2003, Reviewed
The New York Times asked various writers and thinkers to comment on the year's most underrated and overrated ideas. Here are two of my favorites:
OVERRATED: Repeal of the Estate Tax
We pay taxes only because the alternative is worse: no taxes, no government; no government, no army. Among our myriad taxes, none is as efficient and painless as the estate tax. It's like a lawyer's contingency fee: injured parties who couldn't otherwise afford legal access can try to recover damages because lawyers are willing to forgo their fees unless they win.Similarly, the estate tax lets us finance valuable public services with a surcharge that kicks in only if we end up among the wealthiest 1 percent. It also permits lower income-tax rates, encouraging effort and investment. It stimulates charitable giving, reducing the need for tax-financed public services. And a tax levied after death is surely less unpleasant than one collected from the living.
But if the estate tax is so great, why do 70 percent of surveyed voters favor the Bush administration's efforts to repeal it permanently? Perhaps this tax would fare better if pollsters began with a question like this: "If the estate tax were repealed, which other taxes should be increased, or which government services should be eliminated, to make up for the lost revenue?"
--Robert H. Frank, professor of economics at Cornell University and author of the forthcoming book "What Price the Moral High Ground?"
UNDERRATED: Link Between Money and Happiness
In conferences around the globe this year, psychologists reported that measures of human happiness scarcely change when national income grows. Citing this finding, many social critics now insist that income growth no longer promotes well-being.Experience suggests otherwise. Years ago, when I was a graduate student with two children in diapers, my wife called in distress to report that our 10-year-old clothes dryer had died. That evening I scanned the classified ads, made numerous calls and the next day drove out to inspect several machines. After haggling with the owner of a five-year-old Kenmore, I wrote a check we could barely cover. I drove a friend's truck across town to pick it up, then drove 25 miles to take the old machine to the dump. Four days and numerous hardware store visits later, we again had a working dryer.
I now earn many times what I did then. Recently my wife called to say that another dryer had died. "Call Werninck's," I suggested. When I got home that evening, the old machine was gone and a new one already up and running. Money doesn't guarantee happiness. But having enough can make life a lot less stressful.
--also by Robert H. Frank
The rest are here.
"Osama Fin Laden"
The fish that threatened national security.
(via Metafilter)
The Mead Generation
"Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else."
--Margaret Mead, as quoted in The Week
Science Comes Second
What causes autism? Scientists aren't sure, but that hasn't stopped a bunch of parental lobbying groups from forcing their definitive opinion on Congress. A Wall Street Journal editorial says pressure from these groups "is having the unintended and dangerous consequence of limiting vaccines for all children":
This is a story of politics and lawyers trumping science and medicine. It concerns thimerosal, a preservative that was used in vaccines for 60 years and has never been credibly linked to any health problems. Nonetheless, a small but vocal group of parents have taken to claiming that thimerosal causes autism, a brain disorder that impairs normal social interaction. The result has been an ugly legal and political spat that has spilled into Congress and is frightening some parents from vaccinating their children against such deadly diseases as tetanus and whooping cough.
Studies say thimerosal isn't the cause. Apparently, a minor detail:
A 2002 University of Rochester study compared the blood mercury levels of infants who'd received vaccines with and without thimerosal. All had levels well below the super-cautious EPA safety standard. This was followed last March by a study published in Pediatrics magazine, in which researchers compared the physical manifestations of autism and mercury poisoning. They found that the symptoms weren't the same, nor were the brain tissues similar.Perhaps the best evidence comes from Denmark, one of those European nations that likes to monitor most everything about its citizens. Researchers recently examined the health records of all children born in Denmark from 1971 to 2000 for autism diagnoses. Though Denmark eliminated thimerosal from its vaccines in 1992, the researchers found that the incidence of autism continued to increase. A second research team reviewed the records of nearly 500,000 Danes vaccinated for pertussis. They also found that the risk of autism and related disorders didn't differ between those vaccinated with thimerosal and those without.
Luckily, there is a cure -- but only for stupidity trumping science, not autism:
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has a proposal to offer liability protection against thimerosal claims and modernize the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program--which pays out to the rare family whose child is truly harmed by a vaccine. Congress could both redeem itself and improve public health by making this bill a priority when it reconvenes in January.
Improbable Cause
With all that's going terribly, terribly wrong in the world, here's a little something petty to worry about -- whether door nazis at superstores have any right to look at your receipt when you're leaving. (The answer, of course, is no.)
The Wright Way To Criticize Someone
"Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away, and you have their shoes."
--Steven Wright, as quoted in The Week, one of my favorite magazines
Where The Wild Things Are
On my zebra-print iBook, of course. I almost went for the pink flames. There's leopard, too, for those who are willing to wait. And more.
Live Long And Kill Yourself
Katha Pollit, not exactly one of my favorite thinkers, takes a dim view of Carolyn Heibrun's rational take on ending it all:
"Quit while you're ahead' was, and is, my motto," wrote Carolyn Heilbrun, explaining why she had long intended to kill herself at 70....She was 77 when she finally took the pills she had somehow collected, having chosen a time when her husband would be in the country with the dog. ''The journey is over,'' read the note she left behind. ''Love to all.''
Seems a rather civilized way to go.
When Professional Mommies Get Fired
Women who might think they're taking the cushy way out -- leaving professional jobs to stay home with their kids -- are liable find themselves in the same position as pre-women's movement divorcees: poor and careerless when their husbands leave them. Oh, and please, if you're a fulltime mom, don't bother complaining how hard you have it. Come on, it's 2003. It's not like you have to catch the goat, shear the goat, dye the wool, spin the wool, and knit the socks. You need socks for Junior #3? You simply go to Target, pull a pair off the rack, and plunk down plastic. Whew, how exhausting! Modern mommyhood, as a sole profession, isn't exactly breaking rocks on a chain gang.
Titty-Cam
Don't say I never post any bare-naked breasts on copiers for you.
(via Marc Brown's BlogBlogBlog.com)
Never Too Young To Sue
A two-year-old bumps his head on a playground railing, and requires several stitches. Just ordinary kid stuff, right? Wrong. The two-year-old, poor dear, happens to be a model (like the kid wakes up howling, "I want to go to the photographer's!"), so his stage mommy is suing the city of Stamford for -- get this -- "unspecified lost wages and other compensation," according to an AP report. I think this would be a good time for the city of Stamford to investigate this mommy and all the other local stage mommies for child abuse; at least that's my opinion, from my New York days, of the reality of mommies trying to turn two-year-olds into cash cows. Sick, sick stuff.
In America
If you want to see a great movie, check out Jim Sheridan's In America. It's the story about his family coming to America from Ireland -- a semi-autobiographical tale about the time when he was running New York City's Irish Arts Center. Here's your exclusive peek at a bit from one of the early versions of the script, that didn't make it into the final film. This is Christy, 12, talking (as a kind of to-camera narration), from the back of an old station wagon, as her parents are being questioned by the border patrol guards before crossing from Canada into the United States:
CHRISTY This is a coming of age story...unfortunately, it's my father that is coming of age. Mam makes all the small decisions in our house. Where we live, what we eat, where we go to school. Dad makes all the big decisions, like whether the Jews should give back the West Bank to the Palestinians.
How good is the film? Well, Richard Roeper is so sure you'll love it to pieces that he says he'll give you your money back if you don't.
In France
While we're in recommendation mode, check out Hotel Costes 6, a fabulous music mix, as played at the eponymous dripping-in-beautiful-people Parisian hotel.
Pope On A Grope
The Pope asks Jesus to save the world from terrorism, says an AP report:
During his Midnight Mass homily, the pope decried: "Too much blood is still being shed on earth! Too much violence and too many conflicts trouble the peaceful coexistence of nations!""You come to bring us peace," John Paul said of the baby Jesus. "You are our peace!"
Uh, Popie darling, either Jesus doesn't exist, or doesn't give a crap -- about people being killed by terrorists, or little boys being molested by priests, to name a few. Doesn't exist or doesn't care: Which way do you want it?
Poor Warner Brothers
Here's an ad from UCLA's listserve. Apparently, Warner Brothers so blew their wad on Tom Cruise and a bunch of old Samurai swords, they couldn't even pay a handful of girls $10 or $15 an hour to promote The Last Samurai:
Casting beautiful Asian women for Warner Bros.' The Last Samurai Premiere After-party to be held in Westwood on Dec 1st.. Women will be dressed as village women from the film's wardrobe department and mingle 'in character' through the party, helping to create the ambience of ancient Japan, circa 1870's. There is no pay, but a chance to be part of this year's biggest Hollywood premiere with a guest list including Tom Cruise and the rest of The Last Samurai's fantastic cast!!If interested please forward a picture and information ASAP to:
Cheryl Rave
Entertainment Producer
Warner Bros. Special Events
(818)954-3549 phone
(818)954-3011 fax
Cheryl.Rave@Warnerbros.com
Here's the e-mail I sent Cheryl:
Dear Cheryl, I'm a middle class newspaper columnist, and I pay my assistant (because I think it's unethical to have somebody work for free). I think it's pretty terrible that Warner Bros. is trolling for people to work for free at this party. You can't pay the girls $10 an hour? Why, movie budget was too big? How icky. --Amy Alkon
Buy American, Or Sell Out For A Discount?
Patt Morrison goes to Walmart:
Sam Walton's autobiography is subtitled "Made in America." Sam's been dead about a dozen years, but I'd still like to take him shopping with me to find out just what there is in Wal-Mart, besides Mr. Sam, that's made in America. The grail of free trade ó Greenbacks Sans Frontieres ó has made it not only old-fashioned to "Buy American," but damned near impossible.All right, Mr. Sam, just inside the door, Jordache low-rise jeans, $17.94 ó from the Philippines. That floaty pink rayon blouse on sale for $9 ó India. Ah, here we go, L'Eggs panty hose, nude, sheer-toe, three pairs for $5, made in USA ó of imported and domestic fibers. And oh, Sam, oh, Walt ó a Disney Winnie-the-Pooh anniversary clock for $19.86 Ö made in China?
I tell you, who needs an exotic overseas vacation? Let Wal-Mart take you on a tour of the far-flung souks and sweatshops of the world, brought right here to your own hometown:
Little girls' Fruit of the Loom boy-leg briefs, two pairs, pink and blue, $4.66, made in Egypt. Scooby-Doo men's sleep pants, trademark Cartoon Network, $11.93, made in Cambodia. A Vassarette silken heather underwire bra, $9.66, size thirty-Öno, you don'tÖmade in Thailand. On the clearance rack, a Kathie Lee jacket from Bangladesh, a White Stag striped shirt from Honduras, a fake-leather-trimmed coat from Korea, another jacket from Guatemala.
Don't I need a visa for this? No, just a Visa.
Patt nails it in the finale:
I didn't talk to the shoppers. They were busy, and what's the point? Just as the bus strikes pitted the working class against the working poor, Wal-Mart sucks them all up: foreign workers desperate for jobs, American workers whose real wages have dropped and left them desperate for cheap goods, and Americans who would rather work at Wal-Mart's non-union jobs, with poor benefits and lower wages, than have no work at all. It's a circle of falling dominoes: Because decent-paying working- and middle-class American jobs are harder to come by, shoppers can't afford to go elsewhere, so they buy goods made overseas for pennies an hour, which encourages manufacturers to shut factories here to send work overseas, which means that more decent-paying jobsÖyou see where this goes.
I do, and that's why I don't shop at Walmart or Sam's Club. Do you?
Fatty Issue
Why are Americans so fat? Hmm...there's a toughie. Could it be that they refuse to pry their faces out of their plates and go to the gym? Not according to a section of the recent American Public Health Association conference, writes Kelly Jane Torrance, of the Center For Consumer Freedom:
Speaker after speaker scorned the notion that individual Americans are responsible for their own choices. Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPIóthe Ralph Nader spinoff that has already ruined movie popcorn for millions of us), made no effort to hide her agenda. "We have got to move beyond personal responsibility," she pleaded with her audience. In a session titled "The Politics of Food," Skip Spitzer of the radical Pesticide Action Network added that "the idea of 'personal responsibility'" is merely "a cultural construct," ready to be superseded for our own good.Yale psychologist Kelly Brownell, best known as the father of the "Twinkie tax," was one of the meeting's most popular speakers. Showing some politicking skill, Brownell suggested that activists should make use of children to sidestep commonsense arguments about personal choices: "Another, very utilitarian reason for focusing on children, of course, is then you get away from these arguments about personal responsibility."
Incidentally, Brownell scoffed at the idea that obesity can be successfully treated and reversed. Funny he should think so. The Associated Press noted last year that he gained a good deal of weight while writing a book. The experience apparently "kept him relatively sedentary and snack-prone." In San Francisco, Brownell appeared considerably leaner and meaner, but offered no hint as to which tax or other government program helped him shed the extra pounds.
Some complain that the Center For Consumer Freedom is just a front for Philip Morris, and other mega-companies that fund it. Funding aside, here's one of their articles on the fat issue that makes a lot of sense.
No Child Left Behind
Well, except for the poor black ones. At least, that's the way it goes in Weldon, NC, according to a Washington Post story by Michael Dobbs:
Nelson Edwards is unhappy with the education his daughters are receiving at Weldon Middle School, which has failed to meet federal standards. But help should be on the way: The No Child Left Behind law gives the Winn-Dixie meat cutter the option of transferring his children to a better-performing school.At least, that is the theory of one part of the most sweeping educational reforms adopted by Congress in more than a generation. The practice, from the perspective of a poor, overwhelmingly African American school district in North Carolina, is rather different.
A few months ago, Weldon school officials attempted to negotiate a school-choice agreement with their counterparts in Roanoke Rapids, a predominantly white, middle-class school district on the other side of Interstate 95. They were turned down flat.
Weldon's request would "create an administrative nightmare," said Roanoke Rapids school Superintendent John Parker, who employs two investigators to ensure that children living in Weldon and surrounding Halifax County do not try to sneak into his schools. "There is no way we could accommodate all the students who want to come here, if we opened our doors."
An administrative nightmare? Silly me, I thought that was precisely what "No Child Left Behind" was supposed to prevent: Give kids -- all kids -- access to adequate education -- and they might contribute something to society -- instead of contributing to the pile of papers on social services employees' desks.
Mything Out On Love
ìSurvival and healthy psychological functioning do not necessarily require that one be loved. People are programmed during childhood to believe that their future happiness (and even their survival) is dependent on their finding their ëone true loveí and preserving this love in a long-term, exclusive couple relationship or marriage. This expectation is based on unrealistic notions regarding the nature of love and often leads to disillusionment and misery.î
--from Fear Of Intimacy, by Robert Firestone, PhD
Putting The Petal To The Metal
"You are what you love, not what loves you."
--Charlie Kaufman, screenwriter, The Orchid Thief
In Other Words
The words of brilliant but hypocritical nutbag Ayn Rand:
ìLove is a response to values. It is with a personís sense of life that one falls in love -- with that essential sum, that fundamental stand or way of facing existence, which is the essence of a personality.î This is ìreflected in his widest goals or smallest gestures, which create the style of his soul.îThe selection committee here, according to Rand, is your own ìsense of life,î which sniffs out what it recognizes as your basic values in somebody else. Itís not so much what you stand for (although that matters, too); ìit is a matter of much more profound conscious and subconscious harmony.î
"From Bad To Badder"
That's where New York City schools are going, if a recent curriculum guide is any indication. According to a New York Daily News story by Joe Williams, the guide urged teachers to:
ï"Crate [create] a balance bean [beam] with masking tape."ï"Think about a time when your family work together."
ïIdentify "student strengthens and weaknesses."
ïRead a story about a fish with "shinning," instead of shining, scales.
"When I see this it breaks my heart," said one Queens teacher. "It's bad enough that the kids can't read and write."
Bloopers litter page after page in the separate guides for elementary, middle and high schools.
Educators were quick to point out that the error-ridden lesson plans came straight from the top - and at a time when fewer than half of city students can read at grade level.
"If a teacher handed in something like this, he or she would be raked over the coals, if not fired," said teachers union President Randi Weingarten.
Education Department bigwigs wrote the guides to help teachers explain a new discipline code to students - "so that everyone understands how serious we all are in making schools that is safe for student's body's, Schools that is safe for students' feelings, And schools that are safe for student's ideas," the error-filled document states.
I guess it's a little two much too ask four schools to teech students somepin, huh?
(via Reason.com)
So What If We Kant Know It All?
Reason vs. faith: A flawed debate by Edward Rothstein in the form of a series of book reviews in The New York Times. Rothstein starts by pandering to the desire to even out a quip, selling out what reason's really about in this description of the debate:
It is a conflict between competing certainties: between followers of Faith, who know because they believe, and followers of Reason, who believe because they know.
True followers of reason don't "believe" or "know" -- they use available evidence to come to a conclusion. I conclude that this piece is a bit of a mess, and bends over backward to give credence to faith -- but it's a thought-provoking read anyway.
The Naked Ape
Why humans feel compelled to remove their hair. (I think evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar -- quoted in the last part of the article -- is probably right.)
(via Arts & Letters Daily)
Got The Clap?
Not the easiest thing to confess. Not to worry. Let your tie speak for you!
(via Cruel Site Of The Day)
Queer Eye On The Sputtering Economy
You want to see Tiffany's join GM, IBM, and Kraft-General Foods in major corporation-land? You want to get the GNP up in one (slightly swish) fell swoop? Just legalize gay marriage. The ensuing rush to shop, prop, and cater could make the dot-com boom look like The Great Depression.
Erasing History
The Bush White House is turning "The Information Age" into "The Lack Of Information Age." According to a Washingtoon Post story by Dana Milbank, when the news on a government Web site isn't good, the administration either rewrites it to make it better news or removes it entirely:
White House officials were steamed when Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said earlier this year that U.S. taxpayers would not have to pay more than $1.7 billion to reconstruct Iraq -- which turned out to be a gross understatement of the tens of billions of dollars the government now expects to spend.Recently, however, the government has purged the offending comments by Natsios from the agency's Web site. The transcript, and links to it, have vanished.
This is not the first time the administration has done some creative editing of government Web sites. After the insurrection in Iraq proved more stubborn than expected, the White House edited the original headline on its Web site of President Bush's May 1 speech, "President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended," to insert the word "Major" before combat.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, administration Web sites have been scrubbed for anything vaguely sensitive, and passwords are now required to access even much unclassified information. Though it is not clear whether the White House is directing the changes, several agencies have been following a similar pattern. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and USAID have removed or revised fact sheets on condoms, excising information about their effectiveness in disease prevention, and promoting abstinence instead. The National Cancer Institute, meanwhile, scrapped claims on its Web site that there was no association between abortion and breast cancer. And the Justice Department recently redacted criticism of the department in a consultant's report that had been posted on its Web site.
Steven Aftergood, who directs the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said the Natsios case is particularly pernicious. "This smells like an attempt to revise the record, not just to withhold information but to alter the historical record in a self-interested way, and that is sleazier than usual," he said. "If they simply said, 'We made an error; we underestimated,' people could understand it and deal with it."
One of the cornerstones of a democracy is free access to information. And that's free access to all but the information that truly needs to be classified -- and not only when it leaves The White House looking really good. If the growing government-funded fundamentalism and PR efforts like the one above don't leave you feeling terrified, you're either really dumb -- or a lockstep Republican.
What's really a shame -- and a little bit scary -- is the way this country still divides along party lines: Republicans nodding like zombies at anything the Bush White House does, and Democrats doing the same for their side. Right now, anybody with any common sense is feeling really afraid for where this country is going. Me, for example.
(via David "Tell Me Everything" Rensin)
The Face Of Gay Marriage
Maybe fundamentalist heterosexuals are just jealous. Their marriages are falling apart, while a lot of really old gay guys have been happily, well, happily together, for decades. Hereís one example: Elmer Lokkins, 84, and Gustavo Archillo, 88, who have been a couple for six decades. After hiding their relationship with each other for 58 years, they were just married in Canada. Andrea Elliot tells their tale in todayís New York Times:
Mr. Archilla and Mr. Lokkins did not marry for political reasons, financial reasons or legal reasons. Through their 58 years together, they mostly stood by as others fought for rights like civil unions or domestic partnerships.Marriage meant more to them. It was something sacred, they said, an institution they cherished even as it shunned them.
The couple capture what some in the gay rights movement say is an essential but unappreciated point in the argument for same-sex marriage: it offers something more basic and profound than survivor rights or shared health care. For many gays and lesbians, the power of marriage lies in the sanctity of its tradition, its social legitimacy ó the very thing opponents of gay marriage are mobilizing at the highest levels to protect.
For Mr. Archilla and Mr. Lokkins, the need for an official blessing was so basic that until they married, they could not make their relationship public. It was only on the evening of Nov. 12, after they wed, that they embraced in front of others for the first time.
"What we did was finally cap it all up ó make it seem complete," said Mr. Archilla, the son of a Puerto Rican Presbyterian minister. "It was about fulfilling this desire people have to dignify what you have done all your life ó to qualify it by going through the ceremony so that it has the same seriousness, the same objective that anybody getting married would be entitled to."
Take another look at the photo of these two guys. How many heteros do you see who look that much in love after six decades together? You can probably count them on one finger. My suggestion: The middle one, pointed in the direction of The White House.
The Unequal Rights Amendment
George Bush is leaning toward amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage, says an AP story by Jennifer Loven. He manages to hold this view while also holding the view that he is not intolerant. Now there's a flexible thinker! His words met with criticism from gay rights groups:
"It is never necessary to insert prejudice and discrimination into the U.S. Constitution - a document that has a proud history of being used to expand an individual's liberty and freedom, not to take them away," said Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign.The president also said that he - like any politician - could lose his next run for office, next year's bid for a second term in the White House.
Just a little something to remember before you waste your vote on Ralph Nader.
(via David "Tell Me Everything" Rensin)
Undercover Cops Go Under The Covers
What cop wants to get shot up hunting down murderers and rapists when he or she can bring down a former fifth-grade teacher and mother of three for selling a vibrator?
(via Reason's blog)
Today's Dumb Lefty Award
Goes to Noam Chomsky, who "seeks to use the Cuban missile crisis to explain the Iraq war, which is a little like using the first Moon landing to explain the dotcom boom." The quote is from a review, by The Guardian's Nick Cohen, of Chomsky's new book, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance.
(via Arts & Letters Daily)
"The Hills Are Alive..."
With the sound of Lauryn being excommunicated. Well, not just yet. But, according to a Reuters story by Philip Pullella, pop star Lauryn Hill did "shock" Catholic officials at a Christmas concert in Vatican City when she told them to "repent," and alluded to sexual abuse of children by priests. Hill was a woman on a mission:
"I did not come here to celebrate the birth of Christ with you but to ask you why you are not in mourning for his death inside this place," she said according to a transcript of her statement run by the Rome newspaper La Repubblica.
You go, girl! There was no word as to whether Church officials were more shocked by the existence of sexual abuse, or by Hill's apparent reference of it while on a stage used by The Pope for his weekly general audiences and other events. What's your guess?
I Love You Two
Three might be a crowd, according to custom and the dictates of your particular religious order, but that still doesn't explain why only couples are allowed to marry. I'm not kidding. As long as the state is still doling out all these special rights and privileges to married people (unfair marriage-privileging, in my book); it's not only wrong to limit which consenting adults can marry, but how many can tie the knot.
UPDATE: Ouch!
I've been spanked by Cathy Seipp.
Vive La Difference
In France, a woman can walk into a pharmacy and buy pilules de lendemain (the morning-after pill) without a prescription -- in other words, with zero hassle. What does this mean? Probably more than a few abortions prevented -- in France. Here in the USA, the F.D.A. is deciding whether to follow suit. On Tuesday, according to a New York Times editorial, there will be a hearing, supposedly to judge whether the drug (essentially, a few birth control pills, intended to be taken within 72 hours after the condom breaks, to prevent pregnancy), is "safe" to use without supervision. In other words, will American women be treated like adults, or like idiot children whose bodies need to be supervised by the state in loco parentis? And is it going to be fundamentalism or science ruling women's medical options?
Given numerous studies attesting to its safety, and the fact that millions of women around the world have been successfully using similar emergency medication for more than 25 years, advocates who have urged the drug's acceptance have a right to feel at least optimistic.What's absolutely certain is that they have a right to expect the decision to be made on the basis of science. If some of the drug's supporters are uneasy on this count, it is because the Bush administration has, on more than one occasion, attempted to make scientific research agree with its own ideological predilections. This is particularly true when it comes to abortion.
The potential benefits from making emergency contraception more widely and easily available are enormous. Among other things, it would be an effective strategy for reducing the number of abortions in this country. It's ironic that many of the same groups that pressed for passage of the ban on so-called partial birth abortions by describing certain abortion procedures in grisly detail are pushing just as hard to limit the availability of a drug that would make all abortions, including later ones, less common.
All Three-And-A-Half Feet On The Ground
Ontario bans dwarf tossing.
Faith-Based Malpractice
Women who go to religiously affiliated hospitals -- and we're not talking Beth Israel and Mt. Sinai here, but the hospitals run by Catholics and others who base their medicine on irrational religious beliefs rather than science -- are jeopardizing their access to care, according to a National Women's Law Center report:
The ban on services at many religiously affiliated hospitals, nursing homes, managed care companies and insurers go beyond abortions, extending to other arenas of health to include: end-of-life-treatments; research and therapy using fetal and embryonic stem cells; counseling about the use of condoms by HIV patients (and other patients with sexually transmitted diseases); certain infertility treatments; emergency contraception (including for rape victims); certain treatment of ectopic pregnancies; tubal ligations (and other forms of sterilization); and contraceptive services (including contraceptive prescriptions) and counseling.While religiously-affiliated health care institutions can restrict services in certain circumstances, they must warn consumers in a clear, accurate and timely way or face legal sanctions. However, health care consumers are often unaware of these limitations because facilities provide little notice or information about the restrictions, often marketing themselves as providing comprehensive womenís health services when they in fact do not.
In a nationwide survey cited in the report, nearly half of the 1,000 respondents said they believed they would be able to get medical services that may go against Catholic teaching at a Catholic hospital. Less than seven percent were able to identify restricted services such as emergency contraception, sterilization or infertility treatment. Womenís health care is threatened when they must make decisions about their care without knowing about these restrictions. For example, pregnant women who may want to have a tubal ligation during the same hospital stay might not select a doctor who only has privileges at a hospital that prohibits that practice.
Although there are other types of entities that impose restrictions on health care because institutional and or moral objections, Catholic entities usually impose the most rigid limitations on womenís reproductive and other health services, often failing to share information with patients on treatment alternatives and referrals that go against church teachings. Catholic health care entities also have a substantial role in this countryís health care system. Five of the ten largest health care systems are Catholic-owned. And in many rural areas, Catholic hospitals are often the sole health care providers. Also, Catholic health care entities usually impose bans on nonsectarian institutions that merge or affiliate with them, resulting in non-Catholic entities agreeing to comply with religious restrictions. As a consequence, key womenís reproductive and other health services are eliminated for a community with little or no notice to patients and consumers.
In other words, a lot of women -- especially rural women -- are being discriminated against in the name of religion. What should be one of the most basic rights, in a modern society like ours -- access to medical care based on the available science and technology -- is being denied because a bunch of bible thumpers run certain hospitals. Sick, sick stuff. It affects men, too. Just think -- if you have an Advanced Directive, telling doctors you don't want to be maintained as a human turnip, and the ambulance brings you to a Catholic hospital -- your relatives could very well end up in a legal tug-of-war with the hospital to pull the plug.
David "Tell Me Everything" Rensin's Favorite Stupid Question
As posted on Cathy Seipp's blog by David, our favorite best-selling biographer:
Just because it seems to suggest that what we do for a living isn't really working, my favorite stupid question -- usually asked by people who haven't seen me for a while -- is: Are you still writing?
I love that one, too. I like to answer, "Naw, I'm a crack whore now. You?"
Using Jessica Lynch
Genuine war heroes are mad as hell at the Pentagon for shoving a handful of medals at Jessica Lynch for getting conked out and landing in the hospital, writes Col. David H. Hackworth. Hackworth notes that many see it as a ploy to entice young women into the military:
According to retired Marine Lt. Col. Roger Charles: "There's nothing they won't stoop to spin. The Army needed a female hero to boost female recruiting and PR efforts, so they went and invented one."And that's the root of the problem. The elevation of Jessica to Joan of Arc status is to recruit more women, even though thousands of female soldiers couldn't deploy with their units to Iraq because of pregnancy, no sitters for single moms' multiple kids and other problems.
And poor Jessica Lynch has become the unwitting poster girl for an Army of One that's fast becoming an Army of Two ñ since apparently more than half of the women deployed to Iraq are now pregnant.
Hmm, seems like a great argument to me for upping the gay-lesbian Army recruiting efforts, since it's pretty much impossible to get artificial insemination or adopt a baby during combat.
**Here's a Reason Mag review of the book about Lynch. (The Hackworth link above is from that review.)
NOTE: Blogging will be light today and tomorrow, because I'm in New York shooting some TV stuff...soon to air...unless I suck!
This Is Your Brain On Jokes
According to a new study, laughter tickles the same part of your brain as a snort of coke. Hmm, how long before John Ashcroft outlaws jokes? I mean, besides the Bush administration's drug policies.
Letting It All Hang In
"The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one's soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive -- you are leaking." --Fran Lebowitz
Tumor Talk
I'm in Birmingham, Michigan now (near Detroit), blogging via Wi-Fi from the Woodward Avenue Starbucks, where I am displeased to report that a woman is shouting into her cell phone, at length, about her tumor! In case you're interested, her tumor's gone for now, but she has to get checked often to make sure it doesn't come back. I'll spare you the rest. (Wish I'd been so lucky.) Amazing, huh? I mentioned something to some man near me about "the girl talking really loudly on her cell phone about her tumor," and she gave me the death glare. Misplaced, of course. The way I see it: "Hey, honey, don't blame me. I didn't give you cancer -- or the damn cell phone. But your mama should have given you a lesson in The (high-tech) Golden Rule -- 'Don't Shout Unto Others Unless You Want Them Blogging About Your Rude Ass!'"
Crime Pays
The lowdown on privately-owned prisons for profit.
Chong Number
Come on -- if you're a DEA agent, do you really want to be raiding South Central LA? A guy could get shot! Okay, so there's a lot of life-and-death crime prevention to be done there. And, sure, you'll get there -- right after you do your part to keep drug-related gangland murder out of the Pacific Palisades.
Cunning Linguists
The military is hurting, hurting, hurting for Arabic-English translators, writes Ann Hull in The Washington Post. Then again, maybe they aren't actually "hurting" -- maybe just itching...and just the tiniest bit. This would explain why Arabic interpreter Cathleen Glover is now employed as a pool cleaner at the Sri Lankan ambassador's residence:
She learned Arabic at the Defense Language Institute (DLI), the military's premier language school, in Monterey, Calif. Her timing as a soldier was fortuitous: Around her graduation last year, a Government Accounting Office study reported that the Army faced a critical shortage of linguists needed to translate intercepts and interrogate suspects in the war on terrorism."I was what the country needed," Glover said.
She was, and she wasn't. Glover is gay. She mastered Arabic but couldn't handle living a double life under the military policy known as "don't ask, don't tell." After two years in the Army, Glover, 26, voluntarily wrote a statement acknowledging her homosexuality.
Confronted with a shortage of Arabic interpreters and its policy banning openly gay service members, the Pentagon had a choice to make.
Which is how former Spec. Glover came to be cleaning pools instead of sitting in the desert, translating Arabic for the U.S. government.
In the past two years, the Department of Defense has discharged 37 linguists from the Defense Language Institute for being gay. Like Glover, many studied Arabic. At a time of heightened need for intelligence specialists, 37 linguists were rendered useless because of their homosexuality.
How about we discharge the backward dumbasses responsible for maintaining the ludicrous "don't ask, don't tell" rule? Along with anybody who is really, really tweaked by how other consenting adults are having sex, and with whom.
Re-elect George Bush
Want four more years of fundamentalism? Vote for Ralph Nader again, you twits. Nader, reports Nick Anderson in the Los Angeles Times, "is raising money to explore another run for the White House next year, one of his strategists said Tuesday." Oh, the horror, the horror.
Helpful Hints For The Under-Curled
My new Helen Of Troy Model 6603 curling iron included this essential piece of advice:
6. Never use while sleeping.
Sloppy, sloppy. They left off "Never use while dead."
The Morality Of The Story
Radley Balko of the Cato Institute dissects the failed war on drinking, and the neo-prohibitionists among us, trying to curb our access to alcohol with new laws:
Some of those laws aim to make alcohol less available through taxation schemes, others through strict licensing or zoning requirements, still others by censoring alcohol advertisements. State and federal government officials have also sought to curb alcohol abuse from the demand side, but such efforts ultimately prove misguided. The 2000 federal law that encouraged local officials to lower the legal threshold for drunken driving, for example, will have little effect on public safety. Instead, it shifts law enforcement resources away from catching heavily intoxicated drunk drivers, who pose a risk, to harassing responsible social drinkers, who don't.Taken together, the well-organized efforts of activists, law enforcement, and policymakers portend an approaching "back-door prohibition"óan effort to curb what some of them call the "environment of alcoholism"óinstead of holding individual drinkers responsible for their actions. Policymakers should be wary of attempts to restrict choice when it comes to alcohol. Such policies place the external costs attributable to a small number of alcohol abusers on the large percentage of people who consume alcohol responsibly. Those efforts didn't work when enacted as a wide-scale, federal prohibition, and they are also ineffective and counterproductive when implemented incrementally.
Not to mention, plain old moronic. When I was growing up, if my dad was drinking some wine or some vile, schnapps-type liqueur, he'd offer us girls "a taste." I thought it all tasted like crap, and because it was freely offered, I didn't see the allure. Since drinking was so "no big deal" in my family, when I decided I wanted to see what it was like to get drunk, I decided that there'd be no better time to do it than at my cousin's wedding, when my parents would be there to take me home. At the end of the evening, my dad laughed while I threw up (vodka and Tab, yuck!) at the side of the road, and mused that I'd probably be a little more careful not to overdo it in the future. And he was right.
When I got to college, not having been prohibited from drinking in my brat-hood, I didn't see how it would be, in any way, liberating, to stick my head in a vat of grain alcohol. In fact, I didn't even bother to start having a glass of wine here and there until I was about 30. The same logic applies to kids in France, who are allowed wine with meals, just like everybody else. You certainly don't see drunks all over the place in France the way you do in the Puritan Fundamentalist States Of America. Addiction treatment expert Stanton Peele notes the same effect in a few other non-nanny states:
...In Portugal, Spain, Belgium, and other countries, 16-year-olds (and those even younger) can drink alcohol freely in public establishments. These countries have almost no AA presence; Portugal, which had the highest per capita alcohol consumption in 1990, had 0.6 AA groups per million population compared with almost 800 AA groups per million population in Iceland, the country that consumed the least alcohol per capita in Europe. The idea of the need to control drinking externally or formally thus coincides with drinking problems in a paradoxically mutually reinforcing relationship.
Tell that to the idiots in Wisconsin. Somebody, please. Because the legislators there, like those in many states, are making a big mistake: Trying to make it a crime for a parent to give a kid a bit of wine.
UPDATE: A better supporting quote about drinking in Europe:
"Stanton Peele, a psychologist and alcohol issues consultant, said cross-cultural research shows reduced alcohol abuse rates in societies where education emphasizes moderation rather than the no-use approach. Temperance cultures which provide predominantly anti- alcohol messages have much higher incidences of social problems related to alcohol consumption. While cultures that integrate drinking into daily life have many fewer social problems as reflected in Mediterranean countries such as Greece, Italy and France, he said."
(Cato piece via Reason's blog)
Not Sacrament To Be
Alan Dershowitz rightly argues that the government has no business being in the marriage business:
Those who oppose gay marriage believe deeply that marriage is sacreda divine, a blessed sacrament between man and woman as ordained in the Bible. If they are right, then the entire concept of marriage has no place in our civil society, which recognizes the separation between the sacred and the secular, between church and state.The state is, of course, concerned with the secular rights and responsibilities that are currently associated with the sacrament of marriage: the financial consequences of divorce, the custody of children, Social Security and hospital benefits, etc.
The solution is to unlink the religious institution of marriage ó as distinguished from the secular institution of civil union ó from the state. Under this proposal, any couple could register for civil union, recognized by the state, with all its rights and responsibilities.
Religious couples could then go to the church, synagogue, mosque or other sacred institution of their choice in order to be married. These religious institutions would have total decision-making authority over which marriages to recognize. Catholic churches would not recognize gay marriages. Orthodox Jewish synagogues would not recognize a marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew who did not wish to convert to Judaism. And those religious institutions that chose to recognize gay marriages could do so. It would be entirely a religious decision beyond the scope of the state.
As it should be, and should have been all along.
(via David Rensin)
"All Humans Are Out Of Their Fucking Minds..."
"...Every single one of them." The New Yorker profiles 90-year-old Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy founder and fellow profanity afficionado Albert Ellis. My personal favorite Ellis-ism: When somebody says "fuck you," he responds, "No, unfuck you; fucking's a good thing!"
Marriage By The Book
The gay Republican West Hollywood blogger, Boi From Troy, lays out what marriage would look like if played straight from The Bible. A few examples:
C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed (Deut 22:13-21)F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)
The hilarity continues here.
Who Do You Sue
...to get a drink around here?
In California, the department of Alcoholic Beverage Control requires restaurants to get a liquor license -- even if they're just uncorking patrons' wine without charging. Brooke Williamson, owner of Venice's new Amuse Cafe, found this out the hard way, when her liquor license was pending. Williamson had been doing the free uncorking thing until an investigator told her she'd be subject to arrest -- that day -- if she didn't stop. When patrons called to make reservations, she had to tell them "no drinkie" -- and business dropped off precipitously because of it.
The "logic" behind this is the notion that the restaurant might serve alcohol to a minor, and sans license, they wouldn't be legally liable for any drunk driving accident the minor might have. Hello? Like the LA Times' David Shaw says, "This all seems pretty ridiculous to me. The person responsible for serving alcohol to a minor in a restaurant with no alcohol and no license is the person who brought it in and poured it for him. The person responsible for getting into a drunk-driving accident is the jerk who drank too much and drove the car." Duh.
Tragedy Isn't Pretty
Not even if somebody gives it a zen-mall makeover. Maureen Dowd is right-on in her criticism of the WTC memorial, if her descriptions of it are accurate:
...pretty.Pretty and soothing.
Soothing and smooth.
Smooth and light.
Light and watery.
The eight designs for a memorial at ground zero, gleaming with hanging candles and translucent tubes and reflecting pools and the smiling faces of those killed on 9/11, aim to transcend. And they succeed.
They transcend terror. They have the banality of no evil. They represent the triumph of atmosphere over atrocity, mood over meaning. The designs are more concerned with the play of light on water than the play of darkness on life.
They have taken the heaviest event in modern American history and made the lightest memorials.
...The ugliness of Al Qaeda's vicious blow to America is obscured by these prettified designs, which look oddly like spas or fancy malls or aromatherapy centers. It's easy to visualize toned women with yoga mats strolling through these New Age pavilions filled with waterfalls and floating trees and sunken gardens and suspended votives. Mass murder dulled by architectural Musak.
The designs are reflections of our psychobabble culture, exuding that horrible and impossible concept, closure. Our grief and anger have been sentimentalized and stripped of a larger historical and moral purpose.
Even the names of the models sound like books by Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson: "Garden of Lights," "Inversion of Light," "Votives in Suspension," "Suspending Memory," "Reflecting Absence," "Passages of Light: The Memorial Cloud." All ambient light and transient emotion ó nothing raw or harsh or rough on which the heart and mind can collide.
The spontaneous memorials that sprang up right after 9/11, both near ground zero and at police and fire stations around the city, had more power and raw passion. What's missing from the designs is some trace of what actually happened on this ground. Why not return that twisted metal skeleton cross to the site, the one that made the World Trade Center ruins such a chilling and indelible memory for the thousands of Americans who flocked to ground zero in the months after the attack?
She's got a point.