Today's blogaround is brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky's Post-Racial-Goo Gone. Stuck with xenophobic stickers? Dissolve the hatred away with new Post-Racial-Goo Gone!
I have chosen United States healthcare-themed readings, but your links need not be related to health care.
abby jean at FWD/Forward: The Community First Choice Option
six until me: Health Care Reform: How Does it Affect People with Diabetes?
Historiann has a great link round-up of things historians are saying about health care reform passage: History was made, and You Are There!
Women's Media Center Blog: Victory on Health Care Reform, but a Partial One
PalMD: With or without health care reform, doctors' jobs get harder
Shark-Fu: On shock and tolerance
Bruce Benidt: “Being a Woman Will No Longer Be A Pre-existing Condition”
Rosalind Joffe: you can lose insurance benefits because you didn’t disclose
Racialicious: Politics Open Thread: Health Care Reform And The March For America
Paul Krugman: Fear Strikes Out
San Francisco Chronicle: California stands to gain most from health bill
by Shaker EastSideKate, a feminist teacher/scholar/mother/partner/derbygirl from Upstate New York.
Seneca Falls has the odd distinction of being the only municipality in the world that is reasonably famous for not being the location where It's a Wonderful Life was filmed. I don't understand, either. The village is more famous (in some circles), as the one time home of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, whose residence served as the setting for the Seneca Falls Convention.
On March 16, voters in Seneca Falls approved dissolving the village. As is common in former colonies, New York State's system of government is arcane. Essentially, villages (such as Seneca Falls) are cute, baby municipalities, embedded within towns (think townships, ala the ever-popular Land Ordinance of 1785).
Soon, the government of the village of Seneca Falls (population 7000-ish) will dissolve, while the town of Seneca Falls (population 9000-ish) will pick up the slack.
These things happen. Brooklynites now get to elect Manhattanites to rule over them as mayor of New York. Indianapolis confuses and terrifies me. Systems of government aren't necessarily static and self-explanatory.
I admit I'm strangely sad to see Seneca Falls go, even if it is being replaced by a larger, pre-existing Seneca Falls. This isn't really about Seneca Falls, though. In New York, some citizens increasingly see dissolving villages as a means of fixing the problems with (or of) government.
I'm a sucker for symbolism. While it might be fun to hear Elizabeth Cady Stanton muse about recent events (the dissolution of Seneca Falls, the waning likelihood of wine in grocery stores, wev.), it also would be fabulous to hear Lucretia Mott handicap the 2010 World Series. These things aren't going to happen.
However, I find some Americans' thoughts on government vexing, and I'd like to frame populist anti-government movements as an issue that should concern feminists.
I'm still trying to figure out whether we, the people, ever came to a shared understanding of what government should (and shouldn't) do, nor who should (and shouldn't) pay for it. Sure, most of us pay taxes to multiple governments. Yet the system isn't particularly progressive.
Moreover, things seem pretty top-heavy. I personally pay a lot of income tax to the Federal government, with a smaller amount of income tax to state government, as well as sales taxes and fees going to various state and local entities. Were I to own land, I'd be directly responsible for local property taxes. Higher levels of government (say, at the federal and state level) typically redistribute some funding to lower government agencies. Of course, this funding frequently dissolves when times are tight, leaving each lower level of government to raise taxes and/or pass the pain on to increasingly local bodies.
To me, feminism is about nothing if not local bodies. What do local bodies need? We need water to let us live, schools and libraries to help us learn, and parks in which to play. Heat and sanitation are always welcome, too.
The people with the most money can always buy trucks full of water, private book collections, estates, trucks full of fuel, personal generators... whatever they need. It seems to me that this is pretty much always the case. But what about the rest of us? Should the government not help ensure, if not equality of living standards, equality of opportunity? This was as a problem for many, many, people in the 19th Century. It is still a problem for many of us today.
Little of this has to do with the structure of government. In my mind, any number of prototypical governments (including the lack thereof) is capable of doing just fine by all of us, provided that everyone involved shares the same priorities.
That's what strikes me as so frustrating about the current discourse about politics; while dissolving governments may increase negative liberty by releasing us from oppression (or taxes), on its own, doing away with some aspect of government does nothing to increase positive liberty. Selfish people acting with the backing of powerful governments don't necessarily produce different results from powerful selfish people acting in the absence of government.
Those without privilege do not fare well when the privileged fail, as is so often the case, to yield their advantage.
The Declaration of Sentiments was primarily concerned with the form of government, notably with respect to the disfranchisement of women. However (and not uncoincidentally), it also echoes to same themes as the Declaration of Independence and other documents Americans pretend to have read—the themes of freedom from oppression, and happiness. To me, happiness involves working water mains (wooden ones tend to break after a century or so, making people very unhappy), and functioning schools for all.
Creating hope and opportunity does not so much require reorganizing and dissolving governments, as much as it does reorganizing priorities to put local bodies and human needs first.
Atrios says:
[The healthcare reform bill] does not do the important work of sowing the seeds of the insurance industry's destruction, leaving the skimmers in place, and only takes baby steps towards moving them to the regulated public utility model. It also doesn't get rid of their anti-trust exemption, leaving the effective monopolies in place. This leaves us open to continued abuses by the industry and fails to do the most important cost-cutting measure, cutting out the paper pushers who serve no useful purpose in the economy.He adds that, because "there is good in the bill, too," it's still "both on substance and politics, better to pass it than not" and hope "that over time demands by the public will" pave the way for reform that doesn't detrimentally insulate the insurance companies.
Radio Shakesville
I can't say it better than my dear friend, a certain northern trollish type (but the GOOD kind of trolls!): The Amazing Randi is now also The Fabulous Randi.
Let me be the first at Shakesville to say "Bravissimo!" to Mr. Randi, and welcome him to the Loyal Siblinghood of Dirty Awful Queerbait.
You can pick up your toaster oven on the way home. :)
Tip of the CaitieCap to the above-mentioned friendly troll, and Shaker KarateMonkey (via Liss).
So. Healthcare reform has passed the House:
House Democrats approved a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health system on Sunday, voting over unanimous Republican opposition to provide medical coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans after an epic political battle that could define the differences between the parties for years.It's about as close to a done deal as it gets without actually being a done deal.
With the 219-to-212 vote, the House gave final approval to legislation passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve. Thirty-four Democrats joined Republicans in voting against the bill. The vote sent the measure to President Obama, whose yearlong push for the legislation has been the centerpiece of his agenda and a test of his political power.
This charming sticker was affixed to the paper towel dispenser at the Phillips 66 in Blue Springs:
Immigrants are turning America into a Third World slum. Blah blah blah, welfare, or to take our jobs. Blah blah blah they are messy, disruptive, noisy, multiply rapidly. Let's send them home now!
National Alliance.
[An organization of Whites who aren't afraid to speak up for our race.]
Ask for our catalog.
Thanks to everyone for all their well-wishes last week. I took it really easy this weekend—so easy, in fact, that I was began to consider I might actually die of boredom. (Note: Seriously, no matter how bored you are, never, and I mean never, watch The Proposal.) Despite my abject ennui, I don't want to scream every time I breathe anymore, so there has been definite improvement. :)
Time for another Teaspoon Report, brought to you by Shaxco...
Leave comments here that describe an act of teaspooning you encountered or committed. They don't have to be big, world-shaking acts; by definition, a teaspoon is a small thing, but enough of them together can empty the ocean.
If you would like to discuss the teaspoons here reported, or even offer congratulations or your admiration to a fellow Shaker, we ask that you do so over here in the Discussion Thread for today's NQDTR.
Shaker bgk has been kind enough to get a Twitter-pated version out there for you young twittersnappers (and by the way, get off my lawn, you meddling kids! *shakes cane*). You can find the details about the Tweetspoons project right here. That runs all the time, as far as I'm aware (*grumblenewtechnologygrumble*), and we encourage you to let other people know that there's at least one tweetstream talking about just going out and doing good things for the human species.
Teaspoons up, let's hear 'em, Shakers!
ô,ôP
(and just in case she comes by: Hi, Margaret Wente, I'm one of those women bloggers who don't exist - in fact, someone was telling you right there in that chat about my non-existence. I do my nonexisting just down the 401 an hour or so, actually, after growing up right there in good old Trawna. *waves*)
Hiya, Shakers, time for another Discussion Thread for the Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report!
This is the thread in which you may offer congratulations or admiration for a teaspoon or teaspooner. If you're posting with just congrats or admiration, though, do take a moment and check the thread to see whether other people have said so a number of times already. Remember that no one is required to read here just because they posted over there, so there's no guarantee you'll get a response to a given comment.
This is a song that was composed by one of my favorite songwriters, George Harrison, so, uh, yeah since we're in Central Park, near Strawberry Fields, I thought it would be kind of cool. It's a song entitled, "While my guitar gently weeps"
This blogaround is brought to you by Shaxco, maker of Downtown Deeky's Miner's Helmets (NSFW explanation here)
I don't know about y'all, but this is what I'm reading right now:
Sujatha Sundar: Memory vs. Memory
nj.com News: U.S. Census allows same-sex couples in N.J. to identify themselves as married
Southern Fried Science: Ethical Debate: Captive whale sharks
Your Small Kitchen Garden: Start Seeds in Pots for Your Small Kitchen Garden
Two from Ed Yong: Requests work better than orders, even when we're asking or ordering ourselves; and
Attack of the killer tomato fungus driven by mobile weapons package
A Public Space: An Irrelevant Writer: Shen Congwen by Yiyun Li
Via Reading Local: Portland, the Writer's Dojo is accepting applications for their 2010 Writer-in-Residency program at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. The application deadline is April 9th.
The Institute of Urban Homesteading in Oakland, California has added another Cheesemaking 101 class on April 27th, since their others are full. Here is a complete calendar of their classes. You might want to check them out if you are in the area and can afford $30-$50 in fees.
Leave your links in comments!
Dueling quotes from the same story:
"I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did.", Christiane Amanpour, on the press and the quality of reporting (re: being rigorous in questioning) during Bush years and the Iraq war.
"Given the choice, it's better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda.", Irena Brigant, Fox News spokeswoman, responding to what Amanpour said above.
