A mini-rebellion is under way in an American Heartland state so historically unswingable that neither national party typically spends much time or energy stumping for candidates.In one sense, I worry that Republicans joining the Democratic Party will hasten its movement rightward, but when I see that they’re joining because they reject expanded government, wanton spending, and the exploitation of reproductive rights and gay marriage, I can’t help thinking that it might not be as bad as all that. If the new breed of Democrat are hardcore supporters of government keeping its nose out of our business, that could be a very good thing in many ways, especially on the issues of legalized abortion and same-sex marriage. I just hope we’re able to convince them of the value of things like universal healthcare, corporate regulation, and environmental protection. There’s a medium to be found between “no government at all” and “government controlling everything,” and finding the balance only takes people who are willing to compromise and genuinely care about all Americans.
But this year President George W. Bush, the country's leading Republican, is making a last-minute campaign stop in Kansas, where at least nine candidates running on the November 7 ballot are Republicans-turned-Democrats. They include a veteran county prosecutor seeking to unseat the Republican attorney general and a former state Republican Party chairman running as the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor.
A cross-section of Democrats, moderate Republicans and independents are backing the party-switchers, saying a Republican obsession with expanded government and deficit spending, along with divisive social issues like abortion and gay marriage, has marred efforts to limit government, boost spending on education and ensure fiscal responsibility.
"The Republican Party got focused on some issues that really have nothing to do with people's daily lives ... I just could not continue to work with the conservative Republicans that were running the state party," said Mark Parkinson, candidate for lieutenant governor.
Oh My
Evangelical Leader Accused of Gay Affair
Oy. Mike Jones, a male escort, claims that he has had a three-year “sexual business relationship” with Ted Haggard, founder and senior leader of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and one of Time magazine’s 25 most influential Evangelicals in America. Jones also alleges that Haggard “used methamphetamine in his presence on several occasions.”
Haggard, of course, denies the charges. “I am steady with my wife. I'm faithful to my wife.”
I don’t know what the evidence of this relationship is, although I’m presuming Jones provided something more than his word during the two months he was speaking to the television station. I can’t imagine an NBC affiliate would run the story on hearsay alone. Nonetheless, at this point, it’s an accusation only.
Haggard is a virulent homophobe, who, as Pam says, “worked hard on a federal marriage amendment, and he was on the batphone with the White House on a regular basis.”
Every Monday he participates in the West Wing conference call with evangelical leaders. The group continues to prod the President to campaign aggressively for a federal marriage amendment. "We wanted him to use the force of his office to actively lobby the Congress and Senate, which he did not adequately do," says Haggard. He is also working to broaden his group's agenda. A document issued last fall offered a theological justification for civic activism by U.S. Evangelicals, calling on them to protect the environment, promote global religious and political freedom and human rights, safeguard "wholesome family life," care for the poor and oppose racism.Even if the accusations aren’t true, Haggard’s still getting exactly what he deserves. It’s because of people like him, who endeavor to demonize gays, that accusing someone of having a gay affair is such a Big Fucking Deal. Obviously, if you’re married and not cheating, being accused of an affair is a big deal on its own, but being accused of a gay affair is just all kinds of scandalous to people like him and his followers. And it’s their own damn fault.
Sully v. Hitchens
Watch two ex-pat Brits debating American policy on CNN, one of whom accuses the president of having lost his mind, and one of whom has clearly lost his.
I have such a love-hate relationship with Sully. He can be such an unbelievable ass on many issues, but, at the same time, I respect his willingness to admit when he’s made a mistake and not toe the party line. He also strikes me as someone with whom I’d be friends, were we to meet, though we’d spend long hours debating just about everything.
I have a hate-hate relationship with Hitchens, even when I agree with him. He strikes me as someone who I’d kick in the nuts given half a chance.
(Via.)
Call Me She-Stuff
Minstrel Boy’s sister, who’s working on a novel, needs help. She’s looking for an affirmative and non-disparaging word to describe a woman who excels in skills traditionally associated with the feminine, like cooking and sewing—a word she describes as the female equivalent of the descriptor “macho,” which one might use to describe a man who’s good at traditionally male-associated skills.
I thought about this for awhile, and I realized that I don’t think macho is really used that way. I mean, it can be used to describe a man who’d good at traditionally male-associated skills, but only a particular type of man. Mr. Shakes is a genius around the house in “traditionally male” ways—he can retile bathrooms and lay hardwood floors and build shit—and he’s physically a big man, tall and broad-shouldered, but there are parts of his personality—shyness, warmth, introversion, bookishness—that just make calling him macho seem ridiculous, because our use of macho hasn’t been totally extricated from it’s origin machismo, which has associations with sexism, braggadocio, and a lack of humility.
So, okay, macho is decidedly flawed, but, once I’d started thinking about, I wanted to see if there maybe there was a word, even if equally flawed, for the purposes of describing a female character. I couldn’t think of any off the top of my head, and the Spanish equivalents to macho are feminista or hembra, which make sense in Spanish, but in English, we’d say “feminist,” which isn’t right. So I looked up antonyms for macho in the thesaurus, and I found female, woman, feminine, effeminate, cowardly, weak, impotent, unmanly. Ha. That’s a whole other post.
So then I looked up feminine, to search for synonyms, and the first entry was “feminine napkin.” Ha. That’s a whole other post, too.
The main entry for “female” provides these synonyms: changeable (?!), child-bearing, delicate, effeminate, effete, fair, feminine, fertile, gentle, girlish, girly, graceful, ladylike, maidenly, matronly, modest, muliebral, oviparous, petticoat (?!), pistil-bearing, pistillate, pure, refined, reproductive, sensitive, she-stuff (???!!!), shy, soft, tender, twisty, virgin, vixenish, weak, womanish, womanlike. Okay, that’s about six whole other posts, including one titled: According to the Thesaurus, I Am Not Female.
Anyway, the thesaurus is no help. I don’t know what the female equivalent of macho is. Femme is about as close as I can come, which is just as flawed as macho and doesn’t even have the benefit of being widely used. And I haven’t come up with any words that accurately (and affirmatively) describe men and women who are good at skills traditionally associated with their respective sexes that don’t have negative or othering connotations, either—which isn’t a bad thing; there’s something satisfying about having to describe a woman who’s good at cooking and sewing by saying, “She’s a woman who’s good at cooking and sewing.” So I got nothing, and I'm not totally displeased about that, in the end. Shakers?
Tipping Point
“I should be supporting Allen. Instead, I’m leaving the party.”
I'm a Christian, a writer, a military parent and a registered Republican.It perplexes me that there are people who are only just now opening their eyes to the things we’ve been seeing for so long. I’m not sure why this stuff matters now, but didn’t matter in 2004, or 2002, or 2000—or during the long, disgusting display during the late 90s. I can’t believe it’s only because the Republicans are going to lose. This piece doesn’t strike me as being written by a man who just wants to be on the winning team (or, at least, dissociated from the losing team), as have some other “changed mind” commentaries we’ve seen. I really don’t know or understand why we’ve reached the tipping point we have, but I’m glad of it. Whatever the reasons, I’m pleased that at long last the stinking whiff of the putrid GOP has become too much to bear for even some of its lifelong members.
On all those counts, I was disgusted by an e-mail I just received that's being circulated by campaign supporters of Republican George Allen, who's trying to retain his Senate seat in Virginia.
The message goes like this: "First, it was the Catholic priests, then it was Mark Foley, and now Jim Webb, whose sleazy novels discuss sex between very young teenagers. ... Hmmm, sounds like a perverted pedophile to me! Pass the word that we do not need any more pedophiles in office."
…I've been voting Republican for years. My late father – Dr. Francis Schaeffer – was an evangelical theologian, friend to Jerry Falwell and White House guest of Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and the first President Bush.
I have nice handwritten letters from various members of the Bush family, including Barbara, thanking me for my books on military service. So I have every reason to stay in the Republicans' good graces. (It's nice to be complimented on television by the First Lady.)
But enough is enough. I've had it with Republican smears.
…My wife and I have reached the tipping point. We plan to go to town hall to dump our Republican voter registration and reregister as independents. I don't care anymore what party someone is in. These days, what I care about is what they're made of.
Wartime demands leaders with character and moral authority. The political party smearing Mr. Webb proves it has neither.
Submitted Without Comment
KNAU:
Army specialist Alyssa Peterson was an Arabic speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at the Tal-afar airbase in far northwestern Iraq near the Syrian border. According to the Army's investigation into her death, obtained by a KNAU reporter through the Freedom of Information Act, Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed.Okay, one comment: My blood is fucking boiling.
Instead she was assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards. She was sent to suicide prevention training. But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle.
Question of the Day
If someone gave you $300, with the requirement that it be spent on treating yourself, not stuck in savings or used to pay the bills or donated to a worthy cause, how would you spend it?
I would tell Mr. Shakes to get on his finest duds, and we'd head out for our favorite restaurant, which we unfortunately can't usually afford, a little French bistro in a nearby town that rivals (and surpasses many of) the best French restaurants at which I've eaten in New York, Chicago, and London. (I'm not sure how or why the owner and chef ended up where he did, but I'm certainly glad of it.) We'd order a great bottle of wine and splendid food, and spend hours savoring it over great conversation, which is, luckily, always free and plentiful at Shakes Manor. Whatever was left over, I'd spend on shoes, natch.
Breaking the Bank
The U.S. Air Force is asking the Pentagon's leadership for a staggering $50 billion in emergency funding for fiscal 2007—an amount equal to nearly half its annual budget, defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute said on Tuesday.By way of perspective, two supplemental spending requests were made during the entirety of the Vietnam War, and one during the entirety of the Korean War.
The request is expected to draw criticism on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are increasingly worried about the huge sums being sought "off budget" to fund wars, escaping the more rigorous congressional oversight of regular budgets.
…With the latest bill passed last month, Congress has approved about $507 billion in spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, under some 13 "emergency" spending requests, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The “off budget” or “emergency” funding of the wars in Afghanistan and particularly Iraq are largely responsible for the egregious waste and fraud we’ve heard about so often. Like everything else under the purview of the Bush administration, there’s simply no accountability.
And check out the reason that the Air Force is requesting the funding:
Another source familiar with the Air Force plans said the extra funds would help pay to transport growing numbers of U.S. soldiers being killed and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.Wow. Absolutely heartbreaking.
And, mind you, none of the war costs include associated expenditures for killed or injured soldiers. The military pays $100,000 in death benefits and $500,000 in life insurance. Plus, there is the cost of “medical treatment for returning Iraqi war veterans, particularly the … servicemen with brain, spinal, amputation and other serious injuries… [As of 31 December 2005], 3213 people—20% of those injured in Iraq—have suffered head/brain injuries that require lifetime continual care at a cost range of $600,000 to $5 million.” Meanwhile, because recruitment is getting so tough, enlistment bonuses have gone up to as much as $40,000 for new recruits, and as much as $150,000 for soldiers who reenlist.
I don’t begrudge the soldiers or their families one penny of what the government owes them, but I also don’t want to rack up staggering bills any more than I want to rack up dead or injured soldiers in this ridiculous war. Frankly, it’s just another reason to get our men and women out of there as fast as fucking possible.
(Via.)
Bush and Biff, Part Two
As noted earlier, President Bush spent a little time chatting with Biff Limbaugh today, and I just read the transcript (the things I do for the Shakers!), and it’s pretty much the same old obnoxious shit. The only thing worth comment is part of Bush’s response about why the Republicans are going to win the midterms:
I know that we're right on the issues—and the issues, the two main issues, are low taxes and winning the war on terror and protecting the American people… I believe if our candidates continue to talk about the strong economy, based upon low taxes, and an administration in a Congress that was willing to give professionals the tools necessary to protect them, we'll win this election.So, according to President Bush, the two main issues for Americans are tax cuts and protecting Americans from terrorism. What an idiot.
Americans do need more financial security, but giving people a tax rebate—especially one that, for the people most struggling economically, won’t make a damn bit of difference over the course of a year—isn’t the answer, not when you’ve got millions and millions of people without health insurance, millions of people suffering under crushing debt and filing bankruptcy, wages stagnating, education costs increasing, and a federal minimum wage that doesn’t provide enough income to rent a one-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country. The average tax cut for Americans making less than $50,000 is $435, or $36.25 a month. That’s not even a tank of gas anymore. The president is either totally disengaged from the realities of his tax cuts for most Americans, or completely intellectually dishonest—likely both—when he argues that his tax cuts can make a fundamental difference in most Americans’ lives.
Americans also need to be protected—yes, from terrorism, but considering that more Americans will lose their homes from predatory lending practices, more Americans will die of exposure, untreated disease, or hunger, and more Americans will have to choose between buying their medications and buying food this year alone than have ever been hurt or killed by terrorists, we really need to ratchet down the scare-mongering and get some bloody perspective. Of course national defense is a priority—it always will be—but, realistically, most Americans are not at risk for succumbing to terrorist violence, and those who are most vulnerable—the coasts, the big cities—even tend to vote against making terrorism a priority over issues like reinforcing the social safety net, funding stem cell research, protecting reproductive rights, and preserving civil rights.
Bush likes to assert that the GOP is right in-step with mainstream American values, but they’re so far off the mark, they can’t even see it anymore, if they ever did. In any case, I hope he keeps selling his “two main issues” to American voters, because nothing makes it more clear what little he’s giving them for which to vote.
The Self-Awareness of Elephants
I know I’m an inveterate nerd, but I absolutely love stuff like this:
Elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror, joining only humans, apes and dolphins as animals that possess this kind of self-awareness, researchers now report.There are pictures and video of the elephants investigating the mirror at the link.
…One of the first things animals capable of recognizing themselves in mirrors do is try exploring the other side of the mirror. Elephants Maxine and Patty did this: they swung their trunks over and behind the wall on which the mirror was mounted, kneeled in front of it to get their trunks under and behind it, and even attempted to physically climb the wall. Remarkably, the elephants did not appear to at first mistake their reflections as strangers and try to greet them, as many animals that can recognize themselves normally do.
…As they begin to understand mirrors, animals that can recognize their reflections try repeating actions in front of it. The elephants, for example, waved their trunks around and moved their heads in and out of the mirror view.
Finally, once animals recognize reflections as their own, they use mirrors to investigate their own bodies. On more than one occasion, the elephants stuck their trunks into their mouths in front of the mirror, and Maxine used her trunk to pull her ear slowly toward the mirror.
One of the researchers, Diana Reiss, who’s a senior cognitive research scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society in Brooklyn, said that self-awareness is a trait “common to and independently evolved by animals with large, complex brains, complex social lives, and known capacities for empathy and altruism.”
Is anyone else ready to start a campaign to demand that the Republicans stop using the elephant as their party logo?
For Sale: Conservative Judges
Go see Michael for something that, if you're anything like me, will probably not surprise you, but will infuriate you nonetheless.
Good Job, George
I believe this is something for which President Bush can take some much-deserved credit, as long as he’s willing to share it with his wingnut Christofascist base:
The survey conducted by Harris Poll found that 42 percent of US adults are not "absolutely certain" there is a God compared to 34 percent who felt that way when asked the same question three years ago.George Bush and the Religious Right: Creating doubts about the existence of God since 2000.
I’m only half kidding. The part of me that isn’t kidding is the part which recognizes that, in large swaths of America, religion is primarily social in nature. Much of the country consists of small towns (like the one in which I live) where there are more churches than movie theaters, bowling alleys, and bars combined—and no hint of any markers of “high-end culture” like concert halls, opera houses, symphony, or theater; nor evidence of multicultural social activities like blues or jazz clubs; and festivals (generally built around some sort of food item—Rib Fest, Popcorn Fest) are seasonal. Necessarily, churches become a focus of many social activities for residents of these towns, and the Saturday Social, Friday Fish Fry, Tuesday Fellowship, monthly pot-lucks, and bingo night attract to the local church many people the intensity of whose religiosity wouldn’t suggest spending so much time there, were it not the hub of social activity in their community.
Many of these people are not disbelievers so much as casual adherents to the belief system that underlies their primary social structure. They haven’t dedicated a whole lot of critical thought to the religion, not only because it isn’t required of them, but because church-going, both religiously and especially socially, is just something everyone they know does. To question the religion behind it is to risk abandoning the only social game going in town—which is partly why the same poll also found that only 93% of self-described born-again Christians, 76% or Protestants, 64% of Catholics, and 30% of Jews are “absolutely certain” that God exists, and also partly why there are so many religious folks who don’t seem to have the foggiest idea what their religions actually teach. Some of it is just bloody-minded ignorance; some of it is that a lot of people go to church for reasons other than religion.
Being “religious” (going to church) is not just a social activity, but provides a social identity. Telling someone you’re Catholic without any other context will convey very different things than telling someone you’re a born-again evangelical. People wear their denominations as badges of honor; in many small towns, identifying as a particular denomination means you go to the nicest church, send your kids to the best private school, and probably hobnob with the mayor and most of the other community leaders at the church picnic. You’re not just announcing your beliefs regarding the number of sacraments; you’re establishing your social identity.
To people for whom religion is primarily about social interaction and identity, the regard for the institution is of utmost importance. Just like a college kid who spends her nights at the Metro, heaving and sweating in a throbbing throng of mad-haired fans to a band no one’s heard of yet, or the guy down the hall, who spends his nights at frat parties, downing shots to the sounds of raucous laughter and popular music pouring from a kickass system, each of them believes that their social circle is cool. We gravitate toward social expressions that are available to us and appeal to our individual aesthetics, but, because our social activities and associated identities say something about who we are, we want them to reflect something positive, or else they lose their appeal.
The last few years has seen the rise of a religious tide that many people regard as decidedly uncool.
Even many devoutly religious folks are sick to the teeth of the religious right, who, in spite of attempts by other Christians to counter their dominance in politics and the media, have virtually cornered the market on defining religion in America. The most visible man in the world, George Bush, counts himself among the numbers of the religious extremists whose radical faith-based agenda so many Americans find repugnant, and there’s no shortage of mouthpieces—Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson—whom the media is willing to parade on “news” shows to issue vitriol-laden spewage about everything from gay rights to the cause of hurricanes. It’s been a disgusting display, and it has made uncritically affiliating oneself with a religion who might share these views a much less attractive proposition for the social church-goer. Maybe it’s time to start asking questions about all that God business which is the backdrop of my social life.
So it’s no surprise that within the same timeframe as the religious right has increasingly been giving religion a bad name, the numbers of people questioning the very existence of God has also grown. It’s not that the religious right’s radicalism is suggestive to social church-goers that there’s no God after all, but that the backlash it’s created has undermined the complacent satisfaction they felt at being a part of something that once wasn’t viewed with such disdain. They suddenly have reason to question their church, and, hence, their faith—probably for the first time. Suddenly, renting a movie doesn’t seem a bad alternative to bingo night.
Weirdly, this might be one of Bush Conservatism’s finest legacies. By aligning itself with a dogmatic and unyielding paradigm of limited religious certitude and its purveyors, by trying to bend people into a religious shape that doesn’t fit, it has spawned instead questioning, searching, doubt—which should be a part of every human’s experience, even religious ones.
Linkies
Two new pieces up at The Guardian's Comment is Free: Sticking With Tradition and The Bush Liability.
Ten Shot at Halloween Celebration in SF
Go read Pam, who's got the whole story and a great piece care of Blender and gay activist Paul Barwick. I'm with Paul; I've seen enough pick-ups full of suburban miscreants cruising for trouble in Chicago's Boystown on a plain old Saturday night, shouting "Faggot!" and other really original things out the window, to be looking for alternatives to the likelihood it was motivated by plain, old-fashioned hatred. I'm not suggesting we all must agree it was a hate crime, before all the facts are in, but why on earth, with an epidemic of hatred permeating the country, juxtaposed against a ruling party that trades regularly on negative attitudes toward the LGBT community, would we start dismissing out of the hand the possibility that it was a hate crime? It just baffles me that there are progressives who seem anxious to try to argue away the real possibility of a homophobic attack, immediately and against all logic. Maybe it will turn out to be some other thing, but what purpose does it serve in the interim to suggest it probably was, which is necessarily predicated on minimizing the real dangers facing the LGBT community in this country today?
Bush and Biff
According to Tony Snow, the president’s taking it easy today:
Bush has “some meetings with senior advisers and a Rush Limbaugh interview,” Snow said in an email. “No blockbusters.”Yeah, looks like the White House is all broken up about Biff’s sociopathic screed against Michael J. Fox. He really stepped out of line, going after a Parkinson’s patient—such a giant misstep, he’s now got an exclusive with the big dog.
Carpetbagger: “Consider the broader context for a moment. Limbaugh generated national revulsion with his attack on Fox. Instead of apologizing, Limbaugh told his listeners, ‘I stand by what I said. I take back none of what I said.’ Decency demanded that he be shunned from polite society. Honestly, what kind of person attacks a man with a terrible disease, falsely accuses the man of faking symptoms, issues a bogus apology, and then goes right back to attacking the victim again? Apparently, it's the kind of man who gets one-on-one chats with George W. Bush.”
In a sane administration, the president would be meeting with Michael J. Fox and reconsidering his position on funding stem cell research. In this administration, however, the man who attacked him in the most juvenile and outlandish manner imaginable is being rewarded for his insolence.
Question of the Day
Well, I believe we've got to go for the obvious this evening... What are the best and worst Halloween costumes you've ever donned?
