Rhetorically Yours

An Update and Call for Help

2005-11-21T03:52:00.000-08:00

I returned to my parents' home in Slidell, LA the weekend before Halloween, so it's been a few weeks now. Life is still turned upside down for ALL of us here in the Katrina-affected area. One entire half of this city (where I grew up and have spent the vast majority of my 25 years) is completely gone. Wiped out, no longer there. You see shells of buildings and stores that used to remain, but little else. The one half of Slidell that is still here (the northern half, where we live) used to have about 15-25,000 people total. We now have squeezed into our half almost ALL of the people from the south side of town (another 20,000+) plus many people from St. Bernard Parish (at least another 10-15,000), a neighboring parish south of here that took even more damage than we did. Please just imagine what that can do to a city when you at least triple your population in a small section of town. It is nearly impossible to drive anywhere because of traffic, places that once took 5 minutes to drive to now take 30-45 minutes, places that once took 10 minutes can now take upwards of an hour to an hour and a half. Many of our stores, restaurants and businesses are still not open; those that are open are only open about 6 hours a day. All of this is in addition to the area looking like a war zone, literally. It's unbelievable and it's horrible.

I am so disappointed with the media and the blogs for dropping the Katrina aftermath story like a hot potato. (CNN has been doing some attempts at keeping the story alive, especially on Anderson Cooper's show, but it is still far too little.) Because people haven't been hearing about us in the news all that much, they assume that everything is totally back to normal and everything is okay here.

It is NOT.

My parents came out lucky and only need a new roof after the storm, but we are still battling with the insurance company and the contractor to get it. As it stands now, we have to hold our breath any time it rains and hope that the thin garbage bags covering the big HOLE on our roof will keep water from getting in and causing more damage.

I lost my source of income when Katrina hit, yet I still have bills to pay. I am still battling with FEMA for the help that I am due (and yes, I believe I am DUE that help after what we've all been through) and trying to get through weeks of red tape just to get a little help. As far as my apartment in New Orleans, that I need starting in January because law school will resume, I could no longer afford it and have had to sublease it.

And we were lucky compared to many others. Just imagine what they're going through if my parents and I are having to deal with all this crap and we had little property damage.

This is all despicable. While the rest of the country forgets about us and politicians want to desert us and never rebuild the area, we are all trying desperately to get on with our lives and it isn't working. While the rest of the country seems concerned about the holidays coming up, most of us here can't even stomach the idea of celebrating any kind of holiday because of what we've been through and what we STILL go through-- not to mention whether any of us will have any money whatsoever left to spend on any holidays.

Liberal politicians have forgotten about us, conservative politicians never gave a damn about us in the first place, and religious-right leaders are spreading the word that we got what we deserved for being sinners. Now we also have "scientists" (who seem to work with or for the conservative politicians) saying that we should not rebuild at all, that we should just pick up and move and leave our lives behind, that one of the nation's greatest cities should be abandoned and never rebuilt, because, "hey, you might get another hurricane and you're below sea level-- how horrible!!!". It's horrible and immoral to suggest something like that and to put us through that after what we've been through. And no one is suggesting that people move out of California (earthquakes), Florida (many, many more hurricanes than us), the Midwest (tornadoes), or the northeast (blizzards). Why are we being singled out and totally and completely abandoned?

Yesterday our local newspaper had an amazing editorial that sums up much of our feelings, and I will post much of it here:

The federal government wrapped levees around greater New Orleans so that the rest of the country could share in our bounty.

Americans wanted the oil and gas that flow freely off our shores. They longed for the oysters and shrimp and flaky Gulf fish that live in abundance in our waters. They wanted to ship corn and soybeans and beets down the Mississippi and through our ports. They wanted coffee and steel to flow north through the mouth of the river and into the heartland.

[snip]

So the federal government built levees and convinced us that we were safe.

We weren't.

The levees, we were told, could stand up to a Category 3 hurricane.

They couldn't.

By the time Katrina surged into New Orleans, it had weakened to Category 3. Yet our levee system wasn't as strong as the Army Corps of Engineers said it was. Barely anchored in mushy soil, the floodwalls gave way.

Our homes and businesses were swamped. Hundreds of our neighbors died.

Now, this metro area is drying off and digging out. Life is going forward. Our heart is beating.

But we need the federal government -- we need our Congress -- to fulfill the promises made to us in the past. We need to be safe. We need to be able to go about our business feeding and fueling the rest of the nation. We need better protection next hurricane season than we had this year. Going forward, we need protection from the fiercest storms, the Category 5 storms that are out there waiting to strike.

Some voices in Washington are arguing against us. We were foolish, they say. We settled in a place that is lower than the sea. We should have expected to drown.

As if choosing to live in one of the nation's great cities amounted to a death wish. As if living in San Francisco or Miami or Boston is any more logical.

[snip]

The federal government decided long ago to try to tame the river and the swampy land spreading out from it. The country needed this waterlogged land of ours to prosper, so that the nation could prosper even more.

Some people in Washington don't seem to remember that. They act as if we are a burden. They act as if we wore our skirts too short and invited trouble.

We can't put up with that. We have to stand up for ourselves. Whether you are back at home or still in exile waiting to return, let Congress know that this metro area must be made safe from future storms. Call and write the leaders who are deciding our fate. Get your family and friends in other states to do the same. Start with members of the Environment and Public Works and Appropriations committees in the Senate, and Transportation and Appropriations in the House. Flood them with mail the way we were flooded by Katrina.

Remind them that this is a singular American city and that this nation still needs what we can give it.

One thing I disagree with is its emphasis solely on New Orleans; while I desperately want help for New Orleans, there are so many other places that also need it (like my home town). The storm did not only hit New Orleans; it left a path of destruction stretching from Hammond, LA (45 minutes west of here) all the way to the Mississippi/ Alabama state line.

But if you are reading this blog and have some compassion left for those of us left behind in Katrina's wake, I beg of you to write your politicians and demand that they give us answers and help (the local paper has a list of important people to write to here). Many of us here are writing or will write to politicians, but I don't believe our voices matter to them anymore; we are subhumans and we don't count to the people in Washington, D.C. any longer.

Perhaps those of you in the rest of the country would be listened to more. Please help if you can-- we're not asking for money or even much of your time, but instead I hope that people outside the Katrina-affected area will do something that we have a duty and responsibility to do as Americans anyway: write your politicians and tell them how you feel.

Remember, politicians work for us, WE are paying their salary, and ultimately they have to answer to us. It's probably the case that precious few politicians care about us down here because at the moment we're all too damn poor to pay much of their salaries, but the rest of the country can pay them and they'd listen to all of you more.

Added Inconvenience to Comments

2005-10-21T02:17:00.000-07:00

To all my legitimate readers, I've had a huge influx of spam posts to my comments sections throughout the blog (particularly to a post I made over a year ago-- I don't know how the hell they're finding that one). Anyway, rather than restricting the comments section so much that only "members" can post (since most of my real-life friends are not members), I'm hoping that I can get by with making y'all type out a code before you post. You know how when you sign up for a free email account or whatever and you have to type in what those big bubble letters and numbers say? They do that because humans can read it but computers doing the spamming cannot.

Anyway, I know it's an added inconvenience, but I hope that those of you making genuine comments will still continue to do so, because I always enjoy them.

New Look, Same Great Taste

2005-10-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

As you can see, I've got a new template. I don't know about y'all, but looking at white words on a black backdrop was making my headaches worse, so it had to go. This new template looks light and airy and fluffy and happy, totally unlike any of my posts. So I chose it. ;)

Anyway, in the process I lost all my wonderful links that I worked so hard for on the sidebar. Eh. Eventually I'll work hard again to put them back up, I'm sure. It's extremely high on the list, behind get new roof, try and get to New Orleans apartment for first time after Katrina hit to assess any damages, deal with higher incidences of migraines, etc. Yep, way way up there.

Asshole of the Day Award- Oct. 13

2005-10-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

I thought long and hard when I was planning my "Asshole" award. Should I make it on a day-by-day scale, a week-by-week one, or even a month-by-month one for the most serious cases? I finally realized that this Katrina aftermath has brought so many assholes and fuckwads out of the woodwork (where at least they'd been hiding somewhat) that even doing an "Asshole of the Week" award wouldn't give me a chance to cover all of them. Hell, even though I finally settled on the day-by-day "Asshole of the Day" Award, there's still probably enough to make a damn hourly award.

Today's not so bright, kind, generous, and loving winner of the "Asshole of the Day" Award is none other than New Orleans Attorney Frank DeSalvo, who, as noted in the previous post, is defending the brutal beating of 64-YEAR-OLD ROBERT DAVIS by N.O. cops as "reasonable" and "following proper procedure" and other such bullshit. He says all we have to do is watch the video slowly and we'll see the truth. Huh. I did that, and the truth is that a 64-YEAR-OLD MAN was brutally beaten in a dangerous spot (the back of the head and behind the ear) and his face continuously bounced off the brick wall. There were also many more sucker-punches than is required for fucking "standard procedure" or "reasonable force".

In this slo-mo tape that I have also watched, DeSalvo claims, "I see an incident of a man trying to be brought under control who doesn't want to be brought under control."

I wish DeSalvo would hook me up with his crack dealer, because it must be nice to be that high and out of it all the time. What I see is a 64-YEAR OLD MAN being beaten senseless by the cops AND federal agents (still waiting for those charges) who is trying to protect his face and head by putting his arms up around his face. You know, those things called "self-defense" and "self-preservation" and "Please God don't kill me I don't know what the hell is going on, I just don't want to die." That kind of stuff.

So anyway, congratulations to Frank DeSalvo. For giving lawyers, New Orleans police, and the City of New Orleans a bad name; for making a bad situation even tragically and dangerously worse; for being flippant about abuse and blaming the victim; and for being a general jackass-- You win today's "Asshole of the Day" Award. With the possible exception of the previous award winner, I cannot think of anyone MORE deserving of that title.

A Big Problem in New Orleans Right Now

2005-10-12T09:54:00.000-07:00

At the moment there is a HUGE problem brewing in New Orleans: the people trying to justify the horrible beating this past weekend of 64-YEAR OLD Robert Davis.

At first we had the "President of the Police Association" dude (don't know his name, don't care to look it up) telling the world on CNN Monday and early Tuesday morning that "the officers don't see where they did anything wrong" and he made it clear that neither did he. Great. Funny thing was, by Tuesday afternoon he had changed his tune quite a bit. Now he was telling the world on CNN something along the lines of, "Yeah, the tape is very gruesome, but these officers DO deserve a fair trial." Fair enough, everyone does, including Robert Davis.

By the way, no, I don't have links to these things because I watched them with my own two eyes on CNN and I'm not going to go to all the trouble to get transcripts. Don't believe me? Tough. Get off my blog. (Phew, this hurricane aftermath has made me MEAN. I never was before...)

Anyway, at least the Prez of the Police Association (I think that's their union, but could be wrong) has backed down a little, even if it's only in public. Who knows. But the lawyer for the officers charged goes a little too far with his excuses and blame-the-victim routine.

The lawyer for three police officers arrested and suspended from the force after a taped incident on Bourbon Street says the men have been ‘tried and convicted’ by the media and that the facts will show that ‘reasonable’ force was used. He said ‘politics’ was the reason that Mayor Nagin and other city officials had quickly condemned the actions.

Umm, whatever. Any reasonable person can tell you that that was beyond excessive force used, and that it was unneccessary and criminal. One, and at most two, punches would have rendered a 64-YEAR-OLD MAN totally passive, but there were waaaaaay more than two hard sucker punches thrown (and remember, each time Davis' head was bouncing against a BRICK WALL.) THAT's most likely why the American population is disgusted and that city officials acted so quicky, not because we're all so fickle and ignorant like he's making us out to be.

Attorney Frank DeSalvo said the bloody mess that was on the ground and the blood streaming from Davis’ face came as a result of his face hitting the ground as a federal agent wrestled him to the floor.

Okay, that's just bullshit. Get a doctor to testify, and let's bring it on. You'll lose this battle, DeSalvo.

He said that one of Davis’ hands were cuffed but that the attempt to cuff the other necessitated the blows seen on the video.

No, it didn't, and you're a sick fuck for suggesting that anything warranted a beating THAT brutal against a 64-YEAR OLD MAN.

He contends that none of the blows struck Mr. Davis in the head.

Oh, that makes it okay? Remember the Hockey Dad case and trial? That victim was sucker-punched once, JUST ONCE, behind the ear at the back of his head (where it is obvious that 64-YEAR OLD ROBERT DAVIS was hit), and was killed because guess what? We have lots of really big, life-sustaining arteries back there. It's one of the most dangerous places to punch anyone, and police and health experts from across the country are saying that's against policy and seriously dangerous to hit anyone there. If you're right in that this is common police procedure in New Orleans, that still doesn't make it right-- it just means the police department itself will be facing a huge civil trial too.

Now look, from Day 1 of this beating tragedy, I have been saying that stress played a huge part in this. Most of NOLA cops have lost everything, their families are scattered to the four corners of the earth, and due to employee shortages because of the rat bastard cops who bailed on the force after the hurricane, they're having to work 12 hour days, five days a week. Nagin wants to hire more police, but FEMA still hasn't brought in enough temp housing for them to do so, and there's so little available housing in the city that they can't hire anyone until FEMA coughs up some temp housing. (Thanks FEMA, you've been doing a swell job fucking things up left and right. Make sure you keep doing that.)

So while that in no way whatsoever excuses what those policemen did, I think it helps explain some of it, and if the defense attorney wanted to take that road, I wouldn't be so pissed. But New Orleans has already been getting so much bad press lately-- the beating alone was another nail in the coffin for New Orleans, but we sure as HELL don't need people getting on national TV excusing it and blaming the victim. That won't do our city one bit of good.

Edited to add: DAMN, that fucking attorney is still at it even today! Jesus H. Christ, what an asshole he is. To people across the country, this jackass attorney and what these cops did in no way whatsoever represents what New Orleans is about or what most of the people here feel. We are just as disgusted as y'all, and this guy making excuses and outright lying just makes me sick.

Asshole of Day Award

2005-10-11T05:08:00.000-07:00

That special title goes to Kim Compton of Boston, Massachussetts. She/He/It wrote a letter to People Magazine regarding the Katrina victims. It was printed in the October 3, 2005 edition and says the following (quoted in full):

So some people who refused to evacuate because they had no way to get out of town are now complaining about what they went through? Spare me! They're used to having the government provide their every need. I hope they've learned their lesson that Uncle Sam can't always get there instantly to bail you out.

Wow. If anyone is in Boston and knows this person, I wouldn't blame you for having an overwhelming need to throw eggs at her/his/it's home and car. It's a natural reaction, especially since the U.S. is the richest country in the world and had more than enough resources to "instantly bail these people out", even though they didn't. And we all know who "these people" are. And because it's nice to punish the poorest people in our country from one of the poorest cities in the country. And yeah, the government's been helping "these people" live the high life to the max-- ever been to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans? Maybe Kim Compton was wearing special goggles that converted the pictures to a land of riches, but the area more closely resembled shanty towns from South Africa. Wow, how generous those government handouts are. (Go ahead, Kim Compton, you can insert your own [they're using all the money for booze and drugs] comment here. The cat's out of the bag-- we now know what a racist, hateful, sick, despicable fuck you are. So do go on and say it; you know you're dying to do it.)

So far today, I can't think of a better or more deserving person to win the "Asshole of the Day" Award. Congratulations, Kim Compton of Boston. This is truly an honor.

Of course, Bush is still roaming around the area for photo ops, he may be getting tomorrow's "Asshole of the Day" award if recent history proves anything...

Smearing my HOME

2005-10-06T21:16:00.000-07:00

We’re starting to see a really sad phenomenon across the country. People, some of whom were so supportive right after Katrina hit, are now saying New Orleans and its surrounding communities should be abandoned and not be rebuilt. Some claim this is because NOLA is below sea level and at risk for future hurricanes, and other sick fucktards claim it is because we all deserved what we got because NOLA is a “haven for sinners” and other such bullshit.

I’m just physically, mentally and spiritually drained by all of this. This is my HOME we’re talking about, the place where I grew up and lived my life; it’s where my family and friends are, and it has my history, my past, my future, my dreams, my loves, my hates all intertwined into one geographic landscape. Why should all of that be abandoned because the location has some risk involved?

And why are we all of the sudden so skiddish about risky locations? California is prone to earthquakes and wildfires, the Midwest is prone to tornadoes, Hawaii is prone to volcanoes, the northern states are prone to dangerous blizzards, and more—yet there is no chorus saying that these places should be abandoned and that the people who live there should lose everything they’ve ever known and their whole past and history. Hell, there generally aren’t even credible people saying Florida should be abandoned. In fact, last year, after Hurricane Frances pounded Florida like a baseball bat, FEMA actually gave the area several billion dollars MORE than they needed (*cough, cough* election year *cough, cough*) and we didn’t hear anyone complaining.

I know it’s going to cost a lot of money, and I’m sorry for that. I can promise you that Louisiana begged Congress for help paying for stronger levees for years, but we were met with a deaf ear because it would have cost between $10-20 billion. That deaf ear is now costing the country at least $200 billion.

But this is America, and we are American citizens. If most of the country was willing to go on a “nation-building exercise” in Iraq that has cost us $200 billion to date, and will cost us at least another $50-100 billion in the future, then surely your fellow Americans are worth it too. We did nothing to deserve any of this, despite what some “religious” leaders are saying, and we don’t deserve to lose everything we’ve ever known because of this natural disaster.

Along that last note, the people who believe we got what we deserved because of our “sins” are some of the most despicable, vile, and unChristian people on the planet, and I won’t address them on my blog. I’m positive that there’s a nice, boiling hot place in hell for all of those sick bastards, and I don’t need to waste my energy on them.

For everyone willing to give up on New Orleans and its surrounding communities, please put yourselves in our shoes. We need our homes and our lives back, but perhaps even more importantly, we need to have the hope of getting back everything we lost. And no, I’m not delusional when I say “everything we lost”; I know everything will never be exactly the same. But it isn’t even just the tangible buildings, streets and stores that we need back the most—-we lost our communities, our sense of togetherness, our hopes and dreams, and we need to have the hope of getting all that back.

Without that hope, we Katrina victims have even less than nothing, and now there are fellow American citizens who would take that hope away. Please, don’t victimize us twice. We went through enough with the hurricane and its own immediate aftermath; don’t take any more away from us. Please.

Response to comment

2005-10-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

Wow, I've been absolutely astounded by the amount of comments I've gotten on my itty-bitty blog! There's now like SEVEN total comments on the whole site! ;) I'm so humbled.

Of course you know I've made it in the blogging world when I start getting spam comments-- I appreciate that very much, to those offenders. Like enough shit isn't going on in my life for me to drudge through spam comments, but anyway, to my lovely readers (the three or four of you out there), please don't think those idiots posting spam stuff reflects on me.

Anyway, I did want to respond to one comment that I got on my "Analysis of Human Waste..." post. I'm not sure if this post is from my absolutely wonderful friend Judi from Australia, who's one of the coolest people on the planet, but even if it's not, it does bring up a good point that probably should be addressed after the rant that I made in that post. Anyway, here's the anonymous comment:

Now being a citizen of the lucky country (Australia that is, - lucky we don't get hurricanes at least)I am not going to profess that I know anything at all about American politics. God knows, it is hard enough for me to come to grips with our brown nosing prime minister who continually has his head up the amazing Mr Bushs' bum!! But even without reading the devastating description that you have posted, I have to wonder - who would actively choose to stay in a place where their lives are in grave danger?!? Do your politicians really think that the people who stayed did so out of choice?!? Very enlightening - thanks

First off, yes, Australia is a lucky country-- absolutely beautiful and some of the nicest people on the planet. (Edited to add: I mean this is the country that brought us the exquisite movie, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert! How can anyone not think this is one of the greatest countries on the planet???) But you didn't think that's what I would address, did you? ;)

What's more important is the question about whether or not people would stay in the direct path of a hurricane and put their lives in danger. It's hard for people not in hurricane zones to understand, but yes, there are always people who deliberately stay behind despite having the means and ability to evacuate. (Katrina, however, had fewer people doing this than your average hurricane-- it wasn't hard to see how catastrophic it could be compared with the past hurricane threats we had dealt with.)

In my opinion, after having lived almost a quarter of a century in a hurricane zone, the people who stay behind usually fall into two camps. The first are the die-hard, good ol' American "I have to protect my property against this menace!" type of people. For Hurricane Ivan last year, my father fell into this camp, mostly because one of his best friends is ALWAYS in this camp. Property and the protection of it are so ingrained into the American psyche as one of the most important values out there, and a lot of Americans, not the least of which those in the hurricane zones, feel a need to protect their property at all costs. So some will stay behind during a hurricane to be on hand if any desperate need to save the house or land arises, or in the worst case scenario (though they won't admit it), to die for the noble cause of "saving" their property.

Even though I've always known people who do this, it doesn't 100% make sense. You can protect your property from a burglar-- lock your doors and windows, get a burglar alarm, call 911 for police, and if necessary, shoot the burglar to protect your family and your property. That's a scenario where you can usually take some action from beginning to end to do your part in "saving your property." But a hurricane? The most you can do for those is board up your windows and set up sandbags at the doors and spots most vulnerable for flooding. After that, the hurricane kind of has the upper hand and there really isn't much else you can do.

But maybe you could try arguing that with one of these people and get it to work, but so far few have. They're usually the ones who are "set in their ways".

Anyway, in the second camp are the people who feel, "Well, I lived through Hurricane X and Hurricane Y and survived that, so I can definitely make it through this storm." Or something along the lines of, "I've been evacuating from all these hurricanes time after time and nothing's ever happend-- I'm sick of it, and I won't do it anymore."

I must confess that I have said the second sentence whilst deciding whether or not to evacuate, but in the end I'm always a wimp and I evacuate, no matter how sick I am of it. But if you've lived here a while, being on the run is exhausting and often fruitless; you spend all that time evacuating, and 9 times out of 10, the bloody hurricane will make a last minute shift and not even head towards you. And you think, "Damn, what a waste. I wish I had stayed home."

So those are the two general mindsets that keep some people here in the path of a hurricane. But again, before any lawmakers or idiots like Bill O'Reilly take me out of context (because I'm so important like that), Katrina was a different story altogether. Most people who could leave, did, even if they wanted to protect their property or if they were sick of evacuating. When you live here long enough, you develop enough of a sixth-sense about these storms, and we all knew this storm was different than most of the ones in the past.

Evacuate Again, My Friend

2005-09-21T16:25:00.000-07:00

I just got into Houston, TX this past weekend after leaving my Slidell, LA home. The Slidell area was so encased with debris and other such stuff that my allergies and my migraines were off the radar. So I left last Saturday to stay with my dad in Houston.

When-- voila!-- Little Miss Rita comes hammering along. So tomorrow morning, my father and I, evacuees from Slidell and New Orleans respectively, will have to evacuate Houston and head back east to Slidell. What fun.

I must add this: some despicable people have used the Katrina disaster to impose their unChristian beliefs by saying things like, "New Orleans deserved to be destroyed, the communities were sinful and therefore deserved God's Wrath in the form of Katrina, etc." I know, I'm nauseous too.

But a new one has come out today that says, "Rita is God's wrath and retribution for the way His people were treated by the government (all of them) during the Katrina disaster."

Nothing else needs to be said. :-)

An Analysis of Human Waste

2005-09-15T03:15:00.000-07:00

Well, hopefully this will be my first political post regarding the Katrina disaster, but it's 5 a.m. so I promise nothing. I'm actually not dedicating my first political post to the slow federal response or to the race/ poverty issue (though it shall be discussed, in due time). Instead, I'd like to analyze the human waste and excrement that has come in the wake of the hurricane, specifically in the form of Rick Santorum and Dennis Hastert. No, my friends, these are not human beings-- these two "men" are actually piles of human waste and excrement, and a pitiful waste of it at that.

We'll start with everyone's favorite, Santorum. (How the flying FUCK does this guy keep getting elected? Who are his fucking Pennsylvania constituents, anyway??) There's a lovely list at RADAR Online of the worst and even worse than that quotes from the hurricane coverage, and it's from there that I get my Santorum quote.

“I mean, you have people who don’t heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out.”—Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)

Now, we all saw the footage of the people-- U.S. citizens-- starving to death, wading through disease-riden water, with no shelter, no medical attention, no safety net for up to 5 days. But sometimes it's hard for a pile of human excrement like Rick Santorum to actually digest that stuff.

Let me give you my background of how I, a middle-class, priviledged white female law student, was able to evacuate New Orleans on the Saturday before the storm hit on Monday.

In April of 2000 my parents bought a nearly brand-new Toyota Corolla for my dad to drive. At the time, I was driving my dad's "old" car, a 1992 Toyota Camry. Then one day within the next year, the Camry broke down on me and my dad was afraid to have his only child, his precious girl, drive this scary, unreliable "piece of shit". So even though I was a college student and had never worked out of necessity (my jobs were always to earn extra "spending money") I inherited a 2000 Toyota Corolla.

So we can now fast-forward to the Saturday morning before the hurricane hit. I was all cozy in my New Orleans apartment, and I got a call from my parents with the obligatory, "Oh my god, this is the Big One, we have to evacuate or we'll all die" statement, and guess what I did? I got in my Corolla and drove to my parents' house, from where we then evacuated to Jackson on Sunday.

Now let's analyze what that Saturday and Sunday were like for the upwards of 200,000 low-income residents of New Orleans. It's never been a secret that almost none of the impoverished people in N.O. have cars, despite the fact that our public transportation is abysmal. The local, state, and FEDERAL governments knew this. Their main modes of transportation included buses and more infrequently, trains. But what happend on Saturday afternoon after Mayor Nagin declared a mandatory evacuation? Greyhound buses and Amtrak trains cancelled all their impending services out of town. Huh. That's not even taking into account the fact that most of the people wouldn't have had the money to pay for the fare in the first place. Now, Mr. Santorum, I know you can drop $100 on a glass of wine (it costs a lot to inebriate a pile of human excrement like yourself), but for many of these families, $100 is all they might have per month or even every other month to feed their whole families. And I doubt that many of these victims of Hurricane Katrina had started a savings fund for this particular rainy day, given that the Census Bureau shows that one of the hardest hit areas of New Orleans had an average yearly household income of $7500.

It would have been possible for you to blame the local, state AND federal governments (in the form of FEMA), but since you're a Republican and every single Republican voted against having an independent investigation into what went wrong, then you have no fucking right to complain or place the blame, at least on anyone but your incompetent dumbass self.

So WHO exactly, Mr. Santorum, are you wanting to arrest for staying behind and not evacuating? The single mom with five kids making $7500 a year? The elderly couple living solely of their Social Security checks? The people dying on makeshift ventilators at Charity Hospital when the power went out? Oh, those wretched people, they should certainly be in prison, while I, who was lucky enough to be born to the right people with the right amount of money, should not be in prison because I had a car.

For God's sake, you sick bastard, do us all a favor and take the next space shuttle mission on a one-way trip off this planet and stay gone forever. There's enough piles of shit on this planet already, we don't need your sorry ass taking up any more of our precious space.

I'll talk about Dennis Hastert another time. This post alone has me sick.

Back Home from the Brink of Katrina

2005-09-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

I'm from the suburbs of New Orleans, and was living right smack dab in the middle of New Orleans a little over two weeks ago. I'm finally back from my evacuation. I'm here in Slidell, Louisiana, one of the hardest-hit towns of the hurricane zone (yes, Katrina did hit places other than New Orleans and Biloxi-Gulfport, though they get scarce mention in the news). This town looks like a war zone-- there are trees and powerlines down everywhere, military and national guard figures roaming the streets, big military humvees and supply trucks driving through town, and far too few disaster relief centers scattered here and there. I've never seen anything like it, and I've lived in this hurricane-prone area all my life (25 years).

I haven't heard anything about my apartment in New Orleans, if it's still there, or if it's in decent condition. You have to drive through various checkpoints to get there, and if you aren't an "official person" or whatever, you're turned back. That's probably for the best, though. The 'not knowing' part is just hard...

You want to know what this hurricane has done to my family and me, a typical, white middle class family from the suburbs? Let me first give you our background: I had just started my first year at Tulane Law School, my father is (well, was) a naval architect in Jefferson Parish, my mother is a middle school teacher here in Slidell.

For me, now, law school has been "postponed" for another year, as Tulane simply had to cancel school. Some of my classmates, from other parts of the country, were able to get into the few schools that were accepting 1Ls. But for me, that would have meant moving to a brand new city with about $100 to my name, all with just what I brought to evacuate (2 shirts, 2 pairs of shorts, and 1 pair of flip-flops, and my medicine) and all with the notion that everything I had from my home, both my parents' home where I had spent 25 years off-and-on and my new apartment in New Orleans, could be destroyed. It just wasn't feasible. So my life-long dream of becoming a lawyer will be another year in the waiting. It'll happen, though, I'm feeling positive about it. In the meantime, I have no job now, since I was planning on being in school the next three years, and no way to pay the rent on my New Orleans apartment. But I'll survive. I can't complain.

My father is unable to even get to his office in Jefferson Parish, nor are his 30-40 coworkers. Luckily his company has their headquarters in Houston, but fairly unluckily, he and all his coworkers are having to move there for at least the next 4 months. The rumors are flying that once they get there, the company will make them stay and will not rebuild the New Orleans office, but we are hoping (and praying) that that's not true. For now, we only have to suffer through the separation, but my family is very close and strong. We'll survive that.

The school where my mother teaches at is still standing, but that is all that can be said really, after they got 9+ feet of water and muck in the buildings. It's a Catholic school, and the local archdiocese has been very unChristian in their behavior towards the victims of this hurricane. (Before the hurricane, the N.O. archbishop holed himself up in a fancy home in Baton Rouge and refused to talk to anybody, to help anybody, to give money or time for relief efforts, etc. He's lived in the gracious lap of luxury while others have starved to death and lost all their worldly possessions. I feel no shame in saying he's a thoroughly despicable man, though some of the priests have been very generous with their time and efforts.) Anyway, the archdiocese originally had no interest in fixing up the school, and was going to offer only one-months pay to my mom and everyone else, which is despicable. My mom has worked there since 1983, and she could be discarded like a rotting field mouse and the archbishop and local Catholic hierarchy couldn't give a rat's ass. The local parishioners, however, are trying desperately to come up with a solution to keep the school open (at another location) that the archdiocese will approve. Everything is now up in the air.

It is amazing how 2 weeks and one day ago I was a law school student, my dad was a naval architect in Harahan (in Jefferson Parish, for the non-locals), and my mom was a middle school teacher. In less than a few hours, all that has changed, and at least for my mom and me, our futures are uncertain.

Let me stress, however, that we are very, VERY fortunate. We are all alive, our house in Slidell came out fairly unscathed, we had somewhere to evacuate to and stay for two weeks while the city was closed, we now have at least one paycheck coming in, and we never had to miss any meals. Please don't feel sorry for me, and please don't feel I am fishing for sympathy. There are thousands, maybe even millions of people, who were hit so much worse by this storm than my family and I were, and my heart aches for them. I hope that everyone in this country who can give or do something to help them, has.

I will write later about politics (oh trust me, this has me riled up!) and other effects of the storm, but tonight is my first night with the internet, so I simply wanted to post an update. If you are reading this, please, please keep all the Katrina victims in your thoughts and your heart-- everyone here has been affected, from the absolutely minute to the absolutely devastating. None of us was spared anything in this storm, but again, I cannot complain in any way whatsoever (well, except about the federal response to this tragedy, but that'll be later). I am so fortunate-- I only wish everyone had come out as fortunate as me and my family.

The most brilliant thing...

2005-08-11T08:16:00.000-07:00

I just heard THE most brilliant anti-contraception argument whilst flipping around the TV and landing on EWTN. According to the women on whatever show it was, in third-world countries the infant mortality rate is higher, so if we gave them contraception, we'd be keeping them down and holding the people back!

I kid you not, they actually said it. I don't know what else they said, because I yelled out some curse words and changed the channel.

Why don't we spend some time asking ourselves why the fucking infant mortality rate is so high in those countries in the first place? Oooh, oooh, I know one reason! **waves hand enthusiastically in the air** It's because women are having TOO MANY BABIES. The health of the woman and her babies declines with each pregnancy, so the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and so forth pregnancy is gradually deteriorating. Yes, this is but one of MANY reasons for the high infant mortality rate, but it's one that contraception would help, and it would help women have options other than staying pregnant from literally the age of 14 to 45 with at least a dozen living or dead babies in between those years.

But what am I saying? Children are a blessing from God, and God will provide, right? Just like he's providing an overabundance of food for the millions of Africans who are starving to death today because of drought and warfare? We needn't worry our little heads about that stuff because God will provide, we just need to keep popping out as many babies as possible for God to provide for and make sure that we enforce our religious views on other countries so that they have as many babies as possible for God to provide for.

La la la la, **skipping through the fairy dust** Isn't life magical?

Let's all get offended now

2005-05-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

From CNN:

Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday he was offended by Amnesty International's condemnation of the United States for what it called "serious human rights violations" at Guantanamo Bay.

"For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously," he said in an interview that was to air Monday night on CNN's "Larry King Live."

You know what, Dickie? I'm fucking BEYOND offended that you're offended at this, since the fact that there is torture going on is pretty irrefutable. So fuck you for being offended and fuck you for being a part of this problem in the first place.

The rest of the world, especially the Middle East, isn't going to start welcoming us with open arms like you want them to as long as we're beating detainees senseless and flushing sacred religious texts down the toilets and having 100 detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq die under our care in questionable circumstances.

So while you're all uppity and offended at Amnesty calling you out, which they did rightfully so, the rest of the world is just hating us more and more because of the very shit that Amnesty says you're doing (and that there's plenty of PROOF that you're doing).

So take your offensiveness elsewhere (I can suggest a few places to put it) and start actually treating Iraqis and Afghanis like human beings. Then maybe our soldiers wouldn't get shot at so much, then maybe the Iraqi people wouldn't hate the American forces so much, then maybe people around the world would respect us rather than seeing us as backstabbers and liars and heathens.

I believe you're one of those Christians who likes to run political campaigns on "Christian Family Values" (whatever the fuck that means), but here's a big Christian tradition that's held pretty dear: treat others the way you want to be treated. It's that "Golden Rule" thing. I don't know about you, Dick, but I don't want to be sodomized, beaten, electrocuted, humiliated, photographed, etc. etc. etc. Those are just the things we actually have pictures of, and you really think that's an isolated incident? Give me a fucking break, and get your head out of that hole it's been in if you think that or if you really want us to believe that.

Amnesty International is not your enemy. Tortured Iraqis and Afghanis (many of whom are innocent of any crime, they were just picked up in the paranoia) are not your enemy. YOU and your government's policy and your government's treatment of detainees are the enemy. Until you have an attitude change and a revelation about reality, you will continue to be your own enemy, and you will continue to do damage to America's reputation abroad, and you will continue to be responsible for the brutal torture and mistreatment and even murder of detainees.

Get a fucking clue already.

By the way, isn't it convenient that your administration was all lovey-dovey with Amnesty International when it needed an excuse to go to war, and when you needed to drum up support for said war? Back then, AI could do no wrong, but hey, once they do their jobs and start calling out torturers where torturers lie, regardless of whether it's in the Middle East or here in the good ol' U.S. of A., then suddenly, they're not a credible organization. Boo fucking hoo.

Said by the administration that's been caught in lie after lie after lie after lie after lie. And unlike Clinton's lies, these lies have caused massive death and destruction and the loss of soldiers' lives.

So yeah, Cheney, you're a REALLY credible source. I'm going to put all my eggs in your torturous, lying, manipulative, deceitful, assinine basket now...

Edited to add: If you're as offended and pissed off as I am at Dick Cheney and the Bush Administration as a whole, then drum up some support for Amnesty International and sign their petition. God knows they're taking a beating from the So-Called-Liberal-Media, so donate some cash while you're at it, if you can.

Priorities in Good Order

2005-05-26T05:07:00.000-07:00

Well, it appears that Gwinnett County has their priorities all in order now that they've indicted Jennifer Wilbanks. Every minute and dollar spent investigating and prosecuting this case is another minute and dollar taken away from investigating and prosecuting crimes like rape, murder, robbery, etc. But we have to make sure she's punished! Incidentally, she faces up to 6 years in jail, and many people convicted of manslaughter have not served or will not serve that much time. Sounds about right to me. (My eyes hurt from rolling them so much right about now...)

Nearly every night I watch crime documentaries on A&E or CourtTV, because I'm a nerd like that (and I freely admit it). On one of last night's shows on CourtTV, they made the statement, "Most adult men who are missing go missing on purpose and of their own accord." As in, they WANT to leave their lives and go missing.

So I said to my mother, "Gee, how many of these thousands of men who go missing on purpose each year have felony charges brought against them? How many of them have much of the country demanding their heads on a stake and retribution?"

Thank god I'm not holding my breath waiting for the answer to that question.

Hypocrites 'R' Us

2005-05-19T09:25:00.000-07:00

There are few things in this world that I hate more than hypocrisy. If you're going to be a politically-minded jackass, fine. I can accept that. But at least be consistent.

The latest bout of hypocrisy in the world of right wingnuttery is the case of Luis Posada Carriles, the man responsible for blowing up a plane full of 73 innocent Cuban civilians (and suspected of plenty of other things as well). First of all, I'm very happy that the U.S. government got off their asses and brought the guy in. They've known for years now where he was and what he was up to. Hell, you could probably look Posada's name, address and schedule up in the Miami yellow pages under "Gifts from God" because he's a local hero in the exile community and he made little effort himself to hide. Even Posada himself admitted casually of the FBI, "They know where I am and how to reach me" (Cuba Confidential by Ann Louise Bardach, pg. 207-- highly recommended book, by the way).

That right there is the first bit of hypocrisy. No Florida or U.S. presidential candidates wanted to risk losing the Cuban exile vote, so the government has done little to find, capture or prosecute any Cuban exile terrorists, of which there are many (in the late 1980's, Miami was nicknamed the "Capital of U.S. Terrorism" because of all the bombings and murders related to Cuban exile politics).

So how can we honestly tell other countries, "You better listen to us and fight this 'War on Terror'!" and shake our fingers in their faces when we won't even do that in our own country unless the perpetrators are Muslim or eco-terrorists? What right do we have to even fight a fucking "War on Terror" (if that is what it's about, which I highly doubt) when we let terrorists openly lounge about in front of our very eyes and don't do a damn thing about it?

But now they've taken Posada in, and hopefully they'll do the right thing and extradite him to Venezuela (where the bombing was planned), and hopefully they'll go after the other terrorists in the exile community.

But this is where we have the new bit of hypocrisy from the talking heads (and possibly from the government) of the right-wing. All of them are crying foul and saying, "Poor Posada, he'll be railroaded in Venezuela, he'll never get a fair trial and everyone deserves a fair trial, no matter what they've done. We absolutely cannot send him to Venezuela; he might get shot on the tarmac getting off the plane! That would be a terrible human rights violation!"

Now. Okay. I truly, deeply, wholeheartedly believe that everyone on this planet deserves a fair trial no matter what, so technically I agree with these crybabies (but it isn't very often that they're advocating fair trials for anyone unless it's Rush Limbaugh or someone in that ballpark. The rest of us can have the most corrupt trials in the world-- who gives a fuck?). What bothers me is that there are orders to shoot to kill Osama bin Laden and all his cohorts, with no chance of a fair trial, though some have mentioned things about heads being brought back to the U.S. in cardboard boxes (does that count as a fucking fair trial?). None of these talking heads are complaining about these shoot-to-kill orders for bin Laden, and when confronted about it, they say, "But he planned the murder of U.S. citizens! Why should he get a fair trial?" Okay, Posada planned and executed the murder of Cuban citizens, why do they think he deserves a fair trial but bin Laden does not? Why are these talking heads justifying the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians as "collateral damage" and saying things like, "Well, the Iraqi people have to understand that freedom comes at a price. We Americans can see that, so they'll have to see it too."? Why are they casually dismissing these deaths while pining for the possible human rights violations of Luis Posada Carriles?

Like I said, I believe all human beings, even cretins like Posada and bin Laden, deserve fair trials and no one deserves to have their human rights violated. But don't you dare whine about how one murderer deserves a fair trial and special treatment, while you demand that another one be executed extrajudicially. And don't you dare dismiss the known human rights violations of one group of people (i.e. the Iraqi civilians) while you worry yourself to death about the possible human rights violation of another person. If you want to say that neither Posada nor bin Laden deserve fair trials, fine. That's consistent. I disagree with you, but you wouldn't be a hypocrite.

Otherwise, you're sending the message that innocent Cuban human beings are worth less than innocent American human beings, and that is just fucking wrong. Those 73 people deserve justice, and their families have been waiting almost 30 years for it. They didn't deserve to have some asshole terrorist living life as a king in Miami out in the open while the FBI and the President of the United States of America knew exactly where he lived and what he was doing for nearly every minute of every day, especially when this country is so sanctimonious about fighting "terror". Those 73 people deserve just as much justice as any American citizen deserves, and I hope Posada receives a fair trial in Venezuela, and I hope he spends the rest of his miserable life in jail there for being the ruthless and brutal murderer that he is.

Along the same lines...

2005-05-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

Just to ramble a little more along the same lines as my last post:

The anti-choice crowd quotes one particular Bible verse almost more than any other when they want to "prove" that God is anti-abortion. It's Jeremiah 1:5 and it goes like this:

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

I posted the whole verse, but italicized the part that the anti-choice groups really use (I've never heard them actually use the entire verse).

Now, I see where they're coming from so don't try and explain it to me, but it still doesn't make any sense, and their argument doesn't hold any water. Supposedly, according to them, this verse gives proof that God knows all humans before they are born and ascribes personhood and souls to said humans before they are born (even though the verse says nothing about that, just that God "knows" a person).

BUT...

Christians believe that God is all-knowing, right? (Yes, they do.) So if God knows everything and is aware of everything, then this verse doesn't really mean all that much. I mean, God knew 10,000 years ago that in the year 3000 A.D. a crippled cricket will be born in New Mexico in the rain at 2:37 p.m. (Just an example... I, for one, am not omniscient.) He knows everything that there is to know, from the most mundane thing, like a deformed leaf falling from a tree at exactly 5:33 a.m. on May 19th in the year 1933, to the most intricate things, like human beings.

And this doesn't even go into the fact that God was speaking to a specific person during a specific event in this verse. That's a whole 'nother issue there.

So the big lynchpin of the anti-choice Biblical argument holds little to no water. They'll have to do a lot better, and unless they find some long lost books of the Bible that have new verses dealing specifically with abortion, they won't be able to do better.

Kick Ass

2005-05-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

This made my day. One of my biggest pet peeves is the Republicans' coopting religion and morals. There's more to the Christian faith than abortion and homosexuality (and abortion is nowhere in that big old Bible, even though it was widely practiced at the time that both the Old and New Testament were written). And you can be a moral and ethical person even if you're not a Christian. I don't believe either political party should co-opt any religion (God is neither a Republican or a Democrat, as the bumpersticker goes), but the Republican party is way out of bounds when they act as though they have a monopoly on faith and morals.

Jesus tackled issues such as peace, love and concern for ALL fellow human beings, poverty, and equality. He himself did not address homosexuality, and the Bible did not address abortion.

Anyway, some of the stuff at this site borders on paranoia and fringe-esque-like, so I wouldn't endorse everything, but Liberals Like Christ has some interesting stuff to peruse through. I particularly like the quotes and Bible verses describing why right-wingers put more faith in Paul than Jesus-- so, so true.

And the best ever site for progressive Christian news and articles (and a wonderful magazine if you can afford the $39.95 per year price tag-- I could last year, but not this year) is Sojourners. Do check it out. They're very sane and even-handed, not paranoid at all.

And if anyone wants to donate to my "Resubscribe to Sojourners" Fund, let me know... ;)

Money where your mouth is...

2005-05-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Armed Forces are facing a dire recruiting situation as of late (gee, I have no idea why?). Anyway, it goes without saying that those of us who have been opposed to this war in Iraq all along aren't exactly beating down the doors of the recruiting office screaming "Sign me up! Sign me up!" But apparently, the usual source of fresh blood, poor inner city youth, are actually becoming reluctant to join the armed forces. Again, I wonder why?

Sarcasm aside, kos has a solution in a series of posts: enlist the wingnuts! First the bloggers, the 101st Fighting Keyboardists:

Enlistment is down because of the War in Iraq -- a war that people like Jonah Goldberg and the rest of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists continue to support and defend. Yet while they continue to pimp a war that has cost us over 1,600 US dead, they themselves refuse to put their words into action and join our heroic (yet undermanned and underequipped) Armed Forces.

You must read the whole post, it's fascinating. I love the arguments that the wingnuts have for not enlisting-- I fully support the war, but I have a daughter. (I'm sure NONE of the soldiers in Iraq have children. I must have been smoking crack when I read the statistic of 1,000 children losing a parent to the war in Iraq.) This is not new, of course. During the Vietnam War, Dick Cheney got five deferments and when asked about it in the late 80's, early 90's, he said it was because he had "other priorities." Like none of the other millions of people who fought in that war did.

Second up for kos is the religious right establishment, and how they should be pushing their flocks to the recruitment office. There's quotes from Jerry Falwell and James Dobson glorifying the Iraq War through the eyes of the bible, but:

So how about these preachers, who think this war is oh-so-just, put their words in action and encourage their flock to enlist? But I couldn't find any such proclamations from these two preachers. Lots of boilerplate about "supporting the troops", but nothing encouraging their followers to put words to deeds.

It's the hallmark of the American Right, whether it's the American Taliban or the 101st Fighting Keyboardists -- cowardice masked by tough words and no action.

And finally, it's the good ol' pundits. You aren't allowed to say anything on TV remotely critical of the war because you're "not supporting the troops! How dare you!" But as kos points out, Hannity and O'Reilly are doing little to get their flock out of their business attire or hunting gear and into the recruiting office.

If anyone is actually still reading ME, I have my own personal story. I was watching highlights of the Republican National Convention and desperately holding back the vomit when they began to interview some Young Republicans who were all "Rah-rah War in Iraq! It's the best war EVER!" So the interviewer actually had the audacity to say, "If you support the war so much, don't you feel a duty to fight for your country?"

His answer? "Well, I believe I can do more for my country here as a political science student. But if we were attacked again, like 9/11, oh yeah, I'm there!"

First of all, what an idiot. Yeah, he's doing us a buttload of good being ANOTHER political science student. We don't have enough of those.

And though I hate to humor the idea that 9/11 and Iraq are somehow related, he's full of shit on his second point. We could have ten 9/11-like attacks next week and he wouldn't make it within a ten mile radius of a recruitment office. And even if he were this big brave man to the rescue, why do we have to be attacked a freaking SECOND time for him to get involved? How many times do we have to get attacked before he is willing to risk HIS life, as opposed to the lives of all the other thousands of military men and women that he and his ilk are so callous about?

But no matter. If another attack came, or a draft, by that time he'd probably have a wife or a baby, so he'd have "better priorities" to do than fight in a war and he'd be able to get out of it.

Thinking is just soooo hard to do...

2005-05-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

Man, we Americans have it so easy, we almost never have to think critically about things. We're spoonfed our opinions by the nightly news, even if it's WRONG, and other things like current events and international affairs, hell, we just don't have to care about them so that saves us even more thinking time.

Today's new outrage is that the U.S. is going to give some money to the states to help alleviate the costs of paying for healthcare for illegal immigrants. Before I put my "critical thinking skills" into much needed action, this can indeed be an outrage. All over the news this morning, right wingers were dismayed about the 45+ million Americans without any health insurance whatsoever, which is interesting, because just a couple of weeks ago, these same people (*cough* Hannity *cough, cough* O'Reilly *cough, cough* and their ilk) talked about these 45+ million people without insurance as worthless trash who can't get a job and quit smoking crack and forego every other stereotype out there. And when liberals talk about giving these 45+ million people universal healthcare, we're called Communists. So forgive me if the right winger's concern over these poor uninsured Americans really doesn't pass as sincere in my book.

Anyway, getting off the subject of the right wing scumbags, it seems like common sense almost to get our own citizens insured first before we pay for illegal immigrants, right? Right??

Well... This is where that critical thinking thing comes in. I know it takes a little time, but trust me, it's worth it.

What we have here are really two separate issues. The huge amount of uninsured Americans is one issue, and one that isn't applicable here, despite the media pulling in the comparison constantly. So even though that issue is important, forget it for just a moment. It has nothing to do with this one case.

The other issue is the number of illegal immigrants who are already here, for whatever reason (and immigration itself is another issue that should not be compared or conflated with this particular case either, despite the media, again, doing it). When someone is on U.S. soil and that person is in need of emergency treatment, s/he cannot be turned away from any hospital. That is the law, whether it's an illegal immigrant, a citizen with no insurance, or Donald Trump. So the U.S. has already been treating illegal immigrants in hospitals, but the states have been left to foot the bill. This decision by the federal government is simply to give up to a billion dollars to help shoulder the costs that the states have had to take on.

Now, it's easy to say, "U.S. hospitals shouldn't be treating illegal immigrants!" So let's look at that argument. Most of the time, these people are poor, extraordinarily poor. They can also come from countries where there are diseases running rampant that the U.S. hasn't seen in decades, if ever. I'm not saying all immigrants are disease-ridden, but it is in OUR best interest to make sure that the ones who are sick are treated for any illnesses because it could be something spreadable to the general U.S. population. If we leave sick illegal immigrants rotting on the street, there's a possibility that their illness can spread into the air, the groundwater, etc. Diseases that Americans have not been exposed to in a while or ever could be catastrophic, because we would not have built up an immunity. So it is in our best interest to make sure these people are treated.

If we're willing to spend $300 billion on a war that no one remembers what we're fighting for anymore and billions more on tax cuts for the rich that we can't afford in the first place, then $1 billion to keep us from getting sick, and to keep state budgets from going under, and oh yeah, to keep illegal immigrants from dying (because despite the vilification, they are people too, with families, and mothers and fathers and children and brothers and sisters and husbands and wives and hopes and dreams), then I'm not going to complain.

The problem is just that it takes a little bit of thinking to get to that point, and Americans have become so anti-thinking.

And oh yeah, unless you are a native American, you or your ancestors were once immigrants, maybe even an illegal immigrant. None of us owns this country, and if we keep teaching our children this big "melting pot" theory of how life is in America, then we can't try and do everything we can to keep the non-white people out. At some point we might have to live what we preach.

Ironies of the Criminal Justice System

2005-05-07T16:55:00.000-07:00

Or one of them, at least... I bet you think this is going to be another Jennifer Wilbanks post. Well, fiddle dee doo to you, it isn't.

Actually, it's not about any one case in particular, just something that happens quite often that bugs me.

A common practice in our lovely criminal justice system here in America is that if you're charged with capital murder (meaning, you can get the death penalty), you can sometimes get out of getting the death penalty if you plead guilty. So as long as you're willing to say "I did it!" then you're rewarded with your life. But this is a ploy that ends up with a lot of innocent people on death row (yes, you bet your sweet ass it happens) and both a lot of guilty people serving life sentences and a lot of really scared shitless innocent people serving life sentences.

Let's look at three scenarios:

1. Let's say I'm arrested for the murder of some random person, and let's say in this case that I did it. I'm totally guilty, I did it and it was done in total cold blood. I'm a bad, bad person. Anyway, knowing how stone-cold guilty I am, I'm facing the death penalty if I go to trial. But the district attorney offers me a sweet, sweet deal, saying, "Girlfriend, if you'll just say you're guilty and save us the expense of a trial, I'll give you life in prison instead of the death penalty." Ho boy, unless there's some major extenuating circumstances (like an insanity defense that could actually be pulled off), then I'm going to take it. I don't care to be strapped on that gurney, no matter how freaking guilty I am.

But...

2. Let's say I'm arrested for the murder of some random person, and in THIS case I didn't do it. I'm totally innocent, it's false eyewitness reports that put me there, totally bogus evidence, etc. Again, you bet your sweet ass this scenario happens. Anyway, I'm NOT a bad person, and knowing how innocent I am, I'm still facing the death penalty if I go to trial. But the D.A. offers me a deal, saying, "Girlfriend, if you'll just say you're guilty and save us the expense of a trial, I'll give you life in prison instead of the death penalty." Well, since I know I'm innocent, I might say, "Fuck you, I'm innocent, I'm taking this to trial! I'm not going to the gas chamber for something I didn't do!" And I'll go to trial: if I'm rich, I stand a pretty good chance of getting through to the jury, if I'm poor, forget it-- I'm dead. It doesn't matter how innocent you are, people in this position get convicted and get sentenced to death on a weekly basis in our country.

THEN...

3. There's also the case, similar to #2, where I'm innocent but faced with either the death penalty or life in prison. Depending on how scared shitless I am, I might even decide to plead guilty just to avoid the death penalty, even though I'm totally 100% stone-cold innocent. This also happens all the time. In this scenario, I would serve a life sentence for a crime I didn't commit so that I could avoid the death penalty and not get railroaded at a trial.

It's often said that we have the best criminal justice system in the world, and that may be true (I doubt it, especially as long as we have the death penalty), but regardless, there are several flaws in the system that must be fixed. This plea bargaining system that rewards the guilty and punishes the innocent is one such flaw. Another is the pig-headed, stubborn, narcisistic prosecutors who prosecute people on flimsy evidence just to get convictions and close the book on criminal cases, even if they've got the wrong guy.

But that's just me.

Edited to add: I should clarify that as someone who is passionately opposed to the death penalty in ALL circumstances, I am more than okay with even guilty people getting life sentences. It's simply the position that defendants are put in when they are asked to plead guilty and get a life sentence instead of the death penalty that I oppose. It reeks of blackmail and, at the very least, poor ethics.

My letter to Danny Porter

2005-05-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

First of all, Danny Porter sounds like a serial killer's name. That's most likely because I'm thinking of Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper. But alas, the Danny Porter I wrote to today is not a serial killer. Not that I know of, at least. He's the district attorney of Gwinnett County, Georgia, where the infamous Runaway Bride case is unfolding. He's in charge of deciding whether or not to charge Jennifer Wilbanks with a crime, and I thought I would let my opinion be known, since he said on the news the other day that he's received quite a bit of emails and that most are in the "Put her head on a bloody stake" camp. Anyway, in lieu of posting about the gender and legal implications of the case, I'm simply posting my letter to Porter, since it touches on those issues, though it of course does not go into great academic detail. Oh well. If you are so inclined to write Porter yourself, his email is: Danny.Porter@gwinnettcounty.com

Dear District Attorney Porter:

I am aware that you are receiving a lot of email regarding the Jennifer Wilbanks case, most of it demanding that you prosecute her to the fullest. However, I am writing the exact opposite. I believe this is a case that at worst belongs in the civil courts, and at best simply needs to be a private family matter solved without public intrusion.

Until she picked up the phone and claimed to be kidnapped, Wilbanks committed no crime. All adults have the constitutional right to disappear in this country, no matter how much money is spent searching for them or how many hearts are broken in the meantime. Therefore, your only opportunity to charge her with a crime is for the kidnap hoax. However, her kidnap hoax was dismantled within 2-3 hours-- it is extremely unlikely that much, if any, tax money or police man hours were spent on her ludicrous story.

I find it ironic that nearly every day, men walk out on their lives and their families on purpose to little or no fanfare and certainly to not even a fraction of the publicity and uproar that has come about as a result of the Jennifer Wilbanks case. We all know the story of "I'm going out for a pack of cigarettes", when the men in fact never return. None of these men are ever splashed across major news channels, and as a result, none of these men have thousands of police man hours spent on their safe return. And as a result, none of these men are vilified to remotely the amount that America, the press, and Georgia public officials have vilified Jennifer Wilbanks.

I also find it ironic that one major issue of contention is the amount of money spent on searching for Jennifer Wilbanks. This is an understandable conundrum, and one that could quite easily and reasonably be settled in a civil court. However, it is almost as if your office is trying to fight one wrong with another wrong. If the concern over money is so great, then how about the amount of tax dollars that would be spent on prosecuting Ms. Wilbanks? Prosecuting someone is never cheap, and a high profile case such as this would strain even the most robust budgets. And yet, putting someone like Jennifer Wilbanks in jail would do nothing for the initial concern of money; it would only serve as revenge and blood lust for the people who are angry at being tricked.

I implore you to use your limited resources on more important cases to lock up real criminals, and I ask that you leave Ms. Wilbanks and her family alone. They have suffered enough, and putting her in jail or charging her with a crime will not solve anything. I am sure you have much better things to do with your time, your job, and your office's resources than to prosecute this women for telling a lie that ultimately caused little damage.

Sincerely,

me
my address
my state

Well, there you go.

Baltic Brain-Death

2005-05-07T09:18:00.000-07:00

If you watch even five minutes of this so-called-Liberal Media, you'd know that Bush is starting his European trip in the Baltic states (and what a wonderful job he's doing! If you don't agree with that, then you're a communist and a member of the massive Liberal conspiracy to take over our news! Now coming up on Bill O'Reilly and Hannity and Colmes, "Do Democrats cause cancer? We won't tell you unless you switch your party affiliation NOW!").

Phew. I can rant with the best of them. But the funniest thing is not what the media itself did, but what Bush said today in an address to these people in the Baltic states. He said, "We (Americans) remember your painful history."

Now, no doubt whatsoever that the Baltic nations have had a tremendously painful history, I will not even come close to denying that. What I'm having a bit of trouble with is the insinuation of even a small percentage of Americans knowing a damn thing about the Baltic states in the first place.

I dare, even double-dare, just 50% of Americans aged 18-60 to locate the three Baltic states on a map and name them. Just 50%. I don't have high standards. I'm even excluding those people still maneuving through our inadequate school system, and the people old enough to remember when said Baltic states were just the western coast of Russia and the Soviet Union. So really, it shouldn't be that difficult. And I'm not even asking anyone what these countries' painful histories were, even though Bush seems confident that his fellow countrymen and women know all about it! Just name them and point to them on a map!

I doubt even 10 percent of Americans aged 18-60 could do what I'm asking, much less tell you one little detail about the painful histories of the Baltic nations. So Georgie Boy, I know you're trying to make friends with the Europeans after you've heaped buckets of feces in their direction ever since you took office, but don't lie to them or patronize them. They deserve better than that, they deserve better than you, and they deserve better than having a country trying to play nice-nice with them only when it serves that country's interest.

And by the way, it's Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Absolutely beautiful countries wrought with history, both good and bad, but amazing places that everyone should know about. And everyone should be able to point to them on a fucking map.

The Golden Girls and Current Events

2005-05-06T08:54:00.000-07:00

Can everything in current events be traced back to The Golden Girls? It's an interesting theory that I'm sure is being researched by all the top scientists in all the top universities across the country. One of today's seven GG episodes on Lifetime (don't ask me how I know that there are seven, or whether or not I actually watch all seven...) has an interesting correlation to the current Jennifer Wilbanks frenzy.

Sophia and Rose went to a funeral and wake where the guests had a wonderful time telling stories about the dead guy's life and celebrating his life. Sophia thought it was a shame that the dead guy wasn't there to see what people were saying about him, so she decided to throw her own wake, even though she was alive. The problem came when Rose sent out the invitations: she invited everyone to Sophia's wake, but forgot to mention that Sophia was actually alive. So of course everyone thought Sophia was dead.

The guests all show up at the famous GG house sobbing and crying and mourning over the loss of Sophia and wishing they could have just one more minute with her. But lo and behold, when Sophia walks out, very much alive, their sadness immediately turns to anger and fury at being tricked. One woman says, "Sophia, I drove 30 miles and missed a day of work to be here. I think it's very selfish of you NOT to be dead!"

So here we have a similar conundrum to the Jennifer Wilbanks case, one that makes me quite angry. When Jennifer was missing and presumed dead, everyone was despondent, sad, and in the typical, "oh, what a tragedy, if only she were alive" state. The minute she DOES turn up alive, however, everyone is demanding apologies, jail time, monetary damages, head on a stake, etc.

I'm going to post again on the gender and legal implications of this case (yeah, I'm sure there's more important things to blog about, but that's why we have Kos and Americablog and Echidne), but it's interesting how so many things today can all be traced back to The Golden Girls.

Whiny Blogging

2005-04-30T14:37:00.000-07:00

I'm going to complain about something, and dammit, it's my blog, so I'm going to complain if I want to.

Since Tuesday night, the talking heads on the media have been begging and pleading for the safe return of Jennifer Wilbanks, the bride-to-be who went missing on her jog on Tuesday night. The horrible things that could have happend to her were all played out for us: kidnapping, rape, murder, etc. There were also quiet rumblings about "cold feet" and whenever that was mentioned, the family members and the talking heads would always say, "Oh wouldn't it be wonderful if that were the case and she was alive!"

Well, that did turn out to be the case, and guess what? Now everyone is less than thrilled. Immediately the anger and vitriol started. I have to ask why, when the best case scenario happend, is everyone so angry? Wasn't everyone's biggest concern that Jennifer be found alive? If it wasn't, what does that say about the media and the people who are watching the news and saying these things? (I'll give you a hint: the words "sensationalist" and "selfish" and "narrow-minded" are on the tip of my tongue.)

So why would Jennifer Wilbanks run away only days before her wedding?

First of all, this was a HUGE wedding, with over 600 guests and 28 attendants. Whoever paid for this wedding likely put in a ton of money. Jennifer would have had to put in a large amount of time and sacrifice into planning the wedding (anybody tried to plan a traditional wedding recently? I don't know how you come out of it without committing suicide, personally...). Her bridesmaids had already put in a ton of money. The guests had already made arrangements for travel and gifts, etc. Also, I don't know about her family, but her fiance's family is a very prominent and powerful family in the community. This all together amounts to an extraordinary amount of pressure for anyone, especially someone who may be facing second thoughts about marrying someone and spending the rest of her life with that person. It's one thing to face that kind of pressure when you're 100% absolutely sure that the guy is Mr. Right, and quite another to face it when you're not sure.

How do you think her family and friends and fiance would have reacted on Tuesday (with the wedding on Saturday) if she had said, "Eh, I'm having second thoughts, I don't think I want to get married on Saturday after all." They would have most likely reacted with fury, reminding her how much time and effort and money and reputation have all gone into the wedding. It is unlikely that they would have been very sympathetic and understanding and caring.

This is what she was facing, and this was probably why she felt she had to run away rather than just tell people, "I don't want to get married."

So why did she come up with the story of being abducted?

Haven't you ever been scared, and wanted to dig yourself out of a hole? Jennifer probably didn't think her disappearance would garner as much attention and scrutiny as it did, and once she realized that, she felt less able to simply explain the situation away with the "cold feet" excuse. Look at how everyone in America and in the media reacted. Everyone was overjoyed when they thought she was alive after being kidnapped, but then many people, aside from her family, were actually pissed off to find out that she had simply run away.

That, to me, is absolutely disturbing. No, I'm not condoning what Jennifer did (understanding it and condoning it are two different things). But there were actually people this morning who would have preferred to have had Jennifer kidnapped and harmed (it's unlikely that she could have been kidnapped and NOT harmed in some way) than to have had the story end with her simply running away. There were actually people disappointed and ANGRY that the outcome was cold feet as opposed to kidnapping, the latter of which is a scenario that likely would have led to permanent mental scarring and could have involved unspeakable sexual, mental and physical abuse.

That speaks volumes to me about what this country and what human beings are all about. Yes, Jennifer acted in a selfish manner and put her family and friends and fiance through hell by not letting them know she was alive, but it would NOT have been better for her to have been kidnapped and have [insert some abuse] happen to her. It's also preposterous to me that people cannot see what would have driven her to do such a thing. Maybe I shouldn't overgeneralize, but I've felt for a long time that Americans are among the world's worst people at putting themselves in other people's shoes and just thinking, for even five minutes, of what life might be like as someone else. I think that's what is needed in this case as well, but too few people are doing it.

The whole ordeal has disgusted me, but not for the reasons most people are disgusted. I think the best case scenario happend-- she was found alive and was not hurt in any way. If she had been found murdered, the news anchors would have been practically having orgasms giving us the details; instead, they're visibly furious that they were "duped" (who told them to blow the story out of proportion in the first place anyway? If they feel duped, it's their own damn fault.) and angry to report that she's alive. Oh, the horror. How awful to report a happy ending.

And finally, all the news reports are saying "Bride-to-be Faked Abduction Story" or something along those lines. Yes, that's technically true, but let's put that in perspective. She went missing Tuesday night, and called early this (Saturday) morning. Until her phone call, she was simply missing, but with her phone call came the abduction story. Within 2-3 HOURS, after having been missing 3-4 DAYS, this story was fully debunked and discredited. So the abduction story, to me, amounts to a small portion of the whole ordeal, and she didn't hold onto it for long at all. The more honest emphasis should be on her getting cold feet, not the abduction story. But that's just not sensational enough...

Book Report

2005-04-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I read a book that blows me away, and last week, whilst at home sick with an intestinal bug, I read one. I guess it wasn't the book itself, but the story, since it's a true story and a heartbreaking and heartwarming one all at once. So without further ado, here it is: Contempt of Court: The Turn-of-the-Century Lynching That Launched a Hundred Years of Federalism.

It's also a story where I can tell you the whole damn thing and you can still read the book and be enthralled, so you know what? I'm going to tell you the gist of it, because I know most of the world isn't going to sit down and read the book (unfortunately there's no TV movie based on it either, since our society is so anti-reading now).

In 1905, a woman named Nevada Taylor was raped at night near her home in Chattanooga. After some thinking and serious prodding from the sheriff (Sheriff Shipp) and her father, she thought the rapist might be a black man, but she did not ever see his face. Well, of course, this being the South in the early 20th century, the city lusted for blood and rounded up the first black man they could get their hands on-- Ed Johnson. Johnson could easily prove his innocence, but no matter. Within days he was convicted and sentenced to death. (Up to this point, the story is very similar to To Kill A Mockingbird. Which, according to history, is very similar so daily reality at that time, unfortunately.)

Anyway, of course, stories like this happend all the time across the south at that time (and strangely enough, they still do today, though not on the same level). But this story ended differently. Two very brave black lawyers, Styles Hutchins and Noah Parden, took on Ed Johnson's appeal, much to the chagrin of the local Chattanoogans, who wanted him dead by the end of the week (death sentences in those days WERE carried out within 1-2 weeks of convictions). To cut short a long story of legal wrangling in the state courts, let's just say the Tennessee state courts wouldn't have anything to do with the case.

But Hutchins and Parden were undeterred. They actually took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. This was absolutely unprecedented, for two reasons. One, at that time, the SCOTUS rarely, if ever, dealt with state criminal cases like it does today. Second, though this was not the first time in history it had happend, it was still a momentous occasion for black attorneys to be heard before the SCOTUS.

And be heard they were. The justices were all outraged at Ed Johnson's trial, or lack thereof. They immediately issued him a stay of execution and sent notice Sheriff Shipp and other Chattanooga authorities notifying them of the stay.

Needless to say, the mood in Chattanooga was bitter and angry and vengeful. Within a day or two, a lynch mob was formed. The details are, of course, sketchy, but on March 19, 1906 all prisoners sharing the floor with Ed Johnson were moved to a separate floor and most policemen were told to take the night off. A lynch mob gathered outside the jail, easily broke in and kidnapped Ed Johnson from the jail. They dragged him to a local bridge, hung him from a rope, fired dozens of bullets into him, and then dropped him into the river below. His last words were, "God bless you all. I am a innocent man."

And yet the story still doesn't end there. The SCOTUS was again outraged and decided to take action. At first, they just weren't quite sure how, but finally they decided to charge Sheriff Shipp and others involved in the lynch mob with the charge of contempt of court. Since I have a headache and this post is getting long, I'll start winding it down. Not everyone was found guilty, but Sheriff Shipp and several others were, and were sentenced to several months worth of jail. Unfortunately, they all returned home to a heroes' welcome and lived their lives out as public icons and never had to suffer any serious consequenses as a result of their despicable actions. The case itself set a huge precedent for the Supreme Court and its ability to intervene in state cases, despite being virtually forgotten by history. And thanks to the first publication of the book and the publicity it generated, the state of Tennessee finally threw out Ed Johnson's conviction and declared him an innocent man, in the year 2000, 94 years after his death.

Anyway, good book, amazing and tragic story. Read it if you get the chance.

Where Was I?

2005-04-13T09:43:00.000-07:00

So except for my recent Pope-fest post, it's been FIVE MONTHS since I've written on this heavily trafficked blog! ;) But where have I been?

Emotionally drained, that's where. That election hit me hard. Bush "won", my arch-nemesis David Vitter won a Senate seat (giving him MORE power), this total blow-hard Bobby Jindal won a seat in the House for my district. All bad, bad, DIRE news. At first I took it pretty well. I said, "Screw this, we'll just fight harder." But then I started noticing that no matter how hard you fight, there's always so many idiots out there willing to believe the bullshit Bush pumps out, there's always the right-wing media to grind your ass back into the mud, there's always politicians desperate to take away your rights.

This isn't a pep-talk. I'm still down about politics and about this country in general. I'm very worried and frightened. But I'm going to try and face it again, rather than spend five months shying away from anything political and especially my beloved blog (that no one reads...).

So that's where I've been. And in a delicious irony, yesterday and today, I've seen two of those Ad Council ads for registerandvote2004.org. A little late, are we?

On the Pope

2005-04-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

"Oh my God," you're thinking, "this blogger comes back from the dead to post about the fucking POPE??!!"

I know, I know. It's that old Catholic guilt, I can't help it. I've never officially been a Catholic, but went to a Catholic school and was indoctrinated very well in that religion, thank you very much. I gave up on organized religion at age 15 and I've spent the last 9 or so years in a state of deep inner spirituality and feeling closely connected to God on a very personal, private manner while being outwardly agnostic (you think I want to be associated with today's Christians? When people like Bush and Jerry Falwell and Randall Terry claim the religion? I don't think so!).

I'm very torn on Pope John Paul II. I know, it's not "PC" to talk bad about him now. People like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity had no qualms talking shit about him when he was alive, but now they're lying prostrate before him and proclaiming him to be the perfect Republican pope out there. There's a word for that: hypocrites. I prefer not to be one.

But PJPII did a lot of good during his reign, and I'll be the first to admit it. His stance on capital punishment, capitalism, concern for the poor, and war were commendable and brave. He was one of the few people brave enough to stand up to Bush regarding the Iraq War. Considering that only a couple of centuries ago, popes were committing murders, waging wars, fathering children out of wedlock, etc. themselves, this is a vast improvement. (Don't believe me? Open a history book sometime, one that isn't revisionist... Hell, you really only need to look up one word: BORGIA. All of Shakespeare's tragedies combined couldn't rival that story.)

Anyway, there's also the bad stuff PJPII did during his reign. His stance on abortion, while I fervently disagree with it and I believe it puts women's lives in extreme danger, is at least in line with that naive notion of "pro-life" and he stayed pretty consistent with that (though I would welcome him and people who believe that to venture out into the real world sometime and see how it works). But his continued resistance to birth control was not only reckless but in the end it works against the anti-abortion cause by causing more unwanted pregnancies. And it shows the regard with which the papacy and the Vatican hold women in general: we are only as useful as our wombs are full and flowing. If we don't want to be like the Virgin Mary and have our own baby Jesuses, then we are wicked selfish feminists who are responsible for much of the evil in the world today.

And the pope did nothing to make homosexuals feel welcome in the Church; in fact, he did the opposite, by explicitly claiming that homosexuality is an "ideology of evil." In 1992, he even spoke out against America making it a crime to discriminate against homosexuals in the workplace. Something tells me that Jesus, who himself never said anything about homosexuality in the Bible, would not be happy. But hey, it sure bridged that gap between the evangelical Protestants and Catholics. Meanwhile, gay teens have the highest rate of suicide in the U.S. When someone like the Pope calls homosexuality evil, he may think he's following catechism (and maybe he is, and maybe he's right, I don't have the pipeline to God, but neither does anyone else), but what he DOES contribute to is our society thinking it's okay to think badly of gays, to taunt them, to think they're bad people, to think they're evil. What does that do to a confused teenager who can't find support anywhere? Why is it any surprise that so many of them turn to suicide?

But I haven't even gotten to my biggest gripe with the pope. Everyone is already talking about sainthood and that this is the holiest of popes we've ever had. How quickly everyone has forgotten his behavior during the child molestation scandal. The Boston archdiocese was one of the largest affected church diocese in America, with hundreds or thousands of kids molested over several decades, all under the watchful and very-much-knowing eye of Archbishop Bernard Law. When one parishioner came forward with allegations of abuse, Law would guilt them into shutting up (anyone will do anything if you're afraid of eternal damnation) and then would quickly transfer that priest to a new parish where no one knew anything. This literally went on for decades. When the truth finally came out, Law had to resign in disgrace.

Within a year or two, the pope annointed him to a position in the Vatican as a cardinal. It was an absolute slap in the face for all the little children who were abused by priests while Law stood by and permitted it. From a church that prides itself on being pro-life and ranting about "children being a gift from God," we got a move like that from our pope. Think of what that did to the people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from their experiences with priest molestation.

I don't wish eternal hellfire and damnation on many people, and least of all, the Pope. (Though Cardinal Bernard Law is certainly someone who deserves it, in my book.) But if Pope John Paul II walked through those pearly gates immediately upon his death on Saturday, I hope, at the very least, that he got the biggest and most though-provoking lecture from God that he ever could've imagined. He may not deserve to suffer through eternal hell, but he needs to at least know of the suffering he caused on this earth.

Short Random Blogging

2004-11-06T16:33:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to waste time giving you my opinions on the election outcome, because you can just skim over my posts below and know how I feel. Within five seconds. So let's talk about other things, like what others are saying and like what else is going on in the world. Pull up a chair. We'll chat.

First, there's a lot of "lists" out there right now, and they're fairly good if you need a quick pick-me-up. Michael Moore has, on his front page, 17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists. Since I'm sick of hearing about Bush's "mandate", I'm posting my favorite reason below:

16. There are nearly 300 million Americans -- 200 million of them of voting age. We only lost by three and a half million! That's not a landslide -- it means we're almost there. Imagine losing by 20 million. If you had 58 yards to go before you reached the goal line and then you barreled down 55 of those yards, would you stop on the three yard line, pick up the ball and go home crying -- especially when you get to start the next down on the three yard line? Of course not! Buck up! Have hope! More sports analogies are coming!!!

Michael Moore did not include the most important reason not to slit your wrists: Bush isn't fucking worth it. And that's all I'll say on that. Anyway, onto the always wonderful Guerilla Girls! They actually have a list of The Advantages of Another Bush Presidency. Ahhh, always looking on the bright side... And last but not least, as far as I know at least, is Ten Reasons Not to Move to Canada (though it doesn't mention mention moving to a blue state).

Huh. Don't we all feel better now...

If you are like me and are now firmly decided to leave your red state in the dust and move to a blue one (that way oversimplifies it, there IS more to it than that), then these fun maps will help.

Anyway, for more election and political blogging, be sure to keep up with the DailyKos blog. There's a lot of suspicious stuff surrounding this last election, and you know what? I don't feel like writing about it. Too tired. Too much wanting to move forward and fight like hell in the future. It's very valuable for people to go ahead and discuss it, since knowing the past helps make sure the future doesn't contain the same fuck-ups and frauds, but I'm going to be selfish and let other people take on that task...

Okay, second to last on the docket, though probably most important on the docket, is this post at feministing.com and this one at echidne's blog. It's the shit we have to look forward to if Roe v. Wade is either reversed or made even more impotent. Abortion is a high crime in Portugal, and because criminalizing abortion does not STOP abortions (please, PLEASE listen for once, right wingers!!!) then women are suffering tremendously-- 1,000 women last year alone had to be hospitalized from complications from illegal abortions. This in a country of 10 million people. Imagine the number in a country of 300 million. Let's imagine it only, and fight to keep it from being a reality.

Finally, there's a lot of people distraught and whining about what to do. That's fine. Take some time off to mourn if you need to, go and do something fun for yourself, like splurging on a new shirt or a new CD you've been wanting, or watching your favorite movie Pride and Prejudice 5,000 times in a week (oops, did I just say that out loud??).

But come back soon and re-join the fight. Mourning for the next four years will not help our cause. In my opinion, on of our biggest areas of concern in the fight is the media, particularly the television news. We have to fight its bias, we have to fight its bad habit of conveniently leaving out important items of news while telling us every minute detail about Jessica Simpson's marriage and Scott Peterson's murder trial. So every time you see something obviously biased, write them. Tell them. Look what we managed to do with Sinclair-- we brought them close to their fucking knees. (A side note: if you're in school or have a family or whatever, this form of activism may not work with Fox"News." If you wrote them for every biased piece of quote-unquote journalism, you'd probably end up neglecting your grades or your spouse and/or children. Focus on the other channels for now.)

Click on the websites to your right, the ones under "Organizations and Charities." Most of them have "Action Alert" email sign-ups. Do that. Set up some random Hotmail account just for activism stuff, so that it doesn't clog up your other inboxes. But when they ask you to take action, do it. It takes between 5 seconds and 2 minutes apiece, and if enough of us do it, it'll make a difference.

Finally, for your stress level, try to avoid having a work environment like mine, where all your coworkers are avid Bush supporters who actually say, with a straight face, some of the following:

1. Saddam Hussein financed and helped orchestrate the Sept. 11 attacks.
2. Terrorists attack us because they hate the fact that we have freedom and we're a rich country.
3. We're totally rebuilding everything in Iraq.
4. Freedom comes at a heavy cost, and the Iraqis should understand that and be happy about what we're doing.
5. The media is so hopelessly liberal, I can't trust the news or statistics. Even Fox News has a liberal bias to it.
6. You can say what you want, but Bush has convictions. He is NOT a flip-flopper. He stands by what he says. And it's important for a president to appeal to the common people. I can see that he's not very smart, and he's not very articulate, but I believe that those would not affect his decision making regarding our country.
7. What's NOT to like about Bush????

Yes, that is my daily life. You may pity me now...

Okay, let's all regroup, let's all get inspired, let's all fight our asses off. Because we're right, and we will win. It's as simple as that.

Just what the world needs...

2004-10-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

This actually isn't a political post. Are you surprised? ;)

(One will be coming later though...)

Anyway, it's a personal one. I work at my minimum wage, low skill and demeaning job with some really cool women who are between 19 and 23 (I'm 24). I get along really well with them, and I'll be the first to admit that despite the big "Bush/Cheney" stickers on all their cars, they are pretty freaking awesome.

That being said, one of them, let's call her Jenna (after Bush's daughter, to go with the "Bush/Cheney" theme, and the fact that I totally have this election on my mind) has this boyfriend. This boyfriend, whom we'll call George, is studying to be a youth minister in the Catholic Church. He and Jenna are super devout Catholics in every way imaginable, which is all well and good to me-- no problems there.

Today, though, Jenna was telling me that George has a brother who just came out of the closet, and she claimed that George now "hates this brother more than anyone on the planet." Later on, she made a quick comment about how George constantly says mean things and makes cruel jokes about homosexuals. She alluded to the fact that she's uncomfortable, and even hurt, that he would do this.

To be honest, I don't know enough yet about Jenna and George to make any judgements on either of them or his gay brother. But what I want to know is this: why is a person studying to be a Catholic youth minister, who wants to share the word of God and Jesus with young people, who wants to devote his career to God-- why is he hateful of ANYONE? Why is he mean and spiteful about ANYONE's life, even if it is a "choice" to be gay? And last, but not least, what the hell Bible is he reading that makes it okay to hate anyone, least of all your own brother?

I've been trying to find the damn Bible that these right-wingers are reading, to find those radical differences like "The death penalty is okay!" and "War is good!" and "God has annointed George W. Bush as our leader!" But damn if I'm not having the hardest time finding those passages anywhere. There's a whole bunch of stuff about peace and love and forgiveness, etc. But apparently these "missing passages" have profound stuff that supercedes all of that Jesus-talk...

Huh. The point of my bitter sarcastic rant is this: the world does not need any more hateful people masquerading around as religious leaders. The world does not need any more cruel and spiteful people using their religion to justify their bigotry and hatred. The world does not need any more people confusing and distorting God's word. And the world most fucking certainly does not need a person who does all of these things to be working with and preaching to children.

That is all.

Friday Night Random Blogging

2004-10-22T20:58:00.000-07:00

Everyone else seems to have "Friday Night Cat Blogging" but I've been a busy little beaver this past week or so collecting loads and loads of articles for your reading pleasure. So here's to a totally random avalanche of information! Since Election Day is but a week and a half away, most of the focus is on my main man, Georgie Boy, and his Evil Cohorts. So pull up a chair, do some reading, and get pretty damned angry!

First up is probably my favorite: 100 Facts and One Opinion on George W. Bush and his administration. As if most of you needed even one more reason to despise the man, though... My mother has often asked me, "Why can't we all just get along?" (She places the onus on the liberals, though.) Reading through those facts is my proof of why we can't all get along and vindication for me and millions of others who fight like hell.

But there's the question: Why, oh WHY, are people still crazy enough to support him? One psychologist weighs in with his opinion, and of course there's always those heightened approval ratings Bush gets whenever there's heightened "terror threat alerts." That doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of Bush supporters are extraordinarily misinformed about his administration and its policies/ wars/ statements, etc. (See the actual study report here in case you find those numbers too hard to believe.) And if you were an amnesiac since at least 2000, Molly Ivins has a touching and nostalgic report on the last four years with Bush.

Of course, it's always good in a smarmy, nyah-nyah kind of way to read about all these damn Republicans who are endorsing Kerry. Here's a list (notice how much longer it is than the list with Democrats for Bush here). But in case you wanted more substance, here's the actual links to letters and/or articles written by these brave people: Marlow Cook, former Michigan Governor William Milliken, Jesse Ventura, Bob Barr, and my personal favorite, John Eisenhower (son of Dwight Eisenhower).

Along with the Republicans endorsing Kerry are many newspapers across the country doing the same. This website has a running tally as of last Sunday.

Kerry gained the editorial backing of at least 30 papers while Bush won the support of 17 that we know of, giving Kerry the overall lead by 45-30 in E&P's exclusive tally. Kerry has more large papers on his side, maintaining his "circulation edge" at nearly 3-1, with approximately 8.7 million circ to Bush's 3.3 million. (We will post a complete tally Monday.)

You know it's bad when even your own bloody relatives are fighting against your reelection: Bush Relatives For Kerry. And this list of trends in Kerry's favor made me feel warm and fuzzy one day after seeing more Bush/Cheney signs and bumperstickers than usual. We may win this one yet, despite rampant voter fraud and suppression (see below)...

All is not lost, however. Bush has picked up some very prestigious endorsements from Iran and Russia (two brilliant leaders in the fight for human and civil rights everywhere!). Better listen to them, rather than the majority of the whole wide world who want Kerry to be elected president...

With all the talk about this current presidency being the "most secretive ever" one wonders, What exactly are they hiding under their dirty trenchcoats over there at Pennsylvania Avenue? Is it Bush's Civil Rights Record? That link is all professional and unbiased (who wants that when there's some good rants to be had?), but here's one that dares to offer opinions. And then there's all the talk about the Pre-9/11 Accountability Report that the president is conveniently withholding from Congress until after the election. If he's never made a mistake that he's aware of, then what the hell is he so afraid of? And why's he being so secretive about this big huge corporate tax cut bill he just signed-- aren't tax cuts what he's all about? Or is he trying to combat that cruel, "undeserving" opinion that he's looking out for the richest of the rich, and fuck everybody else? Huh. Whatever the story is, it's interesting to note that they are now purging audio and video clips and transcripts of Bush from the White House website. I guess those things will end up wherever the factual information on condoms and birth control that got purged from the CDC website ended up... As in, away from all those pesky Americans wanting those "inconvenient" civil liberties.

Is anyone else sick and bloody well tired of hearing the Republican terror campaign use and reuse the old line of "A vote for Kerry is a vote for Al-Qaeda" and "Bin Laden wants you to vote for Kerry," etc.? I am, especially since a simple logic test on the increase in terror attacks and al-Qaeda recruitment since the Iraq War proves that theory wrong.

Beautiful humor from the former Python, John Cleese (via Echidne's blog):

'How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?'

None. There’s nothing wrong with that light bulb. There is no need to change anything. We made the right decision and nothing has happened to change our minds. People who criticize this light bulb now, just because it doesn’t work anymore, supported us when we first screwed it in, and when these flip-floppers insist on saying that it is burned out, they are merely giving aid and encouragement to the Forces of Darkness.-- John Cleese

Another great political satire piece from Cleese can be found here - I'm more axis of eviller than you!!

Voter fraud resources, so you're informed BEFORE the giant fuck-up on Election Day: this is a good basic list, and this one goes into more detail and divides the facts up by state. When ordered to own up to these atrocious acts, the RNC people screamed, "We're not the only ones doing it! The Democrats are doing it too!" Yet no lawsuits or even actual fact-based allegations have been laid against the Dems' door, that I'm aware of at least. (That's not to say the Dems are totally innocent, they're probably just busier fighting Nader than ripping up people's voter registration forms or sending in "officials" to terrorize elderly black neighborhoods. And Kerry has no brother in a swing state to purge voters from the lists either...) Anyway, things have gotten so bad that foreigners are warning of major problems and threats to our prestigious democracy due to all the voter suppression and fraud. (Aren't we supposedly acting as the "model of democracy" for all those "savage countries" like Iraq and Afghanistan?)

Anyway, I'm tired so I'm leaving you now with two quick bits. First, thank God for the French! They'll be saving the day with their Freedom Flu Shots to help the massive shortage we have. Maybe the right wingers will back off of their obsessive compulsive need to bash the French at every turn, but... I doubt it. Second, Bush's own Denomination, United Methodists, has some members demanding that he repent his sins. Since, as noted above, he does not believe he's made a single mistake since 9/11, I doubt he'll be doing it. But anyway. It's there.

It's the economy, stupid

2004-10-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight at the debates, President Bush was asked the following question:

You know, there are all kind of statistics out there, but I want to bring it down to an individual.

Mr. President, what do you say to someone in this country who has lost his job to someone overseas who's being paid a fraction of what that job paid here in the United States?

Here is the first part of Bush's brilliant response:

I'd say, Bob, I've got policies to continue to grow our economy and create the jobs of the 21st century. And here's some help for you to go get an education. Here's some help for you to go to a community college.

We've expanded trade adjustment assistance. We want to help pay for you to gain the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century.

You know, there's a lot of talk about how to keep the economy growing. We talk about fiscal matters. But perhaps the best way to keep jobs here in America and to keep this economy growing is to make sure our education system works.

Listen here, Prezzie, I've got a full-blown college education with a big freaking ass Bachelor's Degree and I graduated Magna cum Laude and I studied AND worked abroad in London for several months. And you know what? I spent a year and a half desperately searching for a job with my big fat educational credentials in tow, until last week when I had to settle for a minimum wage, low skill retail job. (By the way, I'll consequently be losing my health insurance, which is another thing Kerry busted a cap in your ass about.) So this isn't about education, this is about the ruinous economy and the disastrous policies and leadership that have been the backbone of your pathetic excuse for a presidential reign.

Fuck you and your stupid excuses and your desperate attempts to change the subject so you won't have to face reality. Get this-- reality is something the rest of us have to deal with every fucking day. And fuck you for belittling those of us most hurt by your policies and your reign as president by saying "all we need is a little education." There are graduates of NYU Law School roaming the streets of New York City, penniless and jobless despite graduating from one of the most prestigious law schools in the whole WORLD. (Oh, but I guess you'd find some way to blame that on the need for "tort reform", wouldn't you?) And there are millions of us with full-blown, read-it-and-weep educational credentials who are either unemployed or drastically underemployed. So either grow the fuck up and face reality or at least come up with a better excuse for your sorry ass presidency.

Yeah, that's right, John Ashcroft and keepers of the Patriot Act flame-- I said it and I'm not taking one iota of it back. So piss off.

Figuring stuff out...

2004-10-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

So I've started this new job this week (it's just a minimum wage retail job-- don't do any "yay, the economy is better!" cartwheels for me, thank you very much) and I'm trying to study for the LSAT test that I'll be taking in December, upon which my entire law school future rides... It's effectively two full time jobs, with me being a full-time migraine sufferer, so that's fun.

But what's a blogger to do? I haven't had many spare moments to write on this blog, and I'm sorry for that, but damn... how do the rest of you prolific bloggers juggle life, work and blogging?

I've got to get a routine, because this blog is important to me (even if I'm mostly talking to myself). It's a bit overwhelming at the moment-- all aspects of my life, not just the blogging bit (that really would make me a full-time nerd, wouldn't it?).

So I'm off to go try and work on my routine and get the kinks out...

Think Before You Pink

2004-10-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2003 I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship to attend the National Women's Studies Association Conference in New Orleans, and one of the workshops I attended was on breast cancer and the hype and inaction surrounding it. The researcher speaking to us spoke of these ad campaigns, like Yoplait-- you send in the pink lids and they'll donate a paltry amount of money and they cap off the total amount of money they'll donate at a slightly higher paltry sum of money compared to their business profits. You see the ads and think, "Oooh, I'd be doing something good by consuming Yoplait yogurt!" and you might be tempted to go buy them. Also, chances are that you'll buy the yogurts with good intentions and then never take the time to mail in the lids. But wait! If Yoplait really cared about breast cancer research, why are they employing that gimmick? If they're going to cap off their total donation at, say, $250,000, why don't they just donate that much in the first place and not make us send in all those bloody lids? Because you can't ask for a better advertising campaign than that, and it makes you feel good for buying their product and it makes Yoplait look good for caring so much.

There's tons more examples of this kind of exploitation from companies, as well as examples of sexist imagery within those campaigns. But rather than you listening to me ranting and raving, go to the Breast Cancer Action webpage that's dedicated to getting the word out about how little is actually being done to fight breast cancer. This PDF file shows another example of the hypocrisy of these "Breast Cancer Awareness" campaigns designed to get you to buy more products-- in this case, cosmetics, which contain ingredients that increase your chances of getting breast cancer. In case you're thinking, "Dude, they're trying, quit your damn whining!" please read their FAQ's:

Why would Breast Cancer Action criticize programs that raise money for breast cancer organizations?
We’re not opposed to companies raising money for the cause. But we’re concerned about what appears to be a trend of companies claiming to support the fight against breast cancer while using or producing toxins that may increase a person’s risk of developing the disease.

[snip]

Shouldn’t companies at least be commended for donating some of their profits to a good cause? Isn’t giving some money to a breast cancer organization better than doing nothing?
“Not so bad” is not good enough. While the interest in breast cancer fundraising is encouraging, we often have no idea how much these companies are raising or how it’s being spent. What happens to the money that does make it to the cause? Is it doing anything worthwhile for women with, or at risk for, breast cancer?

Many millions of dollars are raised every year to advance the fight against breast cancer—by nonprofits and corporations alike—but breast cancer rates climb year after year.

Many organizations currently fund cancer research, including government agencies (such as the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and private foundations (such as the Susan G. Komen Foundation and Estee Lauder’s Breast Cancer Research Foundation), not to mention pharmaceutical companies. This level of interest and energy is encouraging, but their work is not coordinated in any way. Research conducted by a drug company in California could be the same as a study conducted by a research hospital in New York or a nonprofit agency in Atlanta. There is no system in place for making sure that research efforts move us forward toward effective treatments and true prevention, or even that current research efforts complement each other. (Read more about this problem.)

[snip]

How can consumers decide whether to buy a particular product marketed to raise money for the cause?
Breast Cancer Action suggests consumers ask themselves a few critical questions:
* How much money actually goes to the cause? For instance, Yoplait donates ten cents for every pink yogurt lid mailed back to the company. American Express has given one cent per purchase (of any amount), meaning a shopper would have to make 100 purchases to raise one dollar for the cause. In some cases it seems to make more sense to write a check directly to a breast cancer organization instead.

* How are the funds being raised? Is it through products that contain chemicals associated with the disease? Is it a tournament on a golf course sprayed with pesticides?

* Who gets the money? Many campaigns make a vague promise that the proceeds will go toward “the fight against breast cancer.” If you can’t tell who benefits—or if you can but don’t think the organization does important work—reconsider the purchase.

* What types of programs are being supported? Programs supporting “breast cancer awareness” aren’t likely to bring us any closer to stemming the rising rates of the disease. It’s time to move past awareness, toward true prevention.

And this PDF file points out the near uselessness of purchasing these products because of their breast cancer tags-- one vacuum cleaner offers to donate $1 for every purchase... of a $200 product! Eureka cannot afford to do better than this? And if your intentions are to cure breast cancer, don't get sucked into buying products that supposedly support the cause-- donate the bloody money yourself straight up and skip the middle man. Continuing with the Yoplait analogy, this list of Breast Cancer campaigns points this out:

Yoplait yogurt's Save Lids to Save Lives campaign has urged consumers each fall for the past six years to buy pink-lidded cups of yogurt and mail the lids back. For each lid mailed in between September 1 and December 31, Yoplait donates ten cents to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. A woman would have to eat three containers of Yoplait every day during the four-month campaign to raise $36 for the cause. Of increasing concern for consumers, many cows are given rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone). Recent studies show that rBGH dairy products may be linked with increased risk of breast, colon and prostate cancer.

And of course, it wouldn't be a real issue if there wasn't an online video! This is BCA's video ad describing the issues and problems with breast cancer funding and donations, and the fact that so little has been done and there's little we can do to know the progress of the research institutions.

Anyway, this is an issue about which we should all be informed, and I hope you'll at least check out the links I've provided at the BCA site, though there's much, much more information to be had by searching around more...

Reminder! All Points Bulletin!

2004-10-07T17:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, I feel like I'm mothering all of you with these "reminder" posts, but it's absolutely imperative that no forget to watch tonight's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart!!! Bill O'Reilly will be on there for his ass-kicking from Jon Stewart (give him hell, Jon!) and he'll be on the stoned slackers' own turf.

Anyway, here are the times it will be showing (all in Central time, because that's MY time zone, baby):

Premiere, 10 P.M. CDT Thursday, Comedy Central
Re-run, 12 midnight CDT Friday morning, Comedy Central
Re-run, 9 a.m. CDT Friday, Comedy Central
Re-run, 6 p.m. CDT Monday, Comedy Central

That's FOUR chances to see it! You have no excuse, unless you don't get Comedy Central in the first place, which is a pretty good excuse...

Don't forget....

2004-10-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

In my last post I included some links to the Washington Post, which requires registration. I link to several sites that do the same, but don't say, "Oh, I have to register, forget it then!"

Always go to www.bugmenot.com for usernames and passwords so you don't get extra spam and lose any privacy you might have had. So you can't use that as an excuse anymore!

Arab-American Comedians

2004-10-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

If anyone buys or rents the new Fahrenheit 9/11 DVD, make sure you watch the extra scenes, particularly the "Arab-American Comedians" scene. I was laughing so hard that I decided to investigate further...

If you're in New York City next week, make sure you hit the second annual Arab-American Comedy Festival. It's Oct. 10-13, and you're sure to make me super jealous if you go. The first annual Festival is what's highlighted on the F-9/11 DVD.

For a taste of some of the major comic players themselves, there's Dean Obeidallah, Maysoon Zayid, and Ahmed Ahmed (no, not the FBI's Most Wanted terrorist). Obviously there's many more, that's just some of them.

And of course, my favorite, there's videos online! They're sure to give you several minutes, maybe even an hour total, of pure comic bliss. First up is a Washington Post report on the Arab-American comedian community that mixes reporting with actual comedy clips. It's about 10 minutes total, but very informative and very funny at the same time (I bet you thought that wasn't possible!). Second is NPR's report on the First Annual Arab-American Comedy Festival. It's in the same vein as the WP one, in that it has reporting and show highlights, but also very worth the 10 or so minutes. This is a slightly dodgy-quality video of and interview with Dean Obeidallah and from the same site is another slightly dodgy-quality video of and interview with Nasry Malak. Wow, and here's one with Maysoon Zayid! You should be in video heaven with over an hour's worth of comedic genius and Arab-American insight there in just one paragraph!

So now we go on to the reading material, which is just as important, though probably less funny. First is an insightful article on the recent history of Arab-American comedy from an online comedy magazine that's riddled with improper grammar, but still good if it's not a pet peeve for you like it is me. From the Washington Post again is an online chat transcript from Dean Obeidallah where he answers readers' questions. And here's a good interview with Dean Obeidallah and Maysoon Zayid. Because I'm thinking that none of you are going to read all these links, here's a quote from the last link from Dean Obeidallah in response to the question, "What’s the most disturbing remark, or event that has happened to you or you have experienced?":

I’ve heard someone say things like, you know, “we should kill all the Arabs” type of thing, or, “they’re all terrorists anyway”. To me the most irritating thing is the lumping together of everybody. The most common thing I hear a lot, and it’s disturbing, is like “Oh come on, all the Palestinians support terrorism, all the Palestinians are really like in their own way terrorists”.

And they don’t mean it in a kind of “they should all be killed” type of thing, but it sort of discounts the suffering of the people. That probably bothers me more, because that’s more a thinking person. A person who is just a racist and hates all Arabs, it’s easy to discount them. They’re so outside of the norm of the real world, people discount them. But it’s the thinking, normal people who get the idea from television that “they’re all Palestinians, they all support terrorism…look how the kids are dressed up” [they show pictures of kids holding a gun, dressed up like they want to be suicide bombers when they’re six]. That’s the most troubling.

Sometimes I don’t blame the people for saying it as much as that’s the only way it’s portrayed in the media. And the goal of those pictures being presented in our media is simply the support of Israel, so that people think that even if a kid dies, it doesn’t matter because that kid’s going to grow up to be a suicide bomber anyway. So that’s more disturbing than the truly blanket-racist comments that someone might say.

I think that sums up one of the most important things that these comedians are doing, and I applaud them all for getting up there and working and talking about these things when it may not be the most socially acceptable thing for them to do.

I'm baaaaaack!

2004-10-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm not totally over my mourning period but the blogging world desperately needs me now. Since it's Wednesday night, the night when I usually do my "Random Great Things" posts, I shall do a Random Great Things post. Keeping with that tradition is one of the very, very, very few ways in which I am a conservative... :)

So first let's do a round-up on the VP debate last night. Because of my propensity for migraines, I did not watch that one or the prezzie debate last week, but I do regret the VP one. For all his lies, at least Cheney can speak with decent grammar skills. Call me classist, call me snotty, but I really demand that the "leader of the free freaking world" be able to speak English somewhat well. Anyway, rounding-up this is not, so here we go:

Factcheck.org!!! No, not the anti-Bush website that Cheney told you all to visit. I'm talking about the real deal, except that he may also be eating his words on that too-- they detail his numerous lies and distortions from last night. (Yes, Edwards got some in too, and shame on him for those, but the group even says that Edwards was more correct than Cheney...) While you're at it, peruse the site-- there's some great stuff there about BOTH sides lying and distorting the truth.

All of the news sites my mother reads and all the men my father works with all say that Cheney won by a landslide and that John Edwards is the new Dan Quayle. (I won't taint my beautiful blog by posting links to that dog crap.) Now, I didn't watch it, but I've read most of the transcript, and pardon me, but what the hell? I wouldn't say Edwards "won" necessarily (it doesn't appear to me that either of them won, unless we're allowed to discount Cheney's lies, in which case Edwards kicked major ass) but he didn't "lose" either. Anyway, Kos has a good roundup of some of the major newspaper outlets' opinions on the debate, and they differ slightly from the general Fox "News" crowd.

Ugh, this round-up is proving to be boooooo-ring. What isn't boring is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (stoned slackers unite!) so here's some clips. The first is about the take on the actual debates (sorry about the annoying but necessary ads-- you can't get around them, apparently).

And for a brilliant rant about the prezzie debate last week, there's always Pinko Feminist Hellcat. Point by point, she wipes the floor spotless with Bush's lies and stupidity. The DNC does it too, they just had to be more politically correct and polite about it though, and who wants that? And who knew the president was so predictable? American Progress had its list of facts and rebuttals before the debate, based solely on predictions of what he would say. (Not surprising, he can only complete about 3 sentences total, so who is surprised when he repeats them over and over and over and over...)

Videos are fun. Here's a video round-up of Bush's facial expressions that night. And here's a round-up of the fun, overboard repetitions of Republicans (9/11!!! 9/11!!! Saddam!!! Saddam!!! Turra-rists!!! Turra-rists!!!). And this is one close to home because of my father's company's newfound joy at outsourcing jobs. (Please take the time to read the facts and the actions at the site as well.)

Onto other things...

There's a lot of good reasons to dislike John Kerry and I'll be the first to say that. After last week, though, most prominent among those reasons was his too-dark-tan, his Botox, his windsailing and his "I'm not gonna stay in the goddamn kitchen with my bare feet" wife. Those are not good reasons. Chances are, though, that among the "good" reasons we've heard things about Kerry's defense voting record in the Senate, and chances are even greater that what you've all heard is false and/or misleading. So factcheck.org (the real one!! Haha, stupid Cheney...) has organized the facts behind the myth. And then of course, we've all heard about the "self-inflicted wounds" for which Kerry received the Purple Hearts and the desperate attempts to undermine Kerry's military service and his professional career. This should dispel that-- a year by year analysis of what Kerry and Bush were doing at the same time. It's long, but if you're one of the wankers wearing band-aids with purple hearts on them, sit your ass down and read it and then give yourself 20 lashings for being so disrespectful to veterans.

Well, tune in tomorrow for a psycho-analysis (and I do mean psycho!) of the Bush campaign. I'd do it tonight, but I'm too tired so, um, there. Have a good night, my friends! My bed awaits...

Pain down to your bones

2004-10-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

Onto a personal topic: tonight we had to put our eldest pet rat, Chin, to sleep. I spoke about her earlier here and here. It's hard for people who aren't either just naturally compassionate or for those who don't have rats as pets to really sympathize with us or know how deeply we feel their loss, but to us, they are just as much pets as any cat or dog. I've devoted a good portion of my recent life to nursing Chin and taking her to the vet these past few months, as she's gotten sicker and sicker and needed almost round-the-clock care.

There's so much pain inside me right now. I can feel it almost down in my bones, and I have to stop sometimes and catch my breath because the emptiness and sadness literally takes my breath away. But she was getting worse, and the vet told us on Saturday that she may not be suffering very badly, but that she would never get any better. Seeing as to how she was already blind, already drastically skinny from not being able to digest food, already unable to keep much balance and how she's been suffering from an ongoing cold for a couple of months now, we knew it was time.

Knowing that and knowing you did the right thing rarely makes the grieving process much easier though.

I know this is incredibly sappy, but this poem has made me feel much better today as I've spent much of the day grieving for my little baby:

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor. Those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent. His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together....

Author unknown...

Chin had a sister to whom she was very close and who died back in April, and it's a comforting feeling picturing them frolicking together in a place where I'll see them one day.

Anyway, I hope you'll understand if I don't post too much the next couple of days...

Fever delirium

2004-09-30T19:19:00.000-07:00

So I'm running a 102 degree fever today and feeling pretty lousy, so I may not be the most prolific blogger in the next few days. Don't leave me though! ;) I'm sure you couldn't keep me from posting tomorrow about the debates, and the subsequent pundit-fest that's bound to start happening any minute now...

Anyway, to lighten up the mood, here are some cool bumpersticker quotes I found at this site (I bolded my absolute favorite one-- I nearly fell out of my chair laughing, but again, I'm running a high fever so I could just be delirious!):

* Focus on your own damn family
* A PBS Mind in a FOX News World Sticker
* The only thing we have to fear is Bush himself
* Has Anyone Seen My Constitutional Rights?
* Have I Found Jesus? Don't tell me he's lost AGAIN!
* I'm Too Poor to Vote Republican
* If You Want Country Run By Religion Move to Iran
* Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Oil
* I Found Jesus - He Was In My Trunk When I Got Back From Tijuana

We will not back down

2004-09-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

Aside from the "where are the women bloggers?" war that's been going on in the progressive blogosphere (I spoke about it here) there's also been a bit of a war going on regarding women's issues, more specifically, reproductive rights, and whether they're "important enough" to factor into this election.

Anyway, I've been searching the past 25 minutes to find the blog post on one of 3 blogs where I read this, but you'll just have to take my word for it: one man (and yes, we know it was a man, because only someone without a uterus and vagina would say it) actually suggested that we might have to give up our fight for reproductive rights so that we can win this election. That if the Democrats became an anti-abortion, anti-birth control and pro-abstinence-only party then John Kerry would win, hands down. We need to do this, he said to a rallying cry of agreement from other men, so that more important issues like the Iraq war and the economy could get fixed.

Now, obviously, if you've read any of my posts, the Iraq War is way up there on my list of problems I have with the Bush Administration. But as a woman, as a daughter of a woman, as a friend of many women, as just a human being I am here to say this: I will not back down. We as women will not back down. The 1.25 million of us who marched in D.C. on April 25 will not back down. You can mark my words.

Many women today remember the days of back alley abortions, of 5000 women each year dying due to illegal abortions, of many times that number being raped and permanently scarred and sterilized by crappy "doctors" performing the illegal abortions, of the women who had to marry at 15 or 16 because they became pregnant due to a lack of birth control options, of the women who had to give up their dreams and goals of education and careers because of unexpected/ unwanted pregnancies, etc. And even though I'm only 24, I've researched the topic and the history of illegal abortion and birth control enough to fully and completely empathize with those women, and to fight my damnedest to make sure women never go through that again. Ever.

When you begin to tell me that I cannot fight for my right to decide what goes on in MY uterus, for the right of ALL women to decide what goes on in THEIR uterus, for the right NOT to be butchered in some back alley, I WILL FIGHT YOU. And fight hard, with the force of millions of women behind me. And let me tell you one thing: when you don't want to be pregnant and that little stick with your pee on it says that you are, there are no more important issues anywhere on the planet for you at that moment. You don't give a rat's ass about Iraq, about the economy, Social Security, terrorism, etc. So don't tell me to back down to give way to "more important" issues when my body and my future and millions of women's bodies and millions of women's futures are at stake.

Which brings me to the next point. Recently a writer at The Daily Kos wrote that basically, "Look, abortion rights are here to stay. Even if Bush get's re-elected. You have nothing to worry about, silly women." This is pure and utter bullshit. This NARAL report details the damage to reproductive rights in the last three and a half years alone. If 12 pages of facts and figures aren't your thing (what the hell is wrong with you???), then this short and sweet editorial sums it up much simpler.

We have already lost too much. We will lose much more if Bush gets re-elected. And no, I will not be a "good woman" and shut up and get back in the kitchen with my bare feet. I will not back down, nor will any pro-choice activist in this country. I will fight alongside you in your battle against the Iraq War, your war against Bush's ruined economy, your battle for health insurance and Social Security and welfare and prisoner's rights and human rights and everything else I also hold dear.

But don't you DARE ask me to back down on reproductive rights and the fight to secure them.

I will stand my ground, and you better believe I've got behind and beside me the force of millions of people who agree with me.

I could gloat about this...

2004-09-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

... but I won't. It's too sad and depressing to gloat about. First up, the President's hometown newspaper, which endorsed him in 2000, has come out and wholeheartedly endorsed Kerry. If that were the end of the story, you bet I'd be gloating, but their editorial regarding their decision is just too depressing. Please follow the link and read the whole thing, it's a very stirring and scathing indictment on the Bush Administration. But of course, I will post a lot of it here:

Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would:
• Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits.
• Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans’ benefits and military pay.
• Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent.
• Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure.
• Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids.
• Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and
• Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay.

[snip]

Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to normality that Kerry says our country needs.Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq.

[snip]

In those dark hours after the World Trade Center attacks, Americans rallied together with a new sense of patriotism. We were ready to follow Bush’s lead through any travail.

He let us down.

When he finally emerged from his hide-outs on remote military bases well after the first crucial hours following the attack, he gave sound-bytes instead of solutions. He did not trust us to be ready to sacrifice, build up our public and private security infrastructure, or cut down on our energy use to put economic pressure on the enemy in all the nations where he hides. He merely told us to shop, spend, and pretend nothing was wrong.

Rather than using the billions of dollars expended on the invasion of Iraq to shore up our boundaries and go after Osama bin Laden and the Saudi Arabian terrorists, the funds were used to initiate a war with what Bush called a more immediate menace, Saddam Hussein, in oil-rich Iraq. After all, Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction trained on America. We believed him, just as we believed it when he reported that Iraq was the heart of terrorism. We trusted him.

The Iconoclast, the President’s hometown newspaper, took Bush on his word and editorialized in favor of the invasion. The newspaper’s publisher promoted Bush and the invasion of Iraq to Londoners in a BBC interview during the time that the administration was wooing the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair.Again, he let us down.We presumed the President had solid proof of the existence of these weapons, what and where they were, even as the search continued. Otherwise, our troops would be in much greater danger and the premise for a hurried-up invasion would be moot, allowing more time to solicit assistance from our allies.Instead we were duped into following yet another privileged agenda.

Now he argues unconvincingly that Iraq was providing safe harbor to terrorists, his new key justification for the invasion. It is like arguing that America provided safe harbor to terrorists leading to 9/11.

Once and for all, George Bush was President of the United States on that day. No one else. He had been President nine months, he had been officially warned of just such an attack a full month before it happened. As President, ultimately he and only he was responsible for our failure to avert those attacks.

We should expect that a sitting President would vacation less, if at all, and instead tend to the business of running the country, especially if he is, as he likes to boast, a “wartime president.” America is in service 365 days a year. We don’t need a part-time President who does not show up for duty as Commander-In-Chief until he is forced to, and who is in a constant state of blameless denial when things don’t get done.

What has evolved from the virtual go-it-alone conquest of Iraq is more gruesome than a stain on a White House intern’s dress. America’s reputation and influence in the world has diminished, leaving us with brute force as our most persuasive voice.

Iraq is now a quagmire: no WMDs, no substantive link between Saddam and Osama, and no workable plan for the withdrawal of our troops. We are asked to go along on faith. But remember, blind patriotism can be a dangerous thing and “spin” will not bring back to life a dead soldier; certainly not a thousand of them.

[snip]

The publishers of the Iconoclast differ with Bush on other issues, including the denial of stem cell research, shortchanging veterans’ entitlements, cutting school programs and grants, dictating what our children learn through a thought-controlling “test” from Washington rather than allowing local school boards and parents to decide how young people should be taught, ignoring the environment, and creating extraneous language in the Patriot Act that removes some of the very freedoms that our founding fathers and generations of soldiers fought so hard to preserve.

[snip]

Likewise troubling is that President Bush fought against the creation of the 9/11 Commission and is yet to embrace its recommendations.

[snip]

The Iconoclast wholeheartedly endorses John Kerry.

That isn't all, though. Bush has also lost the support of the son of former President Eisenhower, who has considered himself a Republican until this current administration but is now throwing his support behind Kerry. His personal letter can be read at this link, and of course I'll do your dirty work and post some of here:

Now more than ever, we voters will have to make cool judgments, unencumbered by habits of the past. Experts tell us that we tend to vote as our parents did or as we “always have.” We remained loyal to party labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the election of 2004. There are times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of them.

As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.

The fact is that today’s “Republican” Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word “Republican” has always been synonymous with the word “responsibility,” which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today’s whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion.
Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance.

[snip]

Today many people are rightly concerned about our precious individual freedoms, our privacy, the basis of our democracy. Of course we must fight terrorism, but have we irresponsibly gone overboard in doing so? I wonder. In 1960, President Eisenhower told the Republican convention, “If ever we put any other value above (our) liberty, and above principle, we shall lose both.”

I would appreciate hearing such warnings from the Republican Party of today.

The Republican Party I used to know placed heavy emphasis on fiscal responsibility, which included balancing the budget whenever the state of the economy allowed it to do so. The Eisenhower administration accomplished that difficult task three times during its eight years in office. It did not attain that remarkable achievement by cutting taxes for the rich. Republicans disliked taxes, of course, but the party accepted them as a necessary means of keep the nation’s financial structure sound.

The Republicans used to be deeply concerned for the middle class and small business. Today’s Republican leadership, while not solely accountable for the loss of American jobs, encourages it with its tax code and heads us in the direction of a society of very rich and very poor.

[snip]

I celebrate, along with other Americans, the diversity of opinion in this country. But let it be based on careful thought. I urge everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, to avoid voting for a ticket merely because it carries the label of the party of one’s parents or of our own ingrained habits.

More commentary on the "debates"

2004-09-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

I won't talk too much because some other, much more well-travelled blogs have taken the task up quite nicely. But I did want to post parts of Paul Krugman's op-ed piece yesterday on the debates (again, if you need a generic username and password, go to www.bugmenot.com):

Let's face it: whatever happens in Thursday's debate, cable news will proclaim President Bush the winner. This will reflect the political bias so evident during the party conventions. It will also reflect the undoubted fact that Mr. Bush does a pretty good Clint Eastwood imitation.

But as Adam Clymer pointed out yesterday on the Op-Ed page of The Times, front-page coverage of the 2000 debates emphasized not what the candidates said but their "body language." After the debate, the lead stories said a lot about Mr. Gore's sighs, but nothing about Mr. Bush's lies. And even the fact-checking pieces "buried inside the newspaper" were, as Mr. Clymer delicately puts it, "constrained by an effort to balance one candidate's big mistakes" - that is, Mr. Bush's lies - "against the other's minor errors."

The result of this emphasis on the candidates' acting skills rather than their substance was that after a few days, Mr. Bush's defeat in the debate had been spun into a victory.
This time, the first debate will be about foreign policy, an area where Mr. Bush ought to be extremely vulnerable. After all, his grandiose promises to rid the world of evildoers have all come to naught.

Exhibit A is, of course, Osama bin Laden, whom Mr. Bush promised to get "dead or alive," then dropped from his speeches after a botched operation at Tora Bora let him get away. And it's not just bin Laden: most analysts believe that Al Qaeda, which might have been crushed if Mr. Bush hadn't diverted resources and attention to the war in Iraq, is as dangerous as ever.

There's also North Korea, which Mr. Bush declared part of the "axis of evil," then ignored when its regime started building nuclear weapons. Recently, when a reporter asked Mr. Bush about reports that North Korea has half a dozen bombs, he simply shrugged.

Most important, of course, is Iraq, an unnecessary war, which - after initial boasts of victory - has turned into an even worse disaster than the war's opponents expected.
...
During the debate, Mr. Bush will try to cover for this dismal record with swagger, and with attacks on his opponent. Will the press play Karl Rove's game by, as Mr. Clymer puts it, confusing political coverage with drama criticism, or will it do its job and check the candidates' facts?

So now for the blog roundups and their smart opinions on the matter (or at least the ones I've chosen!). First we have the always wonderful echidne of the snakes:

It's not necessarily the case that all of the so-called liberal media is biased in favor of Bush; some are, but others have this odd view of nonpartisanship which boils down to trying to make each party equally bad or good. Even when the facts favor one position over the other. The combined effect of Fox News -type bias plus the wishy-washiness of the rest will result in a victorious Bush, even if he says something really stupid or deceitful.

Also note the comments section for that post; I posted one under the name "rojopelo" and I'll go ahead and add it here, because where better to put my opinion than on my blog:

I think it helps, too, that everyone's expectations of Bush and his speaking ability are already so low that if he only says one remotely intelligent thing the whole night, it will still count more than a whole night of Kerry's more intelligent points combined. I swear, whenever I hear Bush talk, I get the feeling that he runs home to his mom with a crappy crayon drawing and says, "Look, Mommy, look what I did today! Put it on the refrigerator!"

And of course, many pundits and sadly, many voters themselves, follow the "is he hot or not" routine, and spend more time talking about and judging the hair, clothes, and the way each presents himself rather than what's being said and whether it's factual.

Then over at Joshua Marshall's Talking Points blog, he posts his opinion on the matter, and postulates that Kerry will have to attack and fight back against all the false or misleading things Bush will undoubtedly say. But Marshall, I think, is not taking into account the format of the "debates" and the "Memorandum of Understanding"-- in other words, Kerry most likely will not be allowed to fight back or argue with Bush's lies. But his analysis of the "post-debate debate" that the talking heads and pundits will engage in is pretty dead on:

More than just these built-in advantages, though, Democrats, I think, have seldom really appreciated that there is such a thing as a post-debate debate. I don't mean that they don't know about putting out surrogates or trying to spin the results. Of course, they do. But in 2000 at least (a certainly in analogous situations in this cycle) the effort was very reactive and scattershot. And that inevitably leaves the Democrats trying to parry or deconstruct the ways that Republicans are trying to define what happened. In that way, they're fighting at best for a draw.
Republicans are already leaking hints and taunts about whether Kerry will sweat profusely under the lights, whether he's too tanned and other similar nonsense. But the antic nature of these taunts doesn't mean they won't be effective. They're meant to throw the other side off balance and, in a related manner, to provide grist for a catty and frivolous press corps.

And finally, because this is getting too long for those of you with short attention spans or busy lives, here's Eschaton's brief but so true opinions that I extracted from his post:

As for my pre-debate spin, which has the added benefit of being honest, is that what we're going to get from Bush is the exact same thing we've been getting from him throughout his presidency. We'll get "happy talk" on Iraq which contradicts reality. We'll get "tough talk" on unnamed terrrorists, despite the fact that Ashcroft hasn't managed to convict any. We'll get "happy talk" on Afghanistan, with Bush doing things like hilariously claiming that the "Taliban is no longer in existence." We'll probably get some shockingingly unpresidential behavior, including the inappropriate humor he so loves.

But, what we probably won't get is anything new. Same shit, different night, as Iraq continues to burn.

Top 10 Secrets about the Upcoming "Debates"

2004-09-29T08:37:00.000-07:00

So my mother has high hopes for these upcoming debates and thinks we'll finally see the light about both Kerry and Bush and that this will be some high-intellect affair.

I disagree. If you feel like drudging through 32 pages of total legalese, here's the actual debate agreement (the "Memorandum of Understanding," if that doesn't sound enough like BS...) signed by the Republican and Democratic party people.

But lo and behold, there's a much more readable and much more enticing article on NPR's site about the Top 10 Secrets "They" Don't Want You to Know About the Debates. I'm posting my favorites below, including the most obvious and important #10 (They aren't debates!):

(10.) They aren't debates!
"A debate is a head-to-head, spontaneous, structured argument over the merits of an issue," Rice says. "Under the ridiculous 32-page contract that reads like the rules for the Miss America Pageant, there will be no candidate-to-candidate questions, no rebuttal to your opponent's points, no cross questions or cross answers, no rebuttals, no follow-up questions -- that's not a debate, that's a news conference."
...
(7.) The secretly negotiated debate contract bars Kerry and Bush from any and all other debates for the entire campaign.
"Under what I call the Debate Suppression and Monopolization Clause of the contract, it is illegal for the candidates to debate each other anywhere else during the campaign," Rice says. "We need a new criminal law for reckless endangerment of democracy."
...
(5.) All members of the studio audience must be certified as "soft" supporters of Bush and Kerry, under selection procedures they approve.
"It's not enough to rig the debate -- they have to rig the audience, too? The contract reads: 'The debate will take place before a live audience of between 100 and 150 persons who... describe themselves as likely voters who are soft Bush supporters or soft Kerry supporters.' We should crash this charade and jump up in the middle to declare ourselves hard opponents of this Kabuki dance."
...
(3.) The "extended discussion" portion of the debate cannot exceed 30 seconds.
"Other than the stupidity of the debate contract, what topic do you know can be extendedly discussed in 30 seconds?"
(2.) Important issues are locked out by the CPD debate rules and party control.
"Really important but sticky or tough issues get axed, because the parties control the questions and topics," Rice says. "For example, in 2000, Gore and Bush mentioned the following issues zero times: Child poverty, the drug war, homelessness, working-class families, NAFTA, prisons, corporate crime and corporate welfare."
(1.) Fortune 100 corporations are the main funders of the CPD-sponsored debates, and the CPD's co-chairs are corporate lobbyists.
The CPD is run by Frank Fahrenkopf, a pharmaceutical industry lobbyist, and Paul Kirk, a top gambling lobbyist," Rice says. "And the.biggest muliti-national corporations write the checks that fund the CPD -- Phillip Morris, Anheuser-Busch and dozens more. The audience may have to be silent and motionless, but the corporate sponsors can have banners, beer tents, Budweiser girls handing out pamphlets protesting beer taxes -- a corporate-sponsored circus to go along with the Kabuki Debates. Could we get a more fitting description of our democracy?"

Web Stickers!!

2004-09-28T21:03:00.000-07:00

First of all, I have no idea why the "Ads and Movies" post is all screwed up, with no comments and just a blank line over there on my "recent posts" list. All my other posts are okay, so that's a mystery to me...

But most of all, I've discovered Web Stickers!! What fun! You'll notice my Kerry/ Edwards sticker, my "Cost of War in Iraq" sticker (it keeps ticking!), the America Votes one, and the neatest one of all, the one to look up all your political representatives. Because you want to write them, and very often! That's what a democracy is all about, silly...

So anyway, there's been other stickers I've wanted to download, but I haven't gotten the hang of the .zip file ones or a few other HTML tricks of the trade... But I'm excited, this is going to one day look like a real blog! ;)

Testing 1-2-3

2004-09-28T17:01:00.000-07:00

Don't mind this post. I'm just testing out some quirks that may be in the HTML code. Carry on!

Ads and Movies Galore, Oh my!

2004-09-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

Isn't it great when organizations and charities are able to condense issues down into a 30-90 second movie clip?

Well, I'm partially being sarcastic because I hate how we've turned into such a fast-food, only-read-the-headlines nation. But I recognize the value in cutesy, condensed movies and ads, especially since other people aren't unemployed and having way too much time on their hands like me, so I'll share some with you.

First is the very powerful and very true ad from the Drug Policy Alliance regarding voter disenfranchisement of felons. Oh, I know, wah wah wah, the poor felons, right? Well guess what counts as a felony in some states? Lighting firecrackers, having one gram of marijuana, you know-- really evil stuff like that. Should we take away lifetime voting rights for that? Also note, as the ad says, we are the only democratic country to take away voting rights from anyone, and I'm sure you'll be as shocked as I was (insert sarcasm) to note that that law disproportionately affects minorities. Anyway, in the time you've spent reading this paragraph, you probably could've watched the movie, so quit reading and go have some viewing pleasure or displeasure, and take advantage of the opportunity to write your governor at the end.

Second is an animated political cartoon from an absolute genius, Mark Fiore.

Ah, here's a photographic-slash-video analysis of the goings-on in Iraq. Not for the faint of heart, as the images are very graphic. You may be surprised to hear me say that since last week Bush painted this portrait of Iraq as a land with flowing democracy and daisies growing freely and people bowing before us with palm leaves, etc. Anyway. I'm not bitter or anything. If you make it to the end, click on this link for loads upon loads of other animations and videos.

This is a link to two NARAL Pro-Choice America advertisements that they're trying to air in the swing states. I can't get the second one to work, but the first one is pretty straight-forward. Scary but not in a "hair standing up on the back of your head" kind of way...

These ads from MoveOn.org range from crappy to really great, in my opinion. What they did was, starting 10 weeks before Election Day, they began a campaign where each week a new ad would come out. They're all being done by famous people/ directors/ actors/ etc. Anyway, you can only view their current one (Jimmie the Cab Driver... blech) unless you sign up. I would highly recommend signing up at the very least to view "Everybody" and "Who Profits?" Those are both excellent. Anyway, also check back each Sunday for the newest ad.

Of course, MoveOn.org's main page also has links to many non-10-week related ads as well. No signing up required!

Okay, that's it for now, but I'm always running across new movies and ads, so I'll try and post them when I see them. It beats going to Blockbuster or illegally downloading movies online!

New All-Woman Progressive Blog

2004-09-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

So for those of you not "in the know" as my grandmother would say, for the last few months and maybe even longer there's been a bit of a blog war going on. As I understand it (I came in late myself), some guy(s) made a comment about the lack of progressive women political bloggers out there. Which we all know is complete bunk. Anyway, as a result, the blog What She Said was created to give final proof that there's billions upon billions of us female progressive political bloggers out there. Maybe not billions, but loads. Check out that blogroll! All of them are either sole female bloggers or group blogs with at least one female. Notice that yours truly is also there, but I don't want to brag...

So I think those guys out there who complained about the lack of progressive women in the blog world can take a cue from Bill O'Reilly and put THAT in their crack pipe! ;)

So, O'Reilly, put this...

2004-09-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

... in your crack pipe and smoke it till you puke. Comedy Central is fighting back after Jon Stewart's appearance on Bill O'Reilly's show (remember the "your audience is 80-something % stoned slackers"?), and among other things, they found that the audience for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is more educated than O'Reilly's audience. No evidence was available for the number of "stoned slackers" who watch the show, but another thing found in a separate university study was that people who watch The Daily Show regularly are more able to answer political questions correctly than those who don't. Oh, the taste and smell of sweet, sweet justice.

So there you go, O'Reilly, you can just shove it. And we'll graciously accept your apology and your acknowledgement that you're just a stupid dumbass on October 7 when you appear on Jon Stewart's show and land on HIS turf.

Random political articles of note

2004-09-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

This "random such-and-such" formatting is so much easier and enjoyable (to me) so here I go again. I read so many articles during the day that I just end up collecting them for the blog, and even though I have no life, I have enough of one not to be able to post a whole post for each article. So there's my excuse-- hopefully the format doesn't keep you from reading all the stuff I link to though!

First is an op-ed piece by Maureen Dowd on that incredibly smelly situation of the President of Iraq thanking us, etc. Boy, did that smell of rotten eggs and tomatoes and loads of other unpleasant things. Here's an excerpt in case you're too lazy to click on the link:

All last week in New York and Washington, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi of Iraq parroted Mr. Bush's absurd claims that the fighting in Iraq was an essential part of the U.S. battle against terrorists that started on 9/11, that the neocons' utopian dream of turning Iraq into a modern democracy was going swimmingly, and that the worse things got over there, the better they really were.
...
Mr. Bush doesn't seem to care that by using Mr. Allawi as a puppet in his campaign, he decreases the prime minister's chances of debunking the belief in Iraq that he is a Bush puppet - which is the only way he can gain any credibility to stabilize his devastated country and be elected himself.
Actually, being the president's marionette is a step up from Mr. Allawi's old jobs as henchman for Saddam Hussein and stoolie for the C.I.A.
It's hilarious that the Republicans have trotted out Mr. Allawi as an objective analyst of the state of conditions in Iraq when he's the administration's handpicked guy and has as much riding on putting the chaos in a sunny light as they do. Though Mr. Allawi presents himself as representing all Iraqis, his actions have been devised to put more of the country in the grip of this latest strongman - giving himself the power to declare martial law, bringing back the death penalty and kicking out Al Jazeera.

This is an excellent article on the fact that, despite Bush's numerous, and I do mean numerous, flip-flops, the country still sees Kerry as the flip-flopper. Come on, f*&#ing media, do your damn job. Quit making us bloggers do it for you! And thank you to The Washington Post for reporting on something the networks are too scared to talk about (uh-oh, we might step on somebody's toes!) and that the right-wing media have no desire or the scruples to talk about.

While we're at it, Michael Moore wrote an insightful letter to Bush (think he'll read it??) about Bush's and his administration's flip-flops on Iraq alone in the last 2 decades. (Yes, Cheney and Rumsfeld played very big roles in the Nixon, Reagan and Daddy Bush presidencies.) Obviously, you can take Moore's style or leave it, but the facts in the article stand up.

And along the same lines of the first two articles is this one detailing Bush's recent lies, or at the very least, misleadings, on the Iraq situation (very, very important article-- READ THAT ONE!!). Remember that incredibly rosy picture Bush and his Iraqi puppet painted for us? Well, the intelligence agencies are painting a different picture, despite the pressure they're undoubtedly facing with this upcoming American election. Here is a roundup of the dismal facts found in the National Intelligence Estimate report on the Iraq situation-- a roundup prepared specifically for Bush, but one which he is consistently ignoring. Where can I get a ticket for Bush's Fanasy World? I might have fewer migraines if I went there...

From an actual soldier stationed in Iraq, we get this insightful piece on Why We Cannot Win the Iraq War (at least without some major changes). Damn, that one's important too! Here's some highlights (it's just a taste, though, so read the whole thing! It isn't very long...):

First, we refuse to deal in reality. We are in a guerilla war, but because of politics, we are not allowed to declare it a guerilla war and must label the increasingly effective guerilla forces arrayed against us as "terrorists, criminals and dead-enders."
This implies that there is a zero sum game at work, i.e. we can simply kill X number of the enemy and then the fight is over, mission accomplished, everybody wins. Unfortunately, this is not the case. We have few tools at our disposal and those are proving to be wholly ineffective at fighting the guerillas.
The idea behind fighting a guerilla army is not to destroy its every man (an impossibility since he hides himself by day amongst the populace). Rather the idea in guerilla warfare is to erode or destroy his base of support.
So long as there is support for the guerilla, for every one you kill two more rise up to take his place. More importantly, when your tools for killing him are precision guided munitions, raids and other acts that create casualties among the innocent populace, you raise the support for the guerillas and undermine the support for yourself. (A 500-pound precision bomb has a casualty-producing radius of 400 meters minimum; do the math.)

Ah, this is interesting for all the "pro-life" people out there, or for those of us who like to point out their hypocrisies. It appears that the scant safe drinking water situation in Iraq is causing the spread of Hepatitis E and other diseases, and several pregnant women have been inflicted and/or have died from these diseases caused by raw sewage in the drinking water (along with non-pregnant people too, of course, and loads of children, but those people barely count in America, much less Iraq). Anyway, what did the "pro-life" Bush Administration decide to do? Why, take the funds earmarked for fixing the sewage and water systems, and using them for military needs, of course. Oh, the irony.

Poor Colin Powell. He's the most sensible member of the Bush clan, yet they keep making him do the dirty work... When does he get a ticket to Fantasy World? Or when will he tell his coworkers to wake the hell up and come home from Fantasy World so that he can quit cleaning up their stupid messes? Hmm.

Awww, man, here I am rambling on and on and drudging through loads of articles for all of you, when NOW's The Truth About George site is so good. Most pertinent to my opinions and dealings are the Truth about the War and the Truth about (the war on) Women's Rights . Oh hell, the whole freaking site is great, and it breaks everything down into short paragraphs for those of you not wishing to delve any further...

Okay, that's enough for now. Blogging is great, but my bed is looking even greater right now... ;) Let me end by saying that today in the mail I received one of my most special and ingenius bumperstickers ever: "Kerry: Bringing complete sentences back to the White House." Come on, you know you want to laugh until you pee in your pants. It's brilliant, and you can buy your own one, or a different one, here at seeyageorge.com.

Separation of Church and State...

2004-09-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

... who cares? What's so important about that paltry little idea?

The Bush Administration is offering federal employees a health plan from a Catholic group (go to www.bugmenot.com for a password and username, if you need it)

To be fair, it doesn't appear that the employees are faced with only one choice for healthcare benefits, but the implications of this and the general idea of a "savings plan" insurance system are still frightening:

The Bush administration has broken new ground in its "faith-based" initiative, this time by offering federal employees a Catholic health plan that specifically excludes payment for contraceptives, abortion, sterilization and artificial insemination.
The new plan, announced last week, combines two White House priorities. It is part of a $1 billion project seeking to involve religious organizations in all types of federal social programs. At the same time, the plan is a new form of coverage - a health savings account combined with high-deductible coverage - that is being promoted as a centerpiece of President Bush's health care policy.
...
This is the first plan for federal workers "that has tailored its benefits in line with a set of tenets that are supported by the Catholic church," said Abby Block, a senior official in the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan, the nation's largest purchaser of health insurance. It is also the first to be to marketed as "faith-based.''
...
The OSF plan has two parts. It couples a tax-free savings account for enrollees to use to pay for routine care with a high-deductible health plan that offers coverage only after the annual deductible has been reached - $1,050 for individual or $2,100 for family coverage. As part of the benefit, a portion of the premium that the government will pay to OSF will be deposited into each enrollee's savings account.
The government's total contribution to the new OSF plan will be $240.89 a month for individuals and $599 a month for families. The employees' monthly premium contribution will be $80.30 for individuals and $199.66 for families. By comparison, federal workers enrolling in a more traditional preferred provider plan in Illinois will pay $89.09 for individuals and $299.96 for families.
...
Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, an independent organization of Catholics who support reproductive choices, criticized the inclusion of a plan with such restrictions in the federal program.
"I don't think substandard medical care should be offered through the federal government," she said.
Although many health plans do not cover abortion, Ms. Kissling said, "when it comes to contraceptives, assisted reproduction and voluntary sterilization, these services are generally covered within our society.''
"These are services that federal employees need," she added.
The level of disclosure of the restrictions also remains a concern for critics. "A lot of these religious restrictions do reduce access to health care, and people don't even know about it," said Elena Cohen, a senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center in Washington.
Representative Pete Stark of California, the senior Democrat on the health subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a telephone interview: "Medical care is a science. Getting medical care and religion mixed together is just as bad as getting church and state mixed together."

[end of article quotation]

Again, as long as this is optional, I can't complain too much about it. But we need to be aware in case the administration (God forbid) "wins" again in November and starts to move even further right...

Random Great Things, Part Deux

2004-09-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

I had so much fun with my last Random Great Things post that I figured I'd do another one.

So the Iraqi PM has thanked America (before Congress, not the UN) for "liberating Iraq." Hmmm, there must be more to the story...

And do you think anyone at the debates will actually ask Bush these questions? Don't you think they should? My favorite: "Mr. President, in July of 2003 you said if anyone wanted to attack our troops in Iraq, they should bring it on. In March of this year you appeared at a reporters' dinner and ran a video in which you jokingly stumbled around your office looking for weapons of mass destruction. Can you explain this behavior to the families who have lost loved ones in Iraq?"

We all know Fox"News" must be "fair and balanced" since they've never had to apologize for anything... Right? Wait, do you mean to tell me that they're hypocrites? I am shocked. And only slightly awed.

Here's a list you won't see on Fox, and it's really too risque for David Letterman: The Top Ten Conservative Idiots.

Damn, I wish this came in a bumpersticker...

How does Bush feel about Nazis? Specifically his grandfather's ties to them...? Of course, there are those who think we're on the road to fascism anyway, which would be quite the coincidence. (Before you discredit the author, like I almost did, please note that further down he states the reasons why the U.S. is not fascist yet nor will it be in the near future.)

Oh my god, the media is soooooo liberal! Look how well they've investigated Bush's National Guard history! Let me just say: 1) I love reading Pinko Feminist Hellcat's lovely rants and 2) it's a sad day in America when most of the people know more about proportional spacing in CBS memos than what their president actually did in the early 70's-- though it says amazing things about the power of the conservatives to get their voice heard over and over and over and over and over again. If you hear it enough times, it MUST be true! (Saddam Hussein and 9-11, Saddam Hussein and 9-11, Saddam Hussein and 9-11...)

Dan Rather vs. Bush. Put the smack down. Apparently, Peter Jennings also put the smack down on Bush in this video, but my computer won't play the damn thing. Maybe yours will. Transcripts anyone???

Even conservatives are beginning to speak out against Bush. Though when asked about John McCain's and Chuck Hagel's criticisms of his Iraq policies, what did George W. Bush say in response? "Well, both of those men want me to be re-elected." Ooooh, you sure TOLD them, Bush.

Finally, someone's asking the same question I've been asking: Why the hell are Republicans actually rallying behind Bush? Except for tax cuts (which only helped the wealthy) and maybe gun control issues, he's the antithesis of everything conservatives have traditionally stood for. The government has gotten bigger and more far-reaching, the government is putting its nose into our private lives, the Bush Administration has turned a budget surplus into a super-huge budget deficit, all in the span of 3.5 years, etc. Wake up, people.

Okay, that's enough for now...

Random great things

2004-09-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

Damn, I'm on a roll tonight. I thought I'd post some random things, just because. It's my blog and I can cry if I want to, cry if I want to. So there.

Here's a good presidential quiz, not the typical "Is he hot or not?" political analysis that the other prez quizzes can be.

Bill freaking O'Reilly can be read here totally dissing my main man, Jon Stewart. Stupid lying bastard. "Eighty-seven percent are intoxicated when they watch [your show]. You didn't see that?" Sounds like good, scientific analysis there, Bill... Who did the polling-- the Drudge Report? God, I hate that man. And I'm sure it shows.

In case there's any chance of pissing O'Reilly off some more, go buy Jon Stewart's new book here. Now. Just go do it. I'm saving up my pennies for my copy, but that shouldn't stop you from getting it!

Ahhh, this is also interesting. It's a US State Department map of where Al Qaeda operated by November 2001 (actually posted on the US State Department site, so don't accuse me of making up "liberal bias crap"). Notice which country is most conspiciously absent from the list of 45? I'll give you a hint-- It starts with I-R-A and end with a Q. Hmmm.

The typical major media outlets are reducing the presidential campaign to this: "Kerry blasts Bush on Iraq!" and "Bush blasts Kerry for contradictions!" And you know where that leaves your average Joe who doesn't want to do any investigating on his/ her own? It leaves them believing that Kerry has no plan for the war in Iraq, that all he's doing is "blasting" Bush. (Well, and we kind of already know Bush's plan for Iraq-- the same damn thing he's been doing, and that's working GREAT...) Anyway, in reality, Kerry is very often pushing his plan for Iraq, and his criticisms of Bush's policy and his Four Point Analysis of his own policy are summed up very, very well at Amp's Blog. You can read the whole speech from the link there, but believe me, I read it, and it's L-O-N-G. Do as you wish though.

Oh yeah, and this is great. One year ago today, Richard Perle, the lovely neo-con that he is, said the following: "And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation." I don't know, maybe it's there, it's too hard to see it through the quicksand and quagmire...

The coolest man on the planet besides Jon Stewart is, of course, Moby. Read his journal everyday, just to be like me.

Hey, guess what? Republicans don't have a monopoly on the soldiers and their political beliefs! Who would have ever thought? Anyway, it appears some of those fighting in Iraq (and not just watching at home like most Americans and *cough, cough* our Commander-in-Chief and his administrative chickenhawks) are none too happy with Bush and his policies. Very interesting.

Have you always wondered what the "W" really stands for? I'll give you a hint: it's NOT for women. (Shocking, I'm sure...) This picture is more succint for you lazy people, but it's not as informative.

Okay, that should be enough for now. I know it kept me from job hunting for a few minutes, so hopefully it'll keep you from doing something equally important!

Great Simpsons moment...

2004-09-22T20:29:00.000-07:00

To lighten the mood, I thought I'd post the funniest thing I've seen on The Simpsons in, oh, several days or so... ;)

Smithers, the incredibly loyal, possibly closet homosexual who lusts after Mr. Burns, was helping Mr. Burns arrange a sea voyage. Mr. Burns was recruiting Marge Simpson to join them, and he asked Smithers what he thought, and Smithers said, "Sir, I've always heard that women and seamen don't mix."

Oh. My. God. I've been laughing all night over that. Too funny. Thank god for The Simpsons, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and Family Guy-- I'd be suicidal without them. :)

Be Forewarned

2004-09-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

I just want to make sure you all know this, since apparently the major "news" outlets don't find it worthy enough of coverage. This is a truly sad commentary on the state of America today. (The username and password are both 7777777, as in seven sevens, but you may not need it.) Hell, I'm just posting the whole bloody thing here, it's so shocking, at least to me:

The U.S. House of Representatives is now considering legislation that would establish an advisory board to study and regulate what is taught at American universities. This intrusion into higher education is not only unjust; it is antithetical to all values attributed to honest debate and intellectual freedom.

House Resolution 3077, titled the International Studies in Education Act, is sponsored by Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., and is up for a vote later this month. Should the legislation pass, an advisory board will help monitor whether bias is found in certain teaching methods. The sponsors and supporters claim to support academic freedom, arguing that this advisory board will help ensure all sides are heard in the classroom and that bias will be eliminated.

While bias in the classroom can be detrimental to education, an advisory board could lead to more problems than it solves. Professor Mark Tessler, who teaches several political science courses at the university, makes a valid point when he worries that the bill's provisions will be exploited by "people with political agendas." This fear is well justified, as the board will be appointed by political figures: members of Congress, the secretary of education and national security officials.

Furthermore, while eliminating professor-induced bias, the bill might codify governmental bias. Because the board will have the power to defund international studies programs, teachers and faculty will be pressured into teaching the government-approved lessons.

Most troubling, however, is the potential regulation of academia in the name of "national security." A vague term which is wide open to abuse, "national security" has already been used to dramatically expand government powers. Classes that deal with sensitive issues - terrorism, nuclear proliferation, etc. - could be quashed without explanation under the blanket guise of "national security."

At its core, this bill destroys the concept of academic freedom and intellectual debate. It allows government monitors, theoretically charged with the noble goal of preventing academic bias, to inject the political agenda of the current government into academia. Already, the university has been the target of political games. In response to a controversial course -- English 317: "How to Be Gay" - state legislators attempted to defund portions of the university. The motivations were purely political: conservatives were opposed to the title and premise of a class centered on gay male literature. With a federal bill, ideological censorship could unjustly restrict intellectual debate and exploration.

If we truly believe our universities are bastions of free thought and intellectual debate, it would be a mistake to think the advisory board suggested in this bill would contribute to that. Professor bias is a problem best dealt with at the local level; universities should retain the right to police themselves. Academic freedom cannot be enforced by a law that paradoxically can limit what is permissible at institutes of higher learning. This bill, which goes against the tenets of intellectual liberalism, deserves to fail.

[end of article]

If you do this sort of thing (and why shouldn't you, we're supposed to live in a freaking democracy!!), please write your Representatives about this. Normally stuff like this would have gotten laughed out of the bloody building, but Congress is getting extremely radical in what it's passing these days...

Special Request

2004-09-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

So I received a special request from anne to do a rant, I'm assuming, on the new "Conscience Clause" bill that passed the House last week, and as ranting is something I love doing, I shall happily oblige. :)

The shiny happy story behind the story can be found here, but I'll provide some quotes from the article:

In Congress and states nationwide, anti-abortion activists are broadening efforts to support hospitals, doctors and pharmacists who -- citing moral grounds -- want to opt out of services linked to abortion and emergency contraception.
A little-noticed provision cleared the House of Representatives last week that would prohibit local, state or federal authorities from requiring any institution or health care professional to provide abortions, pay for them, or make abortion-related referrals, even in cases of rape or medical emergency.
In Mississippi, a bill became law in July that admirers and critics consider the nation's most sweeping "conscience clause." It allows all types of health care workers and facilities to refuse performing virtually any service they object to on moral or religious grounds.
...
Opponents say the provision's impact would be felt primarily by low-income women who depend on federally subsidized health care and use Roman Catholic hospitals. According to the critics, the measure would enable hospitals to refuse to provide abortions, or referrals, even if a pregnant woman had been raped or was in critical medical condition.
...
Mississippi's new law provides sweeping immunity for opting out of abortion and contraception services in a state where many women seeking abortions already travel to Alabama or Tennessee to obtain them. "We have doctors who won't even issue birth control prescriptions," said Nsombi Lambright of the American Civil Liberties Union's Mississippi branch. "It's not their job to impose their beliefs on others."
...
"Yes, we need to respect individual freedom of religion. But at what point does it cross the line of not providing essential medical care? At what point is it malpractice?" she asked. "If someone's beliefs interfere with practicing their profession, perhaps they should do something else."

One thing that needs to be made loud and clear is that this also includes opposition to BIRTH CONTROL. Doctors are already refusing to prescribe birth control pills, and pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions of them, simply because they are "morally opposed" to it. So don't for one minute think this only includes performing abortions.

If you'll also notice, the MS law and the bill that just passed the House last week include language that allows you to deny patients full and adequate medical care, even if the woman's life is in danger. That would be "pro-life" how?

I won't rant too much more, since yet again, Pinko Feminist Hellcat has done such a tremendously swell job already. But I just want to say this: this kind of bullshit makes me want to go to Pharmacy school just so I can one day deny some ancient prick his Viagra prescription. "Oh, I'm sorry sir, but I believe that once your penis stops working, it's God's Will for you to lay down and quit having sex. I am morally opposed to going against God's Law and the natural law by helping you have more sex after God has ordained that you shouldn't be able to get it up. Please enjoy your limp dick-- it's a blessing and a gift from God!" You know how quick they'd throw my ass in jail and/or repeal the "Conscience Clause" after that?

What about the day when this far-reaching "Conscience Clause" (what a stupid name-- how sick and twisted of a conscience can you have after putting a woman's life in danger?) actually starts covering things besides abortion and contraception? "Hey, we've been telling you for years to quit smoking, but you didn't listen to me, and I'm morally opposed to curing you of lung cancer because of your stupidity!" or "You stupid fat-ass, I told you to quit eating cheeseburgers every day, but you did it anyway, and now you're having a heart attack. Well, I'm sorry, but I'm morally opposed to providing emergency medical care to someone who has such blatant disregard for his health!" and "What? You've already had five kids? Well, I'm morally opposed to people having more than 2-3 kids, so I'm going to sterilize you without your consent, or else I'm just not going to attend the birth of your newest Pop Tart because I'm so morally opposed to you being pregnant for a 6th time! What do you mean this is a high risk pregnancy and a doctor has to be there for the delivery? I don't care, I'm morally opposed to it and the law is on my side!"

And you know, I live in a pretty big town that's a suburb of a really big city. If a pharmacist refused to fill my birth control pills or, God forbid, my emergency contraception pills, I could most likely just hop in the car and find some place that does. Same with hospitals if they ever decided to put my life and health in danger by refusing me adequate medical care and attention. But what about women in the middle of Bumble-Fuck Nowhere? In those towns with one pharmacy and one hospital in a one hundred mile radius? (Yes, they still exist.) THOSE are the women for whom this is the most dangerous. The poor, the disenfranchised, the rural women.

So there you go, anne! I hope you enjoyed it, it's definitely a rant-worthy topic! :) I will end with a quote from the CNN article that bears much repeating:

"If someone's beliefs interfere with practicing their profession, perhaps they should do something else."

Republican Terror Campaign Continues

2004-09-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

There's something rotten in the state of Denmark... and by Denmark I most certainly mean the United States. We're fresh off the heels of Dick Cheney's terrorist threat a few weeks ago, and yes, if you read the FBI and Homeland Security definitions of terrorism and terroristic threats, his comment more than fits the whole definition. There are people rotting away in Guatanamo Bay for a hell of a lot less than what Dick Cheney said.

Now, the Speaker of the House has said that Al Qaeda wants Kerry to win the presidential election. First of all, what the hell is the Republican definition of democracy and freedom? Second of all, Osama bin Laden has fared quite well under Bush's presidency, thank you very much. He's gotten away scot-free while we wage war in Iraq and have less than 17,000 soldiers in the entire country of Afghanistan (the country that the entire Russian army couldn't overcome back in the 1980's, but hey, who cares about history anyway?). The war in Iraq has done wonders for his recruitment program for al-Qaeda in Iraq and surrounding countries-- there was little to no al-Qaeda presence in Iraq before we started the war, now business is just booming for the extremists. Great.

And that doesn't even go into the findings of the 9/11 Commission about how Bush and his administration were specifically warned about the 9-11 attacks and did nothing. Absolutely freaking nothing. No wonder the 9/11 Widows group has joined Kerry's campaign.

So I think bin Laden would be quite pleased with a Bush win in November, and he's probably pretty damn jealous of the terror campaign the Republicans have managed to wage in the U.S. And don't sugar-coat it: they are trying to scare us into voting for Bush, even if it means using the same exact tactics of the enemy.

Apology

2004-09-19T10:39:00.000-07:00

To everyone in America, and even everyone on the planet, I apologize for the votes of my fellow states-men and women here in Louisiana yesterday. The proposed amendment to our Constitution that would ban gay marriage, civil unions and even possibly legal contracts between partners was approved by 80% of voters. I knew my state was conservative, but I had no idea so many people here were/are that bigoted and homophobic. Jesus, in all his "Love thy neighbor" and "Judge not, lest ye be judged" glory, is probably flipping over in his grave and crying massive tears right now over all this righteous indignation and hatred.

That being said, there was some serious voter fraud that possibly took place in New Orleans yesterday, which could be a shining light on any lawsuits filed against this amendment. You know, sad day for democracy and all, but it may help with the legal wrangling that's about to go down...

Elections machines were not in place at 52 voting places in New Orleans when polls opened Saturday for a vote on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and numerous important local races.
...
The problem was solved by midday, but an election official with the Secretary of State's Office said machines at 52 locations in 90 precincts were not in place when polls opened at 6 a.m.
...
Some people were outraged that they couldn't vote on a day when the ballot included a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, local school board elections and the race for New Orleans criminal sheriff — the position held by Foti for nearly 30 years until he was elected attorney general last year.
Julius Green said he went to his polling place in New Orleans' Bywater neighborhood about 10 a.m. and found no voting machines — just a crowd of people who were fuming that they couldn't cast ballots.
"I am angry. I'm very angry," said Green, 58, a former assistant track coach at Xavier University of New Orleans. "This is ridiculous. It makes people feel that their vote don't count."

I bolded the sentence that may not be true-- there were people calling our local news outlets as late as 3 or 4 p.m. who were still unable to vote. New Orleans is the one city in the state that would have voted against this constitutional amendment, and they were the only ones in the state to have problems? I'm not buying that it's not foul play, at least not yet...

Clean up our diamonds!

2004-09-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

For several years now I've tried to tell people that their beautiful diamonds probably got blood on them somewhere along the line, that people are dying due to the diamond trade, wars are started or kept aflame because of diamonds, etc. But no one believes me (who wants to? That means we're almost all complicit in murder and death and destruction...) or no one cares about that big "scary" and "barbarous" continent known as Africa, and it's like pulling teeth to get anyone just to read a four page article on the phenomenon.

So, alas, thank god for Amnesty International. Here's a 30-45 second movie on the diamond trade, in easy language, and in today's TV culture, I don't think it would really hurt to freaking watch a 30-45 second movie, especially when that last commericial you sat through was just as long and told you about paper towels or some new bathroom product.

Then, when you finish, if you're angry or upset or wanting more information about conflict diamonds (or wanting to write me an apology for thinking I was talking out of my ass all these years), you can go to Amnesty's Page on Conflict Diamonds. It's easy to say, "Well, I can't do anything about it," but lo and behold: yes, you can! We can all do something by writing letters to politicians, boycotting the diamond industry or only buying from jewelers who can prove that their diamonds did not come from terrorists. And so forth.

Anyway, that would be my Pet Peeve of the Day for today...

Ivan ain't got nothing...

2004-09-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

on me! I'm back from my "voluntary" evacuation, and fortunately for us and everyone in the New Orleans area, Ivan did not hit us directly. My heart goes out to those who did get hit, though-- please stay safe and sound.

Misc.

2004-09-13T09:01:00.000-07:00

My writing in the next few days may be sporadic to nonexistent. I've been depressed about the state of the human race the last few days, and it's hard to keep up with a blog like this when you're feeling low about humanity. So I might take a little break.

And, well, I've got to start the initial preparations for Hurricane Ivan! Every day it's taking a more and more western turn, which means it could come to me...

So anyway, while I doubt humans will be that much improved in a week or so (or even a few centuries or so...), the Hurricane should be gone and maybe I'll be less despondent about people and human nature.

My promise to you, dear friends

2004-09-10T18:04:00.000-07:00

While I highly doubt there is anyone reading this blog, really, I'm trying really hard to create a great list of links over there on the right hand side. Just in case. I will be adding links to research agencies and think tanks later, in case anyone is a big ol' nerd like me and loves to do research. And as soon as I get new links in or see new sites of interest, I'll add them.

Because I think the two or so people who might accidentally stumble onto my blog deserve nothing less, dammit...

The Year's Top 10

2004-09-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

Hey, the Academy has their Oscars, the Grammy people have their Grammys and Project Censored has **drumroll** The Top Ten Censored Stories of 2003-2004!

Wealth inequality in 21st century threatens economy and democracy
Ashcroft vs. the human rights law that holds corporations accountable
Bush administration manipulates science and censors scientists
High uranium levels found in troops and civilians
The wholesale giveaway of our natural resources
Sale of electoral politics
Conservative organization drives judicial appointments
Secrets of Cheney's energy task force come to light
Widow brings RICO case against U.S. government for 9/11
New nuke plants: taxpayers support, industry profits

Now, obviously, that's just a list and the article goes into much further detail (including providing sources! Yay!), so don't be lazy-- go read the article. Otherwise, it just looks like a jumble of words, really...

The one I find most interesting (though definitely not the one that would affect us all the most) is #9:

Under the Civil Racketeering, Influences, and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act, Ellen Mariani is suing President Bush and officials for malfeasant conspiracy, obstruction of justice and wrongful death; her husband, Louis Neil Mariani, was a passenger on Flight 175 that was flown into the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The suit documents the detailed forewarnings from foreign governments and FBI agents; the unprecedented delinquency of our air defense; the inexplicable half hour dawdle of our Commander in Chief at a primary school after hearing the nation was under deadly attack; the incessant invocation of national security and executive privilege to suppress the facts; and the obstruction of all subsequent efforts to investigate the disaster. It concludes that compelling evidence will be presented in this case, through discovery, subpoena power and testimony, that defendants failed to act to prevent 9/11, knowing the attacks would lead to an international war on terror.
Berg believes that Defendant Bush is invoking a long standard operating procedure of national security and executive privilege claims to suppress the basis of this lawsuit.
On November 26, 2003, a press conference was set up to discuss the full implications of these charges. Only FOX News attended the conference and taped 40 minutes, however, the film was never aired.

SCOOP.CO.NZ, November 2003
Title: "911 Victim's Wife Files RICO Case Against GW Bush" Author: Philip J. Berg
SCOOP.CO.NZ, December 2003
Title: "Widow's Bush Treason Suit Vanishes" Author: W. David Kubiak

You'll notice...

2004-09-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

... that I finally got around to figuring out the HTML code to add the "Links" section right over there to your right. So check that out. I added my favorite non-profit organizations and other such stuff in addition to the blogs (which I haven't taken the time to alphabetize, nor do I care to at the moment!). Later I will add links to news sites in case you're sick of being misinformed by Fox"News" and it's clones, and links to whatever else I like. Because it's MY blog. And I'll cry if I want to.

I'll close this with two pictures: one of a scumsucking pig Republican pulling the hair of a female protestor at a Bush rally (is that what compassionate conservativism is all about? I've been wondering...) and this too small image of a campaign poster in the Jesus versus Bush campaign (again, S-A-T-I-R-E, people...).

The former made me want to rip my own hair out, but the latter made me want to put it all back into place... :)

War Stories

2004-09-09T18:38:00.000-07:00

So, when pressed about it, Donald Rumsfeld says that the U.S. losses in Iraq (1005 dead -- they are more than numbers though: here are their pictures and stories) are "relatively small" in the overall scheme of things. Huh. Would he be willing to tell that to the faces of the fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, children, friends, partners, etc. of each of these 1005 men and women who have died? Especially when they have died for what we now know to be a large bundle of lies? Just one death for a lie is too many. And it should be noted that Rumsfeld has no personal stake in this either, having neither served in any war in his entire life nor having any family members stationed in Iraq. Chickenhawks of the world, unite.

I suggest his first stop on his "The death toll is relatively small" tour should be this household, where a couple has posted a sign on their lawn saying, "Thanks Mr. Bush for the death of our son."

But there are more tragedies of war than just the deaths of our soldiers, as recounted in Alternet's Toll of War:

Brutal fighting over the past week brought a new, grisly milestone in Iraq, as the number of troops killed in Iraq passed the 1,000 mark. Also, as an indication of the intensity of battles in urban areas, about 1,100 U.S. soldiers and Marines were wounded in Iraq last month, "by far the highest combat injury toll for any month since the war began." So far, over 7,000 soldiers have been wounded in combat. Attacks in sovereign Iraq have been on the rise: Since the transfer of power on June 28, U.S. forces have been attacked an average of 60 times a day, up 20 percent from the three-month period before the transfer of power on June 28; more troops have died in the months after the transfer of power than in the months just before. Condoleezza Rice admitted yesterday, "Not everything has gone as we would have liked it to." And in a press conference yesterday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that the situation in Iraq is likely to get worse, not better, in the coming days. The efforts of American troops, the Wall Street Journal writes, have "been made all the harder by the hesitancy of their civilian leaders in the White House." (Americans can remember our fallen soldiers with a new, poignant exhibit, "Eyes Wide Open.")

Meanwhile, Dick Cheney has launched his own Terror Campaign here on U.S. soil:

Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, saying that if the nation makes the wrong choice on Election Day it faces the threat of another terrorist attack.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign immediately rejected those comments as "scare tactics" that crossed the line.

That's ironic since A) it was the Bush Administration who actually had information regarding Osama bin Laden and his plans to attack the U.S. in their hands and could have done something about it and B) terrorist attacks have dramatically increased since Sept. 11. Terrorism in its present state has been going on since the 60's, yet since Sept. 11, and especially since the Iraq war began, the attacks have been stepped up dramatically, yet we're supposed to feel safer? How is it not clear as the light of freaking day that they're at best doing jack-all for the state of terrorism and at worst, they're making it much, much worse by destabilizing the Middle East and garnering even more enemies for us? Come on.

And this is just for fancy, but it's interesting to note that most of the world wants Kerry to become the US president too. So much for Bush being that big "uniter, not divider"-- Terrorism 101: you become less of a target for terrorism when fewer people hate your guts.

A new poll in 35 countries suggests that people around the world would prefer Democratic challenger John Kerry as US president over George W Bush.
Global research company GlobeScan Inc and the University of Maryland found clear leads for Mr Kerry among those polled in 30 of the countries.
Only Filipino, Polish and Nigerian respondents clearly backed Mr Bush.
Most said Mr Bush's foreign policy had made them feel worse about the US since his election in 2000.
"Only one in five want to see Bush re-elected," said Steven Kull, the director of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).

So there's your anecdote to Fox"News" for the night. I'm assuming you won't be resting easy though-- I surely won't.

THANK YOU!!!!

2004-09-09T14:19:00.000-07:00

All hail Pinko Feminist Hellcat and her wonderful rant against the "pro-life" advocates who advocate against most things pertaining to life and death and the lies they're constantly pumping into society about feminists and our beliefs and work.

The article, which is in The National Review, is written by Steven Ertelt, the editor and CEO of LifeNews.com. If you check out LifeNews, you'll see a lot of articles decrying abortion, decrying the pain of women who get them (even though there are studies that show women aren't horribly traumatized by abortion), and decrying domestic violence. Where these folks were when we feminists we try to raise awareness about domestic violence, battery, and rape is beyond me.
Ertelt relies on a lot of myths, false accusations, and plain ignorancein his article. He writes about the plight of couples victimized by the draconian and fascist one-child policy in China. He then accuses pro-choice feminists of ignoring forced sterilization/contraception (at least in China), and praises George W. Bush (over 10,000 people killed!) for his pro-life policies, especially his:

hard line against the United Nations Population Fund and yanked U.S. taxpayer funding from the agency because of its tolerance of and participation in brutal Chinese population-control policies.

If any of that was true, Ertelt would have made a compelling point. Unfortunately, he has relied upon a myth to make his point. Four separate investigations--including one by the State Department--found these allegations to be false. In fact, UNFPA was found to help reduce such practices in China.

This is what bears the most repeating, and one that hard-headed anti-abortion activists cannot wrap their heads around for the life of themselves:

To be "pro-choice" means to work to eradicate situations where people are not offered choices - as in forced sterilization, forced abortion, infant mortality, forced motherhood, rape, domestic violence, hunger, and the objectification of women's bodies.

There you go. ALL CHOICES. And whatever anyone on the right says, we feminists and pro-choicers really do believe that and live by that belief. I've yet to meet any feminist or pro-choice woman who doesn't believe that or live by that belief wholly and fully.

Thank you, Pinko Feminist Hellcat. Rock on! And to the 2 or 3 people who read my blog, go read her whole post because it's filled with a lot more insightful information and links. Now. I said go!

Too many questions about BLOGGER!!

2004-09-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

Alright, so now one of my "lost" posts has now shown up. That's weird...

Too many questions about Blogger now too, along with the Russian school siege...

I'm not that bad, I swear...

2004-09-09T09:40:00.000-07:00

Contrary to what you all may be thinking, I haven't been completely terrible about keeping up with my blog the past 3-4 days (though I have been a bit more busy than usual). I've tried to post updates a couple of times, including a really long drawn-out, thoughtful post on the Russian school siege situation that took me at least 45 minutes, and Blogger just freaked out, coughed them up and lost them. I just about cried with the school siege one...

So this post will be short and sweet because I'm just not mentally prepared to go through that kind of loss again. This story is my proof that there must be a higher Supreme Being out there somewhere in the universe. A man in Florida was shooting a litter of puppies in the head and after killing three of them, one of the puppies managed to shoot the bloody wanker himself. Go, Mighty Dogs, go! I only wish the puppy had aimed better and gotten him in the freaking penis and testicles instead of his hand, but given that I've never shot a gun myself and don't know how my own aim would be, I'll still give him credit.

May the four remaining puppies all find loving, wonderful homes, and may this rotten excuse for a human being see the hottest corner of hell someday...

There's too many questions...

2004-09-07T21:31:00.000-07:00

I know it's typical of the Russian media and bureaucracy, who are still gaining their footing in the non-Communist state that they have now, but there's just so many questions left unanswered in the awful terrorist attack in Beslan.

A negotiator in the conflict is saying that it was actually armed civilians who started the gunfire; if that is the case, my GOD, what a tragedy, a stupid, senseless tragedy.

Mr Aushev, former president of the neighbouring Russian region of Ingushetia, was at the hostage rescue HQ on Friday for the final moments of the siege.

A day earlier, he had helped negotiate the release of 26 people, including babies, when he personally went into the building.

The shooting by the irregulars - described by Mr Aushev as an "idiotic third force" - started a chain reaction, he said.

Regardless of how it started, we can all use this as a chance to educate ourselves on the Russia/Chechnya situation. I'm amazed at how little the average American knows about it (or how little the average American knows about any current affairs occuring outside our borders), and the BBC has some decent resources for just the most basic background information on the situation: Q & A: the Chechen Conflict and Chechen Rebels' Hostage History and Overview/ Facts of the Republic of Chechnya .

The least we can do for those poor, beautiful children who died is to educate ourselves and know what's going on in the world around us, regardless of whether it directly affects us.

Self-made = self-centered?

2004-09-07T11:44:00.000-07:00

Bill O'Reilly told Sean Combs that he should be a Republican because Combs is a "self-made man." (Well, Sean Combs may be a "self-made" man, but O'Reilly isn't quite as "self-made" as he'd have us believe...) So does one automatically throw out all that stuff about caring about others, loving they neighbor, wanting people to eat and have shelter and jobs, etc. out the window the minute he/she hits the jackpot?

I've always been astonished by that attitude, particularly when so many of these conservatives identify as Christians. Remember that Jesus guy? Remember his teachings and all those things he said? They did not include things like preemptive war, holding people on foreign lands and not charging them with a crime or allowing them an attorney, tax cuts for the rich that had little affect on the middle class and no affect on the poor, death penalties, etc. Unless you're using a different Bible than me, which, if you are, please let me know which version you have. I always like to be well-read and up-to-date, and a Bible with a Jesus like that would blow my scholarly mind away.

What boat did I miss?

2004-09-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

I missed my own boat earlier not to post about Bush's new 527 position being his own flip-flop-- I knew that before, but must have had a brain fart during my previous rant. Here it is, folks. One thing I'd like to do on this blog is shout it from the rooftops every time I come across proof of his "flip-flops" (I hate that term and I hate it when politics gets so trivialized into one-word zingers) because, if memory serves me right, Bush has actually reversed his opinion/ actions more than Kerry. It must be that vast liberal media conspiracy that won't tell us that though...

Here's a starter list of some of his "flip flops" (perhaps I should just join the masses and use the bloody word). Here's some of the issues most pertinent to the campaign (yet the changing positions are rarely pointed out):

11. Department of Homeland Security
BUSH OPPOSES THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY..."So, creating a Cabinet office doesn't solve the problem. You still will have agencies within the federal government that have to be coordinated. So the answer is that creating a Cabinet post doesn't solve anything." [White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, 3/19/02]

...BUSH SUPPORTS THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY "So tonight, I ask the Congress to join me in creating a single, permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission: securing the homeland of America and protecting the American people." [President Bush, Address to the Nation, 6/6/02]

12. Weapons of Mass Destruction
BUSH SAYS WE FOUND THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION..."We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories...for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." [President Bush, Interview in Poland, 5/29/03]

...BUSH SAYS WE HAVEN'T FOUND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION "David Kay has found the capacity to produce weapons.And when David Kay goes in and says we haven't found stockpiles yet, and there's theories as to where the weapons went. They could have been destroyed during the war. Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country, and we'll find out." [President Bush, Meet the Press, 2/7/04]

14. Osama Bin Laden
BUSH WANTS OSAMA DEAD OR ALIVE... "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" [President Bush, on Osama Bin Laden, 09/17/01]

...BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT OSAMA "I don't know where he is.You know, I just don't spend that much time on him... I truly am not that concerned about him."[President Bush, Press Conference, 3/13/02]

17. Creation of the 9/11 Commission
BUSH OPPOSES CREATION OF INDEPENDENT 9/11 COMMISSION... "President Bush took a few minutes during his trip to Europe Thursday to voice his opposition to establishing a special commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before Sept. 11." [CBS News, 5/23/02]

...BUSH SUPPORTS CREATION OF INDEPENDENT 9/11 COMMISSION "President Bush said today he now supports establishing an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks." [ABC News, 09/20/02] (don't you love how he often takes credit for this kind of leadership too, when he was against it in the beginning, and fought it tooth and nail?- ry)

22. Saddam/al Qaeda Link
BUSH SAYS IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEEN AL QAEDA AND SADDAM... "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." [President Bush, 9/25/02]

...BUSH SAYS SADDAM HAD NO ROLE IN AL QAEDA PLOT "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11." [President Bush, 9/17/03]

Some Moore

2004-09-05T17:21:00.000-07:00

I am not the world's biggest Michael Moore fan. He's okay, not really my style; I enjoyed his movies well enough, etc. etc. I'm sorry to disappoint any possible right-wing visitors to my site who believe we lefties all bow down before Moore as our Leader or whatever, but that's my opinion.

Despite that, however, he wrote some really good op-ed articles last week on the convention that I wanted to share. Nothing too earthshaking, but if you're wanting to grab a mocha and read, then these are your links:

The GOP doesn't reflect America - his RINO theory describes every Republican I know personally, so maybe he's onto something...
The Ebert and McCain Show
Why the Democrats shouldn't be scared
Don't send more kids to die - this is the most touching article, and if you only read one of them, then let this one be it

And just for fun...

2004-09-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

After all those serious facts and numbers I just tossed out at you, here's a bit of fun: George Bush's Interim Report Card! (Now, look, I have to admit that I originally found this on snopes.com, which means there's some total dipshits out there who thought this might be true and wanted it either proven or disproven. Come on, people. S-A-T-I-R-E. We learned that in school too, but your very own interim report cards might reflect the reasons you don't understand why this flaming piece of satire is just that... Sheesh.)

Raw Facts and Figures

2004-09-05T16:22:00.000-07:00

Well, echindne beat me to it by posting a link to this awesome list of facts and figures first (even though I, as rojopelo, first brought it to everyone's attention on a web board we post on, but I'm not bragging or anything...), I can still list my favorite facts about the Bush administration. Which, by the way, I'm sure it makes me an "official nerd" (as if any of you had some doubts left) but stumbling onto this site was almost as good as a bloody orgasm for me. I love this stuff, and I hope you love these (extremely important ones in bold AND italics, just because I'm a flaming drama queen):

0 - Number of times Bush mentioned Osama bin Laden in his three State of the Union addresses.
0 - Number of times Bush mentioned Saudi Arabia in his three State of the Union addresses.
79 - Percentage of the 11 September hijackers who came from Saudi Arabia. (though, I'll admit, with such a small number of hijackers, that percentage number is not the most appropriate way of getting the message across. Seems like the more ethical thing to do would just be to say 15 out of the 19 hijackers were Saudis; that is pretty shocking in and of itself.)
$0 - Amount approved by George Bush to hire more INS special agents.
$10m - Amount Bush cut from the INS's existing terrorism budget.
7 - Number of Arabic linguists fired by the US army between mid-August and mid-October 2002 for being gay.
$3,500 - Reward a group of veterans offered in 2000 for anyone who could confirm Bush's Alabama guard service.
600-700 - Number of guardsmen who were in Bush's unit during that period.
0 - Number of guardsmen from that period who came forward with information about Bush's guard service.
0 - Number of minutes that President Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the assistant Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, the former chairman of the Defence Policy Board, Richard Perle, and the White House Chief of Staff, Karl Rove the main proponents of the war in Iraq served in combat (combined).
0 - Number of principal civilian or Pentagon staff members who planned the war who have immediate family members serving in uniform in Iraq.
130 - Approximate Number of countries (out of a total of 191 recognised by the United Nations) with a US military presence.
43 - Percentage of the entire world's military spending that the US spends on defence. (That was in 2002, the year before the invasion of Iraq.)
$4bn - Actual monthly cost of the US military presence in Iraq according to Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld in 2004.
92 - Percentage of Iraq's urban areas with access to potable water in late 2002.
60 - Percentage of Iraq's urban areas with access to potable water in late 2003.
55 - Percentage of the Iraqi workforce who were unemployed before the war.
80 - Percentage of the Iraqi workforce who are unemployed a Year after the war.
75 - Percentage of Americans unaffected by Bush's sweeping 2003 cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes.
49 - Percentage of Americans in April 2004 who found that their taxes had actually gone up since Bush took office.
88 - Percentage of American families who will save less than $100 on their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and dividends taxes.
$300m Amount cut from the federal programme that provides subsidies to poor families so they can heat their homes.
15 - Average number of minutes Bush spent reviewing capital punishment cases while governor of Texas.
43.6m - Number of Americans without health insurance by the end of 2002 (more than 15 per cent of the population).
2.4m - Number of Americans who lost their health insurance during Bush's first year in office.
2 - Percentage of the world's population that is British.
2 - Percentage of the world's oil used by Britain.
5 - Percentage of the world's population that is American.
25 - Percentage of the world's oil used by America.
4 - Rank of the United States among countries considered to be the greatest threats to world peace according to a 2003 Pew Global Attitudes study (Israel, Iran, and North Korea were considered more dangerous; Iraq was considered less dangerous).

Phew! I hope you actually read that, least of all, enjoyed it! And if you're like me, you're totally having your socks rocked off. I just love facts and figures. You can't argue with facts and figures. There's no bullshit and rhetoric behind them. So much fun... :)

Lack of posts, oh my!

2004-09-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

I apologize, to the zero people who actually read my blog, for not posting these past few days. I've been hit simultaneously with food poisoning and a severe migraine. Fun, fun. But you can imagine that staring at a computer screen and deconstructing depressing political stuff is not among the doctor's orders...

I hope to be back soon...

Nostalgia Trip

2004-09-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or is this presidential campaign starting to look like the playground bully pulpit theatre or something? Scary... The adults back then promised us that once we grew up no one would act like that any more. They must not have told these Republican speechwriters as much when they were children...

I knew...

2004-09-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

... there was a reason I didn't feel any safer.

Guilty Conscience

2004-09-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

I just got a touching and heartfelt email from the Drug Policy Alliance thanking me for my support. I've done little for them but sign my name to all their Action Alerts that they send around; I have no money to give them. But since they gave me their heartfelt thanks, and since I'm still dirt poor, I figured I'd give them some blog space on my oh-so-heavily populated blog.

Please, please, please check out their website if you can. The "War on Drugs" sounds good during all those political speeches, but the human cost is astronomical and the drug rate has never so much as waned. It isn't worth the lives and freedoms lost, the money we're spending, or the enemies we're making.

Missing the point... Again

2004-09-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

Bush is suing to stop ALL 527 groups from airing campaign ads. First of all, how convenient that he pulls this trick after the two Swift Boat ads air and get massive amounts of attention and lead to the stereotype that Kerry only got superficial papercuts or something in Vietnam (all untrue).

But the bigger problem is that Bush is touting this as him acting on the desires of the people. What people? The right wing is eating up those Swift Boat ads. I've heard nary a complaint from them about 527s. John McCain insisted that Bush condemn the ads' message. Even though McCain also does not like 527s, the message was generelly the problem we on the left had as well. We wrote letters and called the White House asking Bush to condemn the message in the ads, because it was all proven to be untrue or else they were facts presented in a dubious manner (i.e. one man said, "I served with Kerry in Vietnam." He never spent a day WITH Kerry, what he meant was that he fought in the Vietnam War, and so did Kerry, but the sentence was presented in a way to make you think otherwise.).

Even now with the lawsuit, Bush still does not condemn the message itself in the Swift Boat ads. And what about the fact that much of the financial backing of the Swift Boat ads goes back to either George H.W. Bush's inner circle or Karl Rove? There's a lot of financial hogwash and double dealing and bad tidings going on there. Has Bush condemned that? No.

I cannot speak for the whole left, but I would go ahead and venture to say that this was never about making anything illegal. Why do something that might come back to bite you in your own ass? What we wanted was a condemnation of the lies, of the underhanded financial dealings of the people paying for the ads, of the close ties with the ads to the White House, etc. For a president who comes out and says he is led by God, we assumed he might be able to follow that Commandment thing about lying and condemn it when he sees it. He did not, and he has not, and he has once again completely missed the point, or shall we say, missed the (swift) boat.

Slapping Che Around

2004-09-02T11:06:00.000-07:00

I don't want to argue what Che Guevara became after the Cuban Revolution. Some cans of worms are either better left unopened or left to open on days when I don't have a migraine. But I won't beat around the bush: he was a Communist. Communists come in many forms and many ideologies: note just how different Castro, Mao, and Stalin were (are) themselves in their beliefs and leadership styles. That's something very difficult for average Americans to understand. "All Communists are all the same and automatically bad!" Yet their understanding of the ideals of communism are extremely poor. (Note that my big self with my B.A. in Economics-- I do not believe in the Communist system. What I DO believe in is an actual understanding of all beliefs and letting go of petty and outdated stereotypes.)

Before the actual Cuban Revolution, Che's basic Communist beliefs led him to believe things like all people deserve free healthcare and education, regardless of ability to pay, all people should have a roof over their heads, regardless of ability to pay, etc. And not surprisingly, that free enterprise inherently led to a system where the rich take advantage of the poor; therefore, a society must be built where everyone is on equal footing. Noble ideals, for sure, but history has shown so far that going too far to either extreme (Communism or Fascism) is very difficult on a society.

But anyway, regarding the lawsuit at the above link, this is exactly the kind of stuff Che fought against. He railed against big countries and their business taking advantage of smaller, more economically disadvantaged countries and their desperate population. He would probably be turning over in his grave at the thought of T-shirts being imprinted with his image made by slave labor in Honduras.

What a pity...

Cheney's Lovefest

2004-09-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

I'm tired of ranting and I have a terrible migraine, so I'm just going to admit it, echidne did it better than I could have anyway. It's no shame to be bested by the best.

And, well, maybe I'm being just a tad bit lazy too...

But I wanted it real bad...

2004-09-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

My guess is that Ahhhh-nuld has never had to do what I'm about to tell you. A few weeks ago I bought a DVD for $20. I haven't opened it, thankfully, and now my financial situation has hit crucial again, so tomorrow I have to return it to get the money back to pay my bills. That's pretty sad-- $20. When was the last time these millionaire Republicans had to worry over $20? And what does $20 get them? One bite of their dinner, one square inch of fabric for their new business suit, half a tank of gas for their half a million dollar cars?

Oh, and remember Ahhhh-nuld's $350,000 NYC week-long vacation, for which he isn't spending a dime? Well, $20 can go into $350,000 seventeen thousand five hundred times.

All I wanted was my bloody DVD...

I am SO there

2004-09-02T08:57:00.000-07:00

I've always had an undying fascination with Colombia, and as such, I've been involved in studying its history in the drug trade. Now, I will be the first, and the loudest, to say that there is more to Colombia than cocaine and terrorists, despite what the U.S. government and the media would have you believe. So please at least know that.

But now they're planning to build a Drug Crime Museum in Pablo Escobar's old mansion, and ho' boy, I'm just about buzzing in my seat with excitement. It'll be way down the road before its done but one day, mark my words, I am so there.

Why Pro-Choice DOES equal Pro-Life

2004-09-02T08:41:00.000-07:00

This is why, whether abortion is good or bad (and who ever argues that it's a good thing?), we can never go back to the days of back alley abortions. In the U.S. before Roe v. Wade thousands of women died each year from illegal abortions, whereas legal abortion is one of the safest operations doctors can perform and they have a death rate lower than receiving shots of penicillin. But I rant and I rave, as I am prone to do. From the link above:

Nearly 70,000 women, almost half of them in Asia, die from unsafe abortions each year despite government pledges made a decade ago to improve human rights and reproductive health, researchers said Wednesday.

...

"Unsafe abortion poses a serious threat to the health and lives of women all around the world, not just in Asia," Elizabeth Maguire, president of the Ipas group which works to protect women from unsafe abortions, told Reuters.

...

Governments also agreed, where abortion was considered legal, to make sure it was safe. But the Ipas research showed that in some regions unsafe abortions account for 50 percent of all pregnancy-related deaths of women.

"We have figures that 40 women every minute undergo an unsafe abortion and 200 are dying every day. The real message is that these deaths and disabilities from unsafe abortion are preventable," Maguire said.

...

According to the report, Asia accounts for 55 percent of the world's unsafe abortions, the highest of any region, with about 10.5 million in 2000, followed by Africa with 4.2 million unsafe abortions and Latin America and the Caribbean with 3.7 million.

So again, I pose the question: when the anti-abortion groups call themselves "pro-life," what about the lives of the women? Making abortion illegal or restricting its availability does not keep women from having abortions; study after study, history lesson after history lesson, etc. have proven that to be true. Women will seek out abortions regardless of the legality or even the safety; our lives are put at risk by this "pro-life" cause.

Surely a woman's life is at least as important as that of a fetus.

Deconstructing Arnold

2004-09-01T22:12:00.000-07:00

Pinko Feminist Hellcat has a great analysis of Ahhhh-nuld's speech at the above link, but what did you expect, given her ultra cool name?

Terrorism without a Muslim face...

2004-09-01T21:15:00.000-07:00

... still equals terrorism, people. So let's pay attention. That includes you, Bush, and all your administration. We're not all stupid, and just because this is happening in Latin America doesn't make it something other than terrorism. And just because you're pro-fetal-life, that doesn't make this issue less of a terrorist threat. And just because we sponsored it, ordered it, paid for it, and carried it out, doesn't make these any less than cases of terrorism.

Anyway, that was just a little diatribe for those who believe Muslims have a monopoly on terrorism, which couldn't be further from the truth. Every society and religion has had to deal with some form of terrorism at least throughout the last 2,000 years. (How quickly we ourselves forget Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, all the nimrods who kill abortion doctors, etc. Whether it kills no one and just serves to frighten people, such as a bomb, or it kills 5,000 people, it's all still terrorism. But only a small fraction of it is being addressed by the media and the government.) This website gives a very simple, yet very informed introduction to the subject:

Is terrorism a new phenomenon? No. The oldest terrorists were holy warriors who killed civilians. For instance, in first-century Palestine, Jewish Zealots would publicly slit the throats of Romans and their collaborators; in seventh-century India, the Thuggee cult would ritually strangle passersby as sacrifices to the Hindu deity Kali; and in the eleventh-century Middle East, the Shiite sect known as the Assassins would eat hashish before murdering civilian foes. Historians can trace recognizably modern forms of terrorism back to such late-nineteenth-century organizations as Narodnaya Volya (“People’s Will”), an anti-tsarist group in Russia. One particularly successful early case of terrorism was the 1914 assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serb extremist, an event that helped trigger World War I. Even more familiar forms of terrorism—often custom-made for TV cameras—first appeared on July 22, 1968, when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine undertook the first terrorist hijacking of a commercial airplane.

Sock it to the "Manly Girls"

2004-09-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I couldn't resist, but I shouldn't keep using the sexist and homophobic slurs just because Ahhhhh-nuld does it. So that's my last time, unless I'm actually quoting someone. Promise. But, lest anyone think we pessimists are just being lazy, stupid, worthless, good for nothing, etc. AND THAT THERE'S ONLY A FEW OF US, here's some facts:

Here then, for your voting-booth convenience, is a quick overview of President Bush's "great record":

Since he took office, 1.2 million people in America have lost their jobs, bringing the total to 8.2 million.

The number of Americans living below the poverty line has increased by 4.3 million to 35.9 million - 12.9 million of them children.
The number of Americans with no health insurance has increased by 5.8 million - with 1.4 million losing their insurance in 2003. The total now stands at 45 million.
Forty percent of the 3.5 million people who were homeless at some point last year were families with children, as were 40 percent of those seeking emergency food assistance.
Median household income has fallen more than $1,500 in inflation-adjusted terms in the last three years, and the wages of most workers are now falling behind inflation.
Average tuition for college has risen by 34 percent, while 37 percent of fourth graders read at a level considered "below basic."
One third of the president's $1.7 trillion in tax cuts benefits only the top 1 percent of wealthiest Americans.
President Bush also failed to fulfill his pledge to get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive," traded the moral high ground for preemptive war and the horrors of Abu Ghraib, never attended a funeral or memorial service for any of the 975 soldiers killed in Iraq, pulled out of the Kyoto agreement on global warming, gutted the Clean Air Act, initiated the rollback of more than 200 environmental regulations, backed a constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriages, and refused to follow through on his promise to extend the assault weapons ban.

Yeah, the last paragraph was just gravy, and not specifically regarding the economy (unless you factor in our confidence in our leader and his administration, which DOES influence the economy, but your average voter won't believe this stupid B.A. Economics graduate, but anyway).

Best Blogs Ever

2004-09-01T18:16:00.000-07:00

No, I won't claim mine as one of them. I think my readership is up to TWO people now (woohoo!), and I have to direct you to the two best blogs ever:

And if you'll note, they have all these cool links on their blogs. I want that. I'm going to get that. You just wait-- maybe one day my blog won't suck quite so much. :)

I offer you more proof...

2004-09-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

... that rats can be Democrats! I am listening online to the Al Franken show, and he just played the Ahhhhhh-nuld clip regarding us pessimistic girlie-men, and my rat has just now started to freak out. This is more proof. I'm growing more convinced.

Bush vs. NYC

2004-09-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

So all of the sudden the Grand BS Party wants us to think that it has done wonders for NYC and that NYC loves Bush. Heh. The facts (http://www.siena.edu/sri/results/2004/040610_BushCongress_final.htm) and the people (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50688-2004Aug31.html) and this article (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040419&s=newfield) say otherwise.

Things that make you go hmmmmmmm.

Can a rat be a Democrat?

2004-09-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

I pose the question, now here's the evidence. My eldest pet rat has recently begun suffering from a weak heart, to the point of being on the verge of a heart attack. So we keep her out of harm's way and make sure she never wants for anything and never needs to get agitated over anything.

And yet... this week, every few hours she just starts wigging out. Climbing the walls of her cage, running around incessantly, hyperventilating, etc. Totally freaking out. Of course, I, being the weak mommy that I am, give in to her little fits and give her mountains of treats to calm her down so that she doesn't have a bloody heart attack.

But then it occurred to me: her cage is right across a small room from our main computer, which usually has the CNN front page on it if one of us is not currently online. And my mother has been watching the GOP convention and talking about the speeches (some). And I know I've been giving off some seriously bad anti-Bush, anti-GOP convention vibes this week.

Do you think my baby is a Democrat? Only next week will tell... But that would sure make her mommy proud.

It must be nice...

2004-08-31T21:37:00.000-07:00

"To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don't be economic girlie men." Ahhhh-nuld, GOP Convention

Wow. So it must be nice to be in a position to say that. Look at this, he didn't even have to pay for his measly little $350,000 trip to NYC: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/politics/campaign/26arnold.html?pagewanted=print&position

Hmm. So let's get this straight. I've been out of a job for over a year now. As have been many other people in my situation. I have $200 worth of bills each month to pay, and I can hardly ever come up with even that. $200 is probably what he pays for dessert when he goes out for a five course dinner, okay? And this multi-millionaire, who married into another multi-millionaire family, wants me to get over it? (I'm assuming that's what the "Don't be economic girlie-men" comment boils down to.) When was the last time he had to worry about paying any bills? Has it been in the last four years, i.e. during the Bush Administration?

I'll get over it when Ahhhhh-nuld gets his Austrian punk-ass down here and either hands me a wad of cash or hands me a job. And when he encourages the Bush administration to take care of the latter for the millions of others like me.

Since that will never happen, then he can just kiss my incredibly poor and unemployed ass, and he can go to hell for being such a mean and selfish bastard.

Pet Peeve of the Day

2004-08-31T21:14:00.000-07:00

I'm the pessimistic, dreary, pain-in-the-ass type of person, and almost every day it seems I come up with a new pet peeve. So why not share them with you instead of griping to my friends and family in real life?

Pet Peeve, August 31, 2004: People who do not cite sources in articles or books.

In college I was never allowed to express so much as a sentence in a research paper without a source listed in the endnotes to back it up. Maybe it's the whole Pavlov's dog phenomenon, but I cannot stand to read something now without a source. Take, for instance, The Great Unraveling by Paul Krugman. An excellent book. I'd recommend it; really, I would. But I have a hard time fully trusting his arguments when he doesn't have anything to back up his claims. If you're going to tell me something like, "George Bush was born in a Petri Dish on Mars in the year 5,000 B.C. and has been frozen in acidic carbonite for 7,000 years in order to create a massive race of super humans," I might believe you, if you had a source to back up that claim. Otherwise, how do I know you didn't pull it out of your ass, like I obviously just did?

So lesson for the day: always cite your source. Bloggers are not immune either. I want to see where you read that fact, where you saw that story, etc. It's what separates the intelligent life forms like us from, well, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter.

Today is our little Dictionary Day!

2004-08-31T20:46:00.000-07:00

This is completely second hand knowledge and I'm not going to go to the trouble to verify it (nor will you expect me to once you finish reading this), but my dad was telling me that on his Christian radio station today, one of the announcers went on a diatribe that went something like this: "Did you know that Webster's has now changed the definition of marriage? No one asked me for my permission, because I sure would have told them no! The first definition still says, 'The union of a man and a woman in holy matrimony,' but now there's a second definition of it that says, 'The union of two people in a committed partnership.' They had to let the homosexuals get their definition in there!"

First of all, unless he's using the 1648 ye Olde Shoppe Dictionary, that's been the typical definition for a while now. My 1971 Webster's Dictionary has something along those lines for the verb "to marry." Interestingly enough, for the actual word marriage in that 1971 Webster's Dictionary, there's almost jack-all except "the state of being married." Oooooh. Shaking in my boots.

So let's see what my very recent (2001 edition) American Heritage Dictionary says about marriage (and you better read this, since I'm going to the trouble of typing it!):

marriage: 1a. The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife. b. The state of being married; wedlock. c. A common-law marriage. d. A union between two persons having the customary but usu. not the legal force of marriage: a same sex marriage.

Okay, so the definition that they would have the problem with is the FOURTH one, and I hardly think it puts it on equal footing as the first one. So get over it, peeps.

Did anyone in these anti-gay-marriage groups also note that dictionaries and the whole bloody English language change with time anyway? (There's a reason we don't speak as thou didst Shakespeare dost once.) Every year new slang words are added, and extended/ revised definitions are added-- I guess that's bad though, because it's not conservative. Is that what's next? Reverting the English language back to Shakespearean times?

Mine hands doth quake and mine heart doth quiver...

Winning the War: Will We or Won't We?

2004-08-31T19:36:00.000-07:00

Seems like maybe it's Bush who can't make up that foggy little brain of his? What's that called again? The Fox"News" people call it something like, umm, I think... oh YEAH, flip-flopping. It's been their one-horse pony show re: Kerry for months now. So will they use it now for Bush?

"We have a clear vision on how to win the war on terror and bring peace to the world."
-- George W. BushJuly 30th 2004.

"I don’t think you can win [the war on terror]. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world.”
-- George W. BushAug. 29th, 2004.
"We meet today in a time of war for our country, a war (i.e., the war on terror) we did not start yet one that we will win."
-- George W. Bush, August 31st, 2004

[By the way, thanks to http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ for the quotes. That's one of the best blogs around, and if you're one of the two people reading this one (if I'm lucky enough to have that many!) go check it out!]

Rock-a-Bye Baby

2004-08-31T19:08:00.000-07:00

So I finally got pissed off enough today by the RNC to start my own bloody blog. (It's about damn time, most of you are saying!) Welcome to my world. It contains feminism, knitting, pet rats, migraines, allergies and a perpetual job search (thanks, Bush!). And lots of other things. I have no set plan for this blog, but it will probably be mostly political stuff, since that's what rocks my world the most. I'm going to leave at the moment to tinker with the settings, not that anyone even knows this thing exists yet. But in honor of Ahhhhh-nuld, who just so happens to be speaking at the moment, I'll just say, "I'll be baaaaack."