Hosted by a feather duster.
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!
This is what democracy looks like.
Yesterday was Women's Health Care Day at the capitol (of Oregon), sponsored by Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon. People came from all over the state to lobby their respective state legislators on a few particular issues facing the current Oregon legislature. I went (I'm way on the other side of the room in that picture) and it was a great experience, overall. I highly recommend seeking out similar events in your state. As our Secretary of State, the very fierce & very awesome Kate Brown, said yesterday when speaking with us--it is vital for legislators to hear directly from their pro-choice constituents.
There are two bills and one resolution of note here in Oregon to be aware of. First is the resolution, SR 1/HJM 19 ("Birth Control Matters"), which was already signed by the Senate, though the House version of the bill has not yet been scheduled. Essentially this says that "ALL methods of FDA approved contraception be included in the definition of women's preventative care and available without co-pays" within the new health care law (the Affordable Care Act)--and it says it as a message to the Dept. of Health and Human Services from the State of Oregon. Nearly every single senator signed the resolution.
When we saw our Senator (Bruce Starr)--ok, his staff member since he double booked meetings (*cough*convenient*cough*)--we made a point to thank him for his signage. Now, since the House has yet to even schedule this, we could discuss it with my Rep (who is Katie Eyre Brewer). Rep Brewer requested to know just what all consisted of "FDA approved contraception" before she'd consider signing her name to it. Now, she didn't say this and it is only my calculated and cynical guess but I'm willing to put it out there that I think she won't sign if it includes PlanB or ella or similar. Just call it an educated hunch based on how our entire meeting went.
So, anyway, the next bill that is, in my opinion, rather important is SB 769/HB 3425 ("Addressing Patient Safety Concerns at Crisis Pregnancy Centers"). It is, essentially, a consumer protection bill. It states that places who are "crisis pregnancy centers" must be upfront about the services they do or do not offer. They must post these in writing. They must be upfront about the people who are working there--if they are actual medical personnel or not. It also makes these centers comply with HIPAA in regards to medical information that they collect. Since these places are unlicensed and thus far, unregulated, they have not had to comply with any standards. Some centers have fundraised and purchased diagnostic medical imaging technology and preformed ultrasounds on clients--yet the people are not, in fact, trained to do so nor to properly read such reports. They are currently in a legal "grey area". This bill (the House & Senate bills are identical) make them more in terms of being regulated--at least make them be honest about what they do. It seems fairly clear cut and, frankly, extremely non-controversial. It doesn't seek to put anyone out of business.
Sen. Starr's staffer, David, listened and asked a few questions about it and, overall, seemed neutral-positive about it. I have my doubts about Starr himself but David didn't seem to find anything objectionable to it. Rep. Brewer is a whole different story. She said that she might, might just consider supporting it if it included Planned Parenthood. Her reasoning was that Planned Parenthood says it offers comprehensive well-woman care but doesn't do mammograms (failing to agree that PP doing breast exams and would refer for a mammogram being 'enough'). So with that giant red herring thrown out, she went on about how she's never heard of any crisis center selling patient information, so it can't be a problem. So she does NOT think that it's any sort of issue that they collect medical histories and are not compelled to have to respect privacy laws. Her reasoning was (paraphrase): if you don't want people to have the information, you don't give it out. I asked her point blank that she didn't think centers should have to be upfront if they have actual trained medical personnel, particularly those who provide ultrasound services, and she said no. A rather hostile no, at that. Rep. Brewer, in my observation, has a very thin veneer of "nice" under which is a singularly unpleasant person, even without the atrocious politics.
Which brings us to this last bill--of which, Rep. Brewer is a co-sponsor. In fact, 25 of the 30 republicans in the House are co-sponsors. It is only in the House (so far) and generally not expected to go anywhere. It's important, though, in terms of how the current crop of legislators think/feel and what they'd like to do. This is HB 3512 and it bans abortions after 20 weeks--and has a narrow & misleading "medical emergency" clause for the life of the mother. One reason this bill is a ginormous waste of time is that it violates rulings by the US Supreme Court who prohibited a state from enacting laws to ban abortions before 24 weeks gestation. When we mentioned this to Rep. Brewer, she seemed a bit surprised but ultimately shrugged it off and said that they (the legislature) pass a lot of laws that might be contested. It's up to the challengers to bring the challenge in court. We also discussed that 20 weeks was the time frame of some diagnostic testing, some of which may have to be redone or scheduled for 21 or 22 weeks and then one has to wait for results and etc. She was unmoved by this, merely arguing that "science has advanced". Which makes no sense, given general human fetal development HASN'T and you'd still have to wait certain time frames. However, no logic was working here. When I discussed a concerning aspect of the bill being this one--and ones like it--take away from patient autonomy and the patient/doctor relationship and insert the government, she didn't have much to argue with that but she said "we'd just have to agree to disagree". Ugh. However, I think my favorite bit was when she, sitting behind her desk (which sat higher than the little couch visitors sit upon), said: "I appreciate that you have your voice and your platforms and I have my voice and my platform." Because, you see, when she said "my platform", she ran her hands across her desk--this while closing discussion about the bill she co-sponsored. I don't know that she even realized she was doing it but was still very ridiculous and it emphasized the power divide/balance/what-have-you.
So if you live here, in Oregon, please contact your own legislators! They need to hear from their pro-choice constituents!
If you don't live here, check out lobby events in your state! It's very educational and worth the time.
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for violence.]
"This is not the beginning of the end for the international community in Afghanistan. This is the end. Terry Jones and others will continue to pull anti-Islam stunts and opportunistic extremists here will use those actions to incite attacks against foreigners. Unless we, the internationals, want our guards to fire on unarmed protestors from now on, the day has come for us to leave Afghanistan."—Una Moore, an international development professional based in Afghanistan, on the attack on the UN compound in Afghanistan today, which left at least 12 people dead.
The attack was carried out by "thousands of protesters" who had been urged to action by their mullahs: "Friday's episode began when three mullahs, addressing worshipers at Friday Prayer inside the Blue Mosque here, one of Afghanistan's holiest places, urged people to take to the streets to agitate for the arrest of Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who oversaw the burning of a Koran on March 20."
Film Corner!
The first Hangover 2 trailer is out, ya'll! You know how much Deeks and I have been looking forward to this movie, so you can imagine how excited I am!
Transcript:
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BARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR whore joke RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR roofie joke RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR misogynist slur RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR racist joke RRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR strip club RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Asian stereotype RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR dick joke RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRF.
More on Professor Cronon
Earlier this week, I wrote about the emerging exchange between University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Bill Cronon and the Wisconsin GOP. Cronon publicly said some things the GOP leadership disagreed with. The GOP's response was to demand that UW give them access to all of Cronon's campus e-mail since the start of the year. The rationale was that Cronon was using the state's electrons to talk smack about them.
Wisconsin (and UW) politics are really complicated at the moment. UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin is obviously heavily involved in any number of policy debates with any number of bodies. In other words, I wasn't sure if or how she would weigh in on the matter of Professor Cronon's e-mail.
She's just weighed in. You should read what she has to say.
Essentially, UW will comply with the open records request, but no correspondence with students (FERPA!), and no personal business.
Then, she cuts to the chase:
Scholars and scientists pursue knowledge by way of open intellectual exchange. Without a zone of privacy within which to conduct and protect their work, scholars would not be able to produce new knowledge or make life-enhancing discoveries. Lively, even heated and acrimonious debates over policy, campus and otherwise, as well as more narrowly defined disciplinary matters are essential elements of an intellectual environment and such debates are the very definition of the Wisconsin Idea.
Having every exchange of ideas subject to public exposure puts academic freedom in peril and threatens the processes by which knowledge is created.
To our faculty, I say: Continue to ask difficult questions, explore unpopular lines of thought and exercise your academic freedom, regardless of your point of view. As always, we will take our cue from the bronze plaque on the walls of Bascom Hall. It calls for the "continual and fearless sifting and winnowing" of ideas. It is our tradition, our defining value, and the way to a better society.
So yeah, Wisconsin GOP. Have fun with those e-mails.
P.S. Ouch.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, publishers of the upcoming memoir Facebooked! The Deeky W. Gashlycrumb Story.
Recommended Reading:
crunktastic: [TW for violence] How Chris Brown Is Effing Up My Sex Life: A B-Side to Dating While Feminist
Resistance: [TW for racism] OMFG: Culture Camp
Andy: Obama Nominates Lesbian Attorney to Federal Bench
Renee: Gabrielle Union Talks Planned Parenthood
Arturo: Racebending and Other Asian-American Groups Speak Up Against Akira Whitewashing
Echidne: Exasperated and Frustrated
Leave your links in comments...
Daily Dose of Cute
Video Description: A short clip of Iain playing chase with Dudley at the dog park, on a recent grey day when we were the only ones there. Dudley was doing these long, beautiful arcs as he ran, graceful and goofy at the same time, and I couldn't be bothered to film much, because I wanted to set the camera down and join in the game.
A couple of still pix are below the fold (on most browsers)...
The three of us were doing a lap around the park, three ducks all in a row, and I fell back to take this picture. Right after I snapped it, Iain and Dudley both stopped in their tracks, turned, and looked at me, at precisely the same moment. Dudley chattered his teeth at me: Hurry up, Two-Legs! Iain grinned: "Come on, woman!" I laughed and ran to catch up.
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Trigger warning for fat hatred.]
Wall Street Journal: "Arizona Proposes Medicaid Fat Fee."
Arizona's [Republican Gov. Jan Brewer] on Thursday proposed levying a $50 fee on some enrollees in the state's cash-starved Medicaid program, including obese people who don't follow a doctor-supervised slimming regimen and smokers.So once again, obesity is treated as axiomatically synonymous with bad behavior. Awesome.
The plan, if approved by the Republican-dominated legislature, would mark the first time the state-federal health-care program for the poor has charged people for engaging in behavior deemed unhealthy.
..."If you want to smoke, go for it," said Monica Coury, spokeswoman for Arizona's Medicaid program. "But understand you're going to have to contribute something for the cost of the care of your smoking."
She said the proposal is a way to reward good behavior and raise awareness that certain conditions, including obesity, raise costs throughout the system.
And, naturally, axiomatically synonymous with bad health: "Ms. Brewer's surcharge would apply only to only certain childless adults: Those who are obese or chronically ill, and those who smoke. They would need to work with a primary-care physician to develop a plan to help them lose weight and otherwise improve their health."
Never mind if you're obese (and let's remember what "obese" looks like) but not chronically ill, or in bad health at all. The idea that someone can be fat and simultaneously healthy evidently doesn't exist in Arizona.
Of course proponents of this shit will argue that being obese inevitably results in a greater strain on health services in the long run, but research that purports to prove this narrative fails to take into account the reverberating effect of fat hatred even among healthcare providers, which not only discourages fat people from seeking preventative and palliative care, but also results in fat patients receiving a lower quality of care when they do seek treatment. That lower quality of care can manifest in myriad ways, from improper drug dosing to a failure to diagnose actual illness and injury because the diagnostician can't see beyond the patient's fat and wrongly attributes an ailment to obesity.
It is quite genuinely impossible to assert with certainty that obesity itself makes fat people are a "drain" on any healthcare system when disincentives against self-care and sub-par healthcare aren't addressed. And it's dishonest, if one quite reasonably considers access to quality healthcare part of maintaining good health.
Which is why the reflexive conflation of "fat" and "unhealthy" is inserted into the discussion under the auspices of a moral failing, a choice. Except:
State Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, said such a fee would unfairly penalize those who can't control their weight. "If someone is obese because they're severely disabled or can't exercise, we shouldn't be punishing them," she said.Or, you know, because that's just the way their bodies are built.
And, you know, as an aside: I'm a former smoker. I smoked for 14 years, and not long after I quit four years ago, I read an article detailing the hundreds of additional chemical additives, many of which are addictive, that had been added to cigarettes just in the time I'd been smoking. I call total bullshit on the same government that allows tobacco companies to make their products more addictive then turning around and charging the addicted consumers money because they can't quit. It's the height of temerity to tell people that smoking is a choice while supporting regulations that actually undermine how much of a choice it actually is.
[H/T to Shaker Jabes.]
Wrong Again, Santorum
Breaking News: Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Iffraff) still contributes nothing but bullshit to the national discourse.
Meanwhile, in Ivory Coast...
[Trigger warning for violence; sexual assault.]
While the international community turns its eyes toward Libya, the situation in the Ivory Coast continues to deteriorate.
Background: The country has not recovered from the bloody 2002 civil war that split the country in two, during which rape was widely used as a weapon by both sides. A unity government was meant to solve the tensions that caused the conflict, but, by 2004, the peace agreement had effectively collapsed, and more fighting ensued. Another peace agreement was signed in 2007, and, late last year, a hotly contested election launched the country headlong into more unrest.
Now, bluntly reports Mahamat Amadou for BBC Afrique, there is "the real danger of a bloodbath in Abidjan."
Even if [current president, who is refusing to give up the presidency] Laurent Gbagbo decides to flee, some of his militant supporters, known as the Young Patriots, have been given weapons and have been repeatedly told that [UN-recognised president] Alassane Ouattara and his supporters are not true Ivorians. They could decide to fight on.It is a terrible situation, and many people will be hurt and killed as the country tries to find resolution.
Equally, there are ill-disciplined pro-Ouattara armed groups operating in the city.
Abidjan is a patchwork of areas, each controlled by different groups. UN peacekeepers and French troops have deployed into strategic points around the city in order to protect civilians.
But if street battles break out, with militants attacking each other and civilians from groups seen as allied to the other side, UN peacekeepers will struggle to live up to their mandate.
President Obama has recorded a video message to the people of Côte d'Ivoire wishing them well.
Sing, Abby, Sing!
Pauley Perrette, better known as über-goth lab geek Abby Sciuto on NCIS (check your local listings!), is back in the recording studio. This May she will release "Fire in Your Eyes," an R&B-pop duet with B. Taylor, whoever that is.
Previously, Perrette's band Stop Making Friends appeared on NCIS: The Official TV Soundtrack. Series co-star Cote de Pablo (assassin and idiom-challenged Mossad agent Ziva David) also appeared on the album. Yay for crossovers! (Boo for Crossing Over with John Edward. Just because.)
The single is set to debut on iTunes on May 3rd. So get your iPods out.
And your dog collars.
Question of the Day
What's the most spectacularly out-of-character thing you've ever done?
Without question, my answer is moving to another country for someone with whom I had spent hardly any time in person, someone who was about to move to another country for me.
When I flew to Scotland to live there for awhile in May of 2002, to get to know Iain's friends and family and life before we returned to the US after securing his visa, we had spent a total of five weeks in each other's company. Countless hours on the phone and computer, but only five weeks—and vacation weeks at that, with no jobs or bills or daily stressors—together, face to face, getting to know each other's quirks and idiosyncrasies. Five weeks on our best behavior.
Damn. In retrospect, that was some serious trucknutzery. Neither one of us can believe we actually did it.
It seems to be working out well so far, lol.
On Surviving and Sex Ed
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
In addition to the assault on reproductive rights in Republican-held state legislatures across the nation, there has been a resurgence of interest in mandating abstinence-only sex education. Earlier this week, the North Dakota Senate "approved an amendment to a sex education bill (HB 1229) that would require public schools to teach abstinence-only sex education. The bill passed in the Senate by a vote of 39 to 8 and will now move to the state House for a vote."
It will certainly not come as a surprise to anyone who's spent more than about five seconds in this space that I am categorically disdainful of abstinence-only sex ed and support comprehensive sex education, so I'm pretty unthrilled about what's happening in North Dakota.
In this space, I've written a lot about the relationship between comprehensive sex education and reproductive rights: Empowering young people, especially young women, with good information about their reproduction is the best way to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
But there's another reason, more personal, about which I haven't written as much.
One of the most intractable complications of processing for me, after surviving sexual trauma as a teenager, was my Christian upbringing—a tradition on which a huge premium is placed on purity. (I don't mean to suggest this is true in all Christian traditions, but it was in the one in which I was raised.) I was quite explicitly expected to be a virgin bride.
My mother had been a virgin bride. My father had been a virgin groom. They expected their daughters to be virgins when we married, and we were expected to marry. It wasn't just from my parents that I learned of this expectation: In Sunday school, in confirmation class, in sermons—everyone from my ministers to my peers to Martin Luther himself admonished me to fiercely protect my virginity until I gifted it to my husband on my wedding night.
I was assumed to be straight and exhorted to get married and expected to be a virgin when I did.
I frankly wasn't even sure that I wanted to get married when I was raped at 16, but, after I was, I was sure that I wasn't going to be a virgin bride.
I had deeply internalized the Christian narratives about premarital sex sullying my very soul, and such was the lack of discussion surrounding consent in my young life that the idea nonconsensual sex might not "count" to whatever galactic referee was keeping score of such things never even crossed my mind.
I had also deeply internalized the cultural stereotypes of raped women being irreparably broken, women with broken minds and broken bodies.
Regarding myself as damaged goods, in both spirit and flesh, I figured it didn't matter if I engaged in sexual activity henceforth. And, beyond that grim calculation, that horrible, sad, shrugging relinquishment of my decision-making regarding sex because the decision had been made for me, was something yet worse: I didn't feel like I had any value anymore.
I'd spent my life learning that my worth as a female person was attached to my virginity.
My value as an unsullied cunt was gone; I tried instead to find value as a girl who knew how to give great head.
And, you know, that almost worked for awhile.
There exists a stereotype, a myth, that sexual trauma makes women more promiscuous. (And some women to react to sexual violence with promiscuity; there is no one singular, textbook, universal response to rape, no "right way" to be a survivor.) But it wasn't rape that made me more promiscuous than I otherwise might have been; it was the idea that I had lost my worth as a human and some fundamental goodness which had been wrapped inside my virginity.
Abstinence-only sex ed advocates insist that they're only trying to tell young people that the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy in abstinence, but, if that's all they wanted to convey, that line could be part of a comprehensive sex ed program. What they want to convey is that young people's worth, especially young women's worth, is predicated on maintaining their virginity.
That can be a mind-fuck for young women who lose their virginity consensually. For young women who are raped, it can be truly devastating.
I support comprehensive sex education not merely because it is a smarter and more effective program, but because it does not embed in young people bullshit narratives that stand to revictimize those among them who are victimized by sexual violence.
I am unsurprised to find, once again, the GOP does not share my concern.
Sure
Actual Headline: "Battling Big Abortion."
Sure. Like Big Oil or Big Pharma. Big Abortion.
The article, to which I'm not linking but it's easy enough to find if you're so inclined, is about funding Planned Parenthood and was authored by Mike Pence, Republican Representative and world-class embarrassment to Indiana progressives.
