Oops! We Attacked And Decimated The Wrong Middle Eastern Country!
Iran, Iraq, they sound pretty much the same. Unfortunately, it's Iran with the WMDs says a Reuters story:
Iran has begun testing a cascade of 20 centrifuges at its Natanz pilot uranium-enrichment plant, pressing ahead with efforts to purify nuclear fuel in defiance of world pressure, a nuclear watchdog report said on Monday.The confidential report by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran had also begun substantial renovations of Natanz's system handling UF6 gas, which is converted by centrifuges into enriched atomic fuel.
It said the cascade of 20 centrifuge machines began to undergo vacuum testing on February 22.
Hey, we'd be right over...really we would...but we're a bit busy inciting endless civil war in Iraq, at a cost of over a trillion dollars for our citizens.
The Unsolved Mystery Of The Oklahoma Bombing
Andrew Gumbel writes on TruthDig:
We now know, from court records and official documents, that at least two undercover operatives were gathering information on Timothy McVeigh and a group of like-minded white supremacists in the early spring of 1995, one of whom gave her government handlers specific information about a plan to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.We know that, after the bombing, the government expended considerable energy trying to track down a John Doe 2 and other possible accomplices of McVeigh and Terry Nichols -- the "others unknown" cited in the federal indictment -- before abruptly changing tack nine months later and insisting that McVeigh was the lone mastermind behind the attack and, eventually, that no one else other than Nichols had been involved.
And we know that, as the lone-bomber theory has come under increasingly skeptical scrutiny in recent years, the FBI and other federal agencies have expended considerable energy blocking access to their investigative paper trail. When one of the government informants from the spring of 1995 went public about her role, she found herself prosecuted -- unsuccessfully -- for allegedly harboring her own bomb plots; she has since gone to ground, too afraid to say more. At least one key government official, the state medical examiner in Oklahoma City, has indicated he was not given key information he needed to do his job. And one of the senior FBI agents involved in the early stages of the bombing probe now believes that enough new evidence has come to the surface from the files of his own agency to warrant a new federal grand jury investigation.
Perhaps most unnerving is the trail of dead bodies that has turned up over the past decade under less than transparent circumstances. A neo-Nazi bank robber called Richard Guthrie, one of the leading John Doe 2 candidates -- though never publicly identified as such -- was found hanging in a prison cell in July 1996. Kenney Trentadue, a man who looked very much like Guthrie, right down to a snake-motif tattoo on one arm, and appears to have been mistaken for him when he was picked up on a parole violation on the Mexican border in the summer of 1995, wound up bloodied and traumatized from head to toe in his cell at a federal detention facility in Oklahoma City. The feds claimed he hanged himself. An inmate who later came forward and claimed he witnessed Trentadue being beaten to death by his interrogators was himself found hanging in a federal prison cell in 2000.
The person who has done most of the recent work in unmasking the mysteries of Oklahoma City is Kenney Trentadue's brother Jesse, a Salt Lake City lawyer who has not only fought to have his brother's death recognized as murder, not suicide, but is also suing the FBI to release a trove of documents that might shed light on the links among McVeigh, Guthrie and a group of Guthrie's associates widely suspected -- at least outside the confines of the Justice Department -- of being McVeigh's bombing accomplices.
Jesse Trentadue has been all over the federal government like a bad case of lice ever since the authorities at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City unsuccessfully tried to arrange for Kenney's battered body to be cremated before the family had had a chance to look at it or even learn what kind of injuries he had sustained. He not only insisted on the family taking receipt of the body, he has also raised question after question about the government's credibility. Jesse has gotten a prison guard to admit under oath that he lied when he testified about seeing Kenney hanging by a bedsheet, gotten the authorities to admit they never told the medical examiner's office that someone else's blood was found in Kenney's cell, and cast compelling doubt on the suicide note Kenney supposedly scrawled in pencil on his cell wall saying he had lost his mind.
Over the years, as the Kenney Trentadue case has become increasingly intertwined with the Oklahoma City bombing case, Jesse Trentadue has won some key allies in both the federal prison bureaucracy and law enforcement. Just over a year ago, a former FBI agent gave him two heavily redacted agency teletypes connecting some of the dots between Richard Guthrie and McVeigh. Trentadue took the documents to federal court to demand unredacted versions, along with any other documents that might shed light on the Guthrie-McVeigh connection [legal briefing]. The legal process is grinding on, but Trentadue has already obtained one key ruling in his favor from U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball and squeezed more than 100 pages of (even more heavily) redacted documents out of the FBI.
All Ears In The Marais
Rainy February morning, Paris -- and no, not that "Paris Of The Midwest," otherwise known as Detroit.
Why Is Sexual Orientation Private?
It's no secret to anyone that I'm heterosexual. Or that Nicole Kidman, Lindsay Lohan and Barbara Bush are. Why should it be a secret that somebody's gay?
I think it's because too many people secretly believe it's wrong or shameful to be gay (naturally, because it was stamped into their brains by religion and a culture that's way too tied to it).
As I've mentioned before, I don't care who you're having sex with; I just hope you're having sex, and enjoying the fuck out of yourself. (Yes, yes, this assumes you're both consenting, and one of you isn't 12.) I saw this link on Romenesko this morning, to an Eric Hegedus column on SFGate about outing celebs:
Five years ago, in New York magazine, writer Maer Roshan opined about the concept of "outing" and the closet that has at various times shielded the personal lives of celebrities such as Rosie O'Donnell, Nathan Lane, Ellen DeGeneres and countless others.He wrote: "Journalists play along in the sincere belief that they are protecting gay people, but in doing so they serve the interests of a few individuals at the expense of the larger community. By dancing around the sexuality of gay public figures, they reduce them to oddly neutered figures."
Unfortunately, this still holds true. A professional sin of omission -- the failure to get all the facts by shying away from asking a newsmaker his or her sexual orientation -- still clouds the media's actions. And in the case of Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir, the problem becomes far more glaring. Stereotype-drenched speculation, gossip and wink-wink hearsay have taken the place of a sound journalistic practice: Asking the pertinent question. In this case, that question is: "Are you gay?"
In perusing news coverage of Weir's fall from competitive grace in the Olympic Games, I felt inundated by an excess of terminology and conjecture that only served to skate around the proverbial pink elephant in the middle of the ice rink.
Via news organizations from the New York Times to the San Jose Mercury News, from ESPN.com to the Washington Post, the public was treated to terminology that included, but was certainly not limited to: Flamboyant. Flashy. Whispers. Extravagant. Eccentric. Theatrical. Tinkerbelle. Chihuahuas. Boa. Masculinity. Effeminate. Flaming. Princessy. Female sport. Girly men. Oddballs. Revelation. Coy. Disclosures. Distraction. Tension. Embarrassing. Uncomfortable. Squirming. Fishnets. Prissy. Lifestyle. Gay style.
It's a lot of flash and stereotypes without substance, all in lieu of posing that obvious question to Weir: "Are you gay?"
I want Isaac Mizrahi on the case here: "Out with it, out with it! We all know you're a fag!"
Sure, there's bigotry associated with one's sexual orientation, but it's helped along by people being secretive about their own sexuality (their choice, of course) and others who pretend not to know. Blacks and other various "people of color" don't have the luxury of hiding their skin color, and increasingly, according to stats I've seen, younger generations are becoming more and more color-blind. Well, not color-blind, exactly, but color-I-don't-give-a-shit, which is, of course, how it should be.
Let's Have A War On Dumb
George Melloan, deputy editor, international, of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, calls for an end to the War On Drugs:
Milton Friedman saw the problem. To the extent that authorities curtail supplies of marijuana, cocaine and heroin coming into the rich U.S. market, the retail price of these substances goes up, making the trade immensely profitable--tax-free, of course. The more the U.S. spends on interdiction, the more incentive it creates for taking the risk of running drugs.In 1933, the U.S. finally gave up on the 13-year prohibition of alcohol--a drug that is by some measures more intoxicating and dangerous to health than marijuana. That effort to alter human behavior left a legacy of corruption, criminality, and deaths and blindness from the drinking of bad booze. America's use of alcohol went up after repeal but no serious person today suggests a repeat of the alcohol experiment. Yet prohibition is still being attempted, at great expense, for the small portion of the population--perhaps little more than 5%--who habitually use proscribed drugs.
Mind-altering drugs do of course cause problems. Their use contributes to crime, automobile accidents, work-force dropouts and family breakups. But the most common contributor to these social problems is not the illegal substances. It is alcohol. Society copes by punishing drunken misbehavior, offering rehabilitation programs and warning youths of the dangers. Most Americans drink moderately, however, creating no problems either for themselves or society.
Education can be an antidote for self-abuse. When it was finally proved that cigarettes were a health risk, smoking by young people dropped off and many started lecturing their parents about that bad habit. LSD came and then went after its dangers became evident. Heroin's addictive and debilitative powers are well-known enough to limit its use to a small population. Private educational programs about the risks of drug abuse have spread throughout the country with good effect.
Some doctors argue that the use of some drugs is too limited. Marijuana can help control nausea after chemotherapy, relieve multiple-sclerosis pain and help patients whose appetites have been lowered to a danger level by AIDS. Morphine, some say, is used too sparingly for easing the terrible pain of terminally ill cancer patients. It is argued that pot and cocaine use by inner-city youths is a self-prescribed medicine for the depression and despair that haunts their existence. Doctors prescribe Prozac for the same problems of the middle class.
So what's the alternative? An army of government employees now makes a living from the drug laws and has a rather conflictive interest in claiming both that the drug laws are working and that more money is needed. The challenge is issued: Do you favor legalization? In fact, most drugs are legal, including alcohol, tobacco and coffee and the great array of modern, life-saving drugs administered by doctors. To be precise, the question should be do you favor legalization or decriminalization of the sale and use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines?
A large percentage of Americans will probably say no, mainly because they are law-abiding people who maintain high moral and ethical standards and don't want to surrender to a small minority that flouts the laws, whether in the ghettos of Washington D.C. or Beverly Hills salons. The concern about damaging society's fabric is legitimate. But another question needs to be asked: Is that fabric being damaged now?
Bush Out Of Our Cooters!
Via a site I just love, PerezHilton, a fab poster from Jonathan Myers and Strut Productions:
Attention George Bush: Up yours -- outa mine!
Free Speech, Stalin-Style
Cathy Seipp writes in the LA Times on the hypocrisy of people who stand for (kinda-sorta) free speech:
A FRIEND OF MINE took his young daughter to visit the famous City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, explaining to her that the place is important because years ago it sold books no other store would — even, perhaps especially, books whose ideas many people found offensive.So, although my friend is no fan of Ward Churchill, the faux Indian and discredited professor who notoriously called 9/11 victims "little Eichmanns," he didn't really mind seeing piles of Churchill's books prominently displayed on a table as he walked in.
However, it did occur to him that perhaps the long-delayed English translation of Oriana Fallaci's new book, The Force of Reason, might finally be available, and that because Fallaci's militant stance against Islamic militants offends so many people, a store committed to selling banned books would be the perfect place to buy it. So he asked a clerk if the new Fallaci book was in yet.
"No," snapped the clerk. "We don't carry books by fascists."
Now let's just savor the absurd details of this for a minute. City Lights has a long and proud history of supporting banned authors — owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti was indicted (and acquitted) for obscenity in 1957 for selling Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," and a photo at the bookstore showed Ferlinghetti proudly posing next to a sign reading "banned books."
Yet his store won't carry, of all people, Fallaci, who is not only being sued in Italy for insulting religion because of her latest book but continues to fight the good fight against those who think that the appropriate response to offensive books and cartoons is violent riots. It's particularly repugnant that someone who fought against actual fascism in World War II should be deemed a fascist by a snotty San Francisco clerk.
Strangest of all is the scenario of such a person disliking an author for defending Western civilization against radical Islam — when one of the first things those poor, persecuted Islamists would do, if they ever (Allah forbid) came to power in the United States, is crush suspected homosexuals like him beneath walls.
Yet those most oppressed by political Islam continue to defend it, even (perhaps especially) in the wake of the Danish cartoon furor. I've heard that in Europe this phenomenon is now called the Copenhagen syndrome, and some of its arguments really are amazing.
What's stupid of these people is that by airing different points of view, you advance the public discussion of issues. Ugly doesn't go away if you sweep it under the rug. What I find most offensive is suppression of speech -- whether it's out of "respect" for those who practice some primitive religion or the sick "team spirit" exhibited by the people at City Lights books.
In the words of H.L. Mencken: "The most curious social convention is that religious opinions should be respected."
And in the words of John Morley: "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."
(both quotes from a photo on AndrewSullivan.com)
Death Is More Cost-Effective
David Leonhardt writes in The New York Times that doctors have little incentive to go that extra mile and come up with the correct diagnosis. In one case, after blood tests, doctors diagnosed leukemia in a little boy, and started him on a strong course of chemo:
What the doctors didn't know was that the boy had a rare form of the disease that chemotherapy does not cure. It makes the symptoms go away for a month or so, but then they return. Worst of all, each round of chemotherapy would bring a serious risk of death, since he was already so weak.With all the tools available to modern medicine — the blood tests and M.R.I.'s and endoscopes — you might think that misdiagnosis has become a rare thing. But you would be wrong. Studies of autopsies have shown that doctors seriously misdiagnose fatal illnesses about 20 percent of the time. So millions of patients are being treated for the wrong disease.
... Joseph Britto, a former intensive-care doctor, likes to compare medicine's attitude toward mistakes with the airline industry's. At the insistence of pilots, who have the ultimate incentive not to mess up, airlines have studied their errors and nearly eliminated crashes.
"Unlike pilots," Dr. Britto said, "doctors don't go down with their planes."
Dr. Britto was working at a London hospital in 1999 when doctors diagnosed chicken pox in a little girl named Isabel Maude. Only when her organs began shutting down did her doctors realize that she had a potentially fatal flesh-eating infection. Isabel's father, Jason, was so shaken by the experience that he quit his finance job and founded a company — named after his daughter, who is a healthy 10-year-old today — to fight misdiagnosis.
The company sells software that allows doctors to type in a patient's symptoms and, in response, spits out a list of possible causes. It does not replace doctors, but makes sure they can consider some unobvious possibilities that they may not have seen since medical school. Dr. Britto is a top executive.
Not long after the founding of Isabel Healthcare, Dr. Bergsagel in Atlanta stumbled across an article about it and asked to be one of the beta testers. So on that Monday morning, when he couldn't get the inconsistencies in the boy's case out of his mind, he sat down at a computer in a little white room, behind a nurse's station, and entered the symptoms.
Near the top of Isabel's list was a rare form of leukemia that Dr. Bergsagel had never seen before — and that often causes brown skin spots. "It was very much a Eureka moment," he said.
There is no happy ending to the story, because this leukemia has much longer odds than more common kinds. But the boy was spared the misery of pointless chemotherapy and was instead given the only chance he had, a bone marrow transplant. He lived another year and a half.
Today, Dr. Bergsagel uses Isabel a few times a month. The company continues to give him free access. But his colleagues at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta can't use it. The hospital has not bought the service, which costs $80,000 a year for a typical hospital (and $750 for an individual doctor).
Clearly, misdiagnosis costs far more than that. But in the current health care system, hospitals have no way to recoup money they spend on programs like Isabel.
We patients, on the other hand, foot the bill for all those wasted procedures and pointless drugs. So we keep getting them. Does that make any sense?
Place Des Grises
That translates to "Place Of Grays." But, really, it's Place Des Vosges, a beautiful square in Paris' 4th arrondissement, on my last misty morning in town.
I Am Kate Braverman, Hear Me Roar
There was a profile by Anne-Marie O'Connor in the LA Times of the very arrogant Kate Braverman:
"I'm not just another writer. I don't think people understand my relationship with this city, and they don't understand what I've achieved," Braverman declares, as she sits in Guelaguetza, the Oaxacan mole mecca, near her childhood haunts in Mar Vista.She's dressed in a black flamenco-style skirt, with black-stiletto-heeled boots, and a long black coat with flame-red trim — a style the San Francisco Chronicle described as "Morticia Addams gone gypsy." Her eyelids and earrings are dusted with gold.
"There is not another woman writer in Southern California who sits between Bellow and Conrad next to Hemingway and Kafka. I have the most literary stature, certainly, of any woman in Southern California," Braverman says — a view that might not be held by fans of such writers as Joan Didion, Carolyn See or Alice Sebold.
"What is the disconnect that has occurred between me and Los Angeles throughout my career?" she asked, as she prepared to unveil her latest book, "Frantic Transmissions to and From Los Angeles," which details the geographical dislocation that she said pushed her away.
Her new book, which just won the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, traces how the geography of Los Angeles slowly but surely pulls people apart. She describes a city in which freeways qualify as public space, and fail to knit together a city divided by race and class.
It was the lack of recognition that made her leave Los Angeles 10 years ago, she said and an inhospitable geography that explains "why Los Angeles doesn't have a literary scene like New York and San Francisco." There, she said, "everything is within a plausible distance. There you can say, 'I'll go to your reading.' "
In the years since Braverman has been away, a literary scene has coalesced in Los Angeles. Writers who blossomed in Braverman's workshop are now well known in Los Angeles literary circles. Some of her former students, notably Janet Fitch, author of "White Oleander," have become nationally known authors. Many Los Angeles writers freely volunteer their debt to her.
"Of course they admire me," she responds. "They wouldn't exist without me."
"I am in the canon. Those other people will never be in the canon."
I hadn't read her stuff before. I looked up her work and found this short story, Mrs. Jordan's Summer Vacation, which won the Editor's Choice Raymond Carver Short Story Award. She makes the literary stuff work. Few people do. "Arrogance with portfolio," they call that.
Focus On The Family
This particular family happens to be very hateful and homophobic. Ben Akerley, author of the hilarious X-Rated Bible, writes:
Predictably, Colorado Springs-based, traditional fundamentalist-values-centered Focus on the Family has launched still another salvo against Brokeback Mountain. They have sent unsolicited faxes to movie critics throughout the country warning that the flick is having harmful effects on gays trying to go straight. (Puh-leeze!) As self-appointed leaders in the oxymoronically titled Ex-Gay Ministries movement, they seriously need to examine the fundamentally-flawed premise of their religious crusade: reparative therapy. This nomenclature especially offends happy-as-we-are gays becaure reparative therapy by definition implies that something (unchangeable sexual orientation) needs to be altered. But honey, as the old adage continually reminds us, if it ain't broke, please don't try to fix it! --Gayly yours, Ben Edward Akerley
The Most Fun You Can Have And Still Be An Inanimate Object
The Least Fun You Can Have At All
Asian woman who shouted into her cell phone while in store. (Guy in background was an innocent bystander.)
The Economic Costs Of The Iraq War
So, we haven't found Osama, and we've just made this massive mess in Iraq that looks, by all accounts, to be a gift that's gonna keep on giving, and at what price -- not just in the lives of our soldiers, but in dollars, and not just dollars now, but future costs? This paper, The Economic Costs of the Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years After the Beginning of the Conflict, by Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz says:
This paper attempts to provide a more complete reckoning of the costs of the Iraq War, using standard economic and accounting/budgetary frameworks. As of December 30, 2005, total spending for combat and support operations in Iraq is $251bn, and the CBO's estimates put the projected total direct costs at around $500bn. These figures, however, greatly underestimate the War's true costs. We estimate a range of present and future costs, by including expenditures not in the $500bn CBO projection, such as lifetime healthcare and disability payments to returning veterans, replenishment of military hardware, and increased recruitment costs. We then make adjustments to reflect the social costs of the resources deployed, (e.g. reserve pay is less than the opportunity wage and disability pay is less than forgone earnings). Finally, we estimate the effects of the war on the overall performance of the economy. Even taking a conservative approach and assuming all US troops return by 2010, we believe the true costs exceed a trillion dollars. Using the CBO's projection of maintaining troops in Iraq through 2015, the true costs may exceed $2 trillion. In either case, the cost is much larger than the administration's original estimate of $50-$60bn. The costs estimated do not include those borne by other countries, either directly (military expenditures) or indirectly (the increased price of oil). Most importantly, we have not included the costs to Iraq, either in terms of destruction of infrastructure or the loss of lives. These would all clearly raise the costs significantly.
Dole's Role
Guess who's selling America out?
The lobbying of former Senate majority leader Robert J. Dole on behalf of the Dubai-owned company set to take over management of terminals at six major U.S. seaports is creating a political problem for his wife, Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.).The chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, Jerry Meek, yesterday called on Sen. Dole to remove herself from "any congressional oversight" of the Dubai port deal. "The fact that Dubai is paying her husband to help pass the deal presents both a financial and ethical conflict of interest for Senator Dole," Meek said.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Dole rejected the criticism as "a partisan attack"...
Yeah, by bleeding-heart lefty partisans like Michelle Malkin. Wake me up when all the people we elect or have elected finish selling off the country.
Parsing The Sleaze, Right And Left
I love this little correction from MSNBC about Senate Dem bigwig Harry Reid and his involvement in L'Affaire Ambramoff:
MSNBC's Witt falsely claimed Reid received campaign contributions from Abramoff
Summary: MSNBC Live anchor Alex Witt falsely claimed that Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid received political contributions from former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.On the February 10 edition of MSNBC Live, anchor Alex Witt falsely claimed that Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) "collected nearly $68,000 in campaign contributions" from former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In fact, as Media Matters for America has previously noted, a Center for Responsive Politics breakdown of Abramoff's donations shows that Abramoff made contributions only to Republicans, not Democrats.
The $68,000 figure that Witt cited, in fact, refers to contributions Reid received from Abramoff partners and clients, but not Abramoff himself.
Oh, well that changes everything!
From the 1 p.m. ET hour of the February 10 edition of MSNBC Live:
WITT: Now, records show that Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid had closer ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff than initially thought. The documents show Reid wrote at least four letters to Indian tribes represented by Abramoff, and his staff was in close contact with the lobbyist's office. Reid collected nearly $68,000 in campaign contributions from Abramoff over three years. Reid has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Why not?
AOL Claims And Reality
The reality: 5:21am, PST, AOL is "unable to send mail" at this time. "Please try again later." Great...thanks. Which brings me to an email I got, entitled "AOL CLAIMS AND REALITY":
CLAIM: Nothing would change for non-paying email senders. This is just an extra service for paying senders.FACT: AOL currently has a financial incentive to put top-notch maintenance into their free email system and make sure legitimate emails don't wind up in spam filters. This helps everyone--corporate senders, non-profit senders, and regular senders. The moment AOL switches to a world where giant emailers pay for preferential treatment, AOL faces this internal choice: spend money to keep spam filters up-to-date so legitimate email isn't identified as spam, or make money by neglecting their spam filters and pushing more senders to pay for guaranteed delivery. Despite their denials that things will change for regular email senders, which choice do you think they'll choose?
CLAIM: Charging a fee will help deter spammers.
FACT: AOL hasn't officially made this claim, but they've let it be implied in news articles and it's completely untrue. AOL's "email tax" would not prevent giant senders from sending email, especially since many of these same senders are willing to pay a lot more money to send advertisements through the postal service. AOL's pay-to-send system would actually make it a sweeter deal for them to send masss emails - giving guaranteed delivery to people's inboxes with a preferential high-priority designation. Additionally, those who break the rules and spam recklessly right now have no incentive to reduce spamming because of AOL's proposed policy.
CLAIM: This is not an "email tax."
FACT: If AOL has its way, the only way to guarantee mail is being delivered will be to pay. For email senders, it amounts to an email tax--except the money goes to AOL instead of the government.
CLAIM: This MoveOn email is a hoax, we will not charge email senders.
It most definitely is not a hoax, and the charge to email senders has been publicly announced in the New York Times, the Associated Press, and other media outlets.
"Postage is due for companies sending e-mail," New York Times, February 4,
2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1453"Yahoo and AOL to Charge Some E-Mail Senders," Associated Press, February 6,
2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1466
HERE'S A SAMPLE MESSAGE TO SEND TO YOUR FRIENDS:Subject: Stop AOL's email scheme
Hi,
I just signed an important online petition because the very existence of online civic participation and the free Internet as we know it are under attack by America Online, and we need to fight back quickly.
The petition's at:
http://civic.moveon.org/emailtax/
AOL recently announced what amounts to an "email tax." Under this pay-to-send system, large emailers willing to pay an "email tax" can bypass spam filters and get guaranteed access to people's inboxes--with their messages having a preferential high-priority designation.
Charities, small businesses, civic organizing groups, and even families with mailing lists will inevitably be left with inferior Internet service unless they are willing to pay the "email tax" to AOL.
The petition says: "AOL, don't auction off preferential access to people's inboxes to giant emailers, while leaving people's friends, families, and favorite causes wondering if their emails are being delivered at all. The Internet is a force for democracy and economic innovation only because it is open to all Internet users equally--we must not let it become an unlevel playing field."
AOL's proposed pay-to-send system is the first step down the slippery slope toward dividing the Internet into two classes of users--those who get preferential treatment and those who are left behind. We must preserve the Internet for everybody.
Can you sign this emergency petition to America Online?
http://civic.moveon.org/emailtax/
Thanks!
And no, don't waste your finger energy typing. I generally like AOL -- except for this. Been on since the early 90s. But, I will seriously consider dumping it if this goes through. For the reasons above.
Where Sci-Fi Meets Butter Cookies
Swedish Christmas, by Catarina Lundgren Astrom and Peter Arnstrom, who may write a good cookbook but apparently are entirely lacking in irony.
Hey, Bush Voters!
Yeah, I'm talking to you -- all you people who said the right to an abortion would be maintained no matter which of the two clowns who ran in the election won. Lookee, lookee, at South Dakota:
Legislation meant to prompt a national legal battle targeting Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, was approved Wednesday by the South Dakota Senate, moving the bill a step closer to final passage.The measure, which would ban nearly all abortions in the state, now returns to the House, which passed a different version earlier. The House must decide whether to accept changes made by the Senate, which passed its version 23-12.
"It is the time for the South Dakota Legislature to deal with this issue and protect the lives and rights of unborn children," said Democratic Sen. Julie Bartling, the bill's main sponsor.
Hey, Senator Religion-For-Brains, a scraping of cells is not an unborn child. I happen to find abortion troubling and something to be prevented with free access to birth control (over asinine "abstinence" promotion)...but lemme tell you how fast I'd run to an abortion clinic to get the cells scraped out if I did get pregnant.
For anybody who thinks voting for phony conservative Bush ("conservative" only in that he's a religious nutter, and votes accordingly) was no big deal, thanks a bunch. Kerry is a creep and was a terrible alternative, but I'll always vote against fundamentalism when given a chance.
"Is Bush Tone Deaf Or Brain Dead?"
The pundit posse usually in GWB's camp is none-too-thrilled with the ports deal, writes syndicates columnist David Astor in Editor & Publisher:
Michelle Malkin of Creators Syndicate called the port decision "boneheaded," and added: "I stand with critics on both sides of the aisle who want to stop the secretive deal transferring operations of our ports to the UAE -- a Middle Eastern government with a spotty record of fighting terrorist plots and terrorist financing. ... From every angle -- political, safety, and sovereignty-wise -- Dubai Ports World's business transaction ... looks bad and smells worse."Malkin did strongly criticize Democrats who opposed "nationality profiling" in the past for supporting it in this instance.
Another Creators columnist, Joseph Farah, wrote: "I don't know what's crazier and more politically inept -- the original decision to contract the management of six major U.S. ports ... or the White House's continued defense of the idea in the face of overwhelming criticism. You tell me: Is Bush tone deaf or brain dead?"
He added: "It's insanity. It's political correctness gone mad. Only a suicidal nation, or one that has lost touch with reality, would take such an irresponsible step. ... Even those who would, under other circumstances, say it is 'ethnic profiling' to disallow an Arab company from guarding and administering our ports are ready to ride the wave of popular opinion on this one. And this American of Arabic ancestry is joining them."
Welcome To The Henhouse, Mr. Fox!
George Bush is going for his veto pen, it seems, for the very first time since he got into The White House, in order to take a stand for...Arab control of our ports? The New York Times Op-Ed page says:
If President Bush follows through on his threat, he'll be making a strange choice for his first veto after more than five years in office. After giving a pass to a parade of misbegotten Congressional initiatives and irresponsible budget packages, he'd be choosing to take a stand over the right to hand control of operations at major American ports to a company based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and controlled by that government.... The issue is not, as Mr. Bush is now claiming, a question of bias against a Middle Eastern company. The United Arab Emirates is an ally, but its record in the war on terror is mixed. It is not irrational for the United States to resist putting port operations, perhaps the most vulnerable part of the security infrastructure, under that country's control. And there is nothing in the Homeland Security Department's record to make doubters feel confident in its assurances that all proper precautions will be taken.
The Bush administration has followed a disturbing pattern in its approach to the war on terror. It has been perpetually willing to sacrifice individual rights in favor of security. But it has been loath to do the same thing when it comes to business interests. It has not imposed reasonable safety requirements on chemical plants, one of the nation's greatest points of vulnerability, or on the transport of toxic materials. The ports deal is another decision that has made the corporations involved happy, and has made ordinary Americans worry about whether they are being adequately protected.
Fooling You Into Food Poisoning
The latest creepazoids in the marketplace are in the supermarketplace -- in the meat section:
Shoppers who judge the freshness of meat by its color may be deceived by a relatively new industry practice of treating meat with carbon monoxide, critics say.The meat industry defends the use of carbon monoxide to help meat retain its pink hue, saying large sums of money are wasted when sellers throw away meat that is still safe to eat but is not as attractive because it is slightly brown.
"Color is the number one indicator that's used" in selecting meat, said Don Berdahl, vice president of Kalsec Inc., a maker of natural food extracts in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In November, Kalsec filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration seeking a ban on the use of carbon monoxide in meat packaging.
Berdahl said Tuesday that carbon monoxide-treated meat could be left on the kitchen counter for five days and would still look bright red and fresh. Carbon monoxide "also suppresses bad odors and the presence of slime, other telltale signs that meat is spoiled," Kalsec's petition said.
The petition said treated meat could hide the growth of pathogens such as Clostridium botulinum, Salmonella and E. coli.
Berdahl acknowledged that his company has a business interest in protesting the practice. But consumer groups, while agreeing that carbon monoxide in itself is not a health risk, are concerned that meat buyers will focus on the color and ignore expiration dates and other signs that meat is no longer edible.
Yay, botulism! Mmm-mmm good! How about you leave the meat in its natural state and discount it according to the brown color and shiny greenish patches on it, and give me the decision-making power over whether I want to chance spending three days huddled over the toilet to save $1.34?
The Thoreau Less Traveled
Via Lena, this great Thoreau quote:
"Men talk about Bible miracles because there is no miracle in their lives. Cease to gnaw that crust. There is ripe fruit over your head."
Reality Bedding
The reality is, you're not going to get laid if a girl walks into your bedroom and sees this comforter. Agree with me? Disagree?
Just Lemme At The Camera-Thieving Scumbags
Via BoingBoing, a woman loses her camera in Hawaii. Happy ending -- for a moment -- the camera is found. The problem is, the kid who's been using it has become attached to it, his mommy says, and won't be giving it up. Here's the woman's post:
I got a call from an excited park ranger in Hawaii that "a nice Canadian couple reported that they found your camera!" She gave me their name and number, and I eagerly called to reclaim my camera."Hello," I said, when I reached the woman who had reported the camera found, "I got your number from the park ranger, it seems you have my camera?"
We discussed the specifics of the camera, the brown pouch it was in, the spare battery and memory card, the yellow rubberband around the camera. It was clear it was my camera, and I was thrilled.
"Well," she said, "we have a bit of a situation. You see, my nine year old son found your camera, and we wanted to show him to do the right thing, so we called, but now he's been using it for a week and he really loves it and we can't bear to take it from him."
I listened, not sure where she was going with this.
"And he was recently diagnosed with diabetes, and he's now convinced he has bad luck, and finding the camera was good luck, and so we can't tell him that he has to give it up. Also we had to spend a lot of money to get a charger and a memory card."
It started to dawn on me that she had no intention of returning the camera.
"We'd be happy to return your photographs..."
I was incredulous. "This is an expensive camera, you know."
"Oh, we know, we looked it up."
"I was hoping to offer a reward for it, but I was also hoping to get my camera back."
Silence. It is now clear I will never see the camera again. I'm shocked at what seems like an utter moral failure on her part, despite her claim to want to "do the right thing."
"Ok," I say. "Why don't you send me my memory cards, and, say, $50 and we'll call it even."
I give her my address.
I don't hear from her for nearly two weeks. Friends suggest filing a police report.
Finally, I get a package in the mail.
"Enclosed are some CDs with your images on them. We need the memory cards to operate the camera properly."
I call, furious. "I was shocked to get your package today. Our agreement was that you were to send me my memory cards, not that you would keep an additional $120 worth of my property on top of the valuable camera you already chose not to return."
"You're lucky we sent you anything at all. Most people wouldn't do that." We go back and forth a bit more. She eventually hangs up on me. I call the police department in her town (in Canada) but they tell me that it's a U.S. issue, since that's where the property was lost.
I am out $500 and some measure of faith in humanity.
I do, however, have the photos. Thanks again to the Flickr community for loaning me yours in the interim.
There are hundreds of comments on the blog item, most of them supportive. Then there are a few assclowns who post stuff like this:
You know, bad things happen to good people all the time but why the internet community has to rally over the loss of one person's 600 dollars is beyond me.
My response to this commenter, which I posted in her comments section:
Why? Because people do this because they feel they can get away with it. Every action like this one makes it less likely this will happen again. You can't make unethical people ethical, but you can make them fear social opprobrium for behaving unethically and thus cause them to keep their natural scumbagginess in check.I just want their names and phone number. I'll make the first call to tell them what pigs they are. Moreover, according to your description of them, they're clearly unfit parents, and should have their child taken from them and placed in foster care.
Citizens Against Pickpockets
A band of citizens in Venice, Italy, putting the pickpockets out of business. Benjamin Sutherland writes on Slate:
Anton Faur is a migrant pickpocket. When he recently showed up for work in Venice, his hopes were high: Every year, around 12 million tourists throng and jostle through the city's narrow streets. This time, though, the target-rich environment didn't bear fruit. In just five days, the 17-year-old Romanian was arrested twice. "Venice is beautiful, but not for work," he complained as police booked him.But it wasn't the police who caught him. Faur was nabbed both times by a civilian antipickpocket patrol called Cittadini Non Distratti, or Undistracted Citizens. Members, who call themselves "Citizens," walk around Venice looking for pickpockets. As thievery spikes during Carnival, when tipsy tourists mob the streets, the group increases patrols. The Cittadini Non Distratti look for a number of giveaways. Most pickpockets are men, they travel in small division-of-labor teams behind tourists, they stop when tourists stop, and their eyes concentrate on vulnerable pockets and bags—not gondolas and pretty buildings. The presence of a teenager is another clue (minors risk lighter punishment). Sudden distractions are an even bigger tip-off: directions sought by a map-wielding questioner, food spilled on a tourist by an apologetic stranger, a heated argument that diverts attention.
More than 200 Venetians have paid a nominal fee for a Cittadini Non Distratti membership card (considerably fewer walk regular beats). The group's cat-and-mouse game is legal, as long as members are unarmed and grab suspects only after they've slipped a hand into another's pocket. They must then call the cops immediately. Police Officer Gianni Franzoi, head of Venice's street-crime unit, fields most of those calls—a handful every day. The police were initially leery of what they thought might be a vigilante group targeting foreigners (in Venice, 96 percent of arrested pickpockets come from outside the European Union). But the police soon warmed up. "After a while they realized we were doing things in a civic way, not because of racism," says member Franco Dei Rossi, a street artist who on one recent day jumped out from behind his easel four times to foil thefts. Says Franzoi: "They're sharp, they can recognize suspicious people." Franzoi, who complains of being understaffed, is proud of his "precious" volunteers.
City Hall is not. The city has refused Cittadini Non Distratti's requests for official recognition and logistical support. "It's do-it-yourself justice; it's a negative gunslinger culture," says Giuseppe Caccia, until recently Venice's deputy mayor for social affairs. That remark belies what is likely a greater concern: embarrassment. City Hall officials privately acknowledge that the para-police group is bad PR, leading some to think that the city can't adequately protect Venice's lifeblood—its tourists.
The Cittadini couldn't care less about damaging City Hall's image. "The government isn't efficient, so as a citizen you rebel," says Flavio Gastaldi, who works in a souvenir shop called La Gondola near Saint Mark's Square, a favorite spot for pickpockets. According to a city official, pickpocketing is down by half from last year's level.
Consenting Adults Saved By The Videotape
A woman cries rape -- a charge that could have put a number of men in jail -- but for the videotape. From a story by R. Scott Moxley in the OC Weekly:
You’ll never convince six lucky Orange County guys that porn is bad: a single raunchy sex video is keeping them out of prison. Of course, these 20-year-olds couldn’t have foreseen this fate when they filmed their wild gangbang after a night of drinking at a Fullerton bar.This tale begins in the wee hours of June 6, 2004, when a distraught Tamara Anne Moonier entered a Fullerton police station. She said she’d been kidnapped a few hours earlier from a parking lot at Heroes Bar & Grill, hooded and driven to an unknown residence. Moonier, then 28, told police that a group of men brutally raped her at gunpoint for more than an hour, forced her to perform numerous degrading sex acts on film, demanded her silence and then released her.
“She said she feared for her safety,” a law-enforcement officer told the Weekly.
With money from a victims’ assistance program, Moonier immediately moved from her Fullerton apartment to Dana Point. Meanwhile, alarmed police detectives used her descriptions to launch a manhunt. Within about a week of the alleged crime, Moonier had picked one of the suspects out of a photographic lineup. Eventually all of the men were identified.
But Fullerton police refused to file charges. The suspects had voluntarily turned over the sex video Moonier had described. It showed no gun, no threats of violence and no force.
In fact, the woman not only directed action at times but complimented penis sizes, complained about the lighting, nonchalantly took a cell phone call during the gangbang, yelled, “Get it up!” when some of the men lost their erections, called herself a slut and demanded ejaculations—in her mouth.
She also laughed at least 27 times during the sex, moaned intensely when she wasn’t laughing and cheered the men to sexual heroics with, “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”
“I just like sex,” Moonier said at one point on the tape. “I can’t help it.”
Deputy District Attorney Paul J. Chrisopoulos will use the homemade video as Exhibit 1 in his case against Moonier. Last summer, the Orange County grand jury, mostly retired folks, had the thrill (if you want to call it that) of watching the exploits of this petite mother of two children, then toddlers. They indicted her for filing false police reports, committing perjury and stealing funds from a taxpayer-funded victims’ program.
Airline Pricing Gets Transparent
Well, it will, soon, with a soon-to-be-launched service called Flyspy (sadly, still in beta at the moment). From TechCrunch, who's tested it:
The way it works is that I give it a departure city and a destination city and optionally a departure date and length of stay. The search result, which returns very quickly, will present me with a graph of flight prices over the next 30 days so that I can quickly look at which days are the cheapest to fly. To book a flight I just click on the point in the graph. Simple.If I am trying to decide which destination is cheaper, I can overlay another airport on the graph and then compare the results. In the screenshot you can see that it has plotted the prices for arriving in both San Francisco and San Jose. The end result is that in very little time I can find the best day to fly out, the best price and also the best destination.
Flyspy has all the right elements – a good idea, a simple user interface and an immediate value proposition for the user. Even better, it takes an industry that is stuck in the old times and shakes it up...
via Consumerist
quibble...QUIBBLE!
Waaah, waaah! They're offering hybrid owners teeeeeenie weeeeenie tax breaks. Plus, we get to drive in the carpool lanes and park free in the city of Los Angeles! (Naturally, the complaint about perks to hybrid owners in the LA Times by Irvine's Lisa Margonelli only mentions the free parking out of town, in San Jose.) Here's more of her plaintive cry against hybrid "goodie bags":
IF I'D BOUGHT a Toyota Prius on Jan. 1, I could collect a $3,150 tax credit from the federal government, use carpool lanes in California, park for free in San Jose and receive a 10% break on insurance from St. Paul Travelers. But are dazzling goodie bags for hybrid-vehicle owners the best way to conserve energy — and thereby cut gas prices — in California?Hybrids show that gas conservation can be kick-started by a coalition of the willing. But two things about drivers of hybrids stand out: They usually make more than $100,000 a year, and they drive less than average drivers. What's more, California has more hybrid cars than any other state and, as of Jan. 4, it had only 80,580 registered — out of 33 million vehicles on the road.
Subsidies for hybrids reward a few well-off drivers but don't do much for the rest of us who try to conserve gas.Consider the irony. If I spent $10,000 to $12,000 on a 2005 Toyota Echo, which gets 35 miles per gallon in the city and 42 mpg on the highway, I'd get better gas mileage than seven of the 11 hybrids eligible for federal tax rebates.
So imagine if the impulse to reward gas savers were extended to the average person. If California forgave new vehicle registration taxes for cars getting more than 30 mpg, we'd all benefit.
Imagine the impulse to stop buying SUVs -- if the idiots we elect to run our country weren't doling out $25,000 tax breaks to small business owners who buy battleships on wheels. Who pays the cost to our residential streets of 6,000 lb. vehicles tooling around. Oh, well, that would be us -- as in, the rest of us. Isn't that special?
FYI, for my Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle, the 2004 Honda Insight, 1900 lbs, and 66mpg hwy, I got a $2,000 tax break.
Wal-mART
Terrific Rebecca Solnit piece in Sunday's LA Times Currents section on the Asher B. Durand painting, "Kindred Spirits" (photo of painting here), and the contradictions between its subject matter and the business practices of its current owner:
IT ISN'T THAT when Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton purchased Asher B. Durand's 1849 painting "Kindred Spirits" last year she got the state of Arkansas to pass legislation specifically to save her taxes — in this case, about $3 million on a purchase of $35 million. It isn't that Walton — the world's richest woman and thirteenth-richest person (with a net worth of $18 billion, according to Forbes magazine) — scooped the painting out from under the National Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which had banded together to try to keep it in a public collection when the New York Public Library decided to sell it off....The trouble lies in what the painting means and what Walton and her $18 billion mean. Art patronage has always been a kind of money-laundering, a pretty public face for fortunes made in uglier ways. The superb Rockefeller folk art collections in several American museums don't include paintings of the 1914 Ludlow Massacre of miners in Colorado, carried out by Rockefeller goons, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in L.A. doesn't say a thing about oil. But something about Wal-Mart and "Kindred Spirits" is worse, perhaps because, more than many works of art, Durand's painting is a touchstone for a set of American ideals that Wal-Mart has been savaging.
"Kindred Spirits" portrays Durand's friend, the great landscape painter Thomas Cole, with his friend, the poet and editor William Cullen Bryant. The two stand on a projecting rock above a cataract in the Catskills, bathed like all the trees and air around them in golden light. The painting is about friendship freely given, including a sense of friendship, even passion, for the American landscape itself. In the work of Cole, Durand and Bryant, as in the writing of Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, you can see an emerging belief that the love of nature, beauty, truth and freedom are naturally allied, a romantic vision that still lingers as one of the most idealistic versions of what it means to be an American.
Cole was almost the first American painter to see the possibilities in American landscapes, to see that meaning could grow in a place not yet full of ruins and historical associations, and so he became an advocate for wilderness nearly half a century before California's John Muir took up the calling.
Bryant had gained a reputation as a poet before he became editor-in-chief of the New York Evening Post. He defended striking tailors in 1836, long before there was a union movement, and was ever after a champion of freedom and human rights, turning his newspaper into an antislavery mouthpiece. He was an early supporter of Abraham Lincoln and of the projects that resulted in New York's Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum — of a democratic urban culture that believed in the uplifting power of nature and of free access.
"Kindred Spirits" was commissioned by the wealthy dry-goods merchant Jonathan Sturges as a gift for Bryant in commemoration of his beautiful eulogy for Cole, who died suddenly in 1848. Bryant left it to his daughter, Julia, who gave it in 1904 to what became the New York Public Library. It was never a commodity exchanged between strangers until the library, claiming financial need, put it up for sale last year. So now a portrait of antislavery and wilderness advocates belongs to a woman whose profits came from degrading working conditions and ravaging the North American landscape.
MAYBE THE problem is that the Crystal Bridges museum seems like a false front for Wal-Mart, a made-in-America handicrafted artifact of idealism for a corporation that is none of the above. The museum will, as such institutions do, attempt to associate the Wal-Mart billionairess with high culture, American history, beautifully crafted objects — a host of ideals and pleasures a long way from what you find inside the blank, slabby box of a Wal-Mart. One of the privileges of wealth is buying yourself out of the situation you help to make, so that the wealthy who advocate for environmental deregulation, for instance, then install water purifiers or stock up on cases of Perrier, and those who advocate for small government hire their own security forces and send their children to private schools.
Are You A Drooling Dipshit? Check Yes or No.
I can't remember if I've posted on this before, or just read about it, but you gotta love the U.S. Non-Immigrant Visa application they give out on the plane to non-citizens entering the U.S. One of the Scandinavian guys sitting near me on the plane showed me the questions on his form, which he found hilarious, and which I photographed.
I was worried that it was illegal to publish this, then I found the whole form right here on the Internet -- for anybody who needs a little remedial education to know whether they should tell the guy with the buzz cut at Customs that they might be carrying the Avian flu or that they're just taking a little mini-vacation from the rigors of running a child prostitution ring in Thailand.
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Via Consumerist, a guy goes to Best Buy and bypasses the receipt-checking door guard. Now, there is an argument that prices can remain low because a store is able to guard against theft by this method (even if they do lie to you and tell you it's for your "protection"). Then again, I'm no thief and I resent being treated like one. Here's how this guy dealt with it:
After being convinced that I'm not going to budge from my decision and trekking off to what must've been the end of the earth to retrieve my box, I'm told that these items must be checked out at the counter I'm standing in front of. Before he will even take my credit card, though, I have to fill out my name, address, etc on three different forms which then get laboriously typed into the register. By the time we're through the repeated sales pitch on the extended warranty and the inspection of the contents of my purchases, I'm in what might be considered a hurry to leave.So when I'm faced with the prospect of standing in a long line at the exit to have yet another person rifle through my property, I dodge the line and head for an unused automatic door, countering an insistent "Sir, can I see your receipt?" with a polite "No, thank you."
I've gotten so used to this trick at Fry's Electronics that I don't really think twice about it. You see, Fry's doesn't trust their underpaid staff manning the cash registers to actually do their jobs right, so they post a door guard to ask people walking away from the registers carrying plastic bags to let them verify that all of the items in the bag were rung up on the receipt.
But this verification step is purely voluntary. Merchants basically have two rights covering people entering and exiting their stores. They can refuse to let you enter the premises and/or to sell you anything, and they can place you under citizens arrest for attempting to leave the premises with any property that you haven't paid for. But the second you hand over the appropriate amount of cash, they lose all rights to the items. They can't legally impair you from leaving the store with your property.
Apparently the employees of my local Best Buy aren't very familiar with annoying pedantic individuals who will choose principals over convenience when walking out with a shopping cart full of expensive home entertainment gear. I manage to get about 5 steps out the door before the door guard catches up to me and grabs my cart, with the "sir" in his "I need to see your receipt, sir" somehow not very complimentary. This is apparently a stalling tactic, as shortly a few more blue-shirted employees make a move to block me from making any more progress toward my car.
I ask, still calm, if I am being detained for shoplifting. This suggestion apparently shocks my captor into regaining some of his senses, and he lets go of my cart. I explain that unless he wishes to do so, he has no right to stop me.
This is clearly baffling to the poor fellow. He suggests again that my receipt simply needs to be checked, struggling to grasp why it is that I won't just be a nice little customer and submit to the store policy. I spend a few moments trying to explain myself, but clearly have too much adrenaline flowing at this point to be particularly erudite. I give up and proceed in the direction of my car.
Shortly a yellow-shirted fellow, who I take to be a managerial-type, again tries to plead a case for the receipt-checking. I ask again if I'm being detained for shoplifting. He says no, but shortly thereafter mentions that he'll need to call the police shortly if I don't offer a receipt. I tell him to please do so, while loading my packages into the car. I suggest that before doing so he take a moment to talk to either the helpful salesperson who rung me up or to compare their inventory against sales receipts, as to avoid looking like an ass to the cops.
As I get in my car to leave, two Best Buy lackeys in a pickup truck decide its a good time to park behind me, blocking my path again. By this time, I've had just enough of this crap and not very politely or discreetly ask them to get out of the way. With only a little hesitation, the yellow-shirt nods in their direction and I'm soon free to leave.
Its been a few hours, but I'm still half expecting a man with a badge and a gun to show up at my door to check my receipt.
Here's Best Buy's response to his story.
UPDATE: My biz-wiz friend, Jackie Danicki, at Engagement Alliance, makes a great point:
The arguments that this is necessary for loss prevention reasons ring completely hollow.If your loss prevention only covers loss of goods, and not loss of customers, you have much more serious problems than some stolen electronics.
If your employees are not trustworthy, they should not be working for you. Improve your recruitment and employee services.
You should not opt to harass customers as an alternative to robust loss prevention systems (such as prominent tape on big ticket items which have been paid for, or perhaps RFID technology).
If your store policy is to detain and harass, you can either choose to make that explicit or wait for your (former) customers to do it for you.
In any case, there is a better way and you should find or design it. No ifs, ands, or buts.
Maybe We Can Hire Osama To Take Over Lawn Care At The White House
Chertoff defends the genius move of letting a United Arab Emirates-owned business take over operations at six U.S. ports:
“We make sure there are assurances in place, in general, sufficient to satisfy us that the deal is appropriate from a national security standpoint,” Chertoff said on ABC’s “This Week.”
And your assurances carry soooo much weight with us after Katrina!
Chertoff said Dubai Ports World should not be excluded automatically from such a deal because it is based in the UAE.Critics have cited the UAE’s history as an operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In addition, they contend the UAE was an important transfer point for shipments of smuggled nuclear components sent to Iran, North Korea and Libya by a Pakistani scientist.
DP World has said it intends to “maintain and, where appropriate, enhance current security arrangements.” The UAE’s foreign minister has described his country as an important U.S. ally in fighting terrorism.
Wise...since that tends to be better for business than proclaiming it the best place for secretly transferring your WMD components or basing your terrorist operations.
A Truly Private College
Very interesting piece in The Wall Street Journal by Mark Oppenheimer, who asks "Pop quiz: Is the cost of a college education worth it? (No.) Is there an alternative? (Yes.)" He looks at Internet universities first:
Founded in 1976, Phoenix bills itself as "the largest private university in the United States." Phoenix, which is for-profit, has dozens of campuses, but the majority of its 315,000 students learn by computer. There is something to be said for this model. It's cheap: The Philadelphia campus charges $10,800 for a full-year online course load. The many campuses and online options do serve working men and women, parents and others who can't carve out time to go back to school in the traditional sense. And the online student is not distracted by fraternity initiates wearing silly beanies, freshman sex ed, sensitivity training or weekend kegstands.But for such an education to be worth the money, the professors have to be good, and with a faculty of many thousands, most of whom never meet each other, quality control must be quite the challenge. I might hire a secretary with an online degree, but I don't want my nurse to have received her master's over the Internet.
So if you conclude that the best learning is done face-to-face, and that some subjects--foreign languages, laboratory science, physical therapy--can't be taught without human contact, then are we condemned to $30,000 tuitions? Not necessarily; you have a few other options. If you're willing to forgo intercollegiate sports, fancy dorms and the senior class dance, you could attend any number of European state-funded universities that rival ours in intellectual quality and cost far less. And hey, if you're really willing to scale down on certain frills of college social life, remember that the Roman Catholic Church will happily pay for the education of seminary students headed for the priesthood.
But I have a better solution, one that's even more radical but allows you to stay in your American suburb, work within the old-fashioned American free market and avoid religious vows. How about banding together with some other students to hire tutors?
There are thousands of under-employed Ph.D.s in America who could be paid to offer college-level courses in your living room. If 10 students banded together and put up $10,000 each--students who, say, couldn't care less about football, don't need a Women's Center and have no urge to join Delta Delta Delta--they could hire two high-end intellectuals, pay them $50,000 each and get personal instruction.
The learning might well be more intense than the usual lazy college classroom, the demands more concentrated, the instruction more neatly tailored to the abilities and needs of each student. Many a doctorate-owner has overlapping areas of expertise. Tutor A could teach, for instance, religion, history and politics in the mornings, while Tutor B could teach law, literature and grammar in the afternoons. Actual essay tests would be possible with such a small group; papers too: No longer would the teacher feel the need to avoid writing requirements lest he be stuck, for hours on end, having to read the bad student prose of, say, a huge survey course.
For research, students could use the public library or buy short-term passes to university research libraries. For fun, the class could read novels, play pickup basketball at the public park or, on snowy days, watch cable TV--the Learning Channel, of course. Speaking of which, my cable costs $40 a month, a lot cheaper than what most colleges charge their captive dorm residents--yet another reason to abjure the overpriced American university.
Americans like their churches big, their servings of Coke big, their universities big. But in schooling, big has become unbearably expensive. We may as well try returning to the small: a teacher, some students, some books. Such an arrangement used to be reserved for the wealthy aristocracy in ancient Greece or Enlightenment France, but now it would actually result in a much lower tuition bill for the middle-class American family. As a postmodern Marxist tutor might be the first to tell you, you have nothing to lose but your debt, and you have a world to win.
Just Awakened By Junk Phoning Assholes
Except these were the local, low-rent variety. And they called as I was sleeping off being sick from flying from Paris to Amsterdam to Minneapolis to Los Angeles (apparently, no direct flights available due to Presidents' Day Weekend). I really need my sleep, too, as I'm on deadline and had planned to write today, at least by the end of the day. Now, I can't go back to sleep.
Anyway, on my final flight, I came down with hypoxia, due to lack of air in the cabin combined with high altitude. Now, I'm totally healthy, and Emily just took my blood pressure -- 100/57, which is exceptionally healthy -- but that doesn't seem to matter. I'm like a canary for when there's less-than-adequate air circulating in coach.
My head started spinning on the flight, I threw up violently and couldn't stop, and then I had to get oxygen. I had two whole tanks on the flight. Then I was nauseated the whole car ride home, and threw up on my grass and again at home, and had to lay down right away. That and jet leg had me sleeping at 1: 32 pm when the call came in:
An outfit called Gateway Exterminators, 5951 Venice Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90034-1713, calling to offer me a free inspection so they can sell me their termite services, apparently. These people were none-too-smart, as they stayed on the phone and gave me as much information as I could squeeze out of them before I asked too many questions (and screamed a few obscenities), told them I was going to sue them for $500 since I'm on the Do Not Call List, and they hung up.
And actually, the first lady I spoke to ("Meg") gave me the wrong information -- the wrong address and the wrong phone number (one that was out of service), which I believe is illegal.
I called back and offered to settle for $300 if I don't have to take them to court. Then I called back to try to get a human on the line. Diane hung up on me, then let it go to the machine the next time I called. I left a message to say how cowardly that was, since I'd been forced to take their call personally (I leave my phone on at all times in case of emergency -- like when my neighbor's kid got glass in his eye and their car battery was dead and he needed to be taken to the hospital).
In case you want to call and express your displeasure with the call they made me, the junk phoners are at 562-366-8615. Diane and Meg were the people who called me, and lo and behold, it's Diane's name on the recording. They sound like they're calling from Calcutta or something, but it seems they're right here in Los Angeles.
There's also another number for Gateway -- 310-866-5615. That's the business number where you schedule exterminators. You might want to call there as well!
I think we need to let these people know, who call with impunity, using phone lines we pay for, and stealing our time, that it's not okay to do this -- very not okay -- and we're not going to just let it go. That's why I think anybody who feels the same should call these numbers and express that opinion, and should also do their best to prosecute when they're called.
Boor Watch, Minneapolis Airport
I'm on my way back from France (don't ask - via Charles de Gaulle, via Amsterdam Schiphol, via Minneapolis), leashed to one of a few rare outlets in the place, checking my email via Wifi.
A white guy, late 30s, chunky, fading hair, sky blue cotton sweater with shirttails hanging out, sunglasses atop head, is shouting into his cell. “I got my pictures last night…blah blah blah.” He was indignant that I would ask him, most politely, to please take the volume down.
“D’ya want me to whisper?!” he demands.
Me: “Why, yes, that would be nice. There are other people around you. Please be considerate.”
He retorted with razor wit: “Well, you’re invading my peace!”
Me: How, by tapping silently on the keyboard 50 yards away?
Him: Yes, yes you are!
He goes back to his conversation.
“I’m excited. I don’t even know what she looks like.”
Internet dating, huh?
Here, let me help you: She’s 20 pounds heavier, and 15 years older than she claims to be.
He did quiet down considerably after I announced that I’d post his conversation on the Internet.
The End Of Inelegance
The Detroit Free Press' Mike Wendland on why you should throw your PC in the garbage and buy a Mac:
Apple's new iMac running the new Intel Core Duo microprocessor is the finest, most reliable, stable, elegant and intuitive personal computer available anywhere.There. I don't think I could say it any clearer.
The new MacBook Pro laptops, which are expected to start shipping Wednesday, will be four times as fast as Apple's previous PowerBook laptops, run cooler and have longer battery life.
This new iMac, which marks the first time Apple has used Intel chips to power its machines, is simply astounding. As multimedia and digital entertainment becomes more mainstream, you will find no other machines as well suited to create, edit and display audio and video materials.
I have been testing a new 20-inch iMac with the Intel chip right next to a G5 iMac that came out last fall with the older PowerPC chip.
I hit the start buttons on the two machines at the same time and ran a stopwatch three times. The Intel machine was up and running in an average of 24 seconds. The G5 version took 72 seconds.
Web pages loaded faster, pictures and video images appeared quicker, scrolling through documents and spreadsheets was smoother and the whole feel of the machine felt more nimble than the already impressive G5.
In appearance, it's impossible to see a difference between the two. Both come with the built-in high-resolution iSight Web camera. The thin white plastic case that contains the entire computer is supported on a brushed aluminum stand that makes it appear to be suspended in air. Both have standard Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections and all the ports and the CD/DVD slot are in the same places.
Even the cost is the same. Apple very wisely did not boost the price for these new Intel models. A 17-inch iMac with all the standard software and the iLife suite costs $1,299. The 20-inch version is $1,700.
Those thinking about replacing an older PC should look at these iMacs and consider dumping Windows, unless you are heavily invested because of work or special situations in PC games or proprietary programs for which there is no corresponding Apple version.
The Intel chips offer immediately noticeable improvements in speed on some applications, up to twice as fast.
But making a great machine even better is a suite of upgraded applications called iLife '06 that take advantage of these new Intel chips and deliver such vast improvements in digital imaging and multimedia programs that no programs on any other platform can even be called rivals.
Apple's switch to Intel microprocessors (think of the microprocessor as your computer's brain and the Core Duo works like two brains) opens up the very distinct possibility that you will also be able to run Windows programs on these Macs, as soon as Microsoft upgrades its Windows XP operating system to the new Vista system late next fall.
Le Dernier Metro
Yes, I'm coming home Friday.
Globalization To Stamp Out Terrorism
It isn't that simple...or is it? Check this out -- al Qaeda terrorist pay scales:
One document states that al Qaeda operatives must request vacation 10 weeks in advance, and another document outlines the pay scale for members: about $108 a month for married members, less if they're single and more if they have more than one wife.
$108 a month? I know this is a different part of the world, but perhaps that's the problem. Get a chicken (and lentils) in every pot, a plasma-screen TV in every tent playing Law & Order #20,006 dubbed in Arabic, and who's going to want to blow anyone else up?
The Firearms Waiting Period
No, that's not the waiting period to buy a gun. If you're Dick Cheney, that's the time you take until you get around to reporting you've shot somebody. From a letter in the IHT:
Let's be honest here: As someone who learned to hunt pheasants and quail by the time I was seven years old, the concept that I could shoot someone in the face with an imported Italian shotgun without being investigated by the local sheriff is beyond belief. One rule for the kings, another for the peasants who day by day realize we live in a state more closely resembling the former Soviet Union than the America we grew up in and love. Will Affleck-Asch, Seattle
And, by the way, I'm pro-Second Amendment, as in, I'm for the right to bear arms -- such as a rifle or a handgun for self-protection, and for the reasons it was included in the Constitution ("well-armed militia," blah blah blah, should the need for citizen armament ever arise). I do not, however, think your right to bear arms means you should get to own 26 Uzis.
Are We Safer Or Just More Annoyed?
The New York Times' Joe Sharkey on the No-Brains, uh, No-Fly list snafus, and how the suspected terrorists keep getting younger and younger. Like, just-out-of-diapers younger:
YOU may be surprised at the number of people who are routinely taken aside at airport security and given the third degree because, it seems, they share a name that is the same as or similar to one of tens of thousands of people who are on official watch lists and no-fly lists.David Nelson, the elder son of Ozzie and Harriet in the 1950's-vintage television show, was one. Last month, a little boy traveling with his mother was flagged in Houston and allowed to board the plane only after a sensible official appraised the situation and said, essentially, "Come on, the kid's 4."
Last week, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska complained that his wife, Catherine Stevens, has been questioned at checkpoints because her name in its diminutive matches that of the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens. Now known as Yusuf Islam, he has been barred from entering the United States because of activities that the Department of Homeland Security said could be linked to terrorism.
"How do people get off these lists?" Senator Stevens asked Kip Hawley, who heads the Transportation Security Administration. Mr. Hawley was testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee, which Senator Stevens heads.
The hearing looked at two agency initiatives in air travel security: Secure Flight and Registered Traveler. The first, Secure Flight, is a government program to consolidate the various watch lists and no-fly lists. The goal is to make them smarter and more secure and to provide a more efficient way for people who do not belong on the lists to get off them.
Senator Conrad Burns of Montana marveled at the difficulty he had in getting help for innocent constituents. He is still working to clear one man. "The only place this guy is dangerous is on a golf course," Mr. Burns said.
Mr. Hawley said 30,000 people on the watch list have gone through the process of seeking redress. It involves things like submitting notarized copies of birth certificates and other personal documents.
If you are successful, you get a letter from the Transportation Security Administration saying you have been cleared. But your name remains on the list. On its Web site, the agency says, "While T.S.A. cannot ensure that these clearance procedures will relieve all delays, the procedures should facilitate a more efficient check-in process."
It's 8 O'Clock, Do You Know Where Your Chickens Are?
If they aren't on Laurie Pike's plate at Cafe de Flore, they're going to jail. That's what my friend Chantal told me last night (over lamb and mushrooms cooked by Mark), that the French are all being made to fence in their chickens to prevent bird flu, and here's more on that from MSNBC.
This means no more free-range chickens in France, which, she says, makes a difference in the taste. She told me her brother in Correze had to put chicken wire all around his chickens, top and sides, so there's no mixing with wild birds, and she thinks he'll probably need to put a tarp over the top, too, lest any wild birds drop any "presents" into the chickenry. But enough about impending doom! Here's Laurie with her eggs.
Now, Laurie is the editor of LA.com, but she's also a Paris blogger, with a great site, InParisNow.com, that will soon be called TheParisBlog.com. I met her ten years ago in Los Angeles, via a New York friend I called "Cowboy Bob." She's bought a Paris apartment, which she's renting, on rue Nobel in Montmartre, near the funicular, for any who know Montmartre.
Here's the whole table.
I had rillettes de canard (a kind of duck or goose paté) on toast.
And now, I must run. Back to Flore for breakfast with fellow former Detroiter Sue Rynski, who's now taking art photographs in Paris. I'm bringing her Elmore Leonard's Killshot, which has just been turned into a movie with Diane Lane, Mickey Rourke, Johnny Knoxville, and Thomas Janes, as Lane's ironworker husband.
Proof There Is No God
Now, ordinarily, when somebody claims there's a god, I'd quote that phrase about those with extraordinary claims needing to come up with proof. Well, I don't have to do that, because seems my boyfriend, who couldn't locate me yesterday, managed to prove there's no god in the process. How? Well, if there were a god, wouldn't he be reachable via email. Well, hah. He's not. See?
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----God
(reason: 550 5.1.1 unknown or illegal alias: god@mac.com)
(expanded from:) ----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to smtp-bounce.mac.com.:
DATA
<<< 550 5.1.1 unknown or illegal alias: god@mac.com
550 5.1.1... User unknown
<<< 554 5.5.0 No recipients have been specified.
Reporting-MTA: dns; mac.com
Received-From-MTA: DNS; c-69-246-53-98.hsd1.mi.comcast.net
Arrival-Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 08:34:08 -0800 (PST)Final-Recipient: RFC822; god@mac.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.1
Remote-MTA: DNS; smtp-bounce.mac.com
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 5.1.1 unknown or illegal alias: god@mac.com
Last-Attempt-Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 08:34:08 -0800 (PST)
How Deep Is Your Love?
The inexact science of penis measurement, by Kent Sepkowitz.
Photo from the continuation of Edward Steichen's legendary exhibit, The Family Of Man, on the fence around le Jardin du Luxembourg.
The penis measurement data I used for a column I wrote a few years back said six inches long and five inches around (for white guys measured with erect penises). Guess what, guys: For girls, girth matters more than width:
Does size matter? Only if a penis is too big or too small. Even if a guy's penis is on the small side, here's a bit of good news from the entertaining and informative Dr. Eugene Fine, assistant clinical professor of urology at New York's Mt. Sinai Medical Center: "Most of the anatomy in a woman that's responsive to sexual pleasure is right at the front door. Just get in there and ring the bell." In other words, even men with teeny weenies have a chance at satisfying women, providing they're good with their tools.
When The Going Gets Stuffed...
Just posted a new Advice Goddess column, about a grown man who collects stuffed bears:
My boyfriend of seven months, who’s 43, just moved in with me. Several days ago, he unpacked his “stuffed animal collection,” which consists of 12 teddy bears given to him by ex-girlfriends, and perched them all on the top of our couch. Am I petty to let this bother me? Some of them say things like “Love Margie” or “Happy Valentines Day, baby.”--Invaded
Who knew in-your-face hostility could be so furry and cute? But, there it is, all “Love Margie,” in a little motorcycle jacket and a tiny scarf and goggles on the teenage girl’s bedspread that used to be your living room couch.
At what point do you stop parsing how petty is too petty so you can unzip your skin and run away screaming? Now, to be fair, I have a friend who’s into stuffed animals. Her name is Sophie, and she’s 7. Your boyfriend, on the other hand, is a grown man -- somebody who shaves, pays taxes and will soon get prostate exams -- and he collects teddy bears? And, no, he didn’t amass all 12 by accident, with each girlfriend arriving at the idea herself: “Whoops, I have yet to buy my big, hairy, adult male boyfriend a stuffed toy!”
Personally, I’d be less creeped out by a boyfriend with a collection of brains in Mason jars (providing he mail-ordered them from Body Parts “R” Us and didn’t just help himself to parting gifts from my predecessors). But, there you are, neck deep in Edgar Allan Poe meets Winnie The Pooh, wondering whether you’re being fair. What, exactly, is a dealbreaker for you? A guy who brings his mom on dates? One who wears diapers, and not because he leaks? Or are you more of a classicist, drawing the line at a guy who keeps his mother’s skeleton in the attic, dresses up in her clothes, and runs around waving a long knife to a Bernard Herrmann soundtrack?
If somebody’s a wack job (and we all are on some level), the least they can do is be discreet -- especially if their particular brand of wack involves a retrospective of their ex-girlfriends in stuffed-animal form. Your boyfriend could have a secret cache of teddy bears at his storage space, complete with a little altar that lights up, and a tiny table and chairs where he and the bears can have naked tea parties. Instead, he’s installed his ménagerie à twelve in your living room -- probably because reminding you and himself of Margie and friends is the point. Awww, the poor dear, he must not have gotten the right kind of mommying as a child. Why should he sweat the abandonment issues now, when it’s so much easier to shove this cuddly-wuddly wall between you?
The column continues at this link.
Your Tax Dollars For Homophobia!
Don't ask how much "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" cost us -- you don't want to know. Liz Sidoti writes for the AP:
Discharging troops under the Pentagon's policy on gays cost $363.8 million over 10 years, almost double what the government concluded a year ago, a private report says.The report, to be released Tuesday by a University of California Blue Ribbon Commission, questioned the methodology the Government Accountability Office used when it estimated that the financial impact of the ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' policy was at least $190.5 million.
``It builds on the previous findings and paints a more complete picture of the costs,'' said Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., who has proposed legislation that would repeal the policy.
Congress approved the ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' policy in 1993 during the Clinton administration. It allows gays and lesbians to serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps as long as they abstain from homosexual activity and do not disclose their sexual orientation.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which has represented service members who left the military under the policy, estimates the Pentagon has discharged more than 10,000 service members for homosexuality since ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' went into effect in 1994. The number of discharges has gone down in recent years.
In February 2005, the GAO said the financial impact could not be completely estimated because the government does not collect financial information specific to each individual's case.
Cautioning that the figures may be too low, the GAO said the federal government spent at least $95.4 million to recruit and $95.1 million to train replacements from 1994 through 2003 for the 9,488 troops discharged during that period because of the policy.
The university study said the GAO erred by emphasizing the expense of replacing those who were discharged because of the policy without taking into account the value the military lost from the departures.
So, the commission focused on the estimated value the military lost from each person discharged. The report detailed costs of $79.3 million for recruiting enlisted service members, $252.4 million for training them, $17.8 million for training officers and $14.3 million for ``separation travel'' once a service member is discharged.
And let me just remind you, for all of you who think religion is no biggie, that this idiocy exists due to religion, and the fact that the primitives who are religious were told that their Big Imaginary Friend has a problem with homosexuality.
As an atheist, I couldn't care less if you're gay, straight, or hermaphrodite (although I do have a special soft spot in my heart for drag queens). I just hope you're all having sex, and having a hell of a time doing it.
via Sploid
Balzac Waits For His Train
The guy's been waiting a long damn time. Statue by Auguste Rodin, who traveled by horse and buggy when he wasn't carried aloft by his ego.
Saddam Hussein Clamors For Human Rights
It's never to late for a murderous scumbag to call for human rights. Of course, the rights he's calling for happen to be his own:
Saddam Hussein returned to trial on Tuesday saying he and seven co-accused had been staging a hunger strike for three days to protest their treatment by the court."We have been on hunger strike for three days to protest the way they brought us to court," said the former president, who has accused the court of forcing him to attend hearings that broke his boycott of the sessions.
Hussein appeared in court again shouting slogans Tuesday as hearings resumed in his trial after a fiery session one day earlier.
Wearing a black suit, he stood before the judge and shouted "God is great" and "long live great Arab nation," news agencies reported.
Hussein shouted his support for Iraqi insurgents, yelling "Long live the mujahedeen," the Associated Press reported, while his top co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim entered wearing long underwear for the second day to signal his rejection of the court.
His half brother Barzan, who has said he has cancer and needs medical treatment, looked weak but had the energy to shout praise for Saddam's toppled Baath party. "I sacrifice my mother and father for the great Baath party," said Barzan, according to Reuters.
One of the co-defendants, Awad Hamed al-Bandar, also said he was not eating. Hussein made no mention of a hunger strike in Monday's session.
The appearance Tuesday followed a stormy session Monday in which the toppled Iraqi leader created a scene by shouting "Down with Bush!"
In that session Hussein also yelled "Long live Iraq" and "Long live the Iraqi people." The former Iraqi president cursed the judge and called him a criminal.
Wow, free speech and everything for Saddam. Too bad so many of the citizens he murdered didn't get to do their clamoring while in a civilized court of law, but in torture chambers while hours or days of excruciating pain was being inflicted on them. Free speech for them? Well, I guess they were free to scream bloody murder -- at least until somebody cut out their tongues.
British Journalist Meets American Right-Wing Radio
via aldaily, Anatole Kaletsky hears a few choice words in return:
LAST WEEK I devoted this space to a diatribe against George W. Bush, conjoined with a paean of praise for the American system and Alan Greenspan, the retiring Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. The purpose of the article was to discuss the genius of a nation whose economy, culture and spirit of public service could operate so successfully, despite — or perhaps because of — such doltishly incompetent leadership from its top politicians. To my astonishment, this article generated a huge response, largely because it was read out on the radio by Rush Limbaugh, the country’s most famous right-wing talk show host. Within hours of publication I received nearly 500 e-mails from American readers. About a quarter of these emails were split between praise and rational disagreement. However, the vast majority — some 300 — were abusive to the point of obscenity (homo Arab ass-f*****, Commie Jew-boy, Nigger-lover and so on). What opened the sluices on this flood of electronic sewerage was neither the offensiveness nor the originality of my article. As several of my correspondents disparagingly noted, President Bush has lived quite comfortably with this kind of ridicule in the US media every day. And as for originality, most of my favourable observations about the American system were expressed much more eloquently 200 years ago by Alexis de Tocqueville. It seems, however, that an article in a foreign newspaper full of condescending derision for the US President touched a raw nerve in America’s conservative heartland — and that is why, with the Muslim world apparently in turmoil over some mediocre cartoons in a little-known Danish paper, I return to this subject.My reaction to the outpouring of abuse was to reaffirm a longstanding prejudice: that “white trash” American ultra-conservatives were the only people on earth who could possibly rival Islamic fundamentalists in their paranoia, touchiness and lack of humour. I planned to respond to my detractors by writing a tongue-in-cheek apology for the offence I had caused by insulting the head of their state religion and underestimating His great distinctions and achievements. This would be styled on the formulaic, hypocritical apologies offered by European politicians to the Muslim community.
But as the cartoon saga has turned to tragedy, with people dying and embassies burning, satire and irony would now be out of place. What is more appropriate is a serious comparison between the Muslim and American fundamentalists’ intolerance of other people’s ideas. This comparison may seem far-fetched but it brings out three distinctions that are critical in managing relations between Islamic fundamentalism and the modern world.
The first, very obvious, distinction is between civility and legality, between comment or behaviour that is discourteous, inconsiderate or unpleasant and behaviour which is, or should be, unlawful. Despite the hypersensitivity of the Americans who showered me with linguistic ordure, nobody would dream of suggesting that insulting America and its President should be banned. These 300 right-wing nuts wanted me sacked for my ignorance; they wanted The Times used as toilet paper, but none of them would suggest that I should be legally prevented from saying that President Bush was a fool.
How different from the paranoid religiosity of the Muslim fundamentalists who insist that “insulting religion” should not be a question of taste or of judgment, but a subject for criminal law. Yet this obvious distinction between what is offensive and what should be illegal is deliberately ignored by the Blair Government, which wants to make insulting religion a criminal offence.
Freedom of motherfucking speech. I'm all for it. Although it helps to know when one is being persuasive versus when one is merely being a rude, obscenity-hurling assclown.
"Let Gay People Marry!..."
"Let them be miserable like the rest of us!" (Text of a refrigerator magnet Lena gave me.) But there's more:
Gay "marriage" could boost the mental and physical health of homosexuals, doctors believe.Rates of depression, drug abuse and cancer are higher in the gay community than among heterosexual people.
The report said civil partnerships, which were introduced in England and Wales in December, were likely to reduce prejudice and social exclusion.
The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health article was based on previous studies in other countries.
Denmark was the first country to introduce civil partnerships for same sex couples in 1989, since when several European Union countries, some US states, Australia and Canada have followed suit.
Professor Michael King, of University College London, who co-wrote the article, said: "Civil partnerships are likely to break down some of the prejudice and promote greater understanding, including among staff working in the health service.
"Legal civil partnerships could increase the stability of same sex relationships and minimise the social exclusion to which gay and lesbian people are often subjected."
Tales From The Crypt
"Real" Women Make Real Women Feel Like Crap
Now, I don't subscribe to the Journal of Consumer Research, and I haven't read the study (in the March 2006 edition), but a posting on Science Blog says looking at "realistic" models like those in the Dove ads (for anti-cellulite cream!) makes women feel bad about themselves. Looking at "moderately thin" women makes them feel better about themselves:
"We demonstrated that exposure to thin models does not necessarily have a negative impact on one's self-esteem," explain Dirk Smeesters (Tilburg University) and Naomi Mandel (Arizona State University). "On the contrary, exposure to moderately thin (but not extremely thin) models has a positive impact on one's self-esteem."...In the first part of the study, participants selected four representative models in each category – extremely thin, moderately thin, moderately heavy, and extremely heavy – from a larger sample of images. These images were then shown to randomly chosen women in conjunction with a "lexical decision trial" – that is, the participants were timed as they responded to words related to thinness and heaviness.
Looking at moderately thin or extremely heavy models led to an increase in self-perception of thinness and an increase in self-esteem. By contrast, seeing extremely thin or moderately heavy models focused women's thoughts on how heavy they felt.
These results shed light on why magazines featuring only plus-sized models don't have the success of the magazine that feature slim models: "…campaigns featuring moderately heavy 'real women' might not be as inspirational (or effective) as expected," conclude Smeesters and Mandel.
Sploid notes:
Non-skeletal actresses like Scarlett Johansson and Katherine Heigl may have a similarly depressing effect on American women, who can no longer bitch about how all hot actresses starve themselves.
Of course, in America these days, I'm informed (by angry women, typically) that "real" women wear size 14 (which is actually a much greater number due to size inflation by manufacturers...which is why sneering "Marilyn Monroe wore such and such" isn't a good argument). And sure, real women do now wear size 14 (and up)...especially if they eat a lot of crappy "low-fat" food (which leaves you starving-mean 20 minutes later), and never get up off the couch.
Never Date A Man Prettier Than You Are
...Or walk a dog with prettier hair.
Putting The "El" In LA
Yay, Ray! Ray Bradbury calls for monorails across Los Angeles. I'm with him. Something must be done about the traffic:
More than 40 years ago, in 1963, I attended a meeting of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors at which the Alweg Monorail company outlined a plan to construct one or more monorails crossing L.A. north, south, east and west. The company said that if it were allowed to build the system, it would give the monorails to us for free — absolutely gratis. The company would operate the system and collect the fare revenues.It seemed a reasonable bargain to me. But at the end of a long day of discussion, the Board of Supervisors rejected Alweg Monorail.
I was stunned. I dimly saw, even at that time, the future of freeways, which would, in the end, go nowhere.
At the end of the afternoon, I asked for three minutes to testify. I took the microphone and said, "To paraphrase Winston Churchill, rarely have so many owed so little to so few." I was conducted out of the meeting.
In a panic at what I saw as a disaster, I offered my services to the Alweg Monorail people for the next year.
During the following 12 months I lectured in almost every major area of L.A., at open forums and libraries, to tell people about the promise of the monorail. But at the end of that year nothing was done.
Forty years have passed, and more than ever we need an open discussion of our future. If we examine the history of subways, we will find how tremendously expensive and destructive they are.
They are, first of all, meant for cold climates such as Toronto, New York, London, Paris, Moscow and Tokyo. But L.A. is a Mediterranean area; our weather is sublime, and people are accustomed to traveling in the open air and enjoying the sunshine, not in closed cars under the ground.
Subways take forever to build and, because the tunnels have to be excavated, are incredibly expensive. The cost of one subway line would build 10 monorail systems.
Along the way, subway construction destroys businesses by the scores. The history of the subway from East L.A. to the Valley is a history of ruined businesses and upended lives.
The monorail is extraordinary in that it can be built elsewhere and then carried in and installed in mid-street with little confusion and no destruction of businesses. In a matter of a few months, a line could be built from Long Beach all the way along Western Avenue to the mountains with little disturbance to citizens and no threat to local businesses.
Compared to the heavy elevateds of the past, the monorail is virtually soundless. Anyone who has ridden the Disneyland or Seattle monorails knows how quietly they move.
They also have been virtually accident-free. The history of the monorail shows few collisions or fatalities.If we constructed monorails running north and south on Vermont, Western, Crenshaw and Broadway, and similar lines running east and west on Washington, Pico, Wilshire, Santa Monica and Sunset, we would have provided a proper cross section of transportation, allowing people to move anywhere in our city at any time.
There you have it. As soon as possible, we must call in one of the world's monorail-building companies to see what could be done so that the first ones could be in position by the end of the year to help our huddled traffic masses yearning to travel freely.
The freeway is the past, the monorail is our future, above and beyond.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton On Solitude
Martha Nussbaum sees a big glaring contradiction in Stanton's thoughts on solitude. I don't. To be alone is, at first, hard and painful. But once you're enough of a person to be comfortable with it, solitude becomes comfortable; even necessary. Of course, some people -- women, especially -- never get to that point, because they convince themselves that having a man is a shortcut to having a "you." Here's an excerpt from Nussbaum's review of Vivian Gornick's new book on Stanton -- in which she comes to pretty much the same conclusion I do:
In "The Solitude of Self," Stanton gave two very different accounts of what the "solitude of self" is and, correspondingly--though without in any way signaling the difference--two very different accounts of why equal education and citizenship for women are important. The speech, in fact, is a mess; to get anything out of it one must forage around in it and reconstruct it.On one account, which Stanton repeatedly emphasizes, the "solitude of self" is simply the fact that "we come into the world alone...[and] we leave it alone." Each woman, like each man, "must make the voyage of life alone." As a variant on this theme, Stanton often observes that, however much we may like to depend on others, we never can: Any person can be abandoned at any time. "Rich and poor, intelligent and ignorant, wise and foolish, virtuous and vicious, man and woman; it is ever the same, each soul must depend wholly on itself." Here, solitude is something bad and usually painful, a "march" and a "battle." It is, however, inevitable. Because solitude is the inevitable condition of our existence, each person must be schooled to deal with it, taking responsibility for his or her own life: "As in our extremity we must depend on ourselves, the dictates of wisdom point to complete individual development." Women have never been given this development, and this is unfair, since they need it as much as any. Even if they think they can depend on men, they can't. It is unjust not to prepare them for self-sufficiency.
There is, however, another very different account of solitude in the speech, one that tugs against the first. Every human life, Stanton suggests, contains a precious inner world, one that no other person can enter, an inner space that is rightly called "conscience" and "our self." Included in "conscience" is the power of autonomous choice, and this power is seen as something deeply precious, hidden away inside us, "more hidden than the caves of the gnome." Here, solitude is not a painful absence of connection but a joyous realization of one's inner depths.
This second conception of solitude, which Stanton explicitly connects to an American Protestant heritage, yields a different explanation of why women should be given education and political rights: because this inner world is precious and sublime, and demands respect. Respecting it means developing it. Here Stanton speaks of a woman's "right of individual conscience and judgment," her "birthright to self-sovereignty." In other words, even if women could depend utterly on men and would never lack external support, it would still be an egregious offense to fail to give them the freedom of choice and self-development. It is their right, because of the depth and preciousness of the self.
The tension between the two accounts is not just a prissy philosopher's problem: It impedes any attempt to read the speech and to be moved by a coherent set of emotions. The speech's rhetoric jolts oddly back and forth between horror at solitude and love of the rich inner life that is revealed in solitude. Is solitude something ugly or something precious? A grim fate or a sublime opportunity? It is difficult to follow the speech emotionally, so jarring are these attitudinal shifts.
How might one make a coherent whole out of Stanton's ideas? Gornick, unfortunately, does not try. Her account of the speech, piecemeal and truncated, has all the problems of the speech itself, and more, for she adds to Stanton's already problematic text the idea that it is a sense of shame that has caused women to close off their inner world from others. According to Gornick, Stanton "realized that to the greatest degree the solitude is self-created, the result of being locked from birth into a psychology of shame." This sentiment, for which I find no evidence in the speech itself, and which seems to me quite foreign to Stanton's unabashed personality, as Gornick herself depicts it, strengthens the idea that solitude is something unfortunate and nonadmirable, and even casts doubt on Stanton's own insistence that it is inevitable. (For surely, women might learn not to be ashamed of themselves, and let's hope that there is a lot less shame around now, in connection with being female, than there was in the nineteenth century.) Moreover, Gornick also connects the "solitude of self" to Stanton's unpleasant experiences with rivalry and animosity within the feminist movement, thus further bolstering the idea that solitude is all bad. That reading, however, just won't do as a reading of the whole text and its most powerful arguments.
I think we might put Stanton's two theses together as follows. We see that we must ultimately live and die alone. At first this condition seems horrible to us. But as we investigate it, we find that there is something precious in the solitude of the inner self, a world within each person "more inaccessible than the ice-cold mountains, more profound than the midnight sea." These romantic images of the beauty of solitude, of which Stanton was fond, suggest a further romantic thought: This inner life is actually something awe-inspiring, something sublime, to which we can rightly give the names "conscience" and "birthright to self-sovereignty." Once we start thinking this way and learn to love, even revere, the sublime beauty of each person's inner life, we see that we have not just one but two reasons for educating women and giving them the vote: not just because they may need these practical abilities in some time of abandonment but because conscience deserves respect, and to respect conscience is to give it space to unfold.
Does My Ass Look Fat In This Marble?
Hillary Johnson, don't say I never did anything for you! (Or rather, for her new site, doesmyasslookfatinthesepants.com.) Marble statue from the sublimely renovated and newly opened Le Petit Palais, Paris.
More from Le Petit Palais:
This fresco is of a poet in the Jardin du Luxembourg, meeting his muses. We should all be so lucky, every day, on all counts: Being in Paris, being in Le Jardin, and getting a call from one's muses instead of having them out with a head cold or some other mundane excuse.
This lady with her petit singe (and yes, I love monkeys, at least in concept -- in person, they tend to toss feces and do other less than socially pleasing things) reminds me of another famous singe in Paris, Kiki Le Petit Singe, who is buried at the Cimetière des Animaux on the outskirts of Paris.
I loved this Courbet. Sadly, these days, if it were in an American museum, they'd probably cover it up with a sheet, like in when John Ashcroft put curtains in front of the boobie-baring statues in the Justice Department.
It gets better (or worse), depending on your mindset:
This woman's been having a "wardrobe malfunction" for centuries, and aren't we all thrilled for that?
I love the circus, and I was in love with the paintings of street circuses by Ferdinand Emmanuel Pelez de Cordova. Here's a panel from one of them that made me chant the line from the movie, Freaks, which is, approximately, "One of us! One of us! We accept him, one of us!":
And finally...
While I miss my petit chien (my two and a half pound Yorkshire terrier), who is home because I'm only here for a little over a week, I was rather charmed by this Grenouille aux oreilles de lapin, by Jean Carriès, who also did some wild-ass tiles that reminded me of the kiln-fired people stuck in jars I made in high school that my mother is still begging me to get out of my parents' garage.
What They Spewed And When They Spewed It
"Scooter" Libby gets busy trying to save his bacon, in a Murray Waas story via National Journal:
The new disclosure that Libby has claimed that the vice president and others in the White House had authorized him to release information to make the case to go to war, and later to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence, is significant for several reasons. First, it significantly adds to a mounting body of information that Cheney played a central and personal role in directing efforts to counter claims by Wilson and other administration critics that the Bush administration had misused intelligence information to go to war with Iraq.Second, it raises additional questions about Libby's motives in concealing his role in leaking Plame's name to the press, if he was in fact more broadly authorized by Cheney and others to rebut former Ambassador Wilson's charges. The federal grand jury indictment of Libby alleges that he had lied to the FBI and the federal grand jury by claiming that when he provided information to reporters about Plame's CIA employment, he was only passing along what he understood to be unverified gossip that he had heard from other journalists.
Instead, the indictment charges that Libby had in fact learned of Plame's CIA status from at least four government officials, Cheney among them, and from classified documents. Indeed, much of Libby's earliest and most detailed information regarding Plame's CIA employment came directly from the vice president, according to information in Libby's grand jury indictment. "On or about June 12, 2003," the indictment stated, "Libby was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division."
Libby testified that Cheney told him about Plame "in an off sort of, curiosity sort of, fashion," according to other information recently unsealed in federal court. Not long after that date, Libby, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and a third administration official began to tell reporters that Plame had worked at the CIA, and that she had been responsible for sending her husband to Niger.
Finally, the new information indicates that Libby is likely to pursue a defense during his trial that he was broadly "authorized" by Cheney and other "superiors" to defend the Bush administration in making the case to go to war. Libby does not, however, appear to be claiming that he was acting specifically on Cheney's behalf in disclosing information about Plame to the press.
Jack Who-Em-Off?
President Bush's legendary memory seems to be failing him, according to Jack Abramoff. From A Phillip Sheenon New York Times story:
The disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff told a magazine editor in recent days that he had met with President Bush many times and was invited to the president's Texas ranch for a gathering of campaign contributors in 2003, the editor said Thursday.The journalist, Kim Eisler, national editor of Washingtonian magazine, said in an interview that he had received the information in e-mail messages from Mr. Abramoff, a major Republican fund-raiser who pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to bribe public officials. The messages suggest an effort by Mr. Abramoff to cast doubt on Mr. Bush's insistence that he does not recall the two of them meeting and that whatever contact they might have had was fleeting and for the purposes of a handshake and a picture.
In one message, Mr. Abramoff is reported as saying that Mr. Bush had "one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met" and that he "saw me in almost a dozen settings and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids." It added: "Perhaps he has forgotten everything. Who knows."
An Abramoff defense spokesman, Andrew Blum, said he could not comment on the e-mail messages or confirm their authenticity.
Mr. Eisler said he had been in contact with Mr. Abramoff since interviewing him six years ago for research for a book Mr. Eisler was writing about Indian reservation gambling; Mr. Abramoff's most lucrative lobbying clients were Indian casinos.
Parts of the messages became public this week, Mr. Eisler said, after he shared them with a writer for a political Web site, thinkprogress .org, without realizing that the Web site would make them public. The portions of e-mail messages posted on the site do not provide details of any meetings between Mr. Bush and Mr. Abramoff and do not refer to the substance of any conversations between them except for pleasantries about their families.
"I considered them confidential e-mails, and it was a slip on my part to release a portion of them," Mr. Eisler said.
The White House has tried to distance itself from Mr. Abramoff, and at a news conference last month, Mr. Bush said that while he might have had photographs taken with the lobbyist, "I don't know him." He added, "I frankly don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy."
Debtors' Prison For Daddies
A former biotech industry biggie is up for six months in jail for non-payment of child support:
A man considered one of the founders of Seattle's biotech industry has pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge of failing to pay child support.Robert Nowinski was the founder of four publicly traded biotech companies: Genetic Systems, which worked to develop antibodies for use in cancer treatment; Icos; PathoGenesis; and VaxGen. He also helped found another biotech company, Primal.
According to federal prosecutors, Nowinski is about 125-thousand dollars behind on child-support payments for his three children. His attorney says Nowinski is unemployed and was wiped out after a 2002 bankruptcy.
Correct me if I've been misinformed, but for no other offense do we put bankrupt people in default on their payments to creditors into jail. Now, there's no way to know from this piece whether Nowinski truly is penniless, or might be hiding funds in some twisted revenge plot. If, however, Nowinski truly is unemployed and without funds, won't sending him to jail only hurt his kids' chances of seeing any support?
All Roads Lead To...
I'm back. Staying in the 7th arrondissement, where the tourists seem to know where they're going, but the statues are lost.
Went to my friend Emily's for dinner: Pouilly Fuissé, the greenest lettuce I think I've ever seen, three-cheese quiche from Gerard Mulot, a crunchy baguette that made me realize I like bread; I just don't like crappy baguettes, which are most of them...and these little cappucino ice cream pastries for dessert.
On the way home, a short walk from the 6th arrondissement (arrondissements=zip code areas) to the 7th, I noticed how Smart the French are. I didn't even start taking photos until I was about a third of the way home. But these are all the Smart cars (and one Mini, I think) I saw on the way back, and it was only about a third of a mile to where I'm staying:
For Paris fans, there's a fantastic new Paris blog, In Paris Now (soon to be called The Paris Blog) by LA and Paris' Laurie Pike. She posted the Charlie Hebdo link, and says this about the upcoming name change:
It’s not because our birth name made some people think we were a webcam inside a certain heiress’s vagina. (We’ll miss the traffic from that misconception.) But we are changing our name from In Paris Now to The Paris Blog. (Something Under the Bed Is Drooling was already taken, damn it!)
How The West Was Won
With the freedoms that encourage scientific discoveries that make operations like face transplants possible. To be fair, there is one country in the middle east that's rife with technological and scientific discoveries: the one so many of the Arab countries want to run into the sea. Yes, getting the Jews out of Israel would do a world of good for progress -- the progress of the desert back into all the land the Israelis reclaimed as orange groves, cities, and centers of technology.
Albert Ellis On Psychotherapy.net
Great interview with Albert Ellis, one of the founders of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Here's an excerpt:
HEERY: Now, that issue, death. There is death, so how do you bring that into the picture for yourself.
ELLIS: Death is exactly the same state you were in before you were conceived. Do you remember that, before you were conceived?
HEERY: Some people say they remember it. I don't remember it in the moment.
ELLIS: They're crazy, they're neurotic.
HEERY: They're neurotic, those people, all those people who remember what happened?
ELLIS: And therapists help them be neurotic to remember that crap.
HEERY: That's crap, okay...
ELLIS: So do you really remember the state before you were conceived? Do you?
HEERY: Do I personally right this very minute? Not right this very minute, no.
ELLIS: The answer is you're being dishonest. You know, and if you don't remember…
HEERY: Well, I'm dishonest, and this very minute I don't remember. That's my honest answer in this minute.
ELLIS: No, you don't remember, but everybody I ask says they don't remember the state they were in before they were conceived. I've heard it thousands of times. So I say that's exactly in all probability the state you're going to be in after you're dead. Dead as a duck. You're not going to feel anything, you're not going to be in pain or anything. Now why be afraid of that?
HEERY: Are you afraid of it?
ELLIS: Of course not.
HEERY: It's just going to happen, right?
ELLIS: So it's going to happen. Tough shit.
...they live for a certain while and make up gods, devils, Santa Clauses, and an afterlife, which is utter shit of the worst sort. Even the Buddhists make up an afterlife and they're pretty good as religions go. And they're afraid to die, die, die, when they're going to anyway.
HEERY: We don't know when, we might as well enjoy being here while we can.
ELLIS: If I worried about death I wouldn't enjoy being here. I’d worry, worry, worry, oh, I'm going to die. So humans are all FBs, fucking babies, who…
HEERY: Well, you're one of those people.
ELLIS: …who, they live for a certain while and make up gods, devils, Santa Clauses, and an afterlife, which is utter shit of the worst sort. Even the Buddhists make up an afterlife and they're pretty good as religions go. And they're afraid to die, die, die, when they're going to anyway.
HEERY: You said a minute ago that humans are fucking babies. You're one of those humans. Are you a fucking baby?
ELLIS: Well, actually I overgeneralized. They're babies who act fuckingly much of the time, but no overgeneralization. If you overgeneralize as humans always do, then you label and labeling is not great. But people act as fucking babies much of the time all their lives, and I show them how to grow up, be themselves and not give too much of a shit for what other people think of them. But at the same time to give UOA, to give unconditional other acceptance to all humans just because they're human, period.
There's an interesting bit near the end, too, on why Ellis thinks meditation can often do more harm than good. I love the way he refuses to be "polite" and calls the interviewer on all her lazy thinking, and gets into how too many therapists want to be liked, which is detrimental to their patients. I realized, like Al, I don't care if people who write me like me, so it allows me to be honest. Some girl wrote me back today marveling that I told her the "in-your-face truth." Why is that a surprise? Was she looking for the bullshit instead?
The Case Against Religion
Albert Ellis on what's wrong with religion. First he lists (and explains at the link) traits of the psychologically healthy -- as self-interest, self-direction, tolerance, acceptance of uncertainty, flexibility, scientific thinking, commitment, risk-taking, and self-acceptance. Then he asks:
Now, does religion—by which again, I mean faith unfounded on fact, or dependence on some supernatural deity—help human beings to achieve these healthy traits and thereby to avoid becoming anxious, depressed, and hostile?The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t help at all; and in most respects it seriously sabotages mental health. For religion, first of all, is not self-interest; it is god-interest.
The religious person must, by virtual definition, be so concerned with whether or not his hypothesized god loves him, and whether he is doing the right thing to continue to keep in this god’s good graces, that he must, at very best, put himself second and must sacrifice some of his most cherished interests to appease this god. If, moreover, he is a member of any organized religion, then he must choose his god’s precepts first, those of this church and it’s clergy second, and his own views and preferences third.
NO VIEWS OF HIS OWN
In a sense, the religious person must have no real views of his own; and it is presumptuous of him, in fact, to have any. In regard to sex-love affairs, to marriage and family relations, to business, to politics, and to virtually everything else that is important in his life, he must try to discover what his god and his clergy would like him to do; and he must primarily do their bidding.
Masochistic self-sacrifice is an integral part of almost all organized religions: as shown, for example, in the various forms of ritualistic self-deprivation that Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, and other religionists must continually undergo if they are to keep in good with their assumed gods.
Masochism, indeed, stems form an individuals’s deliberately inflicting pain on himself in order that he may guiltlessly permit himself to experience some kind of sexual or other pleasure; and the very essence of most organized religions is the performance of masochistic, guilt-soothing rituals, by which the religious individual gives himself permission to enjoy life.
Religiosity, to a large degree, essentially is masochism; and both are forms of mental sickness.
In regard to self-direction, it can easily be seen from what just been said that the religious person is by necessity dependant and other-directed rather that independent and self-directed. If he is true to his religious beliefs he must first bow down to his god; to the clergy who this god’s church; and third, to all the members of his religious sect, who are eagle-eyedly watching him to see whether he defects an iota from the conduct his god and his church define as proper.
If religion, therefore, is largely masochism, it is even more dependency. For a man to be a true believer and to be strong and independent is impossible; religion and self-sufficiency are contradictory terms.
Here's more from Ellis:
Religion, with its definitional absolutes, can never rest with the concept of an individual’s wrong doing or making mistakes, but must inevitably all to this the notion of his sinning and of his deserving to be punished for his sins. For, if it is merely desirable for you to refrain from harming others or committing other misdeeds, as any non-religious code of ethics will inform you that it is, then if you make a mistake and do commit some misdeeds, you are merely a wrong-doer, or one who is doing an undesirable deed and who should try to correct himself and do less wrong in the future. But is it is god-given, absolute law that you shall not, must not do a wrong act, and actually do it, you are then a mean, miserable sinner, a worthless being, and must severely punish yourself (perhaps eternally, in hell) for being a wrongdoer, being a fallible human.Religion, then, by setting up absolute, god-given standards, must make you self-deprecating and dehumanized when you err; and must lead you to despise and dehumanize others when they act badly. This kind of absolutistic, perfectionistic thinking is the prime creator of the two most corroding of human emotions: anxiety and hostility.
If one of the requisites for emotional health is acceptance of uncertainty, then religion is obviously the unhealthiest state imaginable:
Since its prime reason for being is to enable the religionist to believe a mystical certainty.
Just because life is so uncertain, and because millions of people think that they cannot take its vicissitudes, they invent absolutistic gods, and thereby pretend that there is some final, invariant answer to things. Patently, these people are fooling themselves—and instead of healthfully admitting that they do not need certainty, but can live comfortably in this often disorderly world, they stubbornly protect their neurotic beliefs by insisting that there must be the kind of certainty that they foolishly believe that they need.
This is like a child’s believing that he must have a kindly father in order to survive; and then, when his father is unkindly, or perhaps has died and is nonexistent, he dreams up a father (who may be a neighbor, a movie star, or a pure figment of his imagination) and he insists that this dream-father actually exists.
The trait of flexibility, which is so essential to proper emotional functioning, is also blocked and sabotaged by religious belief. For the person who dogmatically believes in god, and who sustains this belief with a faith unfounded in fact, which a true religious of course must, clearly is not open to change and is necessarily bigoted.
If, for example, his scriptures or his church, tell him he shalt not even covet his neighbor’s wife—let alone have actual adulterous relations with her!--he cannot ask himself, "Why should I not lust after this women, as long as I don’t intend to do anything about my desire for her? What is really wrong about that?" For his god and his church have spoken; and there is no appeal from this arbitrary authority, once he has brought himself to accept it.
Hillary's Getting A Lot Of Ass These Days
Sadly, just in photographic form.
Freedom Of Suppression
Kathleen Parker on how the instinct not to offend kills free expression and lets religious fanatics rule:
The past several days of mayhem throughout the Muslim world — all thanks to a handful of mild cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed — have provided a clarifying moment for those still uncertain about what the West faces from radical disciples of the Islamic faith.What's clear is that East and West are not just cultures apart, but centuries, and that certain elements of the Muslim world would like to drag us back into the Dark Ages.
What is also clear is that the West's own leaders, both in Europe and the USA, as well as many of our own journalists, have been weak-spined when it comes to defending the principles of free expression that the artists in Denmark were exploring.
Instead of stepping up to passionately defend freedoms won through centuries of bloody sacrifice, most have bowed to ayatollahs of sensitivity, rebuking the higher calling of enlightenment and sending the cartoonists into hiding under threat of death.
Many U.S. newspapers have declined to reproduce the cartoons out of respect for Muslims, setting up the absurd implication that an open airing of the debate's content constitutes disrespect. Both the U.S. State Department and the Vatican have declared that Muslims were justified in being offended, while former president Bill Clinton, speaking in Qatar last month, called the cartoons "appalling."
Mob rule
Of course, one can always justify being offended because taking offense is always a subjective act of volition. What is appalling, meanwhile, is appeasing crazed radicals in betrayal of moderate Muslims courageously trying to speak truth to insanity. Appalling is our official genuflection to an irrational horde that has no interest in compromise or reason but only in submission. Ours.
While our government is issuing sanctimonious sympathy notes to the hysterical mobs, a Jordanian editor is arrested for publishing three of the cartoons and urging Muslims to "be reasonable." While President Bush and Clinton were feeling the pain of religious fanatics, marauders were burning Danish government buildings in Beirut, and Damascus, Syria, and promising Londoners a 9/11 of their own.
Such are the fruits of appeasement.
Then she combats the protests of the tenderheaded:
Two common apologist arguments beg rebuttal. One of them compares printing inflammatory cartoons to crying "fire" in a crowded theater, implying that one shouldn't express things certain to offend others. Never mind that all political commentary would cease by such a standard, but the reason crying "fire" is forbidden is practical. People panic and stampede when they hear it, and it is false. It is imperative to cry "fire" when there really is a fire. It is also imperative to cry foul when cartoonists face death threats for doodling.
And finally, there's this -- correcting the fallacy that the Danish cartoons are comparable to caricatures of Jews in Nazi Germany, and of blacks in the segregationist South:
The correct comparison, in fact, for Nazi and Klan terrorists are their brothers under the hoods — the jihadists who issued a death sentence on writer Salman Rushdie, who beheaded journalist Daniel Pearl and businessman Nick Berg, and who kidnapped an innocent American female journalist and showed videos of her sobbing and terrified among armed men holding guns to her head.These are the fascist thugs, not the artists who draw cartoons in the service of democracy and truth. And those who out of a misguided sense of cultural sensitivity and niceness try to justify Muslim outrage over a cartoon are, frankly, lending aid and comfort to the enemies of civilization.
Yes, The Jews Will Leave The Med Schools, And Law Schools, and MIT
...and take a few hours out to set some embassies on fire. Can anyone really picture this? Not that all Jews are doctors, scientists, and inventors. Some are handbag designers, some are Congress-buying lobbyists, and some are unemployed. But now, an Iranian newspaper has called for cartoons on the "myth" of the Holocaust. Are they suggesting the Jews will all rush out of cardiology class to try to find cartoonists to behead or be-hand? It didn't happen after the Web Site of the Arab European League ran this cartoon February 2, 2006:
Here's the CNN story on the dumbass Iranians and their idea of tit for tat (and, by the way, there have already been plenty of "Holocaust didn't happen" or "evil Jews" cartoons in Arab newspapers, and you don't see Jews throwing objects on some flaming pyre outside Arab embassies):
An Iranian newspaper says it is going to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West will apply the same principles of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide against Jews as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, The Associated Press reports.The newspaper, called Hamshahri, said the contest would be launched on February 13 and would be co-convened by itself and the House of Caricatures, a Tehran exhibition center for cartoons.
The competition is in response to the publication, mainly in European newspapers, of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, something which is forbidden under Muslim belief.
Both the paper and the cartoon center are owned by the Tehran Municipality, which is dominated by allies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is well known for his opposition to Israel, AP reports.
Last year Ahmadinejad provoked outcries when he said on separate occasions that Israel should be "wiped out" and the Holocaust was a "myth."
Hamshahri invited foreign cartoonists to enter the competition and said it wanted to see how open the West was to caricatures of the Holocaust.
"Does the West extend freedom of expression to the crimes committed by the United States and Israel, or an event such as the Holocaust? Or is its freedom only for insulting religious sanctities?" Hamshahri wrote, referring to the Prophet Mohammed cartoons, in a short article on its back page.
The Iranian newspaper's plans come as violence sparked by the cartoons shows little sign of abating, with Afghan police killing four protesters on Tuesday.
Tuesday's protests -- from Asia to the Middle East, Africa and Europe -- came as political leaders urged restraint and struggled to contain the backlash, some of which has turned from peaceful to volatile and deadly.
In Iran, which is locked in a nuclear stand-off with the West and has cut trade ties with Denmark where the cartoons were first published, crowds pelted the Danish Embassy in Tehran with petrol bombs and stones for a second day.
Also in Tehran, protesters threw Molotov cocktails at the Norwegian Embassy, breaking several windows, a witness told CNN.
Ole Kristian Holthe, the Norwegian ambassador to Iran, said he had gotten word that about 100 demonstrators had gathered in front of the embassy, as were 100 police officers.
"At least one petrol bomb was thrown against the embassy," he told CNN in a phone interview from Tehran.
The embassy was closed Tuesday due to the protests all over the Middle East, a spokeswoman for the Norwegian foreign ministry said, and all embassy personnel are safe.
Meanwhile, the United Nations evacuated staff and NATO peacekeepers rushed reinforcements to a northwest Afghan town after deadly fighting erupted during a protest against the cartoons, The Associated Press reported.
Where's Woody Allen? And what about Larry David? If they're not too terrified of burning their fingers to light matches, maybe they could get a few Molotov cocktails going!
Where Are My Original Checks?
I've always done my taxes by piling up my checks and adding up the amounts. Oops, but where are my Cingular checks, and where are my ATT checks? Last night, after going through my checks and noticing these two piles were missing, I learned from a guy at my bank that the phone companies have been eating our actual checks and sending over digital copies. It's all about convenience for them, and cost-savings for them, as opposed to that of the consumer.
Full-Pottied Service
A Halifax, Nova Scotia plumber hedges his bets in case potential customers can't read.
The Rare Pushy Broad
Emma Duncan in the Telegraph ponders the question why women make less money:
So what is holding women back? Not just, I suspect, the need to breed. A study from the University of Chicago suggests another reason. The academics observed children running. When they ran alone, boys and girls clocked similar speeds. When they raced each other, the girls' speed hardly altered. But boys ran faster against a boy, and faster still against a girl. Girls, it seems, are too wimpy (or sensible) to compete as vigorously as boys.And why do women get paid less than men for the same work? The answer may lie in a recent book, Women Don't Ask, by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever. They noticed that male graduates from the Carnegie Mellon University, where Ms Babcock works, were paid $4,000 - about 8 per cent - more than women graduates in their first job. Only 7 per cent of women, it turned out, had pushed for more money instead of accepting the salary offered; more than half of men, by contrast, had negotiated. On average, those who negotiated raised the offer by $4,053 - almost the exact difference in starting pay.
Women, the authors maintain, don't think it's nice to ask for things for themselves, and fear damaging relationships with their bosses if they do. Men, by contrast, think that asking for things for themselves is what it's all about.
I wonder, too, if women tend to have a problem with other women who are pushy (ie, aggressive) in business. I wonder if that's why my column isn't in more daily newspapers (the features department is notoriously estrogen-heavy, and I'm aggressive in selling my column to them), or if it has more to do with the content of my column, and the fact that too many daily paper editors seem to prefer docile readers to the engaged kind.
There's a certain breed of stuffy, middle-aged editor who's especially nasty to me, as if they're angry that I dare to sell my own work instead of sitting back meekly and letting them find their way to it. For example, once, at the annual features editors' conference, I tried to get an editor of this ilk that I ran into in the elevator to take my packet with her: "Want something interesting to read for the plane?" I pitched her eagerly. "No thanks," she sniffed, knowing full-well I meant my packet of columns. "I have a good novel." Beeeyatch!
Regarding why my column or my other writing doesn't run in the LA Times features section, a features editor at the paper previously told me (and I'm quoting from the letter she sent from memory, because I can't find the actual document at the moment): "Never send us anything ever again. We're content with the writers we have. We're not seeking any new writers." Well, maybe you're not, but I think your readers certainly are!
Ugly For Sale!
Remember how crappy you looked in 1977? Well, now's your chance to relive the fashion horror! This smock is from a store in Santa Monica, Bway just past fourth, that always sells the UGLIEST clothes. They should call it The Emperor's Retro Clothes, because stuff in the window always reflects the worst of the 70s and 80s, and it's got to be pretty expensive. Hello, girls? Have a brain and a sense of style, and you can buy clothes for five dollars at thrift stores and plastic jewelry on eBay and look fab.
Here's one of my pricier eBay purchases, a beautifully cut, thick, satin-lined vintage wool jacket I got in a bidding war for...gasp!...a whole $33:
(Of course smart women always wear clothes that show off their waist, or at least, give the illusion that they have one.)
Pajamaline
No, this isn't a nighttime term for "plumber's crack," it's Senator Dick Durbin's introduction to Powerline's Paul Mirengoff. Very funny.
Black Like Me
It seems some black Americans going in for genetic testing to discover their ancestry are learning that they're descended from European whites. 30 percent of those getting tested, in fact:
Those stories of white slaveowners getting slave girls pregnant have proved to be all too true, thanks to DNA testing.Because of the likelihood of finding white ancestry, Melvyn Gillette of the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California says the DNA tests are "not for the faint-hearted."
"Before you go opening any door, you need to ask, 'Am I really ready for what might be behind it?'" Gillette told USA Today last week. "Not everyone is."
A member of Gillette's group in Oakland was stunned by her test results, because they showed her male ancestors traced back to a white Italian. Family lore had her expecting to find a black man from Madagascar.
"She couldn't get past it," Gillette said. "She ordered more tests."
President Gina Paige of AfricanAncestry.com said one client was furious when he found his male ancestors were not only white, they were German.
"He was especially upset that (the ancestor) was German," Paige told the newspaper. "More so than white, he had a problem with being even a little bit German."
Well, don't blame my ancestors. They were busy across the pond getting raped by the Cossacks.
Were My Superbowl Predictions Right?
Somebody asked me how I thought the Super Bowl would turn out. My answer: "A game will be played. One team will win, the other team will lose." Prescient, huh? Did I miss any wardrobe malfunctions? I'm certainly not going to tune in for football, one of the dullest games around, with all its starts and stops (save golf and watching the sidewalk age), but if somebody's showing some nipple, count me in!
Commie Liberal Comes Out Against Bush's Spying Program
Yes, that noted bleeding heart lefty, Senate Judiciary chairman Arlen Spector, is going all Arianna on the president:
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Specter called the administration's legal reasoning "strained and unrealistic" and said the program appears to be "in flat violation" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.Hearings into the surveillance program are scheduled to begin Monday on Capitol Hill.
Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, the former head of the National Security Agency, defended the surveillance on ABC's "This Week" and the Fox News Network, the International Herald Tribune reported.
"It's about speed," General Hayden said in his ABC appearance. "It's about hot pursuit of al-Qaida communications."
There's something to be said for that, but is it really a problem, at that level of government, to get clearances? And what kind of speed are we talking about, really? Would that be the speed at which the administration has brought in Osama Bin Laden? And then there's the, cough, effectiveness issue. If you're going to use the Constitution for toilet paper, at least make it worth our while!
Contact The Idiots At AOL
I've been on AOL since 1992 or 1993, and after all these years, it would be a real pain to change my email address, but check this out -- AOL is prepping to charge companies to send you e-mail -- on top of the already high rates for their service. Here's an excerpt from the New York Times article by Saul Hansell:
Companies will soon have to buy the electronic equivalent of a postage stamp if they want to be certain that their e-mail will be delivered to many of their customers.America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely.
The Internet companies say that this will help them identify legitimate mail and cut down on junk e-mail, identity-theft scams and other scourges that plague users of their services. They also stand to earn millions of dollars a year from the system if it is widely adopted.
AOL and Yahoo will still accept e-mail from senders who have not paid, but the paid messages will be given special treatment. On AOL, for example, they will go straight to users' main mailboxes, and will not have to pass the gantlet of spam filters that could divert them to a junk-mail folder or strip them of images and Web links. As is the case now, mail arriving from addresses that users have added to their AOL address books will not be treated as spam.
Yahoo and AOL say the new system is a way to restore some order to e-mail, which, because of spam and worries about online scams, has become an increasingly unreliable way for companies to reach their customers, even as online transactions are becoming a crucial part of their businesses.
"The last time I checked, the postal service has a very similar system to provide different options," said Nicholas Graham, an AOL spokesman. He pointed to services like certified mail, "where you really do get assurance that if what you send is important to you, it will be delivered, and delivered in a way that is different from other mail."
But critics of the plan say that the two companies risk alienating both their users and the companies that send e-mail. The system will apply not only to mass mailings but also to individual commercial messages like order confirmations from online stores and customized low-fare notices from airlines.
"AOL users will become dissatisfied when they don't receive the e-mail that they want, and when they complain to the senders, they'll be told, 'it's AOL's fault,' " said Richi Jennings, an analyst at Ferris Research, which specializes in e-mail.
As for companies that send e-mail, "some will pay, but others will object to being held to ransom," he said. "A big danger is that one of them will be big enough to encourage AOL users to use a different e-mail service."
You can find the hidden corporate contact numbers here. As a member of the media who plans to crusade against this, I snuck in under the media wire and called Nicholas Graham's office. I'm on deadline, so I asked them to email me back. Not that they seem to care what their customers want.
Greedy bastards.
UPDATE: Right after I posted this blog item I checked my email and found the first of AOL's post-announcement cancellations:
In a message dated 2/5/06 11:34:14 PM, XXXXXXXX@sbcglobal.net writes:Hi Amy, finally quit aol, ...
"Unholy Trinity: Katrina, Allbaugh and Brown"
Award-winning investigative journo Russ Baker publishes an exclusive on his new site, realnews.org -- The Real News Project -- on the Bush-Allbaugh-Brown relationship:
When Allbaugh brought Brown to Washington, he presented him as a lifelong associate of high character and substantial credentials. “I hired him solely on his ability as a strong ethics attorney,” Allbaugh said in an official FEMA press release at the time. “He is very experienced, knowledgeable, and professional and will be a great asset to the agency and to myself.”The truth, RealNews has learned, is that the relationship between the two rests on a decades-long hidden partnership designed to advance both men's business and personal interests. By all appearances, that relationship drove Allbaugh's decision to ask Bush to let him run FEMA, and his decision to turn the place over to Brown so he could profit from their ties.
A few key points:
-Once in Washington, Allbaugh and Brown characterized themselves as long-time friends, and were content to leave the impression that they knew each other from college and Republican circles. But lifelong associates of both men say that is untrue. Indeed, the association between the two appears to have been a largely covert one, based less on selfless brotherhood than on mutual self-interest, as represented by a series of murky business ventures.-Both Brown and Allbaugh were accused in the past of fiduciary malfeasance. Before coming to Washington, both were known to associates and creditors not as rising stars but as ethically-challenged, and frequently failed, entrepreneurs.
-In one business venture, Allbaugh worked for Brown, as a lobbyist. In another, Allbaugh partnered with Brown’s brother-in-law and sister-in-law. That business involved mysterious, large amounts of cash that upset Allbaugh’s then-wife, and contributed to their divorce. One Allbaugh business partner would later be convicted of mail and wire fraud and serve time in a federal prison.
-Allbaugh persuaded an elderly widow who was a frequent GOP donor to personally loan him money; he defaulted on the loan.
-Allbaugh and his second wife declared bankruptcy, unloading nearly $300,000 in debt, but failed to report this – as he was required to do – to the Senate on disclosure forms during his confirmation process. Legal experts say this may constitute a felony.
-Allbaugh accepted a personal loan guaranteed by a large contractor doing business with the state of Oklahoma while he was a top aide to the governor; he never repaid the loan.
-Brown, who was brought into FEMA initially by Allbaugh to run the legal operation, has a history as a failed low-level lawyer, replete with discontented clients, unhappy employers and damaging lawsuits.
-Brown was fired from his longest-held position, his principal job preceding his hiring at FEMA, for obtaining a personal loan from a prominent horse owner under false pretenses. When an official of the horse association confronted him, Brown tried to make a deal with the man to make the matter go away.
-Although it has been reported that Brown exaggerated some of his accomplishments, he actually exaggerated many more, creating a misleading impression about his qualifications and his credibility as he was confirmed to his high federal position.
-The hard-luck Brown has received multiple assists from well-connected Republicans. His long-time lawyer, who has helped him through scrape after scrape, is a friend of Clarence Thomas and former regional director of the influential and secretive Federalist Society.
-Brown and Allbaugh had apparently agreed on Brown’s role in the Bush administration well in advance. For six months prior to Bush’s election in 2000, Brown was telling incredulous associates that he expected to land a high position in Washington.
-Both Allbaugh and Brown appear to have withheld negative personal financial information from the Senate during their confirmation process – information that would have cast doubt on their fitness for high office and that, by law, they were required to disclose. Allbaugh, notably, failed to disclose his 1990 bankruptcy.
-At FEMA, Allbaugh launched a purge, forcing out many of the most experienced officials. Allbaugh and Brown also abandoned a recent agency tradition of hiring experienced professionals and filled high FEMA positions with political operatives lacking familiarity with emergency disaster management.
-Allbaugh edged out his #2, one of the most experienced men in government, in order to replace him with Brown.
-Under Brown, during the 2004 presidential election, FEMA handed out tens of millions of dollars in disaster aid in parts of the politically crucial Florida that had experienced little damage.
-Allbaugh has had extremely close ties with Vice President Cheney – including vetting Cheney for the vice presidency, buying his house, serving on Cheney’s secretive energy task force, and then becoming a consultant to Cheney’s former company, Halliburton.
-Under Allbaugh and Brown, FEMA changed the way in which the agency handled contracts, awarding them to numerous firms with political connections but little in the way of corporate infrastructure to handle the work. Some of these recipients were merely Enron-style shell corporations that subcontracted all the work to others, keeping a sizable share of the profits.
-When Allbaugh left FEMA, he immediately began setting up a network of lobbying interests to benefit from his connections. His clients were selected by FEMA under Brown, and by other agencies, for major contracts.-FEMA shifted abruptly in 2003 from dealing directly on a non-exclusive basis with large bottled water suppliers, to issuing a sole-source contract to a tiny, politically connected firm that had to turn to other companies to supply water. This arrangement is blamed for substantial problems with deliveries of water following Hurricane Katrina.
The entire 9,000 word article is here.
Fighting Fire With Kleenex
And now, let's again give a big hand to newspaper editors across America for bravely going where they've gone far too many times before:
Please repost, link to, and/or circulate this cartoon.
It also seems an opportune time to repost an excerpt from this letter, written this past summer by a friend of mine who's lived in Paris, eyes wide open, for over three decades:
Chère Amie,In the humble opinion of Mme Tout le monde (= Jane Q. Public) that I am, and at having seen the situation on both sides of the Atlantic & all the way up to Holland, Denmark & Sweden...it is not what anyone in the West does that will make a difference. These people are out to kill us all & they begin hitting us at our weak point, our Achilles' heel, or should I say the specific way in which democracy works in each country, to hurt us. It it interesting to watch how they use our democratic ways against us starting with freedom of speech, hence the hateful "prèches" (=imam's preachings). The most galling is their treatment of their women whom they force by either threat or brainwashing to wear the veil & that they turn into walking tents – these poor women who, for the most part - want to wear modern dresses, jeans & make-up. In their will to destroy us, most obvious are the symbols of US capitalism & might both inside & outside the US, and the freedom enjoyed in all Western countries, with its great corollary, freedom of speech.
Like said in one of the articles I sent you, they want to impose the dark ages back upon us, which is a difficult pill to swallow for us in the Occident, children of the Siècle des Lumières. Since the end of the 18h century, in aspiration of freedom & equality, most western countries, starting with the United States & France, went thru some type of revolution (rather violent in France). It has taken us over two centuries to attain all the rights for all citizens & as we seem to reach to point of accomplishment, these dark fanatic knights want to bring us back to the time of Inquisition.
...You ask if there is a difference in the way immigrants are dealt with in France vis-à-vis English “multi-culturalism” vs French “integration”. The way I understand it, this is not the problem. Whether they are treated well or not, put in ghettos or not, are given equal opportunities or not, nothing will change the fact that they want to do away with our way of life. Period. France has been a land of immigration & integration for centuries. Refugees came to France for the same reasons tourists do. Its freedom, its way of life, its facility of assimilation after one generation, i.e. thru their children who attend French schools, l’école de la République. It is very much the same in the United States. On the other hand, the Muslims do not want to assimilate or to integrate, whichever way you want to say it. They do not want their children to be educated as petits Français. You should see how these kids disrupt classes, how they refuse to study certain subjects.
My hair stands straight on my head when I hear Americans speak of the way Muslims in France live in “ghettos” & how they are treated by the French. It simply is not true. If in their quarters there is violence (knifing, gang rapes, beatings, delinquency, drug dealing etc.), it is not gangs of French kids going there to do it, it is the Muslims (or whatever they should be called) who are doing it. It is Muslim gang against Muslim gang. The many gang rapes are of their own young neighbor Arab girls! Then they go out & gang up against the French. When you hear of anti-Semitism in France, of vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, do you believe one minute French people do it? No, it is the delinquent Arabs in France. But nobody is saying it because these “Arab kids” are second or third generation, thus French nationals. And also because stupid "political correctness" is a must. So, who destroyed graves in a Jewish cemetery? “French” people!
Amy, I have lived in France a long time -- over thirty years -- and for a quite a long time, I have foreseen what’s going on in France now. In fact, in the 1980s, I was telling a very dear American friend of mine (we are like sisters) in California my fears for the future of France. She could not believe me & said “You are racist.” Racist I was not, I just was picking on things that were shocking me. Like a conversation I had with an Arab man – rich, handsome, de culture Européenne as the French like to say. That man told me, “Do you know why we come here to study & work? Simply to learn your ways, know you, understand you & eventually do away with you.” I was flabbergasted by the turn the conversation had taken. That guy could not have been clearer.
Nowadays, I still talk to Arabs whenever the occasion arises, never to those of “quartiers difficiles”, but to well-to-do ones who live in the better parts of Paris or suburb. I wish you would try it sometimes! Within ten minutes at the most, the conversation turns into a litany of our ills, then pure hatred of the Occident comes out. I am yet to hear one of these men (or women, as they are as vicious) have a word of compassion for 9/11 or any terrorist act perpetrated in Europe, because Europe already got its share of bombings, which many Americans in the U.S. do not seem to be aware of. Ask the Parisians about les attentats du métro Saint-Michel ou de la Rue de Rennes (bombing attacks in Paris, about ten years ago), to mention only these two !
In the opinion of most French people, it is only a matter of time for terrorism to hit again. And it is my opinion also. What will be hit in France beside public transportation, department stores & markets? I see the Louvre, Notre Dame cathedral, Versailles, nuclear power plants, schools, hospitals…I also think that Arabs will be killing Arabs in France, Arabs such as the rector of the Mosquée de Paris. They’ll slit his throat right in the Mosquée because he shows no hatred for the French.
Amy, forgive me for sounding so pessimistic, but that is the way I see the future in Europe. With these people, there is no talk possible, no common grounds, only escalation of the hatred & killing of the Infidel. It is going to be a bloody war of religion. And yes, it is going to be WWIII.
cartoon link via egoist
Treaching Editors A Lesson
Jim Treacher takes advantage of how, according to certain newspaper editors, it's wrong to show an offensive image, but it's okay to describe it.
21st Century Savages Torch Embassies
Yes, let's call them what they are: savages, barbarians, animals. I am, of course, talking about the Muslims who torched the Norwegian embassy and the building holding the Danish one in a savage rage against freedom of speech (UPDATE: and now the Danish one in Beirut) -- in their continuing war against against civilization, modernity, and free countries around the globe:
Die Welt in Berlin, Germany, and France Soir in Paris, France, reprinted the cartoons, as did two weekly Jordanian newspapers, Shihan and Al-Mehwar.Arrest warrants were issued Saturday for the editors of the Jordanian papers, according to Jordan's Petra News Agency. Shihan's editor, Jihad Momeni, a former member of the Jordanian Senate, was fired after publishing the cartoons.
Jordan's King Abdullah II said the publication of such images is a "crime that that cannot be justified under freedom of expression," Petra reported.
Freedom of expression? What a joke. Is there any such thing in any Muslim country? If so, where?
Come on, follow my example above. Let's start calling them (anyone who would harm any other person for their beliefs or free speech) for what they are: primitives, savages, barbarians, animals...(feel free to add your suggestions below). Properly naming something is the first step toward having any hope of combatting it.
Oh, but what about tolerance and love? I'll tolerate people who want to believe in god, Santa, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy, or have some hallucination that I could some day become a place kicker (whatever that is) in the Super Bowl. The moment they draw a weapon or light a match to set some building on fire in the name of their beliefs is the moment my tolerance goes sour.
The Toad Less Traveled
New Advice Goddess column just went up; a letter from a girl dating a weenie who constantly puts himself down and has gone five dates without jumping her. Here's an excerpt from my reply:
Losers are not born but sentenced by a jury of their mean little peers. Once high school ends and the “cool” kids are busy getting hired and fired by 7-11 or making bail, what keeps somebody a loser is simply believing he is one and acting accordingly. Last month, I got a slew of e-mails from a male reader whose back had seen more stiletto action than the carpet at Jimmy Choo shoes. I responded time and again with detailed directions off Planet Loser, but the guy couldn’t help himself, and each story of his use and abuse was more pathetic than the last. Finally, patience not being one of my several virtues, I wrote, “Just go to a bar tonight and pretend you have dignity!” He did. The next morning, he e-mailed: “YOU! CHANGED! MY! LIFE!” All it took was a slight change in message: “I want to be your date” instead of “I want to be your dog.”Pathetic is easy. In fact, it can be a form of sloth. Take your guy. Unlike all those other men, sweating to be what women want, he just curls up in his trusty old fetal position, resigned to the fact that it isn’t him. Now, maybe you can tunnel him out of Dudville by telling him to kill the hard un-sell and hammering into him that whatever he’s got, that’s what you want. Somebody’s gotta do all the work, why not you? Speaking of which, he’s probably one of those guys who waits for a woman to jump him. Taking charge is a great idea -- unless you’re a woman who’s looking to land a man. In that case, your best bet is flirting yourself dizzy to let him know it’s safe to make a move. In time, say by date eleven, when you’ve worked your way up to an erotically charged hug, it might become clearer whether you’ve got a man on your hands or just a big girl’s blouse with men’s bathroom privileges.
The entire column is here. And here's a reminder: If I'm not in your local paper, and you want to read me in it, please email the editor and ask. Even the Puritans sometimes bow to reader interest!
Buy Danish
From Judith Apter Klinghoffer, noting the boycotts by the Muslim countries, which are doing serious damage to little Denmark's economy:
The Muslim countries have chosen to pressure liberal little Denmark in order to teach the media and governments, which stand by them, a lesson which does not bode well for free speech or satire. Kuwait has joined the Saudi boycott (the Saudi market alone is worth 1.2 billion) and I suspect the rest will follow. So, here is a plea from my Danish friends:"If you Americans look with this great sympathy on our case, couldn't you then raise a consumer support of DK in the US? The opposite of a boycott. A movement of: "Buy Danish!" Please?
You can easily eat and digest all our famous Danish cheese at your millions of breakfast-tables from Seattle to Atlanta. Then the boycott (which is escalating fast down there now) will be harmless."
Yo, Denmark, your flag is our flag. Let's all get shopping! (I mean, I'll do it when there's no politically good reason to do so; all the more reason to do it now, with a vengeance.) Danish butter cookies, here I come!
Here's a list of Danish products and services.
Got a blog? I don't care if you have three readers. Please copy this flag and put it up on your site (just drag it off onto your desktop and upload it to your site) and link to the Danish products yourself, and ask your readers to join in the un-boycott in the fight against terror, repression, and regression.
Bowing To The Barbarians
What a waste the First Amendment is turning out to be. US newspapers refuse to run the cartoons that have Europe in an uproar. From Joe Strupp at Editor & Reporter:
As a collection of controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad circulates online and through some European publications, prompting numerous acts of violence abroad, nearly all U.S. newspapers have chosen not to publish the cartoons.Although most American papers have covered the issue, with many running Page One stories, most contend the cartoons are too offensive to run, and can be properly reported through descriptions. While some have linked to the images on the Web, others are considering publishing one or more of them next week. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Inquirer has complained that The Associated Press should at least distribute the images and allow members papers to make the call.
"They wouldn't meet our standards for what we publish in the paper," said Leonard Downie, Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post, which ran a front-page story on the issue Friday, but has not published the cartoons. "We have standards about language, religious sensitivity, racial sensitivity and general good taste."
Downie, who said the images also had not been placed on the Post Web site, compared the decision to similar choices not to run offensive photos of dead bodies or offensive language. "We described them," he said of such images. "Just like in the case of covering the hurricanes in New Orleans or terrorist attacks in Iraq. We will describe horrific scenes."
At USA Today, deputy foreign editor Jim Michaels offered a similar explanation. "At this point, I'm not sure there would be a point to it," he said about publishing the cartoons. "We have described them, but I am not sure running it would advance the story." Although he acknowledged that the cartoons have news value, he said the offensive nature overshadows that.
"It has been made clear that it is offensive," Michaels said when asked if the paper was afraid of sparking violence or other kinds of backlash. "I don't know if fear is the right word. But we came down on the side that we could serve readers well without a depiction that is offensive."
The Los Angeles Times sent this statement to E&P this afternoon: "Our newsroom and op-ed page editors, independently of each other, determined that the caricatures could be deemed offensive to some readers and the there were effective ways to cover the controversy without running the images themselves."
The cartoons, which include one of the Muslim prophet wearing a turban fashioned into a bomb, have been reprinted in papers in Norway, France, Germany and Jordan after first running in a Danish paper last September. The drawings were published again recently after some Muslims decried them as insulting to their prophet, AP reported, adding that Dutch-language newspapers in Belgium and two Italian "right-wing" papers reprinted the drawings Friday.
Islamic law, according to most clerics' interpretations of the Quran, forbids depictions of Muhammad and other major religious figures -- even positive images.
Yeah, and my atheistic religion forbids the murder of innocent people, but the other side isn't exactly pulling out the stops for the likes of me. I just love this: fighting terror with...turning tail and scurrying back in our own spider holes.
Here's Mohammed with the bomb/turban on his head. A whole bunch of the cartoons are here (kudos to MSNBC.com for making them available). I'm sorry, but should we be offended by the cartoon itself, or because there's so much truth to it? Too little, too late of "moderate" Muslims coming out for the supposed peace their religion is based on, and too many readings from their Koran and followers of their religion advocating violence. There are a few nuts on the Christian "Right" blowing up abortion clinics, but, by and large, there's no other religion than Islam where so many people are advocating the murder of anyone who doesn't think just like them. Fucking primitives.
More Primitives In The News
A Florida doctor's office passed out anti-gay materials to a lesbian patient:
Jamie Beiler of Kissimmee, Fla., who consulted Dr. John Hartman for a routine matter, said she was "shocked and outraged" when she opened the sealed envelope handed to her by Hartman's assistant, Dawn Pope-Wright. Inside, she found a three-part selection of scriptural quotes under the headings: "Homosexual activity is sinful and sexually impure," "While homosexual activity is sin and impure, it is possible with God's help to change," and finally "Moral choices must be made." Each section contained half a dozen passages from the Bible excoriating homosexual acts and other "sexual sins."Beiler filed a formal complaint with Hartman's office, where she was informed that the anti-gay documents were commonly given to patients, the lesbian rights group said in a joint statement with Southern Legal Counsel, Inc., and the Mautner Project.
Are You A Woman Or A Monkey?
This weird little woman in the pink smock had both feet curled up under her on the bar stool the entire time Lena and I were drinking and dining at Chaya Venice Thursday night.
The Tits And Ass Of French Cheese
In America, where it's okay to machete somebody's head off on TV, providing you don't show any nipple while doing it, it would be "The Face Of," not the tits and ass of -- which I happen to think is just great.
Here's a piece by Henry Samuel in the Telegraph:
The Calendrier des From'Girls (Cheese Girls' Calendar) is the brainchild of Véronique Richez-Lerouge, the founder of France's regional cheese association and its national cheese day. She is also the face of December for the calendar....Mrs Richez-Lerouge persuaded her friends in Lyons, aged from 20 to around 40 and lovers of cheese and wine, to pose. "They are all working and most are mums," she said. Each appears in various stages of undress next to a cheese.
...The women also stripped to prove that you can eat smelly cheese and stay thin and healthy. "French women are obsessed with dieting," Mrs Richez-Lerouge said.
"But low-fat cheese has no taste and is not as healthy as fromage au lait crû."
The calendar is aimed at stemming a downward trend in unpasteurised cheese on a par with the drop in French wine consumption.
Today only seven per cent of cheeses eaten in France are unpasteurised, compared with up to half 30 years ago. Some cheeses have already disappeared.
Mrs Richez-Lerouge placed the blame for the decline on overly stringent European rules and on supermarkets that produce fake cheeses with no taste.
In America, it's almost impossible to find unpasteurized cheese (ie, cheese with taste), and even harder to find a nice set of tits and ass in an ad for anything that isn't being sold to Hustler, Playboy, or Penthouse readers. As for low-fat cheese...it's like all low-fat food. Who tends to buy it? Well, fat people. Is there causality there? Well, when I recently ate a piece of low-fat coffee cake (accidentally - it wasn't labeled low-fat), I got "get-out-of-my-fucking-way" hungry. If I eat a doughnut at 9am, I can go 'til about 3pm before I say to myself, "Oh, you really should eat a bit of lunch, dear."
I'm always shocked at people that eat the tasteless low-fat crap, and who drink Diet Coke and those other drinks that have that chemical crap sweetener in them, as if that's actually a productive act. Again, read The Fat Fallacy by Will Clower, the neuroscientist who moved with his family to France and was shocked that they all dropped a bunch of lard instead of gaining weight.
And another question: Does cholesterol really cause heart disease? And check out the side-effects of Lipitor.
Time To Buy New Pillows!
Apparently, we've got lots of company -- we're sleeping on it. Yes, our pillows are probably "hot beds of fungal spores." According to the University of Manchester's Professor Ashley Woodcock (apparently a leader in pillow fungus research):
We know that pillows are inhabited by the house dust mite which eats fungi, and one theory is that the fungi are in turn using the house dust mites' faeces as a major source of nitrogen and nutrition (along with human skin scales). There could therefore be a 'miniature ecosystem' at work inside our pillows.
Race you to Bed, Bath & Beyond?
When Big Boobs Attack
An Instant Message that flew in over the transom yesterday:
rhynost: hey
rhynost: amy?
AdviceAmy: Sorry, no time for im convos. Kindly email me your message. Over and out!
rhynost: watchin colbert report
rhynost: how big are your boobs
AdviceAmy: You do realize I have a daily need to feed a blog, don't you? Thanks for becoming fodder for tomorrow.
Paternity Obscenity
That would be making a man pay child support to the biological father of his wife's child -- and then taking away his visitation rights to that child and his own biological child as well:
So for the last 15 years, enslaved, I have paid the support for both children while they lived with the father of the first child. Obviously everyone, including the judge, have been fully aware of the fraud since the court entered the order. And, to add insult to injury, her boyfriend (the biological father) sat in the courtroom through the divorce proceedings.
I have since learned that my ex-wife gave a child up for adoption eight months before I met her. The same man was the father of that child as well and wanted nothing to do with that baby.
In April 2001 I received a letter from the friend of the court stating the mother had moved out of the house leaving the children behind, basically abandoning them with this man. At that point the court granted him custody of not only his child but my child as well. The judge also issued an order directing that all payments I make go directly to the biological father of my ex-wife’s child. Not only was I paying this man to raise his own child, but my child as well. Further, I was never notified until after this occurred and the court order entered.
When the mother moved out of her boyfriend’s home in 2001 she was also ordered to pay the father child support. Thus, her boyfriend was receiving child support from two separate people to raise his own child.
The child is now 20-years old and doesn’t even live with his father. But the courts say I have an arrearage of $6,700 that has accumulated over the last 15 years. To date this case, between the support and health care, has cost me well over $150,000.
In 2005 my child moved back in with my ex-wife and on September 19th the court issued an order for me to pay her child support for our child. However, I was not notified of the custody change or the court order until I received a letter dated January 20, 2006, from the friend of the court, Elizabeth Roszatycki.
As this case stands today, I pay the father, my ex-wife’s boyfriend, child support on an arrearage for a child that isn’t mine and a child that no longer lives with him. I also pay the mother child support for the second child.
Some ask why I have just paid the support? The answer, though unjust, is quite easy. When the divorce proceeding were over my attorney told me there was nothing I could do, just live with it.
Even though the second child is mine I have tape recorded phone conversations from 1990 of the mother stating that I will never be allowed to have anything to do with either of these children. She stated then that she would simply erase me out of the picture so her, the children, and her boyfriend can go on with their lives as a family. And she did just that with the full support of the courts all the way.
I felt compared to share this injustice with you and can provide documentation on request.
Douglas M Richardson
709 McDonnell
Essexville, Michigan 48732
(989) 893-4717
mailto:dougmrich@yahoo.com
There's much more of this that goes on than people realize. Unfortunately, the "men's movement," with all its howling about all women being "feminazis" and such -- instead of simply telling the tale (like this, above) -- comes off clownishly enraged, and thus becomes easier for the general public to ignore.
Here's an excerpt from a comment I posted in response to some of this "feminazi" ranting on Men's News Daily:
SOME GUY: "Unfortunately for men in America, it really makes no difference that there are only a handful of women that are not Feminazis..."ME: Oh, please. First of all, it's not true. Read the work of any of my friends -- Cathy Seipp, for example, who was linked here the other day. The exaggeration isn't helping your cause. Equating anybody with the Nazis who is not genocidal and putting people in death camps is imprecise and makes the equate-or look like a fanatic, light on logic. Men as subhumans? Oh, boo hoo. Come on. There are awful injustices -- Matt Welch wrote about paternity fraud, for example, as have I, in my column. But, it's much easier, isn't it, to blame women as a whole than take personal responsibility for marrying some psycho.
...And again, you might feel all squishy inside when you call women feminazis, but I'm somebody who is not a feminist and who supports men's rights, and I'm telling you that it makes people out of your wounded man-coven take you less than seriously.
...If you're all just planning on huffing and puffing to yourselves, fine, feminazi it up. If you'd like to actually have some success getting your message across to men and women who are sympathetic, use language that's more precise and less cartoonish.
What's interesting to me is how unreasonable so many people are here. Again, I know you guys have a lot to be rightfully angry about, but there's an absence of logic, especially in the post of the guy who was so envious of the guy who posted the ridiculous comparison to Nazi Germany. Again, yes, there's injustice. You see men being shoveled into ovens here? Then put your thinking caps on and come up with some language that actually serves your cause.
Kindred Spear It
I just discovered Rip Rense's LTSEWH archive -- that's short for Less Than Satisfying Encounters With Humanity. You know, it's about time we all stopped going silently when people are rude. There's too much of that. I'm engaged in a little reparative revenge (demand for accountability, really) at the moment, upon a company that called me at home for their telemarketing survey. I helpfully pointed out the posted prices for doing so:
Interrupting me during my nap: $3,012.50 (not including tax). During dinner: $3,761.23. During sex: $13,456.50. Other prices available upon request.
And I'll restate once again. If you are not my friend, and you are, instead, a business calling to further your business, there's a high price for bothering me at home on a phone line I pay for. See above. More about that soon. Going to see if they'll get smart and pay my invoice, or if I have to fly to Detroit and small claims 'em. Hee hee...made it clear in the letter to the company that had their boiler room people call me that mommy and daddy still live there in Detroit, and a little family reunion combined with small claims action might be nice.
On a disturbing note, my boyfriend was a bit too excited yesterday at the prospect that there'd be a bit of phonus interruptus during sex. Now, I'm not into Paris Hilton-style sex (the videotaping for the Internet audience or the telephone answering; and frankly, who's calling is the last thing on my mind while engaged in the act), but I guess if we each get half of $13,456.50, it might be prudent to stop moaning and all and see what the fuckers want.
Is There A Better Town For Bars?
San Francisco, filled with little, dark hole-in-the wall bars, lit by great old neon signs. (It almost makes up for the bums and the persistent smell of urine.)
Fuck The Constitution?
Per Cohen v. California, 1971 (the "Fuck The Draft" case), and, of course, the First Amendment, how in the hell was it constitutional to jail Cindy Sheehan for refusing to cover up her anti-war shirt during Bush's State Of The Union address?
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Peace activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Tuesday in the House gallery after refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan before President Bush's State of the Union address.According to a blog post on Michael Moore's Web site attributed to Sheehan, the T-shirt said, "2,245 Dead. How many more?" -- a reference to the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq.
"She was asked to cover it up. She did not," said Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman.
Schneider said Sheehan was arrested around 8:30 p.m. on charges of unlawful conduct, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail.
She was handcuffed and held in the Capitol building until she was driven to the Capitol Police headquarters for booking. According to her blog, she was released about four hours after being arrested.
Sheehan, who became a vocal war opponent after her son was killed in Iraq, was an invited guest of Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-California, who has called for a withdrawal of troops in Iraq and supports legislation for the creation of a Department of Peace.
Here's what the decision in Cohen v. California spells out (from the link above):
Facts of the Case A 19-year-old department store worker expressed his opposition to the Vietnam War by wearing a jacket emblazoned with "FUCK THE DRAFT. STOP THE WAR" The young man, Paul Cohen, was charged under a California statute that prohibits "maliciously and willfully disturb[ing] the peace and quiet of any neighborhood or person [by] offensive conduct." Cohen was found guilty and sentenced to 30 days in jail.Question Presented
Did California's statute, prohibiting the display of offensive messages such as "Fuck the Draft," violate freedom of expression as protected by the First Amendment?Conclusion
Yes. In an opinion by Justice John Marshall Harlan, the Court reasoned that the expletive, while provocative, was not directed toward anyone; besides, there was no evidence that people in substantial numbers would be provoked into some kind of physical action by the words on his jacket. Harlan recognized that "one man's vulgarity is another's lyric." In doing so, the Court protected two elements of speech: the emotive (the expression of emotion) and the cognitive (the expression of ideas).
Have we totally thrown out the Constitution? Because I was pretty attached to it while it lasted.
Lucy And Ethanol
I DISHed George, and will watch him tomorrow, but I've read text from his State Of The Union (or, rather, The Police State), and dare I say, on at least one point, "I told you so"? And in so many ways!
And on a few other topics:
Taxpayer dollars must be spent wisely, or not at all.
Don't make me laugh with the small government stuff. A bigger big spending Democrat we haven't seen in The White House for years.
Oh, and about the so-called "Clear Skies" initiative, the Sierra Club asks:
...Why is the Administration bragging about a plan that will actually result in more pollution than if we simply enforced the existing Clean Air Act?
And then there's the AIDs thing:
Because HIV/AIDS brings suffering and fear into so many lives, I ask you to reauthorize the Ryan White Act to encourage prevention, and provide care and treatment to the victims of that disease. (Applause.) And as we update this important law, we must focus our efforts on fellow citizens with the highest rates of new cases, African American men and women.
Yeah, condoms, you religious nitwit, condoms. They aren't a 100 percent guarantee a person won't get AIDs, but they're far better protection than good intentions.
Oh, and last but not least, a little bit from the beginning of his talk:
Tonight we are comforted by the hope of a glad reunion with the husband who was taken so long ago, and we are grateful for the good life of Coretta Scott King.
Isn't it a tad worrisome that the leader of the free world believes, utterly without evidence, not only that there's a god, but that god's setting up a nice little reunion tea party for Mr. and Mrs. King? What's Santa doing tomorrow, Mr. Bush? The Easter Bunny have some big plans?
Fundies Get Funded
Fundamentalist-based AIDs groups are sucking far too much funding -- too much, for non-science-based groups being any at all, of course. An excerpt from an AP story by Rita Beamish:
Last year, religious groups accounted for more than 23 percent of groups that received grants under the $15 billion President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. About 80 percent of all religious and secular grantees were based in the countries targeted by the aid. Most PEPFAR money goes to treatment programs. Last year, the United States provided some 560 million condoms overseas, up from 350 million in 2001.Now PEPFAR is seeking more participants. The New Partners Initiative earmarks $200 million through budget year 2008 for community and religious groups with little or no background in government grants.
Congress has mandated that one-third of prevention funds go to advocate abstinence and fidelity. PEPFAR guidelines say any group distributing condoms must promote abstinence and fidelity. Groups that teach abstinence, however, do not have to include condom education.
Several congressional conservatives wrote President Bush and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) charging that some large grantees were pro-prostitution, pro-abortion or not committed to Bush's abstinence priorities. The letters followed a briefing last year by commentator James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Last week, in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, six congressional Democrats accused the conservatives of an inaccurate campaign contrary to a balanced fight against AIDS.
USAID is not renewing funding to CORE and IMPACT, two of the groups the conservatives complained about. For CORE, whose chief partner is CARE, the cut eliminates its main source of money. It must win grants from individual USAID missions in targeted countries if its work is to continue.
IMPACT's lead organization is Family Health International, which had involved hundreds of local and religious groups in its $441 million project. But Sheila Mitchell, senior vice president of FHI's Institute for HIV/AIDS, said the group was told the administration wants new partners.
Mark Dybul, deputy US global AIDS coordinator, said any suggestion the cuts were politically motivated is "inaccurate and offensive to people doing this work." Millions of dollars in grants continue to go to groups that were criticized.
Yeah, and millions more go to groups that are throwing over condom distribution for the "abstinence" message. Now, there's an effective form of disease prevention for Africa!