I know that I'm embarrassingly late to the party regarding the Nebraska state senator who's decided to sue the Most High, but I'm smugly certain that no one has come up with a cleverer title for their post. Sit and spin, early adopters!
(Cross-posted.)
Your arms too short to tort with God
The Obesity Challenge
You know, a big part of me doesn't even want to know what's going to come out of the conference in D.C. today called "The Obesity Challenge: What the Next President Should Do." Bill Richardson's already given us a taste, and I don't much care for it. (Not fatty enough.)
"The next president must commit to fighting America's obesity problem and possess the experience to win the fight," Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico says, taking credit for waging the fight back home. "In New Mexico, I got junk food out of our schools and put physical education back in.''I did, however, enjoy Sandy Szwarc's remarks on what else Bill Richardson has done to fight the scourge of fatness in New Mexico:
According to the New Mexico State Center for Health Statistics, Bureau of Vital Records, it ranks 47th in the nation in per capita income and 25.9% of children live at or below the poverty level. But it leads the nation in food insecurity and hunger. One in six New Mexicans — 16.8% — suffer low or very low food security (the government’s new term for hunger). And the problem is growing.Emphasis mine.
The most recent Faces of Hunger in New Mexico report, released last year, said that since 2001, there’s been a 38% increase in residents seeking emergency food assistance — more than 238,000 a year, including 81,000 children and 21,000 seniors. The total population of this state is under 2 million. The numbers of seniors seeking emergency food aid has nearly doubled. Forty-one percent of those served by New Mexico’s food banks said they had to choose between paying for food or paying for utilities or heating fuel. And for 28%, it was a choice between food and medicine or medical care. “Over one-half of the increase we see are the most vulnerable of our community – children and seniors” said Melody Wattenbarger, Executive Director of Roadrunner Food Bank.
Excellent work, Bill! Keep it up and your state will have NO FATTIES AT ALL!
Bet the other candidates can't top that.
Update, because it's already been asked once and will probably be asked again. No, I have no problem whatsoever with getting junk food out of schools and increasing mandatory physical education. (Well, that's a lie. I have a problem with mandatory phys ed because of the way it's currently approached, but absolutely no theoretical objection to making movement a part of every school day.) But childhood "obesity interventions" inevitably have no effect whatsoever on fatness and only serve to perpetuate the myth that "our kids" are all gonna go the way of Violet Beauregard. Call it a health initiative and don't mention weight loss? I'm all for such programs.
Bend Them to Our Will
As if the Iraqi people -- and the rest of the Arab world -- aren't already suspicious of our motives, here comes the next phase in the "hearts and minds" campaign to win them over.
The U.S. military has introduced "religious enlightenment" and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday.Why do I get the feeling that the Pentagon will do for religous education what Abu Ghraib did for prison reform?
Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to "bend them back to our will" and are part of waging war in what he called "the battlefield of the mind." Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the "House of Wisdom."
The religious courses are led by Muslim clerics who "teach out of a moderate doctrine," Stone said, according to the transcript of a conference call he held from Baghdad with a group of defense bloggers. Such schooling "tears apart" the arguments of al-Qaeda, such as "Let's kill innocents," and helps to "bring some of the edge off" the detainees, he said.
Cross-posted, matey, from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Credibility
So, every now and then I get tagged for one of those "Reveal 8 Weird Things about Yourself" memes. And I don't respond because honestly, I can never think of ONE weird thing about me, let alone eight, that I haven't already plastered all over the internet. I mean, "I think it's perfectly fine to be fat" is plenty of weird right there.
But here's a weird thing you probably didn't know about me: despite not having a corporate job and fervently hoping I never will again, I read business books for entertainment. Usually marketing books. I love them like I love mystery novels, for real. Because marketing books -- 99% of which are fluffed up 10-page whitepapers with only 3 noteworthy points -- are really sociology and/or psychology books. Only, they're the dumbest possible version of sociology and/or psychology books. So, instead of having to slog through a bunch of academic jargon and abstract theory, I can just skim all the fluff and come away with about one to three new(ish) insights into human behavior. It's so much more fun than really thinking.
And that is how I came to be reading Chip and Dan Heath's Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. I haven't finished it yet, but the chapter on "Credibility" (one of the 6 components of "sticky" ideas, according to the brothers Heath) rang some bells.
The Heaths start off by telling the story of Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, the researchers who discovered that H. pylori causes ulcers. When they were first trying to convince the medical community that ulcers were caused by a bacteria, Marshall and Warren had very little credibility -- and those who did have credibility in the field thought they were off their rockers.
And now, I quote:There were no celebrations for Marshall and Warren, who had almost single-handedly improved the health prospects of several hundred million human beings. The reason for the lack of acclaim was simple: No one believed them.
...At the time of the discovery, Robin Warren was a staff pathologist at a hospital in Perth; Barry Marshall was a thirty-year-old internist in training, not even a doctor yet. The medical community expects important discoveries to come from Ph.D.s at research universities or professors at large, world-class medical centers. Internists do not cure diseases that affect 10 percent of the world's population.
The final problem was the location. A medical researcher in Perth is like a physicist from Mississippi. Science is science, but, thanks to basic human snobbery, we tend to think it will emerge from some places but not others.
Emphasis mine.
Marshall eventually got people's attention by drinking a load of H. pylori, developing ulcer symptoms, and curing himself with antibiotics, all in a matter of days. It still didn't convince people, but it got their attention. It was a start.
10 years later, the National Institutes of Health finally said yeah, antibiotics are the best way to treat ulcers. 11 years after that, Marshall and Warren won the Nobel Prize in medicine. Happy ending.
But for Marshall and Warren? I'm guessing that was a looooooong fucking 20 years.
And that is all I really have to say about the ongoing debate between Paul Campos and Walter Willett. That and, if your best argument is, "But he's a LAWYER, not a doctor! He can't understand the complexity of it! I'M FROM HARVARD!" you might want to seek advice from someone who knows more about debating than you do. Like, for instance, someone with a background in law.
Teen Allegedly Tasered Four Times by NYPD for Disorderly Conduct
Pam tipped me off to this story of a black teen in NYC who was allegedly tasered four times, in addition to being hit with a nightstick and put in a choke hold. His father, a 20-year veteran of the NYPD, says that the cops used excessive force.
Retired Lt. Alexander Lombard said his son, Alexander Lombard 3rd, 17, was beaten by cops after they arrived at a "community sponsored" barbecue at 126th St. and Park Ave. last month.As you'll see in the video, however, Lombard appears to have burns and bruising on his torso and face. And this despite the fact that the only citation issued was a disorderly conduct charge.
"He's truly dismayed by the whole thing," Lombard said, standing next to his son in front of Police Headquarters in lower Manhattan. "He grew up with cops. He was raised to trust cops."
But Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said in a statement that a police sergeant "employed a Taser against the suspect's ankle" to subdue him after responding to a large disturbance at about 3:30 a.m.
"The mere fact that he was hit with a Taser four times," [Noel Leader, co-founder of the advocacy group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care] said, "and there's no resisting arrest charge, no criminal possession of a weapons charge - it's evident to me that this incident did not justify use of a stun gun."No kidding.
I certainly hope the rightwingers who are totally up in arms about the incident involving a white guy—and Senator Kerry standing idly by as he's tasered once—will next turn their attention to this story. As will the media, who, as PortlyDyke pointed out, also seem to be giving the UoF story a lot of attention—while the Lomabard story brings up exactly six results.
Progress: 2007 Version
I don't think we'll be hearing about any more McCain or Lieberman trips in the near future:
The United States on Tuesday suspended all land travel by U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials throughout Iraq, except in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. [...] The notice did not say when the suspension would expire.Then again, maybe they can still go and just come back with glowing reports on what a great job we're doing with Green Zone fortification.
Update: Yarr! I see matey Wolfrum beat me to it!
Maryland Court Upholds Gay Marriage Ban
From the Washington Post:
Maryland's highest court yesterday upheld a 34-year-old state law banning same-sex marriage, rejecting an attempt by 19 gay men and lesbians to win the right to marry.Once again the old "save the children" routine; the same old crap about straight marriage being the only way to have and protect children, and that it's the only reason people get married in the first place. It's just another red herring to cover their ass against the anticipated backlash from the Religious Reich, and it smacks of the old excuses racists used to come up with in their fight against mixed marriages: it would destroy all the other marriages, and what about the children?
In reversing a lower court's decision, the divided Court of Appeals ruled that limiting marriage to a man and a woman does not discriminate against gay couples or deny them constitutional rights. Although the judges acknowledged that gay men and lesbians have been targets of discrimination, they said the prohibition on same-sex marriage promotes the state's interest in heterosexual marriage as a means of having and protecting children.
I get tired of repeating the same old arguments, but it seems that every so often it has to be said again until it sinks in: not everyone -- straight or gay -- gets married for the express purpose of having children; no one has shown that gay marriage has an impact on straight marriage (unless you count people like Larry Craig and Ted Haggard who, given the choice, might have dumped their wives and gone with their instincts); no one has proven that children raised in same-sex households are any more disadvantaged than those raised in straight households, and if the state was so adamant in protecting children, perhaps it would do a better job of taking care of the children it already has by providing them with decent health care and education. But it's a lot easier to talk about protecting them than it is to actually do it.
Chief Judge Robert M. Bell issued a sharp dissent, accusing the majority of failing to recognize gay people as a "suspect class," a group that warrants special protection from discrimination. Bell dismissed the majority view that gays are politically empowered and should not be viewed as such a class.If gay people were truly politically empowered, then there wouldn't be any laws on the books that discriminate against them, now would there?
The 4 to 3 decision cannot be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court because the lawsuit relied solely on state law. But the judges appeared to invite gay rights advocates to pursue their goals through the political system: "Our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex," Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote for the majority.I agree; it is time for the state legislatures to step up to plate and pass the laws. That has been effective in the nine states that now recognize some form of gay marriage or civil unions. It will require facing down groups like Focus on the Family and the rest of the finger-wagging jowl-shaking busybodies, but it would be worth it just to force them into the position of having to come out and say, "Hey, we're just a bunch of snivelling bigots." As if that isn't already patently obvious.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Free At Last
The New York Times is throwing in the towel on "TimesSelect," their two-year experiment with pay-per-view for their opinion pages.
According to a "Dear NYTimes.com Readers" letter on the (free) opinion page, Vivian Schiller, Senior Vice President & General Manager for NYTimes.com wrote,
Since we launched TimesSelect in 2005, the online landscape has altered significantly. Readers increasingly find news through search, as well as through social networks, blogs and other online sources. In light of this shift, we believe offering unfettered access to New York Times reporting and analysis best serves the interest of our readers, our brand and the long-term vitality of our journalism. We encourage everyone to read our news and opinion – as well as share it, link to it and comment on it.In reality, for every subscriber to TimesSelect, there was probably one reader or blogger who went around the gate and posted the material for free on other websites or excerpted enough of the articles for blog commenting as to render the pay site pointless.
So starting tomorrow, Maureen Dowd, Thomas L. Friedman, Frank Rich, Gail Collins, Paul Krugman, David Brooks, Bob Herbert and Nicholas D. Kristof and all the rest will be liberated from their purgatory and will no longer rely on the kindness of strangers for getting their word out to the electronic masses.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof. (Still free.)
Question of the Day
Oddjob emailed me this morning to let me know that Match Game icon Brett Somers died this weekend. One of my earliest TV memories is actually seeing her banter with Charles Nelson Reilly (who died in May) on Match Game, which my grandma was watching. I was so young, I hadn't the means to put words to what I felt about her when I first saw her, but it was essentially that Brett Somers was the most absurdly fabulous woman I'd ever seen.
The 1970s would have existed without Brett Somers. They just wouldn't have been as saucy.In honor of Ms. Somers, today's QotD has to be: Who was your favorite 1970's icon?
Somers, the gravely voiced wiseacre to naughty Charles Nelson Reilly on TV's Match Game, died last Saturday at her Connecticut home of stomach and colon cancer. She was 83.
In Case You Had a Single Illusion Left
About the MSM, Check out my Googles this morning:
First, the smashing coverage of the John Kerry tasering incident. 452 articles! (864 as of 3:29 pm PST) Way to chase a story, MSM!
And then the coverage on the Republican Attorney from the Pensacola US Justice office who arrived in Detroit with a Dora the Explorer doll, hoop earrings, and a jar of vaseline, planning to rape a 5 year old girl. 21 articles. (64 as of 3:29) Hmmm.
Note that the headlines do not ever use the word "rape", opting for the kinder, gentler term "child sex".
Note to MSM: It is impossible to "have sex" with a five year old. It is always rape. Always.
This story doesn't appear in "top stories" -- I had to dig for it within Google News (both this morning and this evening). Before the arguments begin about how this does not represent slanted coverage by the MSM, let me just pre-refute them:
Anticipated Argument #1: "But Kerry is a main player. Atchison is a nobody attorney from Florida. Of course the story isn't going to get the same coverage!"
Refutation: Bullshit. "Nobodys" who are involved with child molestation make the Top Stories page all the time. Even more so if they are people of color, or poor, or uneducated, or mentally ill.
And as far as what the MSM considers "important news" -- today, a story about a city manager who got lost while hiking was more of a "top story" than the fact that a fucking representative of our justice department was arrested for coldly calculating to rape a child.
Anticipated Argument #2: "But he hasn't been convicted. Innocent until proven guilty is a part of what makes our country great!"
Refutation: Tell that to the prisoners in Guantanamo.
Anticipated Argument #3: "It was entrapment."
Refutation: Don't even start that shit with me. And while you're busy shutting the fuck up, take a look at the "cheerleading" program at the youth group that he "helped out" with.
Based on recent experience, I think that the Republican party should be stripped of its right to use the phrase "Family Values" ever again, in any context.
People who know my history will know why this particular story strikes close to home for me. I hope this man is put in prison for the rest of his life.
However, I also hope that there is massive media coverage of it, because it highlights something I've always known: While the MSM rants on about sex offenders in the community and Cosmopolitan magazine warns us of the 5 places that sexual predators search for women, the same media ignores the fact that one of the most dangerous places for children to be is probably with some "upstanding" guy who constantly touts his family values, publicly and politically, and who is trusted because he is in a position of authority and adheres to a political party that claims the mantle of moral rectitude.
After the original story was blogged here at Shakesville yesterday there was a flurry from commenters that I had never seen before. If they show up at my blog, or in response to this post, I'll consider that they are Republican flacks madly searching for Atchison references to hush up.
This is a rape scandal that conservatives cannot possibly justify with "entrapment" arguments, or ridiculous bullshit about being afraid of black men in the park -- its a crime so heinous that they must simply try to get us to ignore it.
Here's a suggestion: Let's not ignore it.
(oops! Cross-posted at Teh Portly Dyke)
So let me see if I have this straight…
A white teenage girl doesn't show up home from school one day as expected. She had been dating a black boy, so naturally her father and male relatives immediately form a posse and go kick in his family's door looking for her.
Meanwhile, she's stuck in a shallow old well in her own backyard into which she'd fallen and couldn't get out.
Luckily, she was found before she died down there. Presumably by someone other than her father who was preoccupied with his unhinged racism.
Sometimes people honestly just kill me.
Are you kidding me?
Dear NBC,
Please learn how to spell the presidential candidates' names. At least the top four's.
You ninnies.
Love,
Liss
P.S. Thanks, Arlen.
Dead man walking! And talking. And breathing. Actually, he's just pretty much alive.
A Venezuelan man who had been declared dead woke up in the morgue in excruciating pain after medical examiners began their autopsy.No news on whether he awoke with a particular yen for BRAAAAAAAAAAINS!
Carlos Camejo, 33, was declared dead after a highway accident and taken to the morgue, where examiners began an autopsy only to realize something was amiss when he started bleeding. They quickly sought to stitch up the incision on his face.
"I woke up because the pain was unbearable," Camejo said, according to a report on Friday in leading local newspaper El Universal.
His grieving wife turned up at the morgue to identify her husband's body only to find him moved into a corridor -- and alive.
Reuters could not immediately reach hospital officials to confirm the events. But Camejo showed the newspaper his facial scar and a document ordering the autopsy.
[H/T Mark.]
Why Our Government Is Broken
CREW has released its third (of octillion) installment of the most corrupt members of Congress. The list is up to 22 honorable people, which is better than last year's total of 25. Of course, that's because some of last year's class aren't in Congress anymore.
For the current list, make your way to Beyond Delay.
[H/T to ThinkProgress]
Today in Dumbassery
Today's spotlight shines on JoAn Karkos, of Lewiston, Maine. Ms. Karkos was horrified, horrified!, when she checked out copies of a particular sex and puberty education book from not one but two libraries. And she's refusing to return them::
LEWISTON, Maine -- A Lewiston woman who said she was "horrified" by the content of an acclaimed sex education book has checked out copies from two libraries and refuses to give them back.These are public libraries where anyone should be able to receive information and knowledge via the books on the shelves, no matter how "horrified" one is by the content of said books. If Ms. Karkos doesn't like the content of the books, she should not have them in her home. She, however, has absolutely no right to take them away from other people. None. Zero. Apparently Ms. Karkos lacks the intelligence to grasp such a simple concept and her money would be better spent on a dictionary where she can look up the meanings of "public" and "library".
JoAn Karkos made her feelings known in letters to the Lewiston and Auburn public libraries. Each letter was accompanied by a check for $20.95 to cover the cost of the book, "It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health."
Lewiston library director Rick Speer said he may seek help from police if she doesn't return what she borrowed.
Ms. Harris had this to say about her books, in 2001:
“A number of people told me not to put in abortion, that we would sell less books, that it would be controversial. Any book on sex in the USA is controversial if it has to do with reproduction and about making choices. I knew it was important to present both sides of the issue -- pro-choice, pro-life. If I left it out, or if we left out particular drawings or other topics -- I mentioned sexual abuse or sexually transmitted diseases -- it would be saying, ‘We can’t talk about those things. You shouldn’t know about them.’"Right.On.
She added, “Our kids already know about 99.9 percent of this stuff. What concerned me is that they have a lot of misinformation, no matter how much they tell us, and I wanted them to get accurate information. So I think the litmus test for me was, ‘What’s in the best interest of the child? What’s going to help a child stay healthy?’”
We have one of her books, It's So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families, and I highly recommend it as a companion piece to discussions about "where babies come from". This is the book that Karkos is withholding from the public because she has deemed herself Arbiter of What Other People Need to Know.
Ms. Harris' was one of 2005's most challenged authors, according to the American Library Association. Speaking of, Banned Books Week is coming up (Sept. 29th - Oct 6th). The theme this year is: Free People Read Freely. Someone needs to inform Ms. Karkos of that.
ZOMG! A Dude Kissed Another Dude on Teh Face! And They're FOOTBALL PLAYERZ!
Someone get these blokes to the NFL's Rehabilitation Center for Beatin' Womminz and Killin' Dogz before they go completely nutz and start fucking each other up the ass!
The Kiss has apparently caused quite a stir.Come on, people—everyone experiments during college!
The quick peck that Florida safety Tony Joiner planted under the left ear of quarterback Tim Tebow on Saturday following Tebow's touchdown run in the Gators' rout of Tennessee was still a hot topic on Monday.
Fans were talking about it on the radio and message boards, and Tebow was still receiving questions about it during his weekly news conference.
In all seriousness, the two guys are roommates and best friends, and they seem to be completely and blissfully wevvish about the whole thing. When Joiner was asked about it by the media after the game, he said: "That's my roommate. I love him. We've grown close. That's not the first time I've kissed him." And when he was then (unbelievably) asked whether he's kissed other men, he smiled and replied matter-of-factly: "Not many. Probably just my dad and Tim Tebow." Ha. Right on.
For his part, when Tebow was told the kiss had been broadcast, he said: "It was? Oh, I'm going to have to get on him for that."
Naturally, it's now a national story. The media was literally alerted because of two men, who every report seems compelled to point out are of different races, being unapologetically, publicly affectionate with each other. Yeesh.
In other news, approximately 1,200 wet, naked collegiate or professional male athletes slapped each other's wet, naked asses with towels last weekend while wrasslin' in the locker room shower.
[H/T Andy.]
One Dedicated Photographer
That's who is responsible for the creation of the following clip, a journal of changes in the skyline of the Shinjuku district in Tokyo over the last 35 years.
Kathy Griffin on Larry King Live
Kathy Griffin was on with Larry King last night and was, naturally, hilarious as all get out. Larry King also, credit due him, showed the complete uncensored version of Kathy's Emmy acceptance speech. Once you see it, and see how totally silly she's being with it, it's even more unimaginable that it was censored or that anyone could have missed its purpose (which Kathy confirms was indeed a comment on the whole "thank God if we win; blame the quarterback if we lose" thing). Anyway, her appearance is below in two three parts. The transcript is here, and thanks again to Petulant for the video.
Previously: Kathy on Ellen, Spanked Like Me, Kathy Censored, Kathy Loves Anderson Cooper, Kathy in Iraq, On Ann Coulter.
