Shakesville: 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007

Dublin Pride 2007....

Dublin Pride was a week ago on June 23rd and history was made when the Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI)—of which I am a member of the governing committee and a volunteer spokesperson—formed the first contingent ever of openly identified for all the world to see proud “Yes, we are Irish transsexuals”!!!

On board and walking alongside a rainbow-coloured amphibious World War Two vintage “duck”, generously donated for the day by “Viking Splash Tours”, some 30 TENI members and courageous supporters—many sporting T-shirts proclaiming, “I’ve been diagnosed with Gender Euphoria”— traversed the parade route. From the Garden of Remembrance to Wood Quay our appearance—while occasionally prompting puzzled looks—mostly evoked cheers, wild applause and unrestrained welcome.

Unlike some places in the US where Pride is taken for granted, in Dublin its spirit is of both an enthusiastically embraced outrageous celebration and a vital political demonstration. After all, homosexuality was only decriminalized here 14 years ago--largely as a result of the courageous work done by the totally awesome Senator David Norris.

Here we are in a video posted on YouTube. The blurry dude in the cap at the back with a tambourine in his hand is me, next to my best friend in the feather boa. The unknown person who filmed this clip picked the least crowded spot along the whole parade route—which is great for its unobstructed view but lends a somewhat subdued, almost desolate air to the video which is totally out of keeping with the actual day.

Which was historically grand!

He Rode a Blazing Car

I'm fond of Glasgow. It doesn't have the effervescent aura of Edinburgh, but it's got a workmanlike charm.

Back in 2001 my then-fianceé and I flew into Glasgow International Airport. We exited the airport, as near as I can tell, through the very doors targeted by the men who attacked that airport today.

So you may expect that I'd be completely freaked out by the attack today, in full zOMG THE BROWN PEEPLES IS ATTAKKIN A PLACE I BEEN 2!!@!!!@!!!eleven!!! mode.

Well, no, not really. You see, I go to the Mall of America quite often, despite the fact that there've been shootings there. I go to Minneapolis, even though there have been murders there. I drive on freeways, despite the fact that there are fatal accidents on the roads all the time.

You see, while there's obviously nothing good about terrorist attacks, they need not mean the end of civilization as we know it. The attack today is inconvenient for Glaswegians, and those traveling to Scotland. But tomorrow the car will be cleared away, the doors will be patched up, and life will go on for everyone save, perhaps, the gravely injured attacker.

That doesn't mean terrorism is something we should take lightly, just as we shouldn't take any form of crime lightly. But the Brits have the right attitude, near as I can tell: deal with it and move on.

So though I'm sure the wingnutosphere is right now in high dudgeon about Eurabia Rising, I'm going to view this like any other urban violence. It's regrettable, and it's something that we need to address. But it's no reason to shut down western civilization -- not even for a minute. Indeed, if this is how competent terrorists are these days, they're not going to have a long run: as far as I can tell, they're far more dangerous to themselves than anyone else.

Give 2 the Troops this 4th of July

Hey Shakers, for those of you who'd like to celebrate the Fourth of July by doing something to support U.S. Troops, here's something from my WorldGolf.com blog that may interest you:

Recently, I was contacted by Jim Best of The Best Balls. Having read the posts, Jim generously offered 10,000 golf balls to be shipped overseas.

With the help of the North Carolina Branch of Give 2 the troops, we'll get these balls to a bunch of brave men and women, who truly appreciate the diversion.

"The golf clubs are VERY popular and with the many military bases in N.C., the troops are all going to be playing golf soon!" wrote Barbara Whitehead of Give2theTroops in an e-mail.

Currently, Give2theTroops is running its "Tee Time for the Troops" campaign, just for this very purpose - to get a diversion, and a slice of home (no pun intended) to American soldiers.

Especially in Iraq, troops have gotten a great deal of pleasure from golf gear and balls. There's one problem, however. As you can imagine, setting up a driving range in the Iraq desert is one thing. Retrieving the balls is another.

"After they hit (and lose) all of their golf balls, they are often left with just clubs. Of course, being bored, they resort to hitting rocks," wrote Whitehead. ...

Here's the information of where you can ship your gear, be it bags of tees, golf balls, clubs, etc.

NC Branch Give2thetroops, inc
3109 Landmark St
Greenville NC 27834

Also, don't be afraid to open up your checkbook. According to Whitehead, last month Give2thetroops spent $4,000 in shipping fees.

Click here to read the whole post.

Give2thetroops is a great organization, filled with volunteers who only want to do something tangible to help a lot of great Americans doing the hardest jobs there are. And while by all means I understand that many, if not most of you already go above and beyond in giving, hopefully this is something that will interest those who'd like to do something this Independence Day to make a difference to those in uniform.

They gladly accept things other than golf equipment, and definitely could use donations so they can pay for their valuable shipments. so head to their Web site at www.give2thetroops.com to find out more, you'll be touched by the work they do.

If you want more info, feel free to e-mail me at wkw(at)williamkwolfrum(dot)com. And if you'd like to pass this message along, that would be greatly appreciated, as well.

--WKW

Do you think it was bin-Laden...?

No, not the latest incident in London. I'm talking here about 9/11.

Lurker in the dark posted a comment in reference to my skepticism over certainty that al-Qaida was behind the two car bombs found on Friday in London, which I’ll excerpt here,

Honestly, "I'll Wait and see." is the same action I took back in 9-11 when wild predictions were being made (though, to be fair, most of those I heard were thinking Al-qaida).

"Wait and see" was my response back in '01 also. Moreover, at the risk of sounding like a batshit crazy conspiracy theorist, I still wonder if it was bin-Laden. In my opinion, his guilt has never been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It makes perfect sense that bin Laden would accept responsibility for what is possibly the most successful terrorist action in history—look what it's done for his creds and authority throughout the world. But where's the hard evidence?

I was appalled in 2001 when everyone, from prominent journalists and media outlets on down to the common person on the street immediately accepted that Bush and his incompetent intelligence apparatus knew who the culprits were within hours of the event. And, naturally, the perps were Arabs, facilitating Bush’s longstanding desire to destroy Iraq once and for all.

No one but batshit crazy conspiracy theorists have wavered from the official line since then. And while I've come to believe that there is a high probability that 9/11 was planned and executed by al-Qaida, the fact that we have never had any sort of open trial with bona fide defense attorneys, untainted witnesses, rules of evidence, and humane treatment and incarceration of suspects means we are left taking the words of an authoritarian-leaning administration with the worst track record of lies, deception, corruption and fanaticism in American history.

The latest incident in London has brought my old discomfort about all this to the surface again. Am I the only non-crazy, non-conspiracy theory science-oriented skeptic out there who still wonders if bin-Laden really was behind 9/11?

The Virtual Pub Is Open

TFIF, Shakers. Who needs a drink?

We've got Duff on tap.

(Thanks to Fritz for tonight's pub idea!)

If At First You Don't Succeed, Lie, Lie Again

Pres. Bush played the Al Qaeda-in-Iraq card at just about the only place it would win him applause: the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

Jonathan Landay at McClatchy calls him on it:

Facing eroding support for his Iraq policy, even among Republicans, President Bush on Thursday called al Qaida "the main enemy" in Iraq, an assertion rejected by his administration's senior intelligence analysts.

The reference, in a major speech at the Naval War College that referred to al Qaida at least 27 times, seemed calculated to use lingering outrage over the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to bolster support for the current buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq, despite evidence that sending more troops hasn't reduced the violence or sped Iraqi government action on key issues.

Bush called al Qaida in Iraq the perpetrator of the worst violence racking that country and said it was the same group that had carried out the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

"Al Qaida is the main enemy for Shia, Sunni and Kurds alike," Bush asserted. "Al Qaida's responsible for the most sensational killings in Iraq. They're responsible for the sensational killings on U.S. soil."

U.S. military and intelligence officials, however, say that Iraqis with ties to al Qaida are only a small fraction of the threat to American troops. The group known as al Qaida in Iraq didn't exist before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, didn't pledge its loyalty to al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden until October 2004 and isn't controlled by bin Laden or his top aides.

Bush's references to al Qaida came just days after Republican Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and George Voinovich of Ohio broke with Bush over his Iraq strategy and joined calls to begin an American withdrawal.

"The only way they think they can rally people is by blaming al Qaida," said Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center who's critical of the administration's strategy.

Even some of the friendlies at the Naval War College challenged Bush on some points -- like his claim that he follows the advice of his commanders on the ground:

The president delivered a speech yesterday at the Naval War College, rehashing most of what you’d expect him to say about the war in Iraq. (Surprise, he’s optimistic and sees a lot of “progress.”)

When he opened the floor to questions, however, the audience seemed a little skeptical.
Q: Mr. President, I just returned from a week at the United States Army War College in Pennsylvania on national security. I walked away with so much more pride in our military. I would follow them anywhere. My question is: At the beginning of your speech — that you said that you consult with the military. With all due respect, sir, how much do you really listen and follow them?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, a lot. I don’t see how you can be the Commander-in-Chief of a well motivated military without listening carefully to the advice of your commanders.

Really? In order to be effective, he has to listen to the advice of his commanders?

Does Bush remember this from January?
When President Bush goes before the American people tonight to outline his new strategy for Iraq, he will be doing something he has avoided since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003: ordering his top military brass to take action they initially resisted and advised against. […]

It may also be a sign of increasing assertiveness from a commander in chief described by former aides as relatively passive about questioning the advice of his military advisers. In going for more troops, Bush is picking an option that seems to have little favor beyond the White House and a handful of hawks on Capitol Hill and in think tanks who have been promoting the idea almost since the time of the invasion.

If Bush wants to reject the advice of top military leaders, that’s his prerogative; he is regrettably the Commander in Chief. But to go around bragging about listening to military leaders when he did the exact opposite is ridiculous.

Assvertising

The new Hyundai ad, via Cheryl.

Didja catch anything missing in that ad, by any chance?
Here's the actual transcript: Smart. Who in the world doesn't want to be smart? The whole human race wants to be smart. Even guys who aren't smart wish they were smart. Being smart is the highest compliment you can be paid, and while some things are cool for a moment in time, smart has never gone out of style. Smart people are whom we've always counted on and admired the most. When stranded on a desert island, whom did everyone turn to? The smart guy. Even in athletics, the smart guys always come out on top. To be smart, you don't need to be rich and successful, but, if you are rich and successful, you're probably pretty darn smart. One thing you'll consistently find in smart people is they make smart choices. That's because smart people do their homework, which allows them to make educated, smart decisions. Now, when it comes to buying a car, there's nothing smarter than buying a Hyundai. [Then a bunch of junk about awards Hyundai has won.] So when you think about everything, when you think about quality and warranty and awards, when you think about safety and features and value for your hard-earned money, it's all clear that choosing a Hyundai is the smartest way to go. Hyundai: Smart move.

Here's what I hear: Sexist. Who in the world doesn't want to be sexist? Sometimes it seems like the whole human race is sexist. Even guys who claim they're not sexist are often sexist. Being sexist is one of the most offensive traits to have, and while sometimes people get called on their sexist shit, sexism has never gone out of style. Sexist people are whom I always revile and disdain the most. When stranded on a desert island, who would most likely turn me into a cannibal? The sexist guy. Even in athletics, sexism still flourishes. To be sexist, you don't need to be ignorant and privileged, but, if you are ignorant and privileged, you're probably pretty darn sexist. One thing you'll consistently find in sexist people is they make sexist choices. That's because sexist people are narcissistic twits, which allows them to make selfish, sexist decisions. Now, when it comes to buying a car, there's nothing that could make me buy a Hyundai. When I think about everything, when I think about the writing and producing and filming of this ad, when I think about people who equate intelligence with having a penis but want my hard-earned money, it's all clear that choosing a Hyundai will never fucking happen. Hyundai: Sexist turds.

(Unexploded) Bombs in London....

It’s a measure of my cynicism after four years of a war of aggression led by the US and the UK, accompanied at home by suppression of civil rights, a history of police and security forces blunders that includes at least one murder and the illegal incarceration and torture of countless others, creeping secrecy and authoritarianism in government, and a demonization of Arabs in popular culture and the media, that my first thought upon hearing that the two car bombs in London are the work of “al-Qaida or its supporters,” is, "I'll wait and see.”

Scotland Yard confirmed tonight that a second car bomb had been found in central London close to the first car bomb that was discovered outside a packed nightclub in the early hours.

Senior police and Whitehall sources said that the failed attempt to inflict mass murder in the capital was the work of al-Qaida or those inspired by its ideology.

"You only have to read past cases of those convicted for terrorism to realise they have been plotting to blow up nightclubs and putting gas cylinder bombs in cars," one senior source said. [Wow, such stunning detective work. I’m convinced!]

Counter-terrorism sources said the devices found in two Mercedes cars - which contained gas cylinders, petrol and nails - were similar to car bombs used in Iraq.

The first device was found overnight in Haymarket - one of London's main nightlife districts.

That Mercedes had been left outside the Tiger Tiger club, near Piccadilly Circus, which had hundreds of people inside. More were milling around on the street.

Peter Clarke, the Scotland Yard head of counter-terrorism, confirmed in a short statement at 8.45pm that a second Mercedes also had a "considerable amount" of explosive material and nails.

The second car was found in nearby Cockspur Street, just a few hundred yards for the first and the two were "clearly linked", he said.

The discovery of a second device increased the need for the public to be vigilant, Mr Clarke said. [Not to mention, the traffic police, as you'll see in a few sentences...]

The incident began when an ambulance was called to a nightclub at around 1am to treat a person who had fallen ill. The ambulance crew noticed a Mercedes parked outside the club, and saw that the vehicle appeared to have smoke inside it.

Witnesses said they had seen the light metallic green saloon car being driven erratically earlier. It then crashed into bins before the driver ran away.

A parking ticket was put on the second car at 2.30am and it was impounded an hour later at a lot. The device was made safe by specialist officers, Mr Clarke said.
[Emphasis and snarky comments all mine.]

(Story here.)

As you might be able to tell, I’m having many reactions to this story. First, relief that the no one was hurt. It sounds like there could have been a serious loss of life.

That said, WTP! One of the bombs was discovered because smoke was filling a car that had been driven erratically then crashed into some rubbish bins, with the driver fleeing?! Way to be stealth!! While the other bomb was in a car that was ticketed and then effing towed away?!!

The ineptness of the would-be terrorists is matched only by the utter cluelessness of the forces paid and supposedly trained to protect us.

Maybe this latest act will turn out to be the work of “Arab terrorists,” I don't know. I’ve also heard rumours it was Irish Republican extremists. Which, while it kinda makes more sense to me (considering a night club was targeted) the situation in Northern Ireland seems eons beyond such violence. Moreover, as an Irish man I remain extremely wary of suspicion cast this way, given the UK’s history of framing Irish Republican activists and its former propensity to blame the IRA for everything until al-Qaida came along.

So far, the only evidence police seem to have that the bombs were linked to al-Qaida are, as the BBC reports, “echoes of other terror plots.” Excuse me if I don’t jump on the band wagon, considering these are the same security forces who shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder an unarmed Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, in Stockwell Tube station in South London two years ago because they mistook him for an Arab terrorist.

My conviction that force is the wrong way to deal with terrorism, borne of having lived in Israel for a brief stint back in 1974, only grows stronger with each passing year.

In a rather strange coincidence, explosions and hand grenades have been going off in a nearby Dublin neighbourhood all week—linked, according to the Irish police, to a fatal stabbing in Mountjoy Prison on Monday. Which is code for, it’s all part of the drug wars.

'Course, I don't have the greatest confidence in the word of the scandal ridden and corrupt Irish police force, either. Moreover, I want to know, how are people getting a hold of hand grenades in the first place?! We're supposed to have strict controls on such weapons here.

Short story here.

Friday Cat Blogging

Classic pix, because the girls and I are too tired for a photo shoot today...

Matilda

"Go fuck yourself."

--------------------

Olivia

"This door is mine now."

So I Thought She Could Dance

[WARNING: Spoilers ahead for anyone who might have last night's SYTYCD TiVoed and doesn't want to know who got the boot. If you don't know what SYTYCD is, trust me, you don't have it TiVoed.]

Okay, where are my So You Think You Can Dancers? We need to talk.

First, the Girls: What the hell happened last night? Jessi was one of my favorite girls; in fact, I think she was a favorite of lots of people. Could the judges (Cat: YER JIDJIZ!) not have given one fucking second of explanation as to why she was being kicked off the show? Mr. Shakes and I were seriously pissed.

Second, the Boys: Last week, when they didn't kick off Cedric, I grumbled to Mr. Shakes: "Just watch. Next week, they'll draw contemporary, where shitty partnering isn't so noticable, and he'll flail his way through it, not hit the bottom three, and cause one more deserving guy to get kicked off." Did I call it or what? The only thing I didn't correctly predict was that he'd be given the opportunity to give a heart-wrenching, vote-pulling speech for five bloody minutes, too! Gah!

I loved it when Danny just broke into hysterical laughter that he and Anya were in the bottom three, but Cedric and Shauna were safe. That pretty much summed it up.

Anyway, I'm going to miss Jessi, who I just adored and looked for all the world like a young Katherine Hepburn. Here's Pasha's and Jessi's jazz number from last week.

Bad Laws Beget Bad Behavior

Angelos passed on this video, found at NetworkWorld, where it was introduced by Paul McNamara with: "Watch this video and keep it in mind the next time you hear a high-tech industry titan such as Bill Gates complain that he simply cannot find qualified American employees and therefore the country needs more H-1B visas: You'll see a panel discussion that looks like a sit-down with 'the families' on The Sopranos, only instead of talking about organized crime these lawyers are discussing the ins and outs of helping employers side-step immigration law."

The thing about this is that it's a really common practice in corporate America, not necessarily to avoid hiring Americans (although that's clearly the case here), but to retain H-1B workers. When a position is taken by someone on an H-1B employment visa, the employer must "prove" once a year that no Americans want/are qualified for the job. But wanting the job, and having the appropriate technical qualifications, isn't really the issue in a lot of creative positions. Unsurprisingly, our rubbish immigration laws have absolutely no provisions for unquantifiable skills, like design aesthetic, which are integral to the creative jobs (graphic design, game design, product design, fashion design, interior design, architecture, advertising, marketing, branding, packaging, filmmaking, music, writing, etc.) that comprise an ever-increasing percentage of American jobs.

A company that may in totally good faith hire a worker on an H-1B visa to fill an imporant creative position (e.g. design director), then spend time and resources developing a program/department around that person, is up shit creek if they can't retain that person. So they resort to the loopholes we see exploited in that video, because god forbid we write laws that make sense, like quite genuinely proving no one else wanted/was qualified for the job when you first hire an H1-B visa worker, but then letting them stay as long as they're doing the job. The law is garbage because, like most immigration law, it's meant to look like the government's actually doing something to protect American workers, while providing all kinds of loopholes for corporations.

Many, if not most, companies exploit the loopholes only to retain H1-B workers that they hired in good faith. But it was inevitable that there would emerge assholes like the ones in the video when the law was built in a way that there could be assholes like the ones in the video. Provide the opportunity, someone's going to take it.

Devo Was Right

We must repeat!

We must repeat!

We must repeat!

We must repeat!

Okay, let's go!

WASHINGTON, June 28 — With competing blocs of justices claiming the mantle of Brown v. Board of Education, a bitterly divided Supreme Court declared Thursday that public school systems cannot seek to achieve or maintain integration through measures that take explicit account of a student’s race.

Voting 5 to 4, the court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., invalidated programs in Seattle and metropolitan Louisville, Ky., that sought to maintain school-by-school diversity by limiting transfers on the basis of race or using race as a “tiebreaker” for admission to particular schools.

Both programs had been upheld by lower federal courts and were similar to plans in place in hundreds of school districts around the country. Chief Justice Roberts said such programs were “directed only to racial balance, pure and simple,” a goal he said was forbidden by the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” he said. His side of the debate, the chief justice said, was “more faithful to the heritage of Brown,” the landmark 1954 decision that declared school segregation unconstitutional. “When it comes to using race to assign children to schools, history will be heard,” he said.

This is what the Bush Supreme Court gets us; five people who believe protecting white privilege is somehow combating racism. (Well, I'm sure they know it's all horseshit. Let's say that they're good at saying they're combating racism.) I'm sure we'll be hearing all kinds of screaming from the right about "activist judges" on this one, right?

Oh, wait. They're loving this. Stupid me. (Malkin: "Equality wins!" Excuse me while I puke.)

I love how "color blind" Conservatives are when they're racing to protect their stuff, while conveniently forgetting that, contrary to Tony Snow's beliefs, racism is still a big goddamn problem.

In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a "whites only" shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree...

The boys who hung the nooses were suspended from school for a few days. The school administration chalked it up as a harmless prank, but Jena's black population didn't take it so lightly. Fights and unrest started breaking out at school. The District Attorney, Reed Walters, was called in to directly address black students at the school and told them all he could "end their life with a stroke of the pen."

Equality wins.

More at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Pandagon. (Update: Look at Feministing, as well.) If that didn't depress you enough, take a look at Think Progress to see how well Bush's little elves "I have no agenda" Roberts and Alito have done in their first year. Expect many, many more of these "5 to 4's" in the future.

Questions for all you who don't know much better, but should
Maybe the time's come to use what you've got for some good.

Waveflux ala The Simpsons

Terrence at The Republic of T. is completely to blame for my having wasted the time it took to render a Simpsonized version of myself.

Eerily accurate, actually.

These interactive movie sites are often more entertaining than the films themselves. Does anyone know which film was the first to exploit the Web in this way?

(Cross-posted.)

Adoption and Fat

Last night, a reader named Becky drew my attention to Broadsheet's coverage of Kylie Lannigan's fight to adopt a child. Lannigan and her husband spent three years jumping through bureaucratic hoops and were deemed potentially wonderful parents -- except that Lannigan weighs 277 pounds. The last hoop they want her to jump through? Losing more than 110 pounds.

In addition to how outrageous that is on its face, one reason Lannigan is fat is the same reason she's trying to adopt: PCOS. She has a medical condition that causes weight gain (and, in some cases, infertility), but no other health problems. She's been tested for heart disease and diabetes and is fine. She exercises. But she's fat. That's all it takes to mark her as an unfit parent.

And this is currently the first Google result for her name. Just FYI.

While the Broadsheet coverage (by Thomas Rogers) isn't quite as infuriating as that, it's pretty fucking bad -- especially since I usually love Broadsheet. Money quote:

Does a fat woman have the right to be a mother? It's not a question with any easy answers, but given the rates of obesity in most Western countries, it's not one that's going away anytime soon.

Emphasis mine. As I said in my first letter over there, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Okay, I left out the caps and the "fucking," but that's what I meant. Also:

Dear Thomas,

That is a question with one very easy answer: yes.

Love, Kate

P.S. For Christ's sake. I mean, really.

I went back and wrote another letter later when I noticed this almost throwaway line:

Some studies have shown that obese parents tend to have overweight children, even when the child is adopted...

He doesn't tell us what those studies are, though I'm sure they exist. Problem is, they undoubtedly do not take into account whether the children's biological parents were fat. In the U.S., because of closed adoptions, it would be impossible to organize such a study on a large enough scale to produce meaningful results. But guess what? In Denmark, they did a study comparing adoptees' weights to those of both their adoptive and biological parents.

Here's what they found:

[T]here was a strong relation between the body-mass index of biologic parents and adoptee weight class and no relation between the index of adoptive parents and adoptee weight class. Furthermore, the relation between biologic parents and adoptees was not confined to the obesity weight class, but was present across the whole range of body fatness - from very thin to very fat."

And the upshot was this:

"We conclude that genetic influences have an important role in determining human fatness in adults, whereas the family environment alone has no apparent effect. "

Emphasis mine once again.

(Hat tip to Gina Kolata, who mentioned that study in Rethinking Thin, which was the first I'd heard of it. I'm telling you, there's a lot to learn in that book.)

In light of that study's results, let's take a moment to consider the physical and mental health consequences of letting thin people adopt children who have fat biological parents, in a culture that insists that A) fat is horrid, and B) the home environment has the greatest influence on a child's weight.

The Rotund has written movingly about that very subject many times. Her thin adoptive mother started putting her on diets -- and promising to reward her if she lost weight, but only if she lost weight -- when she was seven years old. And as she puts it:

I love my mother, I really do, quite deeply. But we have not had a good or simple relationship. Our interactions have always been negotiated through the meaning of my fat and our differing… viewpoints on just what it means for me to be fat. Because to my mom? Me being fat means I am going to die alone and unloved and miserable. And probably young. To me, my being fat means that I am fat.

The Rotund has also written movingly about how, after dieting for most of her life, her metabolism is fucked beyond belief, she's battled disordered eating for a long time, and how even now, she cannot bring herself to enjoy food-- and while weighing over 300 lbs., she struggles to make herself eat more than 1,000 calories a day. (And no, she's not losing weight.)

She doesn't know who her biological parents were or are. She doesn't even know for sure what her racial make-up is, let alone her family medical history. But I'd bet everything I own on this: one or both of her biological parents had fat genes.

The woman who raised her didn't, and furthermore didn't believe that genes had anything to do with it -- why would she, given all the messages that parents' habits and role modeling are almost solely to blame for children's fatness? So the Rotund might very well spend the rest of her life trying to undo the physical and psychological damage that issued from having an adoptive mother who could not accept the natural state of her child's body, who taught her child to hate herself, to be ashamed of herself, and to blame herself.

Yet many, many people, including those who make the policies, believe that having thin parents who won't stand for raising fat kids will always be in the child's best interest.

Yeah, obviously.

(Cross-posted to Shapely Prose)

Friday Blogwhoring

Sock it to me, Shakers.

I haven't had time to gather much Recommended Reading the past few days; I'm sorry. I promise to get back to that soon, as time allows...

The Malfoy Syndrome

Glenn Greenwald shares with us a manly chat between Tucker Carlson and Jonah Goldberg about Dick Cheney:

In just two minutes of chatty, giggly Cheney worship, the following tough-guy cliches flew from their mouths:

* Cheney "doesn't bother talking the talk, he just walks the walk";

* he's "a politician who doesn't look at the polls. . . another Harry Truman";

* "love to have a beer with the guy";

* "a smart, serious man in American life";

* "Have you ever seen Dick Cheney give a speech? I mean, the contempt for the audience is palpable" -- "I know, I -- see, I love that. He looks like he should be eating a sandwich while he's doing it, eating lunch over the sink . . I love that";

* "I can just see him yelling, hey you kids, get off my lawn. I love it."

As always, the pulsating need among the strain of individual represented by Tucker Carlson and Johan Goldberg to search endlessly for strong, powerful, masculine figures so that they can feel those attributes and pose as one who exudes them (Jonah Goldberg: "love to have a beer with the guy") is its own stomach-turning though vitally important topic. The same is true of the fact that the movement of which they are a part virtually always venerates as Icons of Courageous Sandwich-Eating Masculinity precisely those figures who so transparently play-act at the role but whose lives never exhibit any such attributes in reality. That, too, is its own rich and abundant topic.

This sort of man-crush is typical toady behavior. Every bully has his toadies; vide Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter who has Crabbe and Goyle to serve as enforcers and lickspittles; Carlson and Goldberg fill those roles nicely for Cheney.

The reason they're such sycophants is because they have too little talent or self-respect to stand on their own, or they're too much the coward to do anything but go along with the bully, afraid to stand up for themselves. So they overcompensate for their own short-comings (and all the Freudian implications that go along with them) by acting all butch and tough themselves when you know that they're completely incapable of playing the part themselves.

Friday Feminist Fun

Which Western feminist icon are you?

You are Angela Davis! You were the THIRD WOMYN
IN HISTORY to appear on the FBI's Most Wanted
List. You are a communinist, black power-lovin'
lady who shook up the United States when you
refused to lie down quietly to oppression. You
WENT TO JAIL! Wow. You kick so much more ass
than Foxxy Brown.

Take this quiz.

-------------------

Fucking awesome. I love Angela Davis!

"Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation."

[Via TigTog.]

Diminished Capacity: FDA Downsized and Privatized; America is at Risk

The Bush Administration's Dangerous Contempt For Science and Scientists Alike

Poison by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1984

"We would have been spared the ignominy and disgrace of great scientific men bending their efforts to defeat the purpose of one of the greatest laws ever enacted for the protection of the public welfare. Eminent officials of our Government would have escaped the indignation of outraged public opinion because they permitted and encouraged these frauds on the public."

-- Father of the Pure Food and Drugs Act and USDA Chief Chemist Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, MD, in 1929, on what America might have had if the Act were enforced as intended.

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

-- Disgraced conservative activist and likely subpoena recipient Grover Norquist, on NPR's Morning Edition, May 25, 2001.

"Government is the entertainment division of the military industrial complex."

--The late Frank Zappa

Adulterated grain products from China slip through Humvee-sized holes in America's regulatory safety net and proceed to sicken and kill thousands of pets. Counterfeit and toxic ingredients poison thousands of people worldwide and continue to threaten America's food supply. And tubes of toothpaste laced with the antifreeze diethylene glycol actually wind up on store shelves around the country before someone with authority can order it pulled, but not before the public learns that the scientists and analysts at our Food and Drug Administration are so underfunded, and stretched so thinly, they can inspect only 1% of imports, if that.

All of which make recent revelations--to civilians like me, at least--that much more shocking, that much more illogical. For not only have the powers that be who control the FDA been shrinking its staff--today, the agency has over a 1,000 fewer scientists and analysts than in 1997 (despite the number of imported goods having skyrocketed during that time) and management wants to let go even more of these specialized personnel--they have also been furtively closing laboratories and setting forth plans to close yet more.

"In the middle of all these outbreaks and contamination issues, the timing of the proposal is extraordinarily bad," said Chris Waldrop, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America.

Over the next several years, the FDA wants to close labs in Philadelphia; Denver; Detroit; Alameda, Calif.; Lenexa, Kan.; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Winchester, Mass. Those operations and an estimated 250 employees would then be moved to five multi-purpose "mega-labs" that could handle all types of FDA testing.

The multi-purpose labs are in Atlanta; Jamaica, N.Y.; Jefferson, Ark.; Irvine, Calif.; and Bothell, Wash. A forensic chemistry lab in Cincinnati wouldn't be affected.

That's right. Even as the nation's food supply is threatened as never before, industry forces--and the lobbyists and politicians who love them--are systematically enfeebling the very agency entrusted with protecting it, meaning that if things continue in this manner, the agency's current and oft-derided less-than-1% inspection rate is going to start looking pretty good.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

A Tale Of Two Doggies

It was a warm afternoon in January of this year, and I was on hold with the FDA, having searched for the regional office's number and been transferred--twice--after telling my story. Twenty minutes went by, but finally there was a person speaking to me; she asked how she could help me. She couldn't truly help me, of course, because earlier that day I'd held this big bear-dog head in my arms and cried right into the fur of his ear, Vito, Vito, wake up...Please! I had to know he wasn't there any more. Before I could say goodbye, I had to know, with certainty, that he'd already gone.

So I told the FDA agent about our dog, Vito, and I also told her about his brother Dax who died nearly instantly, shockingly, after violent convulsions the day before. Both had eaten dog food that our vet confirmed was contaminated with aflatoxin, the deadly mycotoxin produced by Aspergillus flavus, a mold to which corn is notoriously susceptible. Grains meant for humans must, by law, be virtually free of the mold (minute amounts are seemingly allowed in peanut butter), though low levels are permissible in pet food and animal feed. I related everything to the agent: where and when we bought the food and how to reach our vet, who wanted to send her all the lab results directly.

The next day, the vet's office called--they wanted me to authorize release of our dogs' records--but there was no word from the agent. Weeks passed, then months. I left messages on the FDA answering machine but no-one called back. I wanted answers, explanations, something; I wanted someone to tell me how, in a country as wealthy and advanced and admirably, obsessively safety conscious as this, enough lethal toxin to kill two 110-lb. dogs before their second birthdays found its way into dog food that we bought in a store we trusted (past tense).

Grief and anger turned to bewilderment: I knew most federal agencies were understaffed and underfunded these days, under this administration, but the seeming lack of concern about an incident involving a deadly poison really troubled me. What's more, I didn't even have the satisfaction of knowing that my report had helped anyone--that something had been done to save other dogs from the horrible fate that Dax and Vito met.

Then, in early April, stories of poisoned cats and dogs were everywhere; well, they were everywhere that I'd been reading since January, as well as on a few network news programs. This must be the same thing, I thought, reading through the articles and blogs and swearing off corn for the rest of my natural life.

But the poison wasn't aflatoxin--it was something else. Initially, news reports said the pet food was laced with aminopterin, a chemical widely reported to be rat poison, but which is, in actuality, a fairly expensive and volatile chemotherapy drug. Then that was mysteriously ruled out. Finally, the toxic substance was identified: melamine. In China, I learned, it is common practice to adulterate grain proteins with ground melamine--the polymer boosts the nitrogen ratings (these assess a grain's protein content) and brings the seller a higher per-pound price. And other grains were affected, possibly grains meant for humans. Certainly, grains meant for animals that some humans eat. New York Times reporter David Barboza reported from China that various farmers admitted they'd been spiking animal feed and grains with melamine for several years. At that point, the FDA had found it in rice protein, wheat gluten, and corn protein.

It's in the human food supply, I thought.

Poison With An Unexpected Side Effect: Illuminating Government's Shadier Side

The tragic deaths of thousands of cats and dogs, and the unprecedented pet food recalls that followed, would of course leave Americans with many unanswered questions. Even so, the tragedy led to several unexpected discoveries.

The FDA itself did not, initially, carry out the testing that resulted in mistakenly identifying aminopterin as the substance that was killing the animals. Instead, the agency contracted out the lab testing to the New York State Food Laboratory, the efforts of which were proudly trumpeted in the April 1 (!) Washington Post even as scientists at the FDA as well as Cornell University were already finding melamine, not aminopterin, in the pet food they analyzed:

Using sophisticated drug screening panels, the lab determined a banned rodent poison called aminopterin might be killing the household pets.

The lab is part of Food Emergency Response Network, a federally supported group of state and federal facilities with expertise in testing food for chemical, biological, and radiological hazards. With a staff of about 40 chemists, microbiologists and technicians, the lab is one of a few dozen state-level facilities capable of doing such tests and regularly screens foods for pesticides. [...]

"We brought about 100 years of combined expertise to bear on this," said lab Director Daniel Rice. "Trouble shooting with each other was a real asset in this case." [...] The lab has been around for decades, but became part of FERN after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as part of the government's effort to protect the nation's animals and food supply.

Yet two days prior, the New York Times reported that FDA scientists held a press conference during which they said the affected animals' kidneys were full of melamine crystals, and that the pet food itself had been found to contain melamine. If labs in the Food Emergency Response Network are this good at correctly identifying toxins in pet food, Heaven help us when we're under a national threat and human food is affected.

And what of this Food Emergency Response Network? It's a recently-established group of state and federal labs, the allegiance and cooperation of which are called for in the Presidential Directive 9 of The Bioterrorism Act of 2002--in other words, it's flush with Homeland Security funding. The network makes use of eLEXNET, which is the Electronic Laboratory Exchange Network, a relatively open Web-based network (not behind FDA or USDA firewalls) that enables multiple government agencies responsible for food safety to compare, communicate, and coordinate findings of laboratory analyses. It was created by SAIC (Science Applications International Corporations) who were awarded the contract in 2006--SAIC is by far the largest government contractor (you can read more about them here) and enjoys an extremely close relationship with defense contractor giant Lockheed Martin, the largest defense contractor and recipient of American tax dollars among the many similarly-blessed corporations currently working "in partnership" with the federal government.

Another massive software system implemented at the FDA in recent years is known as CARVER + Shock. Whereas eLEXNET connects the various agencies, laboratories, and individuals working in the field food safety across the nation, CARVER + Shock is a threat assessment software tool, originally developed for the military, that is based on a series of computer-generated questions:

"In warfare, the military must attack the jugular of its opponent," said principal investigator Phil Pohl. "Here, we ask the same tough questions, but to identify the food supply jugular and protect it."

Specifically, the CARVER questions follow its acronym to ask how Critical, Accessible, Recognizable, and Vulnerable each part of any food process is, as well as the physical Effect of an unwanted intervention and how long it would take to Recover from it.

"Shock" rates the degree to which a specific attack on the food chain would raise public apprehension.

"An attack on a baby food plant would produce more emotional shock than one on a frozen pizza plant," says Sandia researcher Susan Carson, who worked on software that helped develop the questions needed for a one-size-fits-all program. "We factor that in." The move from limited to widespread possible use The conversion from questions-asked-in-person to questions-asked-by-computer began with Carson and Pohl shadowing FDA staff at meetings with industry personnel and writing down the questions asked. .

Sandia, by the way, works in partnership with--yes, again--Lockheed Martin, as much a training ground for politicians, particularly those with budget-appropriations powers, as it is a repository for departing politicians seeking private-sector lobbying and legal work. The unholy alliance of lobbyists, defense contractors and the Pentagon has a name in Washington: The Iron Triangle. And from all accounts, what the Iron Triangle wants, the Iron Triangle gets.

I wrote about this revolving door--and specifically how it benefited deputy national security advisor Stephen Hadley, who with the help and expertise of high-ranking Lockheed Martin official Bruce Jackson, in 2002 fabricated a rationale for the invasion of Iraq--back in January. Therein, I quoted a comprehensive article by reporter Richard Cummins:

Hadley, looking out of the windows from his West Wing office, was on the inside. Sure, Hadley had the requisite government experience for a deputy national security advisor. He had been an assistant secretary of defense under Bush's dad. But he had been through the revolving door, too: Stephen Hadley, the point man for justifying the invasion of Iraq, had also lawyered at Shea & Gardner, whose clients included Lockheed.

We know that the FDA, like many federal agencies, is cutting costs by replacing human analysis with computer-generated versions. Was the CARVER + Shock software used to arrive at the woefully off-base conclusion that a few dog and cat deaths simply weren't all that threatening, which in turn led to critical delays--delays during which adulterated food kept making its way into consumer's homes and ultimately into the bodies of American pets, as well as livestock--and thus the human food supply ? It's certainly a question I'm asking.

Don't Circle The Wagons--Eliminate Them!

The proposed closure of numerous FDA laboratories over the next few years is not widely mentioned in the national media, but newspapers in the affected cities--Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Juan, and Winchester Mass.--have reported on the shutdowns and consolidations. As one would imagine, the scientists are not happy: the downsizing of any organization inevitably means job losses, relocations, and an overall lowering of esprit de corps; in this case, the downsizing also means FDA scientists and the work they do will be compromised, undermined, and delayed at a time when the nation can least afford it, too.

Some lawmakers are outraged:

Two senior House Democrats are ripping what they say are Food and Drug Administration plans to cut more than a third of its regulatory analysts.

“This drastic cut comes at a time when the volume of food imports doubles every five years and at a time when the American public appears to be exposed to an increasing amount of unsafe, contaminated food,” Reps. John Dingell, D-Mich., and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., wrote in a June 15 letter to FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach. “Thus, we are shocked to learn that FDA has plans to cut 196 microbiologists, chemists and engineers from the agency.”

For its part, the FDA says it won't eliminate any jobs; instead, the agency plans to "redeploy” positions--hire a field investigator instead of replacing a scientist, say--should employees leave, which many assuredly will do if their options are to relocate themselves, their spouses, and their families or find work in the private sector. Of course, the talent and experience of these often highly-specialized scientists will go elsewhere, too.

When the closure/consolidation plan was first set forth over a decade ago, a 1996 GAO (General Accounting Office) audit proved the closures and analyst cutbacks were a terrible idea, declaring that the projected cost savings were overstated, the operational efficiency gains from consolidation, questionable. A forthcoming GAO audit is expected to set forth even more arguments against the lab closures.

From the Detroit Free Press:

But some congressional Democrats say labs such as Detroit's -- located along the river just miles from the Ambassador Bridge, one of the busiest border crossings in the nation -- should be built up, not shut down.

"It's just not a priority with the FDA," Stupak said Wednesday of imported food inspections. "They're trying to reduce the size of government."

In a letter last month to Appropriations Chairman Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., Dingell and Stupak said there is evidence the FDA plan would drastically undercut the agency's ability to inspect food at a time when reports of outbreaks have been in the news, including salmonella contamination in peanut butter and tainted pet food linked to ingredients from China.

In an interview published in the June 24 Boston Globe, FDA Assistant Commissioner Dr. David W.K. Acheson discussed the enormous challenges the FDA faces today:

Q Critics make the case for a single food safety agency with recall authority and a mandate to standardize inspections.

A Simply creating a single food safety agency, moving groups of federal employees around under a different organizational structure, frankly, I think is more likely to create a bigger hole in food safety, certainly for sure in the short term. I worry about that.

Q The agency inspects roughly 1 percent of the $60 billion in imported food. How much more does the FDA need for inspectors?

A I do not believe that simply doubling, tripling, increasing by a factor of 10 the number of inspectors is going to solve the problem. One has to build this into a comprehensive preventative strategy, working with industry to help them understand what preventative controls work the best. You then need to potentially verify that they're doing that.

(Ah yes, working with industry. Lots more on that shortly.)

Here's a graph from the New York Times (April 30, 2007) that shows how inspection rates have plummeted even as the number of food imports coming to America has soared:

At this point, any reasonable person will be asking how the closure of important (and in most cases, highly specialized) labs could possibly be a good idea for the country. For one thing, consolidating them into mega-labs--a move that will still result in net losses of vital scientists and analysts during a time when the nation's food supply is at greater risk than any other time in our history--means locating vital analytical resources in a handful of highly-populated, highly target-rich areas: Atlanta, Jamaica, N.Y. (near Manhattan), and Irvine, CA (near Los Angeles), for example. It makes absolutely no sense to concentrate the nation's best scientific minds and resources in the cities most likely to be affected, as history has borne out, not when America may well need to rely on fast, accurate, and specialized lab work in order to save lives.

A Hundred Years Of...Servitude?

Cheerful It's Our Centennial! press releases notwithstanding, America's Food and Drug Administration in 2007 is a battered and beleaguered vessel under assault from all sides; virtually since its inception, the agency has been underfunded, undermined, and overruled to near-death. That it chugs along anyway can be attributed to the dedication of scientists and analysts on board, Americans whose talent, training, and ethics qualified them for the job of protecting American consumers in the first place. Make no mistake, though: the Bush Administration have already cannibalized the Good Ship FDA--"reassigning" analysts, closing labs and pushing to shutter even more--and as recent food-contamination and toxic import scandal have demonstrated, it's been taking on water for some time now. And the likelihood of being afloat come the next dawn almost completely depends on the kindness of sponsors. Sponsors with agendas.

"The FDA has essentially become the government affairs office of the pharmaceutical industry," (Congressman Maurice Hinchey, D-NY) said in a statement, which called the relationship between the agency and industry "far too cozy and inappropriate." Hinchey is the author, and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., the chief co-sponsor of an FDA reform bill that would prohibit the agency from collecting fees from the companies it regulates. Instead, the money would be deposited into the general fund of the U.S. Treasury.

According to the Appropriations Committee, two officials of the Biotechnology Industry Organization and two officials of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association attended at least half of the 112 meetings.

In a statement, the FDA's Susan Cruzan said the agency faced a number of technical problems to be resolved before submitting the proposal. The FDA had "extensive discussions" with the industry about financing, marketing and infrastructure. She added that the agency also met with consumer groups and that each meeting followed the law's requirements.

The congressmen--Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Bart Stupak (D-MI)--have a somewhat different take on the numbers as well as the legal and ethical issues the meetings raise. From Rep. Stupak's June 11 press release:

"The data surrounding the FDA's meetings on PDUFA IV make it more clear than ever that the agency and drug industry continue to have a relationship that is far too cozy and inappropriate. By treating the drug industry like a privileged client that deserves preferential treatment rather than a regulated industry, the FDA is jeopardizing the health and safety of the American public. There is no reason for the FDA to meet nearly two dozen times as often with the drug industry than it does with consumer and patient groups. It's time for Congress to step in and fix a broken system so that the American people are the only clients the FDA serves."

Stupak said, "The FDA's 112 meetings with drug industry groups offer stark evidence of the coziness between the FDA and the drug industry. Congress must work to provide sunshine and transparency to the new drug approval process. At a minimum, Congress must ensure consumer advocates are present as we move forward with re-authorization of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act. The health and safety of the American people are at risk when drug industry representatives are the only individuals in the room advocating new drugs and keeping harmful drugs on the market."

Seventy-two FDA staff members participated in the 112 meetings with industry, combining for a total of 1,852.5 hours of meeting time, or 231.5 business days. Forty-nine representatives of the regulated industry met with the FDA, combining for 2,116 hours, or 264.5 business days. [...]

Despite consulting with industry representatives 112 times on PDUFA IV, the FDA apparently only had discussions with consumer and patient groups five times.

If the country had not spent the last seven years watching an imperial president and his water-carriers engage in one outrageous and anti-American act after another, this sort of ridiculous bag-man consortium masquerading as democracy might have raised a number of eyebrows, or perhaps even caused a stir. An actual stir! But sadly, Americans are almost at the point of no return, shock-wise; that we have in fact come to expect such constitutionally-questionable behavior from our so-called leaders reflects a disturbing level of resignation on the part of voters. And as far as Big Pharma--or for that matter, any giant commercial interest--is concerned, a resigned electorate is a docile, easily-convinced one.

Exalting The Patron; Shooting The Messenger

What happens to individuals within the FDA when they speak out about the potential dangers of drugs? They're smeared, discredited, ignored, and pressured to resign.

Just ask analyst and FDA whistleblower Dr. David Graham, a devoutly religious man and a dedicated scientist:

In August 2004, Graham told his supervisors that, in light of his research, high-dose prescriptions of the painkiller Vioxx, which appeared to triple heart attack rates, should be banned. They told him to be quiet. Their reasoning was circular: That's not the FDA's position; you work here; it can't be yours.

Alternatively, have a word with Dr. Andrew Mosholder:

Dr. Andrew Mosholder, another FDA reviewer, faced similar pressures last year when he completed a study showing that antidepressants increased suicidal behavior in children. Further studies proved that Mosholder's science was spot on. But his bosses told him not to report the findings. When someone with access to the study passed his results to the press, the FDA launched an investigation into the leak. According to Tom Devine at the Government Accountability Project, who later became Graham's lawyer, several scientists were interrogated and threatened with possible jail time.

Such intimidation has worked. In 2002, about one in five FDA scientists told federal investigators that they felt pressure to approve drugs despite reservations about safety and efficacy. Two-thirds said they lacked confidence that the agency adequately monitors drug safety after approval.

And you can also talk to ex-deputy director of the Division of Drug Risk Evaluation, Rosemary Johann-Liang, who resigned just a few weeks ago:

She took her staff's advice and recommended in February 2006 that Avandia get a "black box" warning about congestive heart failure. For doing so, FDA staffers told Senate Finance Committee investigators, Johann-Liang was verbally reprimanded and told to talk to her director before making any major recommendations related to drug safety. [...]

Johann-Liang speaks of a convoluted system in which the FDA requires a higher level of proof of risk than of effectiveness.

The FDA approves diabetes drugs such as Avandia if clinical trials show they meet the "surrogate endpoint," or goal, of lowering blood sugar, she says, but then doesn't require makers to do follow-up studies of whether patients actually feel better and live longer.

And of course, be sure to read about the clouds of controversy surrounding Sanofi-Aventis' antibiotic Ketek; it is a sordid tale in which the eventually-imprisoned doctor conducting the drug's safety testing (Study 3014) for the pharmaceutical company was found to have fabricated results, which fact Sanofi-Aventis kept from the FDA, which finally became aware of the drug's dangerous effects on liver function when, and because, their own scientists (including the tenacious Dr. Graham) discovered them:

E-mails from David Graham, an FDA safety official, (argued) that telithromycin (Ketek) had not been proven safe, safer drugs were available for the same indications, the approval was a mistake and it should be immediately withdrawn. There were 14 cases of liver failure, including at least 4 deaths, vision problems, blackouts, syncope, and potentially fatal myasthenia gravis. Graham wrote, “It’s as if every principle governing the review and approval of new drugs was abandoned or suspended where telithromycin is concerned.”

Salus Populi Suprema Est Lex

Said Cicero, The welfare of the people is the ultimate law.

In the late 1880's, when USDA chemist Harvey Wiley embarked on a mission to clean up the nation's food supply and promote the growing and preparation of healthful, unadulterated, real food to American farmers and consumers, the average American pantry contained numerous threats. In the years following the Civil War, America and her economy were transformed by the onset of the Industrial Age; factories opened and communities became cities, making it necessary to bring in grains, milk, eggs, and meats from outlying rural areas in order to feed everyone. And at that point, unscrupulous manufacturers were everywhere--then, as now, they did anything and everything imaginable to increase their profit margins: diluting milk with water, for example, or cutting sugar with cheap saccharine. And they spiked their products, particularly medicinal and cosmetic ones, with dangerous preservatives, metals, salts, and even drugs like opium. In his book Protecting America's Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation (Knopf, 2003), author Philip J. Hilts writes:

Wealth in America was rapidly leaving the hands of a large number of landowners and flying into the hands of a few industrialists, reaching the point before the end of the century when about 60 percent of the wealth was in the hands of one percent of the population. Along with the boom in business, the nation found it would have to undergo what began to be called, euphemistically, "cycles"-crashes at regular intervals. There were full depressions in 1873, 1884, and 1893. Perhaps just as important, business and politics had merged into one entity. The era of the common man envisioned not long before had never arrived. The control of politics, once in the hands of kings and hereditary gentry, rapidly passed to a moneyed class. [...] The United States Senate was referred to as the "millionaire's club," and it resembled a convention of industry representatives. Because of strong party control over state legislatures and election rules, it had become common for wealthy men to pay a fee to the party to get themselves nominated and elected to office. "The Senate, instead of representing geographical areas, came to represent economic units," writes historian Sean Cashman. In Congress, it was lumber rather than Michigan, oil rather than Ohio, silver rather than Nevada. There were no public services to speak of, and protests were crushed by private squads or government troops, or both.

Dr. Wiley's formidable efforts, along with superhuman perseverance fueled in no small part by the courage of his convictions, finally led to President Roosevelt's signing of the historic legislation known as The Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906. From an archived article at the FDA's site:

All through the 1880s and 1890s, pure-food bills were introduced into Congress--largely through his work--and all were killed. Powerful lobbies had established themselves. To bring his cause to the public, and with a budget of $5,000, Wiley organized in 1902 a volunteer group of healthy young men, called the Poison Squad, who tested the effects of chemicals and adulterated foods on themselves. Women banded together, notably in the Federated Women's Clubs, for political clout. Major canners became supporters of the legislation and voluntarily abandoned the use of questionable chemicals. Finally, the battle was won on June 30, 1906, when President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drugs Act, largely written by Wiley, who was then appointed to oversee its administration.

The battle had been won--but not the war. Wiley had many adversaries in Congress and in the food and patent-medicine industries, and in 1912 he left his government post. A headline of the day read: WOMEN WEEP AS WATCHDOG OF THE KITCHEN QUITS AFTER 29 YEARS.

It is true that women activists were Dr. Wiley's allies, just as it's true that the nation's favorite chemist enjoyed widespread popularity among women in general. The trouble was, women couldn't yet vote--how quickly we forget! Note that the FDA's article describes Dr. Wiley's adversaries as having been "in Congress and in the food and patent-medicine industries". However, in the interests of paying attention to history and thus generally avoiding the doomed repetition thereof, the agency might have elaborated on the disturbingly familiar tactics of the lobbyists who ultimately forced Dr. Wiley--the accomplished and respected chemist who dared to investigate and criticize food additives; the official who dared suggest that whiskey makers who diluted their product with sugar water should be required to disclose this on labels--from his position. (While still in office, however, he established the Bureau of Foods, Sanitation, and Health for Good Housekeeping, an independent organization devoted to the cause of pure, unadulterated foods. After leaving government service, Wiley took on the role of full-time director.)

Missing from the site, too, are any excerpts from (or mention of) the book Dr. Wiley would write twenty years later (shown here), laying out in exquisitely-written and oftentimes dryly witty prose exactly what happened. His first manuscript was mysteriously lost at the printers, so Wiley self-published a complete re-write, which reportedly took another decade. Once they hit the stores, though, copies of Dr. Wiley's exposé flew off the shelves and then disappeared mysteriously, too; today, few even exist outside college archives and the Library of Congress. One might wonder about the forces behind such blatant censorship and malfeasance if one had somehow missed the straightforward, all-but-underlined clues strung together in its title: History of a Crime Against the Food Law: The Amazing Story of the National Food and Drugs Law Intended to Protect the Health of the People Perverted to Protect Adulteration of Food And Drugs (the entire manuscript is online here). Dr. Wiley wrote about the coordinated attacks on his efforts to enforce the new law (attacks that ultimately led him to resign from government work just six years after the law's enactment):

At the time this investigation took place the total expenditures made by the Referee Board of the money appropriated by Congress to enforce the Food and Drugs Act amounted to over $175,000. Every dollar of this money was expended in protecting and promoting violations of the law. It seems strange in view of these findings which were approved by the House of Representatives that no effort was made to impeach the Secretary of Agriculture and the President of the United States who had thus perverted money appropriated for a particular use to activities totally repugnant to the purpose of the appropriation. [...] It is a striking comment also on the attitude of Congress and the people at large that no steps have ever been taken from 1911 to 1928 to correct these outrages on the American people and to attempt to restore the law to its power and purpose as enacted. Administration after administration has come and gone and these abuses still persist.

In an effort to demonstrate how different the system is in 2007, how much progress has been made, FDA vanity articles and press releases point out how Dr. Wiley, working and writing all those years ago, could never have imagined how things would be now. But the conscientious chemist's own words--laboriously written, re-written, and self-published in 1929--tell us otherwise:

Thus we see, through all the branches of food enforcement activities, this laissez faire principle. There is no longer any virtue in applying the penalties prescribed by law. There is no longer any adulteration that threatens health. Business must be preserved. Penalties were intended as aids to reformation. They are not now to be inflicted except as a last resort. Such is the regrettable condition into which law enforcement has fallen.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Also at litbrit.

Obama Opposes Impeachment

Despite being distressed by the "loose ethical standards, the secrecy and incompetence" of the Bush administration, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama opposes impeachment:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama laid out list of political shortcomings he sees in the Bush administration but said he opposes impeachment for either President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney.

Obama said he would not back such a move, although he has been distressed by the "loose ethical standards, the secrecy and incompetence" of a "variety of characters" in the administration.

…"I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches [sic], and intentional breeches [sic] of the president's authority," he said.

Seriously, what the fuck does he think has been going on at the White House for the past six years? The president's use of signing statements alone is a grave, intentional breach of his authority—and those are the mere tip of the massive, ship-of-state-wrecking iceberg that is his administration's profound contempt for the law.

Obama is completely off base here. As Maha points out, it would have been one thing if he "had he just made some noises about impeachment being a serious matter and not something to speculate about without thorough vetting, or something like that," but he didn't. And he didn't merely say something like Pelosi's infamous "impeachment is off the table" dipshittery, either—which was bad enough. No, Obama took it a step further and said that impeachment should be reserved for "grave, grave breaches, and intentional breaches," then said he doesn't support it for the Bush administration, ergo suggesting that the Bush administration has not engaged in grave, intentional breaches of presidential authority. Swell.

Worse yet, he uses "playing politics" as an excuse, solidifying yet further the idea that impeachment is not about lawbreaking, but political game-playing: "I believe if we began impeachment proceedings we will be engulfed in more of the politics that has made Washington dysfunction. We would once again, rather than attending to the people's business, be engaged in a tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, non-stop circus." Jebus.

You know, I'm not even objecting to Obama's statements from a place of necessarily disagreeing with an anti-impeachment position; there are good arguments for and against impeachment, and I quite genuinely respect positions on both sides of that debate. I object to everything else that he's saying. I mean, he can't seriously believe that ridding the White House of criminals isn't "attending the people's business," and yet it sure as shit sounds like he does, because he's so intent on staying above the fray. Bully for you. Wouldn't want you to damage your presidential aspirations by doing anything kooky like trying to rescue our country from its insane hijackers.

Obama's big solution is to "vote the bums out." As if to highlight what a truly ridiculous statement that actually is, the next paragraph in the story is: "The term for Bush and Cheney ends on Jan. 20, 2009. Bush cannot constitutionally run for a third term, and Cheney has said he will not run to succeed Bush."

Meanwhile: Pelosi also still opposing impeachment; says Bush isn't "worth impeaching." Yeah, I'm not sure acting as though the guy still leading the country (and prosecuting a devastating war that's undermining our security and reputation and robbing our treasury every single day) is beneath contempt is really the way to go here. Yeesh.

Once Again, An Imported Seafood Scare

I've written about China shipping deadly puffer fish labeled as monkfish and that country's adulteration of fish feed with melamine. I've described the kinds of things analysts are finding in other imported Chinese seafood--antibiotics in catfish, for example. And while researching and writing a story about the USDA's plans to allow chicken imports from China, I came across a nauseating description of fish farms: Chinese farmers actually suspend the chickens over ponds, allowing the birds' feces to serve as feed. All the while, Chinese seafood shipments kept arriving at our ports and making their way to grocery stores and restaurants nationwide--at least until yesterday:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration yesterday banned the import of five types of farm-raised fish and shrimp from China because they have been found to contain unsafe drugs, some of which can cause cancer.

The species include catfish, shrimp, eels, basa -- a kind of catfish -- and the carp-like dace. The FDA is not ordering that the products be pulled out of restaurants or from supermarket shelves but said that all incoming shipments would be stopped immediately. The chemicals found in the food "could cause health problems if consumed over a long period of time," said David Acheson, the FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection.

Those unsafe drugs and "chemicals" they're referring to? Some, like fluoroquinolone, are powerful, broad-spectrum antibiotics with various negative side effects (neuropathy, heart problems, and hypoglycemia, to name a few). Their use in edible goods is prohibited here, largely because certain bacteria have already developed quinolone-resistant strains (gonorrhea, for example) and mycobacterium (i.e. certain strains of tuberculosis) have, alarmingly, begun developing resistance, too.

Dear Government: Since the US doesn't have the capability to inspect all these containers and you keep cutting back the FDA's budget, reducing its staff, and closing its labs, when are you going to put a full stop to all ingestible imports from China until such time as that nation can prove it has cleaned up its foul act? I look forward to hearing your answer.

Also at litbrit.

Paris' Dinner with Ann

Paris Hilton. Ann Coulter. A coffee shop. A conversation:

Paris Hilton

I think every decade has an iconic blonde -- like Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana -- and right now, I'm that icon.

Ann Coulter

Diana is an ordinary and pathetic and confessional - I've never had bulimia! I've never had an affair!

Paris Hilton

It's sexier when a girl is flirty but she doesn't do anything.

Ann Coulter

Let's say I go out every night, I meet a guy and have sex with him. Good for me. I'm not married.

Paris Hilton

I don’t have sex unless I’m in a relationship. I’m old-fashioned when it comes to that. I really am!

Ann Coulter

Anorexics never have boyfriends. ... That's one way to know you don't have anorexia: if you have a boyfriend.

Paris Hilton

Every woman should have four pets in her life. A mink in her closet, a jaguar in her garage, a tiger in her bed, and a jackass who pays for everything.

Ann Coulter

As always, the pretty girls and cops are on my side.

Paris Hilton

When he sentenced me to that much time in jail it was shocking because that doesn't happen, ever.

Ann Coulter

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.

Paris Hilton

I'd rather not do anything. Guys want you more when you don't.

Ann Coulter

I think women should be armed but should not be allowed to vote.

Paris Hilton

I just want to let people know what I went through.

Ann Coulter

Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment.

Paris Hilton

It was a pretty traumatic experience, something that I really have grown from.

Ann Coulter

I have to say I'm all for public flogging.

Paris Hilton

At parties, everyone always thinks I'm drinking--but actually I rarely drink.

Ann Coulter

It turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word "faggot"

Paris Hilton

I wanted to do my own thing so I could buy whatever I want, do whatever I want.

Ann Coulter

Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.

Paris Hilton

People are going to judge me: "Paris Hilton, she uses money to get what she wants."

Ann Coulter

I'm a little sick of being browbeaten by a bunch of harridans about why I chose this word or why I told that joke. And then people turn around and say, 'Oh, you're so mean, you're so mean.'

Paris Hilton

It hurts that, you know, the media's made me into sort of this like punching bag or cartoon character--they think that I don't have any feelings.

Ann Coulter

My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.

Paris Hilton

I’m not like that smart. I like forget stuff all the time.

Ann Coulter

I've never seen people avoid ideas so much in such an obvious way and try and alert Americans not to read anything, not to listen to something someone says, not because of what she's saying, but trying to portray her as a nazi.

Paris Hilton

You should live everyday like it's your birthday. Life is too short to blend in.

Ann Coulter

You want to be careful not to become just a blowhard.

Paris Hilton

The only rule is don't be boring.

Fim

--WKW