The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: shame

  • Mid-Month Marvels: ZanaAfrica Foundation

    An easy way to empower girls.

  • Putting the Logic Back into Biologics

    The other day a friend was lamenting that instead of his usual solitary work environment, he was soon to be sharing an office with a coworker. “I’d like to be able to fart in peace without having to look over my shoulder,” he groused. That made me laugh. And it also got me thinking. Why…

  • Feeling Fraught about Kevin Spacey

    Sex scandals abound these days, it seems. It feels so much worse to me when it’s someone whose work I always admired, like Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, or Woody Allen. I had built these men up to such heights in my mind, I almost take it personally that they knocked themselves off my pedestals in…

  • A Message to the World

    Hello. I’m an American. Never in my life did I imagine that I would say this, but I am ashamed of the state of my country. I am embarrassed at the face we are currently showing to the world. This is not who we are. Never again will I look at another country and assume…

  • Own Your Fifty

    Ever since I entered my 50’s I’ve had many people say to me, “Don’t worry, fifty is the new thirty.” As if I needed comforting or something. As if it is preferable to live in a state of denial. Here’s the thing (yes, yes, there’s always a thing): I don’t want to be thirty. I…

  • Tent Life

    Every day here in Seattle I drive past little homeless encampments. They seem to be everywhere. They gather under the overpasses, in the little clumps of forest, and even on the sidewalks. Their tents are ragged and dirty, and usually they sit amongst a field of garbage. It’s heartbreaking to witness, especially during a pervasive…

  • Shame, in Retrospect

    I know a few people who are embarrassed about the way they lived in the past. Conservatives who once were hippies (Personally, I don’t see the shame in being a hippy, but to each his own), peace activists who served in times of war, survivors of multiple marriages, former cult members who have since come…

  • Our Thoughts on Dog Shaming

    Let me start off by saying that I write this confession under duress. My dogs are standing over me, giving me the hairy eyeball. If they could cross their arms, they would, but at least they have managed to perfect their glares of disdain. They see me visit the dog shaming website all the time,…

  • Killer Instinct

    I have a confession to make. I’m a killer. And I don’t feel the least bit of shame. I’ll do it again, I guarantee you. If a cockroach or a brown recluse spider stupidly breeches my line of chemical defense and enters my house, there to potentially bite me and rot my flesh or ruin…

  • How to Become a Battered Woman

    My whole life I’ve looked at battered women with sadness and pity, but I have to admit that I always viewed them with a certain level of disdain. I’d never let that happen to me. Never. How do you get in that position? How do you let someone disrespect you like that, harm you like…