on her porch, rain soaked and muddy, and I couldn’t help but think that with someone else, this might be a fun occasion. Leah would run for the wine glasses, Sheila would challenge me to wrestle in the mud, Jen would tell jokes, and then laugh so hard she’d have to stop walking. None of them would have done what Eloise did next –- which was to take off her boots and throw them against the garage wall.

“Never mind that those were my favorite boots,” she seethed to the mud-streaked plaster.

Later, I sat on a couch in her living room, listening to a litany of trivial, wine-soaked complaints. Her parents loved her, but not well enough. She had a stellar education, but not Ivy League. She had many friends, but no one who really understood her deep complexity. She had a trust fund, but it wasn’t enough to quit working. There were lovers that used, and lovers that left, and a sense of never being appreciated.

“It would be nice if even just once I got back 10% of what I gave to others, but I guess I’m screwed on that. Everybody I ever meet is so selfish.”

For four nights, I sat like a cypher in Eloise’s smoky living room, willing myself into stillness as I watched the stars through the skylights. She was an unlikely Scheherazade, a steely, bitter-eyed woman who seemed to have spent her life creating conflict so she would have an outlet for her combativeness. With every story, she seemed to grow fresh scars, counting and recounting the wrongs committed against her until there was no good will, and no right thing left in the world.

Instead of bolting, I found my curiosity turning morbid. There was a sour aftertaste to our one-sided conversations that was all at once revolting and intriguing. My incredulousness was stretched but not yet sated, not even when she told me the story about driving drunk, and the massive damages done to her lover’s face when she drove into a ditch going 80 mph. Even in that story, Eloise reigned as the ultimate victim. The lover sued, Eloise received a suspended jail sentence, and when the story hit the local newspaper it was humiliating.

“So her face – did they manage to fix it?”

“What? Oh. She lost most of her lower jaw and lower lip, but had lots of reconstructive surgery. Between the insurance company and me, she made out pretty well. I ended up having to go to treatment, though, which was stupid because I wasn’t an alcoholic — but who cares, right? I paid through the nose for that night. There are still people in this town who hate me…”.

On the morning I left, I woke up early and walked through the house, and for the first time noticed how beautiful it really was. Stained glass French doors led to a wrap-around patio. The floors were a dark walnut wood, and there was an exquisitely patterned red Persian rug in the living room. Abstract art hung neatly from clean white walls, lit from below with key lights. In four nights, I hadn’t noticed the antique chairs, covered in cobalt blue velvet, that framed the fireplace, or the soft white chenille of the couches. Either Eloise’s misery had sucked all the color and light out of the room, or I was so enchanted by it that I turned blind to everything else. In the pale yellow light of morning, I was reminded of a song by Sara McLachlan – “you live in a church where you sleep with voodoo dolls, and you won’t give up the search for the ghosts in the halls”. Eloise’s home was like a tainted church, a sanctuary lost to the cause of both old and ongoing wars.

In front of the airport terminal, Eloise handed me a folded up piece of paper and told me to read it on the plane. It’s just a poem I wrote, she said, something I wanted you to have.

Nobody heard her, the dead woman,
but still she lay in the abyss moaning.
I was much further out than you thought, she said,
and not waving, but drowning.

As if there were not enough reams of torment in her own life, Eloise resorted to stealing the tragic words of others. The poem was written by British poet Stevie Smith, and only slightly changed by Eloise’s interpretation.

I might have never known, but I discovered Not Waving, But Drowning in the county library when I was nine years old, and ran home to read it to my mother –- a woman who was drowning in an unhappiness I was powerless to change. I was always looking for words she would recognize –- that would move her in some way, or that let her know that while I didn’t understand everything, I did understand that she felt I was to blame in some way, and that I was sorry, sorry, sorry. For three decades, I waited for the day my mother’s secrets would spill, and we could forgive each other for the darkness. The right combination of words were never found. There was no grand rescue, no heroic act of forgiveness, no chance of saving either one of us from wanting what we could never have.

Yet, years after her death, I found myself drawn to sitting silently in the darkest shadows of other women, waiting for a hint, a revelation, or some epiphany. When I wasn’t actively seeking out the most brooding people I could find, they seemed to find me.

And the only thing I ever really learned from all those years of shadow sitting is that misery can travel beyond time and circumstance, and become a black hole that voids all light and swallows any possibility of good. There really is no mystery to the the forever-lost, the fucked-up, the hateful, or the chronically bitter. We move in this universe on differing parallels –- some paths are rife with danger and difficulty, and some are so easy that they seem supernaturally preordained, but most are a mix of challenges, habits, and celebrations. Sometimes there are choices, and sometimes there are unmitigable circumstances. We fall as often as we get pushed. We embrace each other, or we stand apart. We scar, berate, and rail against each other, or extend our compassion and love. We kick each other, or help each other up.

We are the secret, the key, the magical, elusive meaning of things that we search for in the clouds, ancient books, and new-age gurus. There is really no major mystery to who we are. We are what helps creates the other. In the largest picture, we are the source of each other’s love, misery, happiness, anger, regret, support, hope, longing, and despair.

Eloise and my mother were partially created by others on their path, as surely as Beethoven, Curie, and Van Gogh were. But instead of gathering love, they nurtured grudges. Instead of striving for happiness, they chose to lash out in anger and bitterness.

The worst monsters and tyrants in the world only exist by collective permission, as do the greatest thinkers, pianists, artists, and inventors. We don’t always agree with the collective, and often lack the power to enforce our differing will, but many of us accede our personal ethics as if our singular thoughts, ideals, or dollars had little value at all. We sit in the shadows of corruption, perverse politics, bad will, unjust laws, and miserable people until we are numb and feel them as inevitable.

And perhaps they are, at least until the collective masses experience a new call to enlightenment, but we don’t have to sit in the shadows and wait. We don’t have to sleep with voodoo dolls, or taint our sanctuaries with totems of death and misery. We can, instead, consciously choose to live in a way that honors our highest ideals.

We can stand and speak clearly instead of moaning. We can wave, and refuse to let ourselves be drowned.

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How It Feels To Know He Is Behind Bars

Posted on 01/24/2009 by Jane Devin

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This is one of the men who raped me when I was a teenager. He was 19 then, he’s 51 now, and he is still a rapist. I look at him and see a life gone wrong, but I feel no pity. I imagine that at one time he was a little boy who liked action figures and riding his bike, but that something (or someone) terrible happened in his youth that robbed him of his innocence and his conscience. Still, I feel no pity. I wish him only a long life behind bars, where he will never again have the opportunity to lay his hands upon a child.

I feel guilty. It would not have been safe for me then to tell my parents or authorities, so I told only my older sister, who earlier that day introduced me to him as her friend. She didn’t tell, either.

I feel pride in the young girl who braved whatever circumstance she was in to tell her story to family, law enforcement, attorneys, and then in court. Giving the details of a rape, over and over again, is uncomfortable for adult victims — for children it can be excruciating. Whoever she is, she did something that likely saved other children from knowing the same kind of pain she experienced. I wish I could have done that, but I suspect it wouldn’t have ended up the same way. It was a different time and place.

I feel angry at the never-ending cycle of child abuse and neglect — at the society that helps perpetuate it through weak social services and laws — and at those who continue to bear children they don’t want, or can’t love and care for properly. It is likely that this rapist, like so many others, was sexually, physically, or otherwise abused as a child. It may also be that he is a sociopath, and would have been one regardless of his upbringing. In either case, it seems to me that there were opportunities to derail his sexually violent tendencies before he began victimizing children while he was still a teen himself. The recidivism rate for molesters and rapists is extremely high, the cure rate near zero — but I can’t help but wonder what might happen if we turned more of our attention toward preventing the causes.

I feel hopeless in a way. We live in a time of such desensitization that child abuse and rape have become cliched topics. The victims are getting younger and younger. The rape of infants, once a horror story limited to third-world countries and sick child pornographers, is becoming more and more commonplace. The sentences for child rape can range from one year to five to life in prison. All rape is heinous, but those involving prepubescent children should be especially repugnant in a civilized nation, and there should be long mandatory sentences in place to protect society from poor judicial discretion and the plague of repeat offenders.

I feel gratefully far removed from the abuses in my own youth, but connected to those who are experiencing the same now. I wish I could do more. I wish I could change the laws, right all the wrongs, and make every child safe. It’s an impossible task, but I’ll never stop talking about it, no matter how many people refuse to listen.

I feel relief knowing that, at least for now, a serial rapist who once affected my life is incarcerated.

I feel genuine joy for every child and woman left untouched by this crime. I feel blessed for knowing that there’s innocence left in this world.

I feel strong, and alive, and lucky.

I feel like I can tell now, so I do.

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Anthony Protesters Are A Disgrace

Posted on 12/16/2008 by Jane Devin

Like many others, I have followed the story of two year old Caylee Anthony, who was reported missing last July. I have read the various twists and turns of this case, and felt the same frustration, sorrow, and anger that others have no doubt felt.

Certainly, in a case like Caylee’s, the need to find the child and learn the truth of her absence is of paramount importance. I wish every missing child could have the benefit of national media exposure that Caylee has had. We might find more children alive, or learn certain truths sooner. There can be a huge benefit to widespread media coverage or, as we’ve seen in Caylee Anthony’s case, an ugly drawback.

When shows like Nancy Grace exploit a tragic story for the sake of ratings, and fill the stage with speculative analysts and various conspiracy theories, they do so in order to intrigue and incite the audience. Their interest in finding “justice” for children like Caylee Anthony (or Trenton Duckett, or Elizabeth Smart), extends only as far as the number of living rooms they reach. The more intrigue, the larger the Arbitron ratings are likely to be. For provocateurs like Grace, a case as twisted and complex as Caylee Anthony’s provides a golden landslide of ratings, and an audience that’s ready to be provoked and impassioned.

Caylee Anthony’s big, beautiful eyes and sweet smile could rouse even the most news-hardened heart. To suspect that Caylee had been murdered was heart-wrenching enough, but the speculations put forth by Grace and others — that Caylee’s grandparents and Uncle were purposely misleading investigators and subverting justice — fanned the flames of public outrage.

Angry mobs of vigilante-style protesters swarmed George and Cindy Anthony’s house, ready to take their pound of flesh from Caylee’s grandparents. Screaming, cussing, and ready to fight, their goal appeared to be less about finding justice for Caylee than about terrorizing the Anthony’s into accepting their version of events: that Casey Anthony murdered Caylee, and that the Anthony family was complicit in covering up the truth and impeding the investigation.

Under the tainted umbrella of news commentary came a host of incendiary accusations, including unsubstantiated reports of incest which cast a dark, suspicious shadow on both Casey’s father and brother. However, it was Cindy Anthony who bore the brunt of public disdain after appearing on several news programs to plead Caylee’s case and defend her daughter against accusations of murder.

I’m not going to analyze the stated beliefs of the Cindy Anthony or her family. They have been published and broadcast, and it’s clear that investigators, as well as the vast majority of the public, disagrees with the family’s belief in Casey Anthony’s innocence.

It’s the public’s right to form an opinion, and I have no issue with the opinion that Casey Anthony likely murdered her daughter. She is in jail on that charge, a body that is presumably Caylee’s has been found, and a trial will be held. What I take issue with is that some members of the public felt it was necessary to terrorize Caylee’s extended family for not sharing their opinion of Casey Anthony’s guilt.

The families of murder victims are not specially privileged, nor does grief form a halo that leaves them above reproach. However, in five short months Casey Anthony’s parents and brother have not only had to face the disappearance and possible death of their beloved granddaughter and niece, but they’ve also had to struggle with an overwhelming number of stories, false leads, and dashed hopes. They’ve had to weigh their own personally known facts, including the daughter and sister they have known since birth, against a version of Casey that is altogether foreign to them. Casey, despite many other flaws, had no history of physical violence or child abuse.

Tipsters were calling into hotlines with Caylee sightings in North Carolina, California, and Florida. It doesn’t take much of a stretch of imagination to understand why the family maintained hope against all odds and believed she may have been kidnapped.

A portion of the public, however, decided that the Anthony family needed to suspend their hopes and help convict their daughter in the press. They decided it was their right to goad Casey’s family into despising her as much as they did. To that end, they surrounded the Anthony home, demanding justice from those in the least position to give it — a family left reeling by tragedy. A family for whom Caylee and Casey were not just pictures on a screen, but people they had nurtured, loved, and cared for since their births.

It was a disgrace to the cause of justice to watch protesters harass a family that was already distraught and plagued with anxiety and fears. That protesters seemed more prone to name-calling and threatening stances when the media was present speaks to something even more insidious — such as using a victimized child and her pained family in order to create their own Jerry Springer moments of fame.

I don’t blame Lee Anthony for dismantling the “memorial” left on the Anthony lawn by protesters after the discovery of what may be Caylee’s body. After being terrorized, it’s not unlikely that the Anthony’s saw less sympathy and love in the flowers, notes, and teddy bears than a mean-spirited and accusatory “we told you so, and we hope you suffer” directed at the family. And unfortunately they will suffer. Long after the protesters and public have moved on, and Caylee’s image fades from the collective conscience of the public.

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The Problem With You Is. . .

Posted on 11/23/2008 by Jane Devin

You know what the problem with you is? You think too much, you’ve got your head in the clouds, you need to come down to earth. You’re too literal, too much a dreamer, you make poor choices, you’re not as smart as you think you are. You never learn, when will you ever learn? You over-analyze things, you don’t think things through, you want everything to be easy, you don’t try hard enough, quit trying so hard, you make everything too hard, life just isn’t that hard.

Do you know that Wim Delvoye has a farm in China where tattoo artists cover pigs in elaborate tattoos? They put the pigs on high tables where there is no chance of escape, and spend hours puncturing them with needles. Afterwards, they show the pigs in art galleries and exhibitions. People show up – they pay to see this. The pigs then get slaughtered, and their skins are sold to the highest bidder. Delvoye, whose other art includes birdhouses dressed in leather, and x-rays of people taken in the act of coitus, has been wildly successful.

There are no accidents, everything happens for a reason, life is a folly, a fool’s game, there is no rhyme or reason. Accidents happen, buck up, be strong, find your bootstraps. You’re on this earth for a reason, better days are coming, look ahead, don’t look back, learn from your mistakes, learn from history. You’ve got to stand up, stand tall, back down, back off, be gentler, take some pride, you’re too proud, don’t be so arrogant. Look out for #1, remember there’s only one you, don’t be so self-serving, remember you’re not that special.

The other week, a 13 year-old Somali girl was raped. When her family filed a complaint, they sentenced the girl to death by stoning. They buried her in dirt up to her neck, and let a group of men and boys throw rocks at her until she was dead. I know, it’s the culture, right?

You’re too strong, it’s not all about you, no woman is an island, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, stay strong, be stronger, tomorrow’s a new day, things will look different in the morning, get real, face problems head-on, think of something else, think positive, luck will come, think it and be it, the world is your oyster, the world doesn’t revolve around what you want, give yourself a break, put your nose to the grindstone.

Right here, in America, a woman didn’t want to be with her husband anymore, so he threw acid in her face. She lost her eyes, her nose, her ears, her mouth. That’s not our problem, right? I know. The thing is, see, it really is. . .the same human impulse to injure someone, to leave a punishing mark, exists on a smaller scale all around us, and we cover it up in self-blame and platitudes, and create this false paradise where our minds and emotions – that thing called spirit – is so disconnected from our physical bodies that it supposedly can’t be affected by any actions except our own. It’s this lie, ingrained and long-told, that is killing our compassion and ability to empathize.

You need to love yourself more, you don’t love yourself enough, be humble, you’re too confident, you come off as a bitch, you’re intimidating, look people in the eye, don’t stare, don’t be so intense, laugh more, smile more, if you smile too much people won’t take you seriously. There are no problems, only solutions, no obstacles only challenges. Try, try again, keep trying, if you had any talent at all you would have made it by now, why don’t you find something else to do. Rise above it all, take a breather, be realistic, pay attention, heal yourself. See, the problem with you is. . .

Yes, I know. I have no tattooed pigs. It would never have occurred to me to tattoo a pig. I am closer to the pig, and feel more for her, than for the artist.

You can’t afford that kind of thinking. No one wants to hear the pig’s side of the story. They want bright and colorful amusement. Something they can laugh at, make a calendar of, display on their coffee table, or frame on their wall. A conversation piece, a knick-knack, a little something to gab about at the water cooler.

I would rather rescue the pigs and damn those who collect tortured skins as art.

Don’t be an idiot. Pigs cannot buy their own farms; artists can and do. Stop making excuses. All any of us can do is find our own version of the painted pig, parade it around, and hope it’s successful enough to buy us the freedom to do what we really want to do.

You’re really fucked up. Wim Delvoye is fucked up.

It’s a fucked up world we live in, and see, that’s your problem. . .

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