"Fixing Iraq or Afghanistan ends up taking precedence over fixing Cleveland or Detroit."—Retired US Army colonel and professor of international relations at Boston University Andrew J. Bacevich, Sr., whose new book, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, argues that "the nation's national security leaders have put the U.S. on an unsustainable path to perpetual war," pointing out the oughtta-be-obvious fact that perpetual war renders us unable to invest in our own communities and thus leaves us vulnerable in ways masked by rhetoric about nebulous terrorist threats.
(Previous Bacevich being smart.)
Quote of the Day
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud sponsors of Liss & Deeky's Text-a-Thon to Save Fun Garbage Television 2010.
Recommended Reading:
Happy Blogiversary to Elle!
CL: Humiliation and Healthcare [TW for institutional transphobia in healthcare system]
Sarah: Disalienation: Why Gender is a Text Field on Diaspora
Asher: Flying in the USA [TW for discussion of TSA enhanced security procedures]
Kitten Liberation: The Animal Rights Group That Shall Not Be Named is at it again. [TW for objectification of women, disembodiment, TSA enhanced security procedures]
Andy: Chicago Mayoral Candidate Gery Chico Reaches Out to Gays, Expresses Support for Civil Union Bill
Living ~400lbs: Poverty's Link to Diabetes
Shark-fu: A bitch is back!
Pam: Back home after my slice-and-dice adventure.
Leave your links in comments...
Assess Hollywood
In case anyone's forgotten, I hate Dr. Drew Pinsky. So it was with much ugh that I read the news HLN is giving him his own primetime show to debut this spring.
A certified physician who specializes in coping with addictions, creating healthy relationships and navigating struggles between parents and children, Pinsky will be reflecting on the news stories and newsmakers HLN covers throughout the day and providing relevant observations and perspectives.Yeah, great. I can't wait to see Professor Emeritus from the Dr. Bill Frist School of Diagnosing People Via the Teevee doing his version of Access Hollywood in which he not only reports on the comings and goings of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and other "bad girls" but also helpfully adds his "insights" about their mental health and mercilessly slut-shames them with a look of faux compassion on his smug fucking face. Barf.
Dr. Drew tells CNN, "I'm looking forward to becoming part of the HLN family and digging deep to bring out the stories behind the stories that people are talking about."
Gee, I hope he does interviews. It would be great to see him sit down with Mischa Barton or one of the Olson twins for a trenchant-as-hell interview where he asks penetrating questions like, "Isn't it horrible what a horrible person you are?"
One of the things I most despise about Pinsky is that he actively feeds a culture in which young women in particular are encouraged to eat each other alive with judgment and shaming. Part and parcel of that horseshit is women viewing one another as competitors and/or each other's moral police, both of which significantly undermine female solidarity, which is the most important bulwark against female exploitation and oppression.
He also actively encourages young people (young women in particular, by virtue of his involvement with the extremely popular Teen Mom franchise on MTV) to have an unhealthy deference to authority, urging young people to work on relationships with parents (and partners) that are deeply dysfunctional and frequently abusive, even when there is no evidence that the toxicity is likely to change.
Pinsky's not even uniquely bad. He's just another anti-feminist authoritarian who shouldn't be anywhere near advice-giving to young women. Or anyone else, frankly.
WikiLeaks Open Thread
I'm not even finished reading everything I want to read about the latest WikiLeaks controversy, in which 250,000 confidential US diplomatic cables, mostly from the last three years, were leaked and published. But here are a few relevant links to open up discussion...
New York Times—Cables Obtained by WikiLeaks Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels:
A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.There's much more at the link.
...The disclosure of the cables is sending shudders through the diplomatic establishment, and could strain relations with some countries, influencing international affairs in ways that are impossible to predict.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and American ambassadors around the world have been contacting foreign officials in recent days to alert them to the expected disclosures. A statement from the White House on Sunday said: "We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information."
Among their revelations, to be detailed in The Times in coming days:
¶ A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, "if the local media got word of the fuel removal, 'they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons,' he argued."
...¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of "Let's Make a Deal." Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be "a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe."
¶ Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan's vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money "a significant amount" that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, "was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money's origin or destination." (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)
...¶ Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official "that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S."
New York Times—A Note to Readers: The Decision to Publish Diplomatic Documents: "As a general rule we withhold secret information that would expose confidential sources to reprisals or that would reveal operational intelligence that might be useful to adversaries in war. We excise material that might lead terrorists to unsecured weapons material, compromise intelligence-gathering programs aimed at hostile countries, or disclose information about the capabilities of American weapons that could be helpful to an enemy. On the other hand, we are less likely to censor candid remarks simply because they might cause a diplomatic controversy or embarrass officials."
I might be more admiring of those principles were we not still embroiled in a war for which the NYT helped the Bush administration cook the case.
Other links of interest:
Rep. Peter King (R-Hyperbole) calls the release of the documents "worse even than a physical attack on Americans, it's worse than a military attack," and suggests that "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [should] declare Wikileaks a foreign terrorist organization."
McClatchy: Officials may be overstating the danger from WikiLeaks.
CNN: WikiLeaks: 'Surprised' by scale of U.S. espionage.
The Guardian (who provided the cables to the NYT): How 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked and US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis and US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment.
And Greg Mitchell is live-blogging the media coverage.
Your Morning TSA Security Round-Up
And now the media meme has become: All you hysterics are so full of shit.
New York Times—A Media False Alarm Over the T.S.A.: "If a squadron of mad scientists surrounded by supercomputers gathered in a laboratory to try to conjure a single news topic that would blow up large, they could not touch the T.S.A. pat-down story. ... But then, in the real world, nothing happened."
Washington Post—TSA says Thanksgiving travel went smoothly: "TSA plans to release final details later today, but if statistics from last Wednesday are any indication, things should have gone well over the weekend."
ABC—Were concerns over TSA security procedures hype? Travelers say 'No Problem': "Despite concerns earlier in the week about the pat downs and body scans causing back ups, things seemed to go off without a hitch."
NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT! NOTHING TO SEE HERE! MOVE ALONG!
Except: "So far, more than 400 scanners have been deployed at 70 airports around the country, with plans for some 1,000 to be installed as the system is fully enforced."
And: "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has received over 900 complaints in the month of November from travelers who have been subjected to the Transportation Security Authority's (TSA) new 'enhanced' screening procedures."
Also this little thing: "[Fred H. Cate, privacy expert in the Indiana University] said that the new search policies violate long-held social and legal norms about personal privacy. Even though searches might detect wrongdoing, we reject them on the basis that the 'solution' is worse than the 'problem'."
I suspect, with no evidence to back up my suspicion aside from a lifetime of observation about how things like this play out, that TSA employees were told to turn it down a notch during the holiday weekend, possibly through the holiday season, and that when the system starts being "fully enforced" with 1,000 scanners across the nation, whatever objections there are will be buried beneath ten metric fucktons of "Oh, we already did that story and decided anyone who complains is a hysterical traitor."
Anyway, it's certainly been interesting watching privileged white men get OUTRAGED! about being treated like women, and men of color, get treated all the time. Yeah, it's not fun having your body treated as public property, groped without your explicit consent, searched without cause, and exposed to a government-sanctioned experiment that may have negative physical ramifications, and then being dismissed as an overwrought hysteric who's just looking for something to get mad about, is it?
I'm sure it's too much to ask that these gentlemen remember that the next time they're inclined to tell a woman, or a man of color, to suck it up and stop whining about how they're treated—and how that treatment affects their quality of life, sense of self, and regard for the sincerity of promises made about equality in this alleged land of the free.
Open Thread
Hosted by Polkaholix.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by awesome polka bands.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround is brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Dudley's Goofyloungers with extra leg room.
A Blog Around The Clock: Are you going to listen to someone today?
PalMD: Listening
Maud Newton: Stop the clocks: how Twain celebrated Thanksgiving
Geek Feminism Blog: From comments: women in science, their history as told by… men?
Hadas Shema: Who writes health news?
FemaleScienceProfessor: Novel Retraction
Ideas in Food: Pumpkin Noodles
Share your links in comments!
Daily Dose o' Cute
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
...peek-a-boo!
So You Think You Can Launder
Tom Delay, aspiring dancing star and professional criminal, was officially convicted of money laundering and conspiracy to commit said laundering. "The Hammer" could be facing quite a long stay in the big house:
Mr. DeLay faces up to life in prison on the money laundering charge. [...] Judge Pat Priest has wide discretion in sentencing the former majority leader, who was known as “The Hammer” for his no-holds-barred style during 20 years in the House of Representatives. Mr. Delay could be sentenced from 2 years to 20 years in prison for the conspiracy count, and from 5 years to 99 years, or life in prison, for the money-laundering count.Damn those activist judges.
[H/T to ThinkProgress]
Dolphins Rule
CNN correspondent Randi Kaye visits the Baltimore Aquarium to watch dolphins check themselves out in a mirror—and it's pretty much the most adorable thing ever.
[Transcript below.]
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Spend a day with a dolphin and you're quickly reminded of why they've always captured our imaginations. They are playful, sociable, and just incredibly fun to be around. But scientists say there's a lot more to these animals and they're just beginning to understand the intricate thinking of these so-called big-brain mammals.
KAYE (on camera): Here you go, Nani (ph). Good girl!
We came here to the Baltimore Aquarium to see just how intelligent dolphins are. You see them playing with their trainers all the time. But scientists who study them say there's a lot more happening there than just play. That their intelligence actually rivals ours.
Here you go.
KAYE (voice-over): To see up close what has scientists so excited, we climbed down into a tiny underwater lab with a window into the aquarium, where scientist Diana Reiss puts a two-way mirror up against the glass. The dolphins can't see us, but Reiss can study how the dolphins react to the mirror.
DIANA REISS, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK: We used to think we were the only species on the planet that could think. And now we know that we're amongst many thinking species. So the questions are no longer can they think, but how do they think? And what's amazing is, in this capacity, with giving them mirrors, it looks like they're doing a lot of things very similar to us.
KAYE: Reiss has been studying dolphins' behavior for 25 years.
REISS: Most animals don't even pay attention to mirrors. So if you put a mirror in front of your dog, most dogs won't even look in a mirror. Cats don't pay much attention. Other animals do pay attention but never figure out it's themselves. They think it's another of their own kind.
KAYE: But dolphins do figure it out.
REISS: And not only do they figure out that it's them, but they show interest to look at themselves. So one thing is to understand it's themselves, it's a whole other thing to say I want to look at myself. I want to see what my face looks like or what does it look like when I turn upside down and blow a bubble.
KAYE: We saw in awe as this group of dolphins explored themselves before us, unable to ignore the mirror. Several did hang upside down.
REISS: He's upside down. He keeps on doing that. He's going to get wild now. He's being very innovative. Watch this. (INAUDIBLE) show.
KAYE: Other dolphins opened their mouths and stuck their tongue out. They put their eye on the mirror to get an even closer look.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Not convinced yet? Wait until you see some of the other experiments. We're watching dolphins in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Have you ever watched your pets when they see their reflection in a window? What do they do? They usually slap it, right? They think it's another animal. But what about dolphins? Our Randi Kaye has been checking their reactions under water.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE (voice-over): Take a look at this video of an earlier experiment from 2001. Scientists mark this dolphin on the side with a black pen, but did not mark the other. When released, the dolphin with the mark swims directly to the mirror and turns the mark towards the mirror, like he's trying to take a look at what's been done to him. The unmarked dolphin doesn't show the same behavior.
Dolphins aren't the only big-brain mammals who recognize themselves. Elephants do too. Watch what happens when Reiss tested them at the Bronx Zoo. This one with a white x marked on his face turns towards the mirror, over and over, to take a look.
Back at the Baltimore Aquarium, Reiss is now focusing her research on younger dolphins.
REISS: Bo is five.
KAYE: Just like human children, younger dolphins make lots of movements and watch their reflection. They quickly learn they are watching themselves.
KAYE (on camera): What are you trying to figure out with the younger dolphins?
REISS: So we're trying to figure out at what age, at what developmental age do they start figuring out that it's them in the mirror? And when are they showing interest in the mirror?
KAYE (voice-over): Foster, who is three, started recognizing himself in the mirror about the same time toddlers do, when he was about a year and a half. Reiss says some dolphins pick up on it at just six months, much earlier than children.
REISS: This is Spirit. Now Spirit's testing this. She's still figuring this out. And what's funny is, we recognize this because it's so similar to what kids do, what chimps do. It's amazing. And they go through the same stages. These are animals that have been separated from us for 95 million years of evolution. Big brains, processing things in similar ways.
KAYE: With a mirror providing a window into the dolphin's mind, Reiss believe she is discovering that their super high levels of intelligence are in many ways much like our own. And if that's true, the question is, what does that tell us?
REISS: In the end, what this tells us is that we need to look at these animals in a new light with a new respect and really provide much more protection in terms of conservation efforts and welfare efforts for these animals. And also appreciate that we're not at the top anymore. We're not alone. We're surrounded by other intelligence.
KAYE (on camera): Oh, wow. So smooth. She's beautiful.
KAYE (voice-over): Remember the old saying, that it always seems like dolphins are smiling at you. Well, maybe they are.
Korea Crisis Round-Up
Christian Science Monitor—North Korea says on 'brink of war' as US, South Korea prepare for military exercises: "Officials in North Korea have warned that they are on the brink of war with the South, as the United States and South Korea prepare to conduct a joint training exercise in the Yellow Sea."
Washington Post—Many in LA's Koreatown decry island attack: "Residents in the bustling Los Angeles sector that is the largest Korean enclave in the United States are decrying the North Korean attack on a South Korean island as they phone relatives for updates from the country many once called home."
Korea Times—Parties diverge over approach to NK:
A day after adopting a bipartisan resolution denouncing North Korea for its deadly attack on Yeonpyeong Island, ruling and opposition legislators sparred Friday over the "right" North Korea policy.New York Times—South Korea Reassesses Its Defenses After Attack: "Responding to growing public criticism after a deadly North Korean attack, President Lee Myung-bak accepted the resignation of his defense minister on Thursday and announced changes in the military's rules of engagement to make it easier for South Korea to strike back with greater force, especially if civilians are threatened."
Speaking at an extended party meeting, Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) said "The Lee Myung-bak administration is incapable in terms of security, with no ability to adequately prepare for and respond to a North Korean attack." He added that, "War can never be the solution, and we should follow the way of peace. There is no better security than peace."
Rep. Chung Dong-young, a member of the DP's Supreme Council, said that "The attack on Yeonpyeong Island has proven that the Sunshine Policy is the best policy for ensuring peace on the Korean Peninsula." Chung urged the government to shift its North Korea policy.
The DP is affiliated with the late former President Kim Dae-jung who was the architect behind the Sunshine Policy of engaging the North. Despite the bipartisan resolution on North Korea, the main opposition party has consistently been critical of the Lee Myung-bak administration's relatively hard-line stance toward the North.
The ruling opposition Grand National Party (GNP) responded to the DP's criticisms. Rep. Kim Moo-sung, the GNP floor leader said, "We are in a quasi-state of war, and we should be united in what steps we will be taking next."
CNN—S. Korea names new defense minister amid war rhetoric from the North:
South Korea named a new defense minister Friday to replace the official who resigned Thursday amid heavy criticism due to North Korea's sinking of a warship in March and Tuesday's deadly shelling of an inhabited island.A CNN crew were the first western journalists to visit Yeonpyeong Island and examine the destruction.
South Korea's government nominated Kim Kwan Jin as defense minister, a Blue House media official told CNN.
The National Assembly will hold a confirmation hearing before Kim formally takes office.
Former Defense Minister Kim Tae-young, a former general, resigned after coming under heavy criticism for the sinking of the South Korean war ship Cheonan and again after North Korea struck Yeonpyeong Island on Tuesday.
The appointment comes amid continued war rhetoric from North Korea, which said Friday that South Korea and the United States are recklessly pushing the Korean peninsula toward war by scheduling a joint military drill for this weekend.
"The situation on the Korean peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war due to the reckless plan of those trigger-happy elements to stage again the war exercises targeted against [North Korea] in wake of the grave military provocation they perpetrated against the territorial waters of [the North Korean] side in the West Sea," said the North's official KCNA news agency.
Your Morning TSA Security Round-Up
[Trigger warning for general harm.]
If you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't be worried about enhanced security screening, right? RIGHT?!
TSA Groin Searches Menstruating Woman—"I was subjected to search so invasive that I was left crying and dealing with memories that I thought had been dealt with years ago of prior sexual assaults. Why? Because of my flannel panty-liner. These new scans are so horrible that if you are wearing something unusual (like a piece of cloth on your panties) then you will be subjected to a search where a woman repeatedly has to check your 'groin' while another woman watches on (two in my case - they were training in a new girl - awesome). So please, please, tell the ladies not to wear their liners at the airport (I didn't even have an insert in). I'm a strong, confident woman; I'm an Army vet (which is why those camo liners crack me up), I work full-time and go to graduate school full-time, I have a wonderful husband, and I don't take any nonsense from anyone. I don't dramatize, and I don't exaggerate. I'm trying to give you a sense of who I am so you won't think that this is a plea for attention, or a jumping on the bandwagon about the recent TSA proposed boycott. I just don't want another woman to have to go through the 'patting down' because she didn't know that her glad-rag would be a matter of national security."
Christian Science Monitor—For sexual crime victims, TSA pat-downs can be 're-traumatizing':
“Any type of violation of physical boundaries can set back a rape survivor in their treatment, in their therapy, in their recovery,” says [Dr. Amy Menna, a counselor and professor at the University of South Florida who has a decade’s experience researching and treating rape survivors].GSLfa—How the TSA policies impact transgender travelers, from the National Center for Transgender Equality: "First, it is important that you KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. Even if TSA personnel are not always familiar with travelers' rights, such as the right to decline a full-body scan, you should know them. You may need to politely inform the officer of your rights and choices.
“There’s a lack of sensitivity to individuals’ emotional states when undergoing this public violation,” she adds, citing the dismissive brusqueness of the procedure.
Many passengers don't know – and aren’t informed – that they have the right to a private screening, or to have another person present at that private screening.
“Know your rights,” Menna says, “and make sure they are not violated.”
CNN—Shooting video at a TSA checkpoint? Here's what you should know: "As Americans fly to and from Thanksgiving holiday gatherings this week, some travelers -- anxious about their rights at airport security checkpoints -- may try to follow Tyner's lead and video their TSA encounters. Is that legal? It depends."
Gothamist—Guy Shows Up in Boxers As Fliers Opt Out Of Opt-Out Day: "I wore my underwear to remind all the people who submit to security procedures that they have options besides blind compliance."
Thanksgiving
Things will be pretty quiet around here today and tomorrow, since it's the Thanksgiving weekend in the US.
To everyone who is marking Thanksgiving...Happy Thanksgiving!
To everyone who is not...Happy Thursday!
On this day, I recommend (re)reading Renee's great guest post, "What Are We Really Giving Thanks For?"
And on this day, I would also like to say that I am thankful for you, Shakers.
