Via Rox.
Moving On Down
Negroponte to move from director of national intelligence to deputy secretary of state. Being Condi's #2 is technically a demotion, but N-Dog will be able to "play a leading role in shaping policy in Iraq" from his new digs. Cool. He did such a bang-up job in Honduras.
You've Got (Bush-Viewed) Mail
President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.And in a familiar retread of the warrantless eavesdropping bullshit, there already exists on the books a provision that rendered this move unnecessary, aside from its conferral of even greater power upon the executive branch:
The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.
That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.
Critics point out the administration could quickly get a warrant from a criminal court or a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to search targeted mail, and the Postal Service could block delivery in the meantime.Why even bother with a Constitution, when entire thing can be rendered moot at the president's whim, using the mere threat of a bomb in a mall in Podunkville to justify his decision?
But the Bush White House appears to be taking no chances on a judge saying no while a terror attack is looming, national security experts agreed.
(Thanks to Angelos and Oddjob for the heads-up.)
Question of the Day
Did you make any New Year's resolutions? If so, what were they and how are you doing so far? If not, why didn't you?
I don't ever make New Year's resolutions, because when I decide to do something, I just do it, and if I'm putting something off, no arbitrary day is going to end my stubborn procrastination. If there's anything I hope to accomplish this year, though, it's to spend its entirety smoke-free. I quit on Thanksgiving and I'm still going strong, as is Mr. Shakes. His dad even sent us our favorite brand—which can only be bought in Britain—for Christmas, and we chucked them right in the bin.
To give you some idea of the intensity of my former habit, when The Onion ran I'll Smoke Anything—an op-ed by a guy who smokes anything and everything on which he can get his grubby little hands—literally like half a dozen friends independently gave me copies, invariably telling me, "This is totally you!" Everyone I've told about quitting has responded with, approximately, "Bullshit! You stopped smoking?!" I was sort of a hardcore smoker, heh.
So, yeah, if I can make it through 2007 without a cigarette, I'll be damn pleased. And I'm pretty resolved to do it, even if it's not an official NYR.
Something Dramatic is Happening to Feminist Health Centers
I'm sitting at my desk in my office at Seattle's Aradia Women's Health Center (AWHC), one of only 16 feminist women's health centers left in the nation. I'll be the Communications Manager here at AWHC for four more weeks, when we'll permanently close our doors, ending a 34-year-long relationship with the women of the Pacific Northwest.Go read the whole thing. It's part one of a two-parter on the future of feminist health care, and I'll link to the second part when it's published.
I'm wiping my computer clean of all my files, shredding old AWHC newsletters and boxing up documents. I'm actively dissolving one of Washington State's most experienced and vocal voices on reproductive rights and health, and wondering how this happened and how we got here. While the answers to these questions may not be entirely clear, the leaders of both the past and present feminist health movement which gave birth to centers like AWHC have a lot to say about it.
Looking forward to your thoughts on this issue, Shakers…
Caption This Photo
Yeesh
"How could it have come to this?" — That's what Christopher Hitchens wants to know about "the shameful hanging of Saddam Hussein." It would be hilarious if it weren't so deeply tragic that the "born-again hawk" who has said that " the left ceded its moral credibility by opposing the war against Islamic fascism" without a trace of awareness that it is the left who questioned the Bush Brigade's competency to fight the war before it began while Hitchens sneered, is the one now asking such a ridiculously naïve question.
Steve sighs, "Hitchypoo is shocked, shocked, that his beloved war has led to an execution conducted by sectarian thugs." What a stunner.
I can't help but have faith in humanity…
…when its numbers include people like Wesley Autrey.
Mr. Autrey was waiting for the downtown local at 137th Street and Broadway in Manhattan around 12:45 p.m. He was taking his two daughters, Syshe, 4, and Shuqui, 6, home before work.Both of the men were okay. Autrey stopped by to visit Hollopeter, who had had a seizure, in the hospital before heading off to work. Just another day for an American hero.
Nearby, a man collapsed, his body convulsing. Mr. Autrey and two women rushed to help, he said. The man, Cameron Hollopeter, 20, managed to get up, but then stumbled to the platform edge and fell to the tracks, between the two rails.
The headlights of the No. 1 train appeared. “I had to make a split decision,” Mr. Autrey said.
So he made one, and leapt.
Mr. Autrey lay on Mr. Hollopeter, his heart pounding, pressing him down in a space roughly a foot deep. The train’s brakes screeched, but it could not stop in time.
Five cars rolled overhead before the train stopped, the cars passing inches from his head, smudging his blue knit cap with grease. Mr. Autrey heard onlookers’ screams. “We’re O.K. down here,” he yelled, “but I’ve got two daughters up there. Let them know their father’s O.K.” He heard cries of wonder, and applause.
(Via Chris.)
But When I Call You a Slimy Foreigner, I Mean it in a Nice Way
R.E.S.P.E.C.T., find out what it means to a bigot:
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Former Major League Baseball pitcher John Rocker is starting a campaign to encourage English-speaking Americans to start demanding respect from legal and illegal immigrants who do not speak English.Yes, goddamn it! I demand respect when I'm treating you like an unworthy sub-human unfit to share the space around me!
Rocker is also pushing for immigrants to respect the customs, heritage and culture of the United States.
In a news release, Rocker said the "'Speak English' campaign is to encourage people to promote and support the sustainment of the American heritage and the American culture. This campaign is in no way intended to degrade or demean the cultures or heritages of others' nationalities or races, but instead to bolster American nationalism and promote pride in the American culture."Yes, I'm not being degrading or demeaning; I'm simply saying that "American nationalism and culture" are worthy of respect, and all others are not! How could that be taken as demeaning? Now get the fuck out of my way, someone's over there speaking a different language! Hey! You! I'm too goddamned lazy to learn another language, that's why I demand that you learn mine! And respect me while you're at it!
Via Steve, who has a wonderful laundry list of the non-degrading, non-demeaning Mr. Rocker's past sensitive comments. Here's a couple:
"So many dumb asses don't know how to drive in this town," he says, Billy Joel's New York State of Mind humming softly from the radio. "They turn from the wrong lane. They go 20 miles per hour. It makes me want -- Look! Look at this idiot! I guarantee you she's a Japanese woman." A beige Toyota is jerking from lane to lane. The woman at the wheel is white. "How bad are Asian women at driving?" ...Actually, I find it more depressing that "Americans" such as yourself are still thriving in this country, completely unclear on the concept of what it means to be American.
* On ever playing for a New York team: "I would retire first. It's the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the [Number] 7 train to the ballpark, looking like you're [riding through] Beirut next to some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing."
Rocker's book is due out in 2008.Once he finishes finger painting on his cave wall.
(Crap! I forgot to thank Shakes for this post's image. Thanks! )
In Which I Clear Up Some Confusion
David "The Fart Button" Usher is at it again, with a new column delightfully called The Tyranny of Feminist Jurisprudence, in which he reveals that, at long last, "some judges are waking up to the truth: behind the mysterious veil of feminist humanism hides the most profound contempt for men, marriage, and ultimately the well-being of non-elitist women."
("Non-elitist women," of course, being women who regard their rightful place in subservience to men, as opposed to "elitist women," who have the unmitigated temerity to consider themselves autonomous beings equal to men.)
Once again, I'll just express amusement at the assertion that it is feminists who are indicted for being contemptuous of men and non-feminist women. Personally, I have a deep fondness for both men and women generally, and reserve my contempt for those who make it their business to deny my self-governance and bodily sovereignty. Usher, being a man who's made it not only his business, but his career, to do precisely that would thusly probably find himself quite regularly at the blunt end of feminists' ire. That doesn't mean we hate all men; it just means we hate him.
(Via Vanessa.)
I Do Not Think That Means What You Think It Means
What is a "Constitutional Crisis" to Chief Justice John Roberts?
It's all about the Benjamins, baby. (bolds mine)
WASHINGTON - Pay for federal judges is so inadequate that it threatens to undermine the judiciary's independence, Chief Justice John Roberts says in a year-end report critical of Congress.Ahem.
Issuing an eight-page message devoted exclusively to salaries, Roberts says the 678 full-time U.S. District Court judges, the backbone of the federal judiciary, are paid about half that of deans and senior law professors at top schools.
In the 1950s, 65 percent of U.S. District Court judges came from the practicing bar and 35 percent came from the public sector. Today the situation is reversed, Roberts said, with 60 percent from the public sector and less than 40 percent from private practice.
Federal district court judges are paid $165,200 annually; appeals court judges make $175,100; associate justices of the Supreme Court earn $203,000; the chief justice gets $212,100.
Thirty-eight judges have left the federal bench in the past six years and 17 in the past two years.
The issue of pay, says Roberts, "has now reached the level of a constitutional crisis."
As Nicole says:
Habeas Corpus, domestic wiretapping, violations of the Geneva Conventions, illegal wars and THIS is a constitutional crisis for Roberts? Hyperbole much?Tell you what... Federal Judges can get a pay raise the moment we see an increase in the minimum wage.
Congress can start getting pay raises again once all of the area destroyed by Hurricane Katrina is habitable again. My good friend Stacy was in New Orleans over the holidays and was shocked at how little has been done. "It's like it happened yesterday. If you're outside the French Quarter, nothing has happened."
All of you can start getting pay raises again once the Troops have all the body armor they need.
I'll listen to your complaints about pay when you're feeing a family of six for less than $15,000 a year. In the meantime, fill your mouth with your lobster salad lunch and do shut up.
Heeeeeeeeeere's Jesus!
Yes, folks, it's another "Jesus in a random thing" sighting! This time he decided to show up in a tree, just in time for the holidays. So we hear from Florida:
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Man-made religious decorations are a common sight at this time of year, but the image on a tree in an Arlington man's front yard is natural and some neighbors have begun calling it a holy tree, according to a WJXT-TV report.
Neighbors near Daryl Brown's Arlington home said a tree in his yard bears the image of Jesus. The likeness has created a buzz in the neighborhood and has many residents at a loss for words.
"I see the face, eyes, and you can see the crown," said one neighbor.
"I can't say what I feel, I just feel it," said another neighbor.
The image was discovered a week before Christmas by a woman walking her dog, the report said.
And here it is:
Dear Ladies: Please Stop Getting Yourselves Raped
Finding an article like the recently discussed "Should women be more responsible?" on the BBC website is all kinds of infuriating. When Amanda emails you a heads-up about a similar article, and it's from Women's eNews, that's the kind of thing that would make you tear your hair out, if only your hands weren’t occupied setting to work blogging about it.
Amanda's already done a very thorough fisking of "Underage Women Sidle Up to Barroom Risks", including some important background on a couple of its key players, and Jill, Sheelzebub, Violet, Echidne, Rox, and Ann are on it, too. I don't even know what I could say about the content that I haven't said a dozen (a hundred? a thousand? a billion?) times before (see here and here, for a start). I am, as ever, decidedly unimpressed with an article that seeks to blame women who drink at "ladies' nights" should they be raped and murdered—a possibility presented with all the subtlety of a slasher film.
In this approximately thousand-word article, the word rape appears three times, and the words murder, homicide, abducted, and disemboweled appear once each. One of the section headers says, ominously, "70,000 Date Rapes a Year". Those, I guess, are the "barroom risks" of which the article title speaks, as opposed to, say, the people who commit the acts—people who might also be drinking at "ladies' nights," in spite of not being ladies. The acts/risks are referenced abstractly, as if they are somehow eternal, like God maybe. Before man and woman, there was Rape, and Rape said, "Let there be life so that I might ruin it."
In a second homicide that summer in the city involving a young woman who had been drinking to excess, 18-year-old Jennifer Moore left one of the city's most exclusive lounges intoxicated. Walking alone in the early morning hours along the city's West Side Highway, she was abducted and raped. Two days later she was found disemboweled in a dumpster in Weehawken, N.J.She was abducted and raped and she was found disemboweled in a dumpster, all because she had been drinking to excess and was walking alone while intoxicated. No trace of the person who actually abducted, raped, and murdered her anywhere. He is absent while his crime haunts the article like an menacing specter. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you're going to write an article about minimizing the "barroom risk" of assault against women, perhaps you ought to consider actually discussing the assaulters, too.
Though somewhere between 69,999 and 70,000 of those "70,000 Date Rapes a Year" (which refers only to the number of "alcohol-related date rapes a year … among students aged 18 to 24") are committed by men, this article uses woman/women 22 times, she/her 9 times, girl(s) 6 times, female twice, and ladies twice. Man/Men/He/Him/His/Male/Guy(s) combined are used 14 times. Four women are quoted; one man is quoted—the author of an article entitled "Girls exchange dignity for attention in trendy clubs." Yeesh. I guess we're meant to believe that it is just the victims who have been drinking and none of the rapists in those 70,000 alcohol-related date rapes every year—and that if only those victims had all been sober instead, none of those rapes would have happened. My rape, during which I was stone cold sober and my rapist's breath tasted of gin, was obviously the only one of its kind. I deserve a trophy or some shit.
"I'd like to thank my rapist, without
whom this never would have happened…"
Ah, the truth in jokes, yes? Left to my own devices, I never would have been raped. The rapist was really the key component to the whole thing. I was sober; hardly scantily clad (another phrase appearing once in the article), I was wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt; I was at home; my sexual history was, literally, nonexistent—I was a virgin; I struggled; I said no. There have been times since when I have been walking home, alone, after a few drinks, wearing something that might have shown a bit of leg or cleavage, and I wasn't raped. The difference was not in what I was doing. The difference was the presence of a rapist.
Enough blaming the victim. Enough.
Oh, HELL Yes.
This is how you battle them, folks.
Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he'd take his oath of office on the Koran -- especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.It's difficult to comment when you're licking your wounds.
Yet the holy book at tomorrow's ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We've learned that the new congressman -- in a savvy bit of political symbolism -- will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.
[...]
One person unlikely to be swayed by the book's illustrious history is Goode, who released a letter two weeks ago objecting to Ellison's use of the Koran. "I believe that the overwhelming majority of voters in my district would prefer the use of the Bible," the Virginia Republican told Fox News, and then went on to warn about what he regards as the dangers of Muslims immigrating to the United States and Muslims gaining elective office.
Yeah, but what about a Koran that belonged to one of the greatest Virginians in history? Goode, who represents Jefferson's birthplace of Albemarle County, had no comment yesterday.
Mr. Ellison, can I buy you
(Tip 'o the Energy Dome to Chester and skippy.)
Dire predictions, cheerfully made
He sees dead people...or really, really hopes to, at leastThe upside to predicting the worst is that should your ominous warnings come to pass, you look like a prophet whose every word must be heeded. Should the unimaginable - that is, nothing - happen, you get to smile and say, "Sometimes I miss." Such are the standard tactics of radical Christian cleric Pat Robertson, the archconservative evangelist whose self-touted status as God's chief correspondent is rivaled only by the vindictiveness and disaster lust inherent in his "prophecies." So what's God sayin' today, Rev?
Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would cause a "mass killing" late in 2007."I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
"The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."
Robertson said God told him about the impending tragedy during a recent prayer retreat.
God also said, he claims, that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.
The God of the Fathers was a bit stingy on the details, eh? Interesting that a deity famously possessed of omniscience - i.e., perfectly and eternally knowing all things which can be known, past, present, and future - couldn't provide more specific intelligence on which cities and precisely how many people would be affected by the predicted attack, or even whether a nuclear device would be involved. It's possible that God doesn't sweat such details, though it's much more likely that Mr. Robertson has been listening only to the echoes of his own voice in the unlit recesses of his squirming brain. We should all hope so, for the only alternative left us is that God is addled, spiteful, and ultimately uncaring - that is, cast perfectly in the image of His loudest television prophet.
(Cross-posted hither and yon...)Question of the Day
What was your favorite news story of 2006?
It can be good news, political victories, something that made you laugh, a "cat rescued from tree" story... anything.
Aside from the elections, I was greatly amused by a story I saw on either the news or Nightline... I can't remember exactly where I saw it. It had to do with Nigerian email scams, and the "victims" that had lost their life savings. It was the tone of the story that had me so tickled; it had a very "look at these poor, victimized *cough*whiteandaffluent*cough* Americans that have been taken advantage of by these evil, sinister *cough*bigandblack* Nigerians!" aspect to it that just made my head spin. They never waggled a finger at the Americans that were trying to get a ton of money on the sly, tax-free, of course.
Seriously, have you ever received one of those emails that are something along the lines of "I know I'm a complete stranger from halfway around the world, but if you let me have your bank account number I'll give you half of this bajillion dollars that I inherited please and God bless you," and not just laughed and deleted it?
Here's what I really loved: they were particularly outraged by a popular Nigerian music video that mocks the gullible people taken in by the scam.
The scammers' anthem is a popular song called, "I Go Chop Your Dollar." A tongue-in-cheek comedian and singer named Osofia belts out, in local slang, a song that translates to, "419 is just a game. You are the loser, I am the winner. White people greedy.... I take your money and disappear.... You be the fool, I be the master."You can see the video here. "They're not just scamming us, they're making fun of us! Have they no shame?"
Very thin skins amuse me.
So, how about you?
Weighty Matters
This TNR article is four years old but recently reposted, and nothing much has changed in the interim about American's obsession with weight, as a health and a beauty issue. I really recommend reading the whole thing, but here's a brief excerpt to whet your appetite, so to speak:
[Americans] long to believe that medical experts can solve the problem of their expanding waistlines. The reason for this can be summed up in six words: Americans think being fat is disgusting. That psychological truth creates an enormous incentive to give our disgust a respectable motivation. In other words, being fat must be terrible for one's health, because if it isn't that means our increasing hatred of fat represents a social, psychological, and moral problem rather than a medical one.Hmm…sounds suspiciously like that zany Health at Every Size bizness I keep mentioning.
…A rational public health policy would emphasize that the keys to good health (at least those that anyone can do anything about—genetic factors remain far more important than anything else) are, in roughly descending order of importance: not to smoke, not to be an alcoholic or drug addict, not to be sedentary, and not to eat a diet packed with junk food.
It's true that a more active populace that ate a healthier diet would be somewhat thinner, as would a nation that wasn't dieting obsessively. Even so, there is no reason why there shouldn't be millions of healthy, happy fat people in the United States, as there no doubt would be in a culture that maintained a rational attitude toward the fact that people will always come in all shapes and sizes, whether they live healthy lives or not.It remains a radical act to be fat and happy in America, especially if you're a woman (for whom "jolly" fatness isn't an option). If you're fat, you're not only meant to be unhappy, but deeply ashamed of yourself, projecting at all times an apologetic nature, indicative of your everlasting remorse for having wrought your monstrous self upon the world. You are certainly not meant to be bold, or assertive, or confident—and should you manage to overcome the constant drumbeat of messages that you are ugly and unsexy and have earned equally society's disdain and your own self-hatred, should you forget your place and walk into the world one day with your head held high, you are to be reminded by the cow-calls and contemptuous looks of perfect strangers that you are not supposed to have self-esteem; you don't deserve it. Being publicly fat and happy is hard; being publicly, shamelessly, unshakably fat and happy is an act of both will and bravery.
Rare indeed is the fat chick who manages to find contentment in her own skin, because everything around her is designed so that she will not. Thusly, the idea of a culture that maintains a rational attitude about a spectrum of natural (and acceptable) shapes and sizes is almost impossible to imagine—and yet important enough to imagine and set as goal nevertheless, because the girl who is healthy but fat is not being served by our scorn, and the girl who is unhealthy but thin is not being served by our approbation. And that is to say nothing of the boy who suffers under this grand delusion as well, of whom I know less, since he has never been in my mirror.
(Via Amp.)
You've Got to be Kidding
No, really... the AP is seriously asking this?
Why So Many Upset by Iraq Death Toll?
PHILADELPHIA The country largely kept the faith during World War II, even as about 400,000 U.S. forces died - 20,000 just in the month long Battle of the Bulge. Before turning against the wars in Korea and Vietnam, Americans tolerated thousands more deaths than in Iraq.Well, here's a few off the top of my head:
Has something changed? Do Americans somehow place higher value on the lives of their soldiers now? Do they expect success at lower cost? Or do most simply dismiss this particular war as the wrong one - hard to understand and harder to win - and so not worth the losses?
Maybe because the war was based on a goddamn lie?
Maybe because we were told the war would be a cakewalk?
Maybe because people realize there is no benefit to this war, to Iraqis or Americans, and our soldiers are dying pointlessly?
Maybe because the "mission" was supposedly "accomplished" three years ago?
Maybe because people finally realize this war has nothing to do with "fighting terrorism," and is, in fact, creating more terrorists?
And here's a big one:
Maybe because Americans are finally realizing that the "President" that began this war hasn't lost a single night's sleep over any life lost in his little adventure. The "President" and his administration are more concerned with their image and "legacy" than American lives. They care about the Iraq death toll because their "President" doesn't.
Human beings are not action figures, and they're getting goddamn sick and tired of being treated that way.
That's why people are upset about the Iraq death toll.
Regardless of what Tony Snow might think, it's not "just a number." 3,000 dead for no reason is 3,000 too many.
