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"Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery Center, Can We Help You?"

photo by Gregg Sutter

Results are here.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Amy On Tammy Bruce Today
I'll be on Tammy Bruce's radio show on Talk Radio Network, streamed on the Internet, at 11:30 a.m. PST. Click here to listen live.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Full-Time Mothers And Other Novelty Items
Interesting piece in the London Times by Carole Sarler, noting that only now is it possible to be anything other than a working mom. She calls it "the mother of all myths" -- the notion that children need full-time "mums," and notes that "such a creature has rarely existed."

Actually, I'd say, from reading the work of John Bowlby, what children need is "secure attachment" -- parents who love them, provide a secure base for them, and respond (reasonably) to their needs. This doesn't necessarily mean they're all over the kids 24/seven.

Here are a few excerpts from Sarler's piece:

CUE PURSED lips and disapproval: while feckless mothers sneak off to enjoy themselves in the workplace, “record numbers” of children under 5 are going to day nurseries. Almost 12,000 of these institutions now tend to 704,200 children, representing a rise of 31 per cent in five years and providing ample fodder for a rash of social studies showing that children thus cared for become more disobedient and disruptive than those looked after by their mothers at home.

In fact, most of the small print also adds that such irritating behaviour is only marginally increased and it has also been shown that the nursery alumni go on to do better both at school and later in life. Next week a new book called What Children Need by Jane Waldfogel, an American professor of childcare, goes further: it suggests that at least part-time work is actually positive for mother and child. But no matter. The guilt-inducing damage to parents is already done by the implicit perpetuation of the most tenacious of contemporary myths: that young children historically, traditionally and therefore properly have grown up under the constant, vigilant, hands-on care of their mothers.

The truth is that this has never been the case. Further: it is not the part-time mother who has been fashioned by and for modern woman; it is the full-time mother who is recent — a construct, actually, of only the past three or four decades. Before that, women had neither the time, the luxury nor, in many cases, the inclination to devote their waking hours to the raising of their children.

Rich women, certainly, were never so inclined. Maternity and wet nurses leapt in at the cessation of labour, to be replaced by nannies and later by governesses; centuries of aristocracy were littered with mothers who would not have expected ever to see their own children naked. They would no more involve themselves with the messy demands of either ends of the infant body than they would consider a child’s competence with his letters or her embroidery to be any of their business.

Nor was this simply the entitlement of the uppermost elite. Even the relatively solvent middle classes sought to avail themselves of similar service; Mrs Winifred Banks might not have had a board meeting to chair, but nevertheless thought it quite her due that Mary Poppins should dance attendance upon her offspring. Indeed, when the Norland Institute was established in 1892, its famous nannies were trained to expect that all aspects of the care and upbringing of children would be wholly delegated to them. In recent years, to be fair, this assumption has softened to allow the possibility that interested parents might care to have a say; still, one meets grown men who will shed a heavier tear at the death of their old nanny than of their old Mater.

Poor women, traditionally, did not sit around all day minding their toddlers. Chance would have been a fine thing. Poor women worked in fields and factories, often with babies strapped to them until they had given birth to enough of them that the older cared for the younger in a haphazard daisy chain of comfort — and when mother and children saw each other at the beginning or end of the day, it was a brief encounter across the additional labours of feeding and cleansing essentials.

And so to the middle classes, those most beset today by weighing guilt against gain and most susceptible to the accusation that the daily excursions by women to places of earning are robbing their children of the dedicated childraising selflessly exemplified by their mothers and grandmothers before them. To them one can only say this: beware, for propaganda has sapped accuracy from your memory.

Certainly these women leant to the selfless. But they were not, ever, full-time mothers; they were, as their husbands and their status required, full-time housewives. A different matter altogether.

To learn to speak the language of babies (if you must, say, because you've given birth to one), check out BBHonline.org -- great program, across the US and Canada, via John Gottman and his former grad student, Alyson Shapiro.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Amy On McIntyre In The Morning
I'll be on today at 6:35am, PST, 790 KABC. Listen here, live. (May only be available to So Cal zip codes.)

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Ms. Amy's Caddy

Photo by Gregg Sutter, who joked, "Ms. Amy drove her fuel inefficent 1965 Cadillac Sedan DeVille to Little Rock last week. Her Honda Insight is in the trunk."

...my Insight and four Smart cars, too (pictured here). The Smart was the dinky car driven backwards down Paris sidewalks by the stunt double for Audrey Tautou in The DaVinci code (the best part of the movie), and soon to come to a dealership near you. Tom Krisher writes for the AP:

Smart will sell the next generation of its "fortwo" model, which has been popular in Europe. It gets an average of 40 miles per gallon in combined city-highway driving and will sell for less than $15,000. The company says it can get up to 69 mpg on the highway.

Meanwhile, I'd really like to meet the lady who owns this car. I just love little old southern ladies and their manners...and old-style southern manners, period. When the Wifi was down in the conference hall (in Little Rock, last week at the alternative newspaper convention), a maintenance worker from the hotel stopped by my table. He probably wasn't the one who'd be working on it, but when I told him the problem, he said, "Yes, ma'am" with great sincerity. Even if he couldn't fix it, he at least charmed me out of being mad for about 15 minutes.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Sorry, Fundanutters, There's No Such Thing As An "Ex-Gay"
Tragically, religious nutters are allowed to keep torturing gay kids and adults under the pretense that they're "converting" them. Excuse me, but aren't the people we should really be worried about those who are obsessed about how others get off? A study shows pretty good evidence for the argument that being gay is biological, and starts in the womb. Randoph E. Schmid writes for the AP:

Men who have several older brothers have an increased chance of being gay, researchers say, a finding that adds weight to the idea that sexual orientation has a physical basis.

The increase was seen in men with older brothers from the same mother — whether they were raised together or not — but not those who had adopted or stepbrothers who were older.

"It's likely to be a prenatal effect," said Anthony F. Bogaert of Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada, who did the research. "This and other studies suggest that there is probably a biological basis" for homosexuality.

Bogaert studied four groups of Canadian men, a total of 944 people, analyzing the number of brothers and sisters each had, whether or not they lived with those siblings and whether the siblings were related by blood or adopted.

His findings are reported in a paper appearing in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

S. Marc Breedlove, a professor in the neuroscience and psychology department of Michigan State University, said the finding "absolutely" confirms a physical basis.

"Anybody's first guess would have been that the older brothers were having an effect socially, but this data doesn't support that," Breedlove said in a telephone interview.

The only link between the brothers is the mother and so the effect has to be through the mother, especially since stepbrothers didn't have the effect, said Breedlove, who was not part of the research.

Tim Dailey, a senior fellow at the conservative Center for Marriage and Family Studies disagreed.

"We don't believe that there's any biological basis for homosexuality," Dailey said. "We feel the causes are complex but are deeply rooted in early childhood development."

Dailey helps answer the question "How are radical feminists like fundamentalists?" The answer is both have seen solid data proving their opinions wrong -- but their opinions are all that counts!

If you're going to live a non-evidence-based life (ie, believe in god and belong to a religion), at least be modern enough to be like these guys, the "Faith In America" crowd. The tag line on their site: "Religion-based bigotry...let's end it now and forever." Here's the statement from the front of their Web site:

We as Americans can see clearly how religious teachings have been used in the United States to justify prejudice and discrimination against minorities.

We can look back at the words recorded in those dark chapters in our history and the evidence is undeniable:

"[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts."
—Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America.

"The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example."
—Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina

"Who demand the ballot for woman? They are not the lovers of God, nor are they believers in Christ, as a class. There may be exceptions, but the majority prefer an infidel's cheer to the favor of God and the love of the Christian community. It is because of this tendency that the majority of those who contend for the ballot for woman cut loose from the legislation of Heaven, from the enjoyments of home, and drift to infidelity and ruin."
— Justin Fulton, 1869, in opposition to women's right to vote.

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages."
— Statement by Virginia trial judge in 1959 case that led to 1967 U.S. Supreme Court striking down laws in 16 states that prohibited interracial marriage.

It is difficult to imagine that less than 30 years ago in over 15 states one of today's leading conservative Supreme Court Justices, Clarence Thomas, a black man, could have been charged with a felony for marrying his current wife, a white woman.

For the vast majority of Americans, this kind of discrimination, often justified with misguided religious teachings, would be unthinkable today.

Faith In America asks a simple question:

Is using religious teachings to deny equal rights to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people any less wrong than using religious teaching to discriminate against people of color, against equality for women or against people of different cultures wanting to marry?

Here's their info page with more:

The mission of Faith In America, Inc. is the emancipation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from bigotry disguised as religious truth. The world’s great religious traditions practiced within the United States of America emphasize the love of neighbor as well as the love of God. Compassion, justice, freedom, and respect for the dignity of all people are their most authentic and noble expressions.

However, in the United States, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are victims of religious teachings based on ignorance and fear instead of knowledge and respect. This abuse of religion influences all aspects of public life in America, including civil laws and social attitudes. Because of it, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are denied equal rights and protection under civil law. They are discriminated against and socially ostracized. Physical violence against them is incited. In order to end the persecution of gay people in America, religious teachings that justify bigotry must be publicly exposed and denounced.

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Biggest Jackass In The Office
I just love this feature on Office Pirates, encouraging people to nominate their office jackass:

Every office has at least one. Show us yours!

There are some serious assholes on the site, but I actually found the guy below kind of endearing. I mainly liked the posting for the South Bronx comment at the end.

Drew H.

New York City

Posted: 02/21/06

Description:
No…you can’t see the bow tie, but trust me, he’s wearing one. I told him I was taking a photo for the company newsletter, and this pose says it all. The guy was a male cheerleader in college and apparently no one told him that the homecoming game ended 12 years ago. He sings in the morning, does little “let’s get psyched” dances in meetings and is generally more chipper than a fucking cartoon character from the 1940’s.

Signature Jackass Move?
He makes color-coded spreadsheets. For everything on the face of the planet including whose turn it is to bring donuts. The worst part? He’ll spend an hour switching the colors around until they “feel right.” I almost killed him one day with a small, bronze sales award.

Is This Person Aware That He Is A Jackass? Explain.
No…he actually thinks he’s the "go juice" that keeps our team motivated.

Any Hope For A Cure?:
I'm afraid that the only thing to do is strip him naked, tape a bunch of dollar bills to his body and leave him in the South Bronx.

What's your favorite revenge fantasy?

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Come On Baby, Drive My Locarno

photo by Alessio Manzan

My friend Claudia Laffranchi is hosting the Locarno International Film Festival. Here she is, looking all glam...as usual!

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

How To Be An Unperson
Just extricate your brain from the clutches of the Scientologists. Robert Farley writes in the St. Pete Times:

Religions have always penalized those who betray the cause.

Catholics excommunicate, barring the wayward from church rites. The Amish, Jehovah's Witnesses and some orthodox Jewish sects shun their nonconformists.

In the Tampa Bay area's burgeoning Scientology community, members abide by a policy considered by some religious experts extreme: Scientologists declare their outcasts "suppressive persons."

Another Scientology policy - called "disconnection" - forbids Scientologists from interacting with a suppressive person. No calls, no letters, no contact.

An SP is a pariah. Anyone who communicates with an SP risks being branded an SP himself.

Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard wrote the policies four decades ago, church leaders say, not as a tool to oust members but to provide those going astray with a mechanism to return to the church's good graces. That aligns with Scientology's tenets of improving communication, strengthening relationships.

But SPs who have felt the sting and other church critics say the suppressive person policy is a sledgehammer to keep marginal members in line - and in the flock.

Whatever Scientology's motivation, its suppressive person policy results in wrenching pain, say a dozen SPs interviewed by the St. Petersburg Times.

Some have gone years without seeing or talking with sons, daughters, mothers, fathers - all of whom abide by Scientology's no-contact requirement.

For a Scientologist thinking of forsaking the church, the decision is grueling: stay in or risk being ostracized from loved ones and friends.

Be sure to go to the link and read all the sad stories of people separated from their families and friends.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

The Swedish Jesus

Hair and makeup note to the artist: I believe Jesus was from Nazareth, not Stockholm.

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Gosh, Gee Whiz, What Folksy Charm
Bush's apparent incompetence has proven a useful tool, write George Lakoff, Marc Ettlinger and Sam Ferguson. They blame it on conservatism. But, as a fiscal conservative/social libertarian, I think they're naming it wrong. Isn't it largely fundanutterism? Isn't that the basis of much of what they're going for? Like the church, it's, bottom-line, all about power and control...and the money, with "the principle" acting as great ground-cover. Here's an excerpt from the piece by Lakoff, Ettlinger, and Ferguson:

To Bush’s base, his bumbling folksiness is part of his charm — it fosters conservative populism. Bush plays up this image by proudly stating his lack of interest in reading and current events, his fondness for naps and vacations and his self-deprecating jokes. This image causes the opposition to underestimate his capacities — disregarding him as a complete idiot — and deflects criticism of his conservative allies. If incompetence is the problem, it’s all about Bush. But, if conservatism is the problem, it is about a set of ideas, a movement and its many adherents.

The idea that Bush is incompetent is a curious one. Consider the following (incomplete) list of major initiatives the Bush administration, with a loyal conservative Congress, has accomplished:

* Centralizing power within the executive branch to an unprecedented degree
* Starting two major wars, one started with questionable intelligence and in a manner with which the military disagreed
* Placing on the Supreme Court two far-right justices, and stacking the lower federal courts with many more
* Cutting taxes during wartime, an unprecedented event
* Passing a number of controversial bills such as the PATRIOT Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Medicare Drug bill, the Bankruptcy bill and a number of massive tax cuts
* Rolling back and refusing to enforce a host of basic regulatory protections
* Appointing industry officials to oversee regulatory agencies
* Establishing a greater role for religion through faith-based initiatives
* Passing Orwellian-titled legislation assaulting the environment — “The Healthy Forests Act” and the “Clear Skies Initiative” — to deforest public lands, and put more pollution in our skies
* Winning re-election and solidifying his party’s grip on Congress

These aren’t signs of incompetence. As should be painfully clear, the Bush administration has been overwhelmingly competent in advancing its conservative vision. It has been all too effective in achieving its goals by determinedly pursuing a conservative philosophy.

There are so many signs that we need a third party. The Democrats are, by and large, a bunch of ineffective nincompoops. The Republicans are selling the country off to the religious right and K Street lobbyists, as fast as they messenger the pieces out of the House and Senate. Who represents the common-sense moderates like me? Hellloooo? Anybody out there?

Speaking of religion, we saw The DaVinci Code this weekend, which was a truly dumb and unbelievable movie, yet highlighted the ridiculousness of religion, and how the Catholic church is really just the world's most successful multi-national corporation. Tom Hanks starred in his usual role as a large, emoting human shishkebob. Audrey Tautou managed to seem ordinary and boring, only eclipsed in this endeavor by Jean Reno -- another Frenchie favorite of mine. The bit with the pyramid holding the secrets of the ages was especially moronic, considering it was built by I.M. Pei in 1989. What's down there, a couple of shoulder pads and a coke spoon from Studio 54? The best thing about the movie was the crazed, self-flagellating albino; best described as a cross between The Hunchback Of Notre Dame and a kid who a bit too dim to get accepted to the Hitler Youth. If I ever can afford a servant, I think I'd like it to be him.

via metafilter

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Republicans Tire Of The First Amendment
Or maybe it's just an election year. The Senate is now debating a constitutional amendment banning flag burning:

A vote is expected this week, before the Fourth of July congressional recess.

Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, compared the measure to Supreme Court decisions banning so-called "fighting words," slander, libel, obscenity and pornography involving children. As such, he said, it has no "social value."

"Flag burning is a form of expression that is spiteful or vengeful," the five-term Pennsylvania Republican said during the debate. "It is designed to hurt. It is not designed to persuade."

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, argued that burning the American flag was precisely the kind of speech the First Amendment is meant to protect.

"The First Amendment never needs defending when it comes to popular speech," the six-term Vermont senator said. "It's when it comes to unpopular speech that it needs defending."

He called the efforts to pass the amendment "electioneering rallying cries" that struck at the heart of what the Constitution and the flag represent.

"I would hope that all of us in this chamber champion liberty ... but when I hear some talk about cutting back on our First Amendment rights, you can see why people would wonder," Leahy said.

Democrats are not the only ones against the amendment. It also does not have the support of the Senate's No 2. Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

"I think the First Amendment has served us well for over 200 years. I don't think it needs to be altered," McConnell said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Polarization Bared
Worries about America's rich/poor gap from that lefty rag, The Economist:

The political consensus, therefore, has sought to pursue economic growth rather than the redistribution of income, in keeping with John Kennedy's adage that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” The tide has been rising fast recently. Thanks to a jump in productivity growth after 1995, America's economy has outpaced other rich countries' for a decade. Its workers now produce over 30% more each hour they work than ten years ago. In the late 1990s everybody shared in this boom. Though incomes were rising fastest at the top, all workers' wages far outpaced inflation.

But after 2000 something changed. The pace of productivity growth has been rising again, but now it seems to be lifting fewer boats. After you adjust for inflation, the wages of the typical American worker—the one at the very middle of the income distribution—have risen less than 1% since 2000. In the previous five years, they rose over 6%. If you take into account the value of employee benefits, such as health care, the contrast is a little less stark. But, whatever the measure, it seems clear that only the most skilled workers have seen their pay packets swell much in the current economic expansion. The fruits of productivity gains have been skewed towards the highest earners, and towards companies, whose profits have reached record levels as a share of GDP.

Even in a country that tolerates inequality, political consequences follow when the rising tide raises too few boats. The impact of stagnant wages has been dulled by rising house prices, but still most Americans are unhappy about the economy. According to the latest Gallup survey, fewer than four out of ten think it is in “excellent” or “good” shape, compared with almost seven out of ten when George Bush took office.

The White House professes to be untroubled. Average after-tax income per person, Mr Bush often points out, has risen by more than 8% on his watch, once inflation is taken into account. He is right, but his claim is misleading, since the median worker—the one in the middle of the income range—has done less well than the average, whose gains are pulled up by the big increases of those at the top.

Privately, some policymakers admit that the recent trends have them worried, and not just because of the congressional elections in November. The statistics suggest that the economic boom may fade. Americans still head to the shops with gusto, but it is falling savings rates and rising debts (made possible by high house prices), not real income growth, that keep their wallets open. A bust of some kind could lead to widespread political disaffection. Eventually, the country's social fabric could stretch. “If things carry on like this for long enough,” muses one insider, “we are going to end up like Brazil”—a country notorious for the concentration of its income and wealth.

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The Unfunny Truth
Two scary little movies about the cult of Scientology. Here. And the sequel here. Spread the links.

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Breakfast At Tiffany's

photo by Gregg Sutter

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The UK Hasn't Exploded Yet
And no, nobody seems to be trying to marry their bangers and mash or their pet. Mark Shoffman writes that gay couples in England and Walves have formed over 6,000 civil partnerships since legislation allowed it last December:

The figures released by the General Register Office today show that out of 6,516 same sex unions, 4311 gay couples and 2,205 lesbian couples registered their partnerships between December 21 2005 and March 31 2006.

The local authority of Westminster held the most ceremonies with 238, ahead of Brighton and Hove with 236 and Kensington and Chelsea with 194

Yesterday, Scotland’s registrar revealed that 343 civil partnerships have been recorded since the Civil Partnership Act came into force in December, a day earlier than England and Wales.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

We'll Try Harder
Three second place awards in the LA Press Club Awards this year. One in the "signed commentary" category (beaten by my very bright and talented friend Andrew Gumbel, so it doesn't feel so bad), and two second places in the headline category. Headline winners are in bold below.

B13. HEADLINE

Amy Alkon, syndicated columnist, "Oaf Wiedersehen"
Steve Eames, Los Angeles Times, "Star Trek Bit Players Cling On"
Jillian O’Connor, Los Angeles Daily News, “Ode to Joysticks”
Helen Reynolds, Los Angeles Daily News, “The Sound of Silents”
Rodney Richey, Los Angeles Daily News, “Rock of Aged”

C13. HEADLINE

Amy Alkon, syndicated columnist, “Cain, Enabled”
Jim Farber, Daily Breeze, “Show Me the Mummy”
Shoshana Lewin, Morris Mazur and Adam Wills, The Jewish Journal, “Let My People Merlot”

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Silence Would Have Been A Much Better Idea

Silence, by Gary Musselman
(my crappy photography doesn't do the colors justice)

It all started when I heard a well-dressed guy with a laptop hard-bargaining a homeless artist for his work at a Santa Monica Starbucks. That artist is Gary Musselman, and the original story is here. More on the latest with him below.

Now, for those of you who are frequent visitors to my blog...what about me says it would be a bright idea to do some nefarious shit to me? Well, it turns out the guy who inspired me to speak up and blog about his interchange with Gary and his later aggression upon me at The Rose Cafe, did some speaking up of his own -- sending an e-mail packed with unsubstantiated allegations (untrue allegations) to every board member of the LA Press Club in hopes of getting me thrown out of Press Club!

You'd think I'd have to pay people to be this stupid.

The guy's name, which I only know thanks to his e-campaign against me, is Terry Mulgannon. I'll let him speak for himself, by posting the e-mail he sent to Press Club. But, first, the response from Press Club:

To: "terry mulgannon" Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 2:09 PM Subject: Re: A Matter of Ethics

> Dear Terry,
>
> Thanks for taking time to write all of us.
> As you might understand this is not a matter for the board of directors,
> but a private issue between you and Amy Alkon.
>
> I hope you'll be able to solve this between you.
> Personally I have only had pleasant encounters with Amy.
>
> Best Regards,
> Diana

Here's Terry Mulgannon's attempt to get me kicked out of Press Club -- with nary a substantiation about all those "lies" he claims I'm telling:

----- Original Message ----- From: "terry mulgannon" (mulgannon@hotmail.com) To: (anthea@lapressclub.org); (chris@lapressclub.org); (christine@lapressclub.org); (diana@lapressclub.org); (greg@lapressclub.org); (jon@lapressclub.org); (jerry@lapressclub.org); (michael@lapressclub.org); (ted@lapressclub.org); (melissa@lapressclub.org); (longabardi@lapressclub.org); (linda@lapressclub.org); (ben@lapressclub.org); (matt@lapressclub.org) Cc: Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 4:24 PM Subject: A Matter of Ethics

> Members of the Board
>
> I am writing to call attention to an article written about me by your
> member and hostess Amy Alkon.
>
> It was published on her blog on or about May 2, 2006; you can find it by
> going to google and entering the terms:
>
> amy alkon it's like jazz on paper
>
> She describes a couple of encounters between us at a Starbucks in Santa
> Monica and the Rose Cafe in Venice. The critical event was my buying a
> couple of pieces of art from a homeless guy sitting next to me at
> Starbucks. The man sells his work on the boardwalk and around the
> community, I inquired as to his price, he named it, I paid it with no
> attempt to bargain and bought two pieces of art for $20.
>
> Alkon was sitting across from us, and while I was continuing to admire the
> man's work, she came over and began to berate me for cheating him by not
> paying him more. My attempt to reason with her or defend myself was met
> with disdain and further tirades.
>
> When I saw her the next day at the Rose, I asked--very politely--if she
> was always so self-righteously intrusive. She began her denunciations
> anew, and my reluctance to agree with her that I was the most disgusting
> person ever to walk the face of the earth reinforced her fury, at which
> point she informed me that she was a nationally syndicated columnist with
> more than a hundred outlets, and she was going to write about me and
> expose me to the world. In the course of the rant she demanded to know my
> name, and my unwillingness to reveal it led to yet more raving about my
> moral cowardice, apparently because she wouldn't be able to supply a name
> to the evil person she was going to describe in her writings.
>
> Her account of the incidents is the most egregious example of bad
> journalism I have ever seen in almost 30 years in the profession. She
> distorts a completely positive, unremarkable event into an opportunity to
> trash someone she knew nothing about. She got every fact wrong--I could go
> on at length--and she indulges in a level of name calling, personal insult
> and negative spin that should exclude her from any ethical society.
>
> Don't believe me, just read the story. She admits that she ignored the guy
> day after day and that she did nothing for the until I raised the issue of
> her own generosity--at which point she LOANED him $20.
>
> But she castigates me for taking an interest in a fellow human being and
> treating him like an equal, rather than an object of charity.
>
> I am asking the LA Press Club to open an official inquiry into this
> incident, and I believe Alkon should be expelled from the organization.
> She used her role as a journalist to attack me, as well as a tool to
> intimidate me with the threat of public scorn. And to paraphrase Mary
> McCarthy on Lillian Hellman, the only honest word she wrote was "the."
>
> She regularly quotes many of you in her blog, and highlights her
> association with the Press Club. I also note that she hosts an alarming
> number of your events.
>
> According to your mission statement, your organization's purpose is to
> elevate the standards and integrity of the profession; any association
> with Amy Alkon cannot help but compromise those efforts. No
> self-respecting person with an ethical sense would have anything to do
> with that creature.
>
> A little about me: I started as a student intern at Playgirl Magazine in
> 1978, did the same at LA Magazine. I was business editor for Century City
> News in '79/80, I was the founding editor of City Sports Monthly in LA in
> '80, was the first editor of Triathlon Magazine in '83, was a contributing
> editor for Terrorism, Violence and Insurgencies Quarterly--a scholarly
> publication put out by staffers at the RAND Corporation--from '83 to '88.
> I was an editor at Sport Magazine, Men's Fitness, and Los Angeles
> Magazine. I wrote the debut feature articles for E! Online when it
> launched, and developed their first movie web site. Most recently I was
> the Online Manager for the Marin Independent Journal, the major newspaper
> for Marin County.
>
> Currently, I publish WineMerchant.com and WesternHistoryProject.org.
>
> I live in the San Francisco area now, and was visiting Los Angeles to
> re-establish myself as a journalist there; I was even contemplating
> joining the LA Press Club.
>
> To find myself pilloried by a prominent member of the club was not quite
> the welcome I expected.
>
> I await your response.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Terry Mulgannon

A few corrections of stuff Mulgannon got wrong: Gary doesn't sell his work on the boardwalk. Gary also says he didn't want to sell his work to Mulgannon. A guy's gotta eat, though, you know?

I told the guy who I was (a syndicated columnist) because he asked if I wrote for the LA Times after he said it wasn't my job to speak up, and I said, indeed, it was...speaking up was literally my business, because I'm a newspaper columnist. Okay, I think I also mentioned that I'm a justice-obsessed wacko, but he forgot that part, I guess.

And, no, I hadn't spoken to Gary before the incident with Mulgannon -- perhaps because it isn't my job to be a greeter at Starbucks, and because I frequently have my headphones on since so many rude bunwads are always shouting into their cell phones. I can't always play police girl, as it tends to get in the way of my work. Regarding Gary, I did notice him there, and I respected how hard he worked on his art while I was slaving away on my column.

Nick, by Gary Musselman

I loaned Gary money because I think charity is demeaning, but he was waiting for people to pay him and needed a little cash. No biggie, really. And I'm not helping him because I'm somebody who's in the business of scooping crack whores and the like off the street, but because I respect his talent, how hard-working he is, and see that it won't take much for him to be earning a living -- and probably a modest-to-good one -- making his art.

A little about what Gary's made of: Gary paid me back the $20 when Deja (I think it was Deja) paid him for art she ordered...driving up all the way up on a Sunday to give him cash, which he really needed. I told him not to pay me back so fast -- that could wait for the money, but he wouldn't hear of it. That's Gary. Nobody's freeloader. And guess what else: Gary tips at Starbucks. He's a class act.

But, back to Mulgannon, he was anything but polite or reserved when he approached me at The Rose; he was "scary-aggressive," if anything -- to the point where other people dining there asked me if I was okay. Mulgannon marched over, grabbed my table, leaned over, and bared his yellow teeth at me, and snarled...something about how I'd ruined some (hah!) beautiful moment between him and Gary. (Ask Gary how beautiful he thought that moment was.)

I didn't call Mulgannon names; and not because I wasn't thinking them in my head, but because name-calling never wins you points in any debate. It was actually far more effective to do what I did: to tell him I found his behavior creepy, and precisely why -- apparently taking advantage of the fact that a guy could use a sandwich, and using shrewd business negotiating tactics to get a cheapo price on the guy's art.

Anybody who questions whether I wrote the truth about Mulgannon's interaction with Gary, and his interactions with me is free to go to Starbucks on Hill and Main in Santa Monica, and ask Gary Musselman. He's usually there after 5pm. I encourage you to buy some art, too. I gave him a copy of the blog item I wrote about him, and he actually said he was impressed by how accurately I portrayed how he was feeling and the entire exchange with the guy.

Oh yeah, and because I stand behind whatever I do -- I don't do stuff I'd be ashamed to have people know about -- I'll always tell my name, loud and clear, to people I take issue with. I not only told Mulgannon my name, I also gave him the name of my site -- repeatedly -- and invited him to tell his side of the story, which he could have done anonymously. Nope. He got sneaky. Baaad idea. First of all, I did nothing wrong; simply wrote about what I saw, being careful, as always, to be truthful.

On a personal note to Mr. Mulgannon: Got a good libel-slander policy?

Malibu, by Gary Musselman

I've been waiting to write about Gary again when he gets a bank account and PayPal so he can take payments from people around the world to buy his art. Meanwhile, Gary and I have been working on the steps it takes to make that happen. But, since Mulgannon's written this and I feel compelled to post it (always better to get behind-your-back dirty out in the open so it can be properly cleaned up), I'll give you a brief update: Gary's been selling his art, usually for $100 for a copy, and $200 for an original. A lot of people want it, but taking payment's been challenging as Gary can't get a P.O. box or a bank account without ID, so he still doesn't have a place to live or a regular income, but it seems likely he soon will.

Thanks so much to all the people who have popped into Starbucks to give him cash. Another artist has been helping him by printing out orders people e-mail to him since Gary doesn't know how to do e-mail yet. But, if you want to order something, you can e-mail GMusselman@gmail.com. I get copies of all the e-mails. But, Gary should have PayPal and a bank account within the month. In the meantime, a few people from out of state have been sending checks to another artist, who's cashed them and given the money to Gary. Gary has the guys at my mailbox place pack up and UPS all the art people order so it gets there properly.

Anyway, Gary and I got on my laptop at Starbucks and ordered a certified copy of his birth certificate from Illinois so he could get a California non-driver ID. After that came, Gary was a bit slow getting to the DMV, I think because he thought he'd get turned down. I told him how essential it was and he promised he'd get there.

One Sunday, I met a girl studying for her psych exam at another Starbucks who works at St. Joseph's center where they assist homeless people. (If you're not shouting into a cell phone, you actually get to meet a lot of nice, interesting people.) I told her about Gary, but noted that Gary doesn't identify as being homeless, so he refuses to go there and get help for housing. "I don't take welfare," he says. I keep telling him he needs to let them help him get housing and he can give them a big donation when he gets back on his feet. Deaf ears. It would be easier getting a fish to speak, and maybe even read sonnets, than to get him in there.

The girl understood, but she said she'd send me a discount form for the ID, so it would cost only him $6. I sent her a self-addressed envelope and got the discount form back a week later. I was on deadline, but my assistant dropped the form and more off for Gary -- a packet of stuff including directions to the DMV on Colorado, their hours, printed backup that he only needed his registered birth certificate and his SS# to get a California ID, etc. (I was at Starbucks today, and he still had it on him, so I photographed it.)

Gary's *this* close to getting a license...and a bank account, so he can take PayPal

Gary applied for the license a couple of weeks ago, but there was a bit of a problem with him getting mail at the address he had it sent to. Not a problem, he just has to go back to the DMV and get a temporary license. He's got the money and bus fare to do that, and he promised to do it next week. (I'm a pain in the ass, it's easier to just do stuff than have me bug you about it.)

A friend of mine who represents an Academy Award-winning animator is sending out Gary's stuff to licensing companies on Monday. I wrote a bio for the packets she's sending out, and she's making copies over the weekend. This woman takes nobody on as new clients; maybe one every two years. Gary keeps thinking she's doing him a favor. She doesn't do favors. She thinks his work is amazing and it will sell. I do, too. Get yours before the prices shoot up! (He does abstract pieces, but what seems most popular are names and words, which you can order to have custom-done, with whatever color scheme you'd like.)

Here are a few of his most recent pieces. Again, my apologies for the crappy-ass photography. In real life, the colors are very brilliant, they're on bright white background, and "Santa" and "Monica"'s backgrounds match perfectly.

Santa Monica, by Gary Musselman

And here's the artist himself.

Gary hard at work, Starbucks, Main Street, Santa Monica

His site is MusselmanArt.typepad.com, and you can e-mail him at GMusselman@gmail.com. (Somebody else picks up that e-mail for him and I get copies of all of it.) Or just stop in at Starbucks on Hill and Main in Santa Monica. He's usually there from 5pm to 9pm, in the back, working away.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

In Other LA Press Club News
I'm a finalist in three categories in tonight's LA Press Club Awards. Don't laugh -- two of them are for headlines. I'm a big fan of the guy who writes the New York Post's -- the best ever (at least, that I've seen) being "Headless Body In Topless Bar," and I crack my skull every week trying to write good ones.

Here are my nominations. I'm up against my good friend Andrew Gumbel in one category.

C5. SIGNED COMMENTARY

* Amy Alkon, syndicated columnist
* John Boston, The Signal
* Andrew Gumbel, Los Angeles CityBeat
* Mark Lacter, Los Angeles Business Journal

B13. HEADLINE

* Amy Alkon, syndicated columnist, "Oaf Wiedersehen"
* Steve Eames, Los Angeles Times, "Star Trek Bit Players Cling On"
* Jillian O’Connor, Los Angeles Daily News, “Ode to Joysticks”
* Helen Reynolds, Los Angeles Daily News, “The Sound of Silents”
* Rodney Richey, Los Angeles Daily News, “Rock of Aged”

C13. HEADLINE

* Amy Alkon, syndicated columnist, “Cain, Enabled”
* Jim Farber, Daily Breeze, “Show Me the Mummy”
* Shoshana Lewin, Morris Mazur and Adam Wills, The Jewish Journal, “Let My People Merlot”

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Electric Avenue
Whatever happened to the battery powered electric car? I was still too struggling a writer to get my dream car, the EV1, my Honda Insight's sexy predecessor. And I still can't get one, because GM's yanked them back from heartbroken leaseholders, and is secretly crushing and shredding them. Andrew Gumbel tells the tale for City Beat, in Not For Sale At Any Price:

We’ve all seen electric vehicle recharging stations in mall parking lots. Most of us will have seen actual electric vehicles over the past few years, too. Some are still kicking around: the city of Santa Monica, for example, owns a handful of electric Toyota RAV4s, as do a select group of private owners. But conventional wisdom would have us believe that the great electric vehicle experiment of the late 1990s failed. It failed, we’ve been told, because the cars could not travel far enough on a single charge to be practical for most drivers. It failed because the cars, in our impatient consumer culture, took too long to recharge. In short, it failed because people just weren’t interested enough.

This conventional wisdom, though, is almost entirely wrong. As a new documentary out in limited release next week makes clear, electric vehicles didn’t die of consumer indifference. They didn’t even die – as some of the more arcane arguments would have it – because of concern about California’s electrical grid capacity in the wake of the 2000-2001 blackout crisis. Rather, they were deliberately and meticulously pulled out of circulation and destroyed by the companies who manufactured them. The car makers, along with the oil companies and the gas pump operators and their political allies, first sabotaged and then strangled the electric vehicle, not because it had no future but because it threatened their core livelihood and short-term profit margins.

The story told by Chris Paine’s film, Who Killed the Electric Car?, starts in 1990, when the California Air Resources Board (CARB), worried about L.A.’s out-of-control smog problem, ordained that 10 percent of vehicles on the state’s roads needed to be emission-free by 2003. That meant, in practice, the development of electric vehicles. GM, Ford, Toyota, and others duly complied, because they had no choice, and came out with models which they began leasing to the public in the late 1990s.

At the same time, though, they launched a major lobbying effort to roll back the CARB ruling. By 1996, the requirement was modified so the pace of production of zero-emission vehicles would be linked to market demand. That, in turn, offered the car makers and oil companies a loophole: If they could only demonstrate that consumers weren’t interested in the new vehicles, they might not have to produce them after all.

Corporate interest in electric car production duly dwindled to nothing. Advertising became non-existent. The car companies went back to CARB to say they couldn’t muster public interest in electric vehicles, and CARB duly caved with a watershed ruling in April 2003 that gave the manufacturers a new deadline of 2008 and a much more flexible range of options to explore, from hybrids to fuel-cell vehicles.

That was when the killing of the electric car began in earnest. GM and the other companies started recalling their leases and yanking electric vehicles off the roads. Chris Paine lost his own GM EV1 when he took it in for a routine tire rotation and was told he would never see it again, even though his lease had two months left to run.

...From a 2006 perspective, it’s clear that a huge opportunity was lost. Sure, we have hybrids, which go some way to improving fuel efficiency, and alternative fuel options like biodiesel and ethanol. But these solutions mitigate the problem; they don’t really solve it. We can probably look forward to plug-in hybrids, which would feature a much larger, rechargeable battery, and use the gas-powered engine strictly as a backup on long journeys. But even the Japanese are wary of bringing plug-ins to market any time soon – for reasons that have not been articulated but are probably very similar to the old misgivings about EVs.

In the meantime, Iraq continues to go to hell, oil prices head toward $100 a barrel, gas prices pose a significant economic threat, and hydrogen – if it is feasible at all – remains a distant pipe dream. As Paine told me: “If this car hadn’t been dismantled by the oil companies, the car companies and the federal government, we would be up to about a million electrics on the road right now … . Instead, we are in a crisis situation with no immediate options.”

But, how about truly clean electric power...like, if you had an electric car, could you power it with the sun? Check your chances of doing that here. Or how about the wind? Hmmm...maybe what we have is not really an energy crisis, but a lobbying crisis?

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Amy On Tammy Bruce Today
I'll be on Tammy Bruce's radio show on Talk Radio Network, streamed on the Internet, at 11:30 a.m. PST. Click here to listen live.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

What Your Girlfriend Doesn't Know Won't Hurt You
I just posted a new Advice Goddess column, Overly Easy Rider, about a girl who's going all wacko because her boyfriend mentioned that the boss' (perhaps) hot daughter asked him for a ride on his bike. Worse yet, he knows her birthday and...has mentioned her shoes! Here's my answer:

Jealousy is nature's car alarm. Sometimes car alarms go off for a good reason; sometimes it's just a really big crow pooping on your hood.

Whether this girl is only teasing or trying to jack your man, it's okay to be uncomfortable with a 22-year-old with cute shoes clinging for dear life to your boyfriend and squealing girlishly as they take the curves. While your boyfriend may have the best of intentions (plus, maybe, an impaired ability to say no), surely he'd have an easier time winding his way there if the rideshare request came from Sloppy Bob from shipping. There's nothing the average straight guy lives for like the opportunity to say, "Yo, Bob, just grab me around the waist, press that paunch of yours into the small of my back, and we're off!"

It is possible a motorcyle ride could lead to something -- decapitation, for example. How you deal with the motorcycle ride could also lead to something. There are two kinds of women in the relationship world: "The Girlfriend" and "The Enemy." The quickest way to go from G to E is to cajole the truth out of a guy, then grab it in your hands like a club and beat him senseless. In other words, it’s a bad idea to punish your boyfriend just because some girl asked for a ride, he said yes, and was honest about it -- "honest" perhaps being a euphemism for "less in need of truth serum than shut-up serum."

Yes doesn't always mean yes, but along with "Sure thing!" "Certainly!" and "Bend over how far?" it's an answer commonly given when the boss' daughter asks for a favor. Your boyfriend may have no intention of following through -- if he's even given it a second thought. So, why risk giving you the impression he's being chased by a 22-year-old with remarkable shoes? Maybe he's clueless as to how to handle this, and is asking for input the manly-man way -- or maybe he's just bragging.

People say you can't change men. They're wrong. The minute you realize you're dating a dud, you can change men immediately. But, once you hit the one-year mark, you've got what you've got. Either your boyfriend's trustworthy or he isn't. Avoid any temptation to tell him he'd better not have any freshly-minted breasts pressed up against the back of his motorcycle jacket. The worst way to get anything from a man is to demand it. Assuming he's a good guy, just let him know he makes you happy -- in general, and whenever he does something right. Then, on the rare occasion he makes you not-so-happy, you can probably just hint, say, that the lunchtime Lolita rides aren't the highlight of your bliss, and trust him to do the right thing. You still might spot him taking her for a spin around the block on the old Harley. You're just unlikely to see it parked afterward at a pay-by-the-hour motel.

The whole thing, including the question, is here.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Mickey Goes Both Ways
Our nation is divided...and it's not the only one. Meet Mickey Kaus.

Mickey's often seen in the company of Arianna, but he brought Ann Coulter to Cathy Seipp's daughter Maia's graduation party.

The Big Question: If they had to mudwrestle for Mickey, which one would you put money on to win?

...

Luke Thompson has the details on the party here:

Mickey is ostensibly a centrist Democrat, but has long seemed to have a fetish for blonde Republican pundits. This is not to imply that they are or are not dating -- I have no idea.

So anyway, while talking to Christian Johnson and Donna Barstow, I see Mickey arrive with the Ann-tichrist herself. Donna says I have to talk to her; that she would if she were more familiar with Ann's work. Christian is anxious to get a picture with Ann. It's funny how there are people here who have probably used all kinds of invective to describe her, yet immediately wanted to talk to her. Liberal blogger Joseph Mailander, for one, was seen conversing pleasantly with her, and I hope he blogs about what was said, cuz I'd like to know.

I ask Matt Welch if he'd met her. He responds "Have you met Eichmann?"

Here's another voice of Reason.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Um, Don't Take That "Husband On A Short Leash" Thing Quite So Literally
In a fit of gay marriage panic, The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed editor actually suggests gay marriage could lead to people marrying their pets:

HENNINGER: This is a footnote to our gay marriage discussion: A woman in India last week married a snake. I would like to ask the proponents of gay marriage--which violates, after all, traditions going back through all of human history--to now absolutely, positively guarantee that the next movement is not going to be allowing people to marry their pet horse, dog or cat. And you know What? Given the "anything goes" culture we live in, I don't think they can deliver that guarantee.

What excuse will they come up with next? The threat to straight marriage excuse clearly isn't working...especially since they've had gay marriage in Massachusetts for two years, and it hasn't caused mobs of married breeders to rush the divorce courts -- well, not any more than were rushing the divorce courts before gay marriage.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Primitive Nut-Jobs Prepare For The "Apocalypse"
In all seriousness (at least on their parts). But for what religion does to the rest of us, religion can be bust-a-gut hilarious. (If people didn't believe in god, you could still get to the airport 15 minutes before your plane -- remember those days -- and nobody would be trying to look up your ass with their flashlight).

Louis Sahagun writes in the LA Times of religious fanatics, Jewish and Christian, who want to hasten the arrival of "the messiah." Oops...gottta run, I've got an appointment with my witch doctor, then I've got to go pray to Zeus. Here's an excerpt from Sahagun's story:

Bill McCartney, a former University of Colorado football coach and co-founder of the evangelical Promise Keepers movement for men, which became huge in the 1990s, has had a devil of a time getting his own apocalyptic campaign off the ground.

It's called The Road to Jerusalem, and its mission is to convert Jews to Christianity — while there is still time.

"Our whole purpose is to hasten the end times," he said. "The Bible says Jews will be brought to jealousy when they see Christians and Jewish believers together as one — they'll want to be a part of that. That's going to signal Jesus' return."

Jews and others who don't accept Jesus, he added matter-of-factly, "are toast."

...Meanwhile, in what has become a spectacular annual routine, Jews — hoping to rebuild the Holy Temple destroyed by the Romans in AD 70 — attempt to haul the 6 1/2 -ton cornerstones by truck up to the Temple Mount, the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock shrine. Each year, they are turned back by police.

Among those turned away is Gershon Solomon, spokesman for Jerusalem's Temple Institute. When the temple is built, he said, "Islam is over."

"I'm grateful for all the wonderful Christian angels wanting to help us," Solomon added, acknowledging the political support from "Christians who are now Israel's best lobbyists in the United States."

However, when asked to comment on the fate of non-Christians upon the Second Coming of Jesus, he said, "That's a very embarrassing question. What can I tell you? That's a very terrible Christian idea.

"What kind of religion is it that expects another religion will be destroyed?"

...Over in Mississippi, Lott believes that he is doing God's work, and that is why he wants to raise a few head of red heifers for Jewish high priests. Citing Scripture, Lott and others say a pure red heifer must be sacrificed and burned and its ashes used in purification rituals to allow Jews to rebuild the temple.

But Lott's plans have been sidetracked.

Facing a maze of red tape and testing involved in shipping animals overseas — and rumors of threats from Arabs and Jews alike who say the cows would only bring more trouble to the Middle East — he has given up on plans to fly planeloads of cows to Israel. For now.

What kind of idiot takes this end-of-days shit seriously? There's no proof there's a god, first of all. Well, each to his or her own witch doctor and evil spirits, I guess. Just don't be making fun of people in the "developing world," worshipping non-existent gods. So, your church, temple, or mosque has air-conditioning and cable Internet. If you believe in all this Jesus and messiah on the Temple Mount, you're really no more modern.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Net Neutrality Decoded
Betcher wondering why I haven't blogged about this issue yet. Well, it's because the articles about it -- pro and con -- were all pretty incomprehensible...until now. Andy Kessler detangles it all in The Weekly Standard, and proposes a solution. The solution's below, but read the whole piece at the link:

Start screaming like a madman and using four letter words--like K-E-L-O. And fancier words like "eminent domain." I know, I know. This sounds wrong. These are privately owned wires hanging on poles. But so what? The government-mandated owners have been neglecting them for years--we are left with slums in need of redevelopment. Horse-drawn trolleys ruled cities, too, but had to be destroyed to make way for progress. How do we rip the telco's trolley tracks out and enable something modern and real competition?

Forget the argument that telcos need to be guaranteed a return on investment or they won't upgrade our bandwidth. No one guarantees Intel a return before they spend billions in R&D on their next Pentium chip to beat their competitors at AMD. No one guarantees Cisco a return on their investment before they deploy their next router to beat Juniper. In real, competitive markets, the market provides access to capital.

Without even being paid by the hour, I read through the Supreme Court's Kelo v. City of New London eminent domain rulings. Surely there exists some clever Silicon Valley counsel to twist the wording of the precedent. The telcos may want to treat the Internet like a shopping mall that they own, but the premises are looking awfully sketchy. So start with this line: "Economic underdevelopment and stagnation are also threats to the public sufficient to make their removal cognizable as a public purpose."

Sure, property rights are important, but that doesn't mean we can't shake a cattle prod at our stagnant monopolists and say "update or get out of the way." The mantra should be "megabits to phones and gigabits to homes." We'll only get there via competition. Regulations--even regulations that look friendly to the Googles and Yahoos and hostile to the telcos--will just freeze us where we are today.

IN THE LONG RUN, technology doesn't sleep. You can't keep competitive King Kong in chains. But why wait a decade while lobbyists run interference? If Congress does nothing, we will probably end up paying more for a fast network optimized for Internet phone calls and video and shopping. But this may not be the only possible outcome. Maybe the incumbent network providers--the Verizons, Comcasts, AT&Ts--can be made to compete; threatening to seize their stagnating networks via eminent domain is just one creative idea to get them to do this. A truly competitive, non-neutral network could work, but only if we know its real economic value. If telcos or cable charge too much, someone should be in a position to steal the customer. Maybe then we'd see useful services and a better Internet. Sounds like capitalism.

What new things? It's not just more bandwidth and better Internet video--how about no more phone numbers, just a name and the service finds you? How about subscribing to a channel and being able to watch it when and where you want, on your TV, iPod, or laptop? How about a baby monitor you can view through your cell phone? Something worth paying for. And that's just the easy stuff.

We don't even know what new things are possible. Bandwidth is like putty in the hands of entrepreneurs--new regulations are cement. We don't want a town square or a dilapidated mall--we want a vibrant metropolis. Net neutrality is already the boring old status quo. But don't give in to the cable/telco status quo either. Far better to have competition, as long as it's real, than let Congress shape the coming communications chaos and creativity.

Here's what Lawrence Lessig calls "the dark other side of net neutrality," sneaky, sleazy telecom mergers. And "in case you weren't clear on how the telcos screwed everyone," click here for the long version. Or here, for the high points of "The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal."

While I pay $59 for my crappily maintained Comcast Internet, plus over $100 for two phones on Verizon, guess how much it costs in commieland. Here, from The Paris Blog, is the cost of a package deal in France of telephone service and high speed Internet:

The Boy and I have been having lots of fun over the last 72 hours. One of us (me) had the great idea to change our telephone/internet plan. Instead of paying God-knows-how-much for our phone, and then 35 euros/month for our internet, I suggested we mesh the two and sign up with Neuf Telecom. They have a deal: 29,90 euros/month for high-speed internet and UNLIMITED calls throughout France, Europe, the US, Canada, India and China. World powers, unite!

As almost all of my American friends only have cell phones, it costs me so much money to call anyone I love on the other side of the ocean. Neuf is the only company I know of that not only provides unlimited calls to the States, but also to CELL PHONES in the States.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

A Is For Anus
The metal can (Wolfgang Puck's self-heating Gourmet Latte) you put in the microwave(!!) caused an explosion? Sue! Sue! Here's the guy's comment from the LawProfessors blog:

When will there be a class action suit against WP Gourmet Lattes? In this microwave society and Campbell Soup's TV ads on microwavable soup in a can, WP's self-heating can was negligent in it's small, hidden warning against heating in a microwave (which causes a severe explosion in a matter of seconds). Our microwave was destroyed, our kitchen covered in dried latte and most important, my wife required 7 stiches above her eye. Had she been in front of the microwave, she'd also been scalded, even blinded. Her employer's (middle school pricipal) cousin experienced the same thing (without the injuries), but could have been near the exploding microwave with her infant! There's better warnings on firecrackers!

Mike, we'll help you out: When you light a firecracker, avoid sticking it up your nose, or even worse, in the darkened anal area where you appear to store your head.

via overlawyered

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

The Town That Jenny Craig Forgot
Just about every person we encountered in Hot Springs, Arkansas (except one skinny bronze man above one of the fountains) was obese. Is it just me, or are we in America going a little overboard on the "fat acceptance" thing?

As Cathy Seipp wrote:

"I believe your right to overeat ends where my airplane seat begins."

Not surprisingly, she was tarred and feathered on a fatty blog. Actually, they even mentioned me (I hate when Cathy gets all the vitriol all to herself). I would have posted a response there, but, not surprisingly, they make posters register.

Not surprisingly either, the commenters stuck to unrelated personal attacks (even low-blow attacking Cathy's teenaged daughter), never getting into the big (fat) question: If you're obese, shouldn't you buy yourself two seats instead of spilling over into half of mine?

This question unfortunately came to the fore on my way, by plane, to Little Rock from Memphis. Most mercifully, it was a short flight. Now, I'm normally very protective of my tiny little square of real estate in coach. But, when my seatmate is EEEEENORMOUS (like, 300 or 400 lbs), I'm battling not wanting be cruel while also not being willing to have my eye socket pressed up against the window because a piano-sized person is sitting in a piccolo-sized seat. Grrrr.

The guy's girlfriend was sitting next to him, so he finally got it into his head that he should change seats with her.

No, it can't be easy being that fat. But, that doesn't mean you're entitled to half my seat on the plane.

Here's how people used to look not long ago:

Now maybe there are a few obese people who have some rare and terrible hormonal disease that keeps them bedridden at 625 lbs. But, I suspect many aren't willing to admit they have a problem -- whether it's with their eating and exercise habits or anything else.

I see that as one of my best qualities -- my willingness (eagerness, even) to admit when something's wrong: to look at myself and say, "Hey, I'm fucked up!" or to look at my life and ask, "Could I be any more counterproductive?" Admitting something's broken is almost always the first step in getting it fixed.

As Cathy continued in her piece:

A few weeks ago I came across an old World War I poster that announced, "Deny Yourself Something: Eat less of the food fighters need." Deny yourself something. What a curious and forgotten concept. The poster might as well have been 1000 years old instead of less than 100, so bizarre was its message to modern eyes.

Contemporary citizens are far more likely to deny reality than deny themselves anything. Around the same time I noticed the poster, I read a long and grotesquely fascinating Washington Post feature story about a 625-pound man whose extreme obesity had confined him to his bed for the past seven years.

Almost as remarkable as this awful situation was the sympathetic reporter's strained attempt to make it seem like nobody's fault, really. A doctor was trotted out to provide a quote suggesting that the excess weight was acquired by consuming just over 100 extra calories a day. The man's wife was portrayed as loving and loyal, rather than an enabler who provided her bedridden husband fattening foods he wouldn't otherwise be able to reach.

Kind of like being very slowly bludgeoned to death with Twinkies. Heartwarming, isn't it?

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Stupid? Go Ahead And Sue
Gregg flew to Memphis on Saturday, drove to meet me in Little Rock, and took me to Hot Springs, Arkansas on Sunday, where we went to the gorgeous Arlington Hotel for brunch, passing lots of the baths Hot Springs is known for on the way.

Brunch was an all-you-can eat deal, and I did just that: took a half slice of French toast, a couple strips of bacon, a small piece of chicken Kiev, a thin strip of BBQ beef, three baby carrots, half a roll, and some salad, and a few bits of German chocolate cake. Period. No, I didn't eat myself sick...but maybe I should have, since stuffing yourself to the gills may be lucrative.

Get a load -- a wide load -- of what could be the latest really dumb lawsuit. Abha Bhattarai writes for Reuters that the Center For Science In The Public Idiots, uh...Interest may be planning to sue Starbucks because...consumers are too dumb to understand that consuming huge, sugary drinks filled with whipped cream may make their lardasses even lard-assier!

"Regular consumers of Starbucks products could face Venti-sized health problems," Jacobson said, referring to Starbucks' use of the 'Venti' designation for 'large.'

The group is primarily funded by newsletter subscribers and individual donors. It has support in the campaign from the small IWW Starbucks Workers Union, which has members in three stores, all in New York.

They would like Starbucks to list nutrition information -- which is currently available online and in store brochures -- on its menu boards.

"Customers can ask for nutrition information, but when you're talking about a transparent business in a busy world, that's not enough," union organizer and Starbucks "barista" staff member Daniel Gross said in an interview.

Come on...is it really that easy to mistake a near-liter of liquid caramel banana cream pie for a shot of wheat grass juice?

He said the company should use healthier shortenings without trans fat, and publicize its smallest size, "short," which is available but does not appear on the menu.

Or, people could think with their brains and do what I do -- order a small black coffee and eat only part of a pastry and...take the rest home or throw it away!

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

DDD-Sized Lies
David Menzies writes in the Western Standard that claims about breast implant dangers are as inflated as Pamela Anderson's cup size:

Stories about supposedly dangerous implants got their start in the early nineties, following a multibillion-dollar class action lawsuit against silicone implant manufacturers. The suit, joined by tens of thousands of women worldwide, claimed patients suffered all manner of health problems--from rheumatoid arthritis and lupus to fibromyalgia--due to leaky implants. The US$3.2-billion settlement offered by prosthetic manufacturer Dow Corning Corp. forced that company into bankruptcy protection.

But since then, no fewer than 18 different epidemiological studies have failed to find any link between implants and increased risk of disease, says Dr. Walter Peters, a Toronto cosmetic plastic surgeon and a professor of plastic surgery at the University of Toronto. "The lawyers just assumed [illnesses resulted] from the breast implants. And several of the suits were settled in court with juries before it was realized that [ill health] had nothing to do with implants," says Peters. "One woman won a suit of US$25 million, and all she had were flu-like symptoms."

The Washington, D.C.-based Institute of Medicine conducted the most thorough report debunking the silicone link. In a 560-page paper released in 1999, the institute looked into whether implants increased risks of cancer, rheumatoid diseases, neurological diseases, risks to pregnancies and lactation and more--and found no significant risks. Shortly after, Health Canada lifted its moratorium on silicone breast implants.

Today, silicone implants are used in at least half of breast augmentation surgeries, mainly because the alternative--saline implants--is considered inferior by most doctors and patients. "Silicone feels better, it's softer, it's more natural," says Peters. "If someone has very, very little breast tissue and you put a saline implant in, it's like water and you get these ripples and folds on the surface of the implant. You don't get those with [silicone] gel."

...Last year, more than 300,000 North American chests were artificially enlarged, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons--a 24 per cent increase over 2001. So it's no wonder that some feminists are increasingly desperate to spook women away from the procedure.

Not even scientific evidence has managed to extinguish the myths about the dangers of implants. Right now, another class action suit against implant manufacturers is pending in Canada. "There is a group of women still, who, regardless of the science or facts, firmly believe [their ailments] are from breast implants," says Peters.

To what, I wonder, do they attribute their gullibility and stupidity?

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Picasso Meets Arkansas
Incredible and incredibly moving Picasso show at the Arkansas Arts Center, in Little Rock, believe it or not. Here's one of the paintings:

The Artist And His Model, 1963
(note the fantastic long-snooted dog)

Two quotes, both from Picasso. Loved this one:

"It took me sixty years to learn to draw like a child again."

And I'm not sure what this one means (in terms of "the absolute"). He's talking about his wife, Françoise:

"She is the only woman I have ever known who is open to the absolute."

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

How Much For That Kidney In The Window?
Cash for your kidney? Why not?

What's wrong with selling your organs? I don't have a problem with it, and neither does Virginia Postrel -- who, by the way, just donated one to a friend:

Kidney patients literally live or die by where they are on the waiting list. While getting progressively sicker, they must spend several hours at least three times a week hooked up to a dialysis machine, the kidney-disease equivalent of an iron lung (it prolongs your life but imposes a physically debilitating prison sentence).

Increasing the supply of deceased donors, while desirable, is difficult — organ donors have to die healthy and in exactly the right circumstances. But even if every eligible cadaver were harvested, it wouldn't fill the gap. We need more kidney donors, lots more. And they need to be alive.

Unfortunately, our laws and culture discourage healthy people from donating organs, as I learned this spring when I gave a kidney to a friend.

My parents were appalled. My doctor told me, "You know you can change your mind." Many people couldn't understand why I didn't at least wait until my friend had been on dialysis for a while.

This pervasive attitude not only pressures donors to back out, it shapes policies that deter them. Some transplant centers require intrusive, demeaning psychological probes that scare people off. Some bioethicists suspect that donors suffer from a mental disorder, as opposed to being motivated by benevolence or religious conviction.

The scrutiny is particularly nasty when healthy people want to give their organs to strangers — not truly unknown people, mind you, but patients they have gotten to know through Internet sites or press coverage.

Many transplant centers flatly refuse "directed donations" to specific strangers. Some argue that it's "unfair" for patients to jump the queue with personal initiative and an appealing story; others insist that such donors aren't to be trusted (they must be either criminal or crazy). Posters at livingdonorsonline.org warn givers to never even mention the Internet, lest their good intentions be thwarted.

Sandra Grijalva, a San Francisco woman with polycystic kidney disease, asked Kaiser officials if she could find a donor online — after having one of her friends disqualified because of high blood pressure. "They said absolutely not," she says. The donor, Kaiser maintained, might someday try to extort money. (So might your cousin, but at least you'd be alive.)

My feeling? It's your body, sell it if you want to. Whether it's by prostitution or piecing it out.

A number of people (friends or acquaintances, particularly), ask me advice about the same problem, over and over. For example, a guy I know with a pretty plum job would always have these women banging on his door at 3 a.m., angry when they figured out all he really wanted was sex. Actually, he wants a girlfriend; he just has a hard time finding one who's beautiful, bright, and non-psycho in New York City.

Of course, I have no problem with people having a little naked, casual fun. It's just that both participants (or all the participants!) should be clear that it's casual fun -- as opposed to casual fun leading to formal...well, formal less naked and less fun.

For years, I told this friend of mine that he was being unethical for fooling these girls and that he should see hookers. Finally...FINALLY!...he took my advice, and called up a Brazilian escort service. He's kinda hot, so he used to pay the woman, but now she sleeps with him for free. Her "pro-bono" client, let's just say. So...if nobody's getting fooled, and everybody's a consenting adult...what could be wrong with that?

By the way, the guy did have one complaint for me: "Why didn't you make me do this sooner?"

P.S. Check out Virginia Postrel's book, The Substance Of Style, and her blog.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Scenes From The Clinton Library
In Little Rock, Arkansas.

weird gift, probably from some foreign dignitary


Oval Office Replica


Have Gun Will Travel prop from Clinton's favorite western stuff collection


Clinton Library inside out

More about the Library here.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Cheesy Pickins
I'm in Little Rock, Arkansas, at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies conference. I went to the Peabody Hotel restaurant for lunch. Walked in, didn't order room service or anything.

Well, I get my bill, and...get a load of this: Tacked on the price of my hamburger with Gorgonzola and my sauteed spinach was a 60 cent "facilities upgrade surcharge."

Apparently, the city (or maybe it was the state) reneged on some promise to pay for the convention center, so the hotel tacks a four percent fee on rooms, food, and more at the Peabody.

City couldn't or wouldn't pay? You know what? Not the problem of the hungry diner!

Have a daily bake sale or something. Have masseurs walk the lobby, selling foot joy. But, keep your surcharge off my lunch! Tacky, tacky!

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Your "Indecency" Is Not My Indecency
To me, what's truly indecent are attacks on freedom of speech. George Bush signs attacks on freedom of speech into law with the broadcast "decency" law.

President Bush signed legislation Thursday that will cost broadcasters dearly when raunchy programming exceeds "the bounds of decency."

At a signing ceremony for the new law increasing by tenfold the maximum fine for indecency, Bush said that it will force industry figures to "take seriously their duty to keep the public airwaves free of obscene, profane and indecent material."

For raunchy talk or a racy show of skin, the Federal Communications Commission can now fine a broadcaster up to $325,000 per incident.

Approval of the bill culminates a two-year effort to get tough on sexually explicit material and offensive language on radio and television following Janet Jackson's 2004 Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction."

The FCC recently denied a petition of reconsideration from CBS Corp.-owned stations facing $550,000 in fines over the Jackson incident, in which she briefly revealed a breast during a halftime concert.

The agency recently handed down its biggest fine, $3.3 million, against more than 100 CBS affiliates that aired an episode of the series "Without a Trace" that simulated an orgy scene. That fine is now under review.

The FCC has received increasing complaints about lewd material over the airwaves, and has responded with fines jumping from $440,000 in 2003 to almost $8 million in 2004.

"The problem we have is that the maximum penalty that the FCC can impose under current law is just $32,500 per violation," Bush said. "And for some broadcasters, this amount is meaningless. It's relatively painless for them when they violate decency standards."

The bill does not apply to cable or satellite broadcasts, and does not try to define what is indecent. The FCC says indecent material is that which contains sexual or excretory material that does not rise to the level of obscenity.

The legislation, while facing little resistance in Congress, had detractors warning of problems in defining what is indecent and of the erosion of First Amendment rights.

What scares me most is how few people are scared by stuff like this.

UPDATE: And here's this link via Reason, of what, exactly the government is responding to (as usual, they're pandering to the fundanutters). From a Mediaweek story by Todd Shields:

Virtually none of those who complained to the Federal Communications Commission about the teen drama Without A Trace actually saw the episode in question, CBS affiliates said as they asked the agency to rescind its proposed record indecency fine of $3.3 million.

All of the 4,211 e-mailed complaints came from Web sites operated by the Parents Television Council and the American Family Association, the stations said in a filing on Monday.

In only two of the emails did those complaining say they had watched the program, and those two apparently refer to a “brief, out-of-context segment” of the episode that was posted on the Parents Television Council’s Web site, the affiliates’ filing said.

“There were no true complainants from actual viewers,” the stations said. To be valid, complaints must come from an actual viewer in the service area of the station at issue, the filing said.

“The e-mails were submitted … because advocacy groups hoping to influence television content generally exhorted them to contact the commission,” the CBS stations said.

L. Brent Bozell, president of the Parents Television Council, said that “everything the PTC has said is accurate.

It's called "Astroturfing" when groups do this to papers. What's it called when they do it in government? "Law," I guess.

As I've said before, if you're a parent, how about you simply police what your kids watch, rather than policing what I can and can't.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Beautiful, Not Dumb

window at Dalloyau, Paris, across from le Jardin du Luxembourg

Great site, The Beauty Brains -- two researchers answering questions about beauty products from a science and chemistry-based perspective. Here's their bit on a study about chocolate as sun protection:

Today was a candy bar day. Nestle Crunch. It was good and at a mere 220 calories, who could feel bad? Then this story comes across the brain network. It turns out eating that candy bar could actually be helping protect my skin from the damaging effects of UV radiation.

In this small study, researchers experimented with 2 groups of twelve women. One group drank a hot chocolate beverage containing a special, high flavonoid containing chocolate each morning for three months. The other drank a low flavonoid hot chocolate beverage. After 3 months the exposed each woman’s skin to UV radiation and assessed their skin reactions.

It turns out that the ones who had the high flavonoid chocolate did not redden nearly as much. This suggests that this kind of chocolate can provide protection from UV and thus help prevent skin cancer. (Some time ago, they showed a similar effect with lycopene that is found in tomatoes.) Note, this chocolate study is just a preliminary one and the work was partially funded by the Mars Company, so a healthy dose of skepticism should be heeded. However, there is a nice scientific theory about why it works and it would be difficult to fake measured results like skin reddening.

The researchers say right now chocolate will not be a direct replacement for standard skin UV protection lotions. Those are still more effective. But in the future, who knows?

The good new is that if you needed a good reason to eat more candy bars this summer, you just found it. Who knew that Crunch bar was going to help prevent skin cancer? God I love science.

On a chocolate-related note, I suggest the BB girls would be wise to upgrade to a better class of chocolate. Eating mass-marketed American chocolate, once you've, well, been to Paris (or Switzerland), at least in a grocery-shopping sense, is a bit like eating candles.

On an unrelated note, I just got to the alternative newspaper convention in Little Rock, Arkansas. More blog items in the next few hours.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Male Genital Mutilation

How come it's wrong to mutilate girls in Africa in keeping with tribal ritual, but okay with to hack up boys in America in keeping with tribalistic ritual? Some woman wants to mutilate (circumcise) her eight-year-old and the kid's divorced dad is fighting back. Good for him. Judy Peres writes in the Chicago Trib:

In a case that has drawn the attention of anti-circumcision groups nationwide, doctors testified Tuesday that there is no medical justification for removing the foreskin of an 8-year-old Northbrook boy.

Dr. M. David Gibbons of Washington, D.C., a pediatric urologist, said he saw nothing in the boy's medical records to warrant circumcision, an operation he said could cause serious complications.

But the boy's pediatrician, Dr. Arnold Goldstein of Highland Park, said he believed circumcision was the "best and easiest way" to prevent problems in the future.

The boy's mother insists, on the advice of Goldstein and two other doctors, that the operation is necessary to prevent recurring bouts of inflammation, called balonitis.

His father, a building manager from Arlington Heights, is suing to block the operation, calling it an "unnecessary amputation" that could cause his son irreparable physical and emotional harm.

"If you have an infection in your finger, you don't cut it off," the father said from the witness stand. "First you try to treat it."

The parents are divorced. The Tribune is not naming them to protect the boy's privacy.

Gibbons and Dr. Robert Van Howe, a pediatrician from Marquette, Mich., said balonitis, often caused by chemical irritants, is nearly always treatable with a steroid ointment.

Goldstein admitted the boy never received a steroid. The only medication recommended was an antibiotic ointment such as Neosporin, which Goldstein acknowledged did not help. The two experts said Neosporin is not recommended for balonitis and sometimes even causes inflammation.

Goldstein also testified that the boy had a history of phimosis, or adherence of the foreskin to the head of the penis. But he conceded under cross-examination that he could not document such a history in the child's chart.

Gibbons and Van Howe testified that phimosis is normal for a child of this age.

"Sixty-five percent of 9-year-old boys still have a partially attached foreskin," Gibbons said. The boy will turn 9 next month.

"Intactivist" groups are eagerly awaiting Kaplan's ruling, which could break new legal ground.

"If the court were to rule that circumcision is not in the best interests of this child, that would set an American precedent that doesn't exist today," said George Hill, director of bioethics for Doctors Opposed to Circumcision.

In his opening statement, David Llewellyn, one of the father's attorneys, told Cook County Circuit Court Judge Jordan Kaplan that routine circumcision became popular in the 1870s in a "misguided attempt to punish and deter masturbation." But doctors now know it is rarely medically necessary, he said, and its risks outweigh its benefits.

As for claims that circumcision prevents infection, so does washing well. Can't we just teach boys to wash? Isn't it terribly barbaric to perform unnecessary surgery on an unconsenting baby just in keeping with primitive religious practices? I mean, sure, let the kid grow up and make his own decision at 25. And let's guess what that will be: "You can either have part of your dick hacked off -- or you can just wash." Hmmm, that's a toughie!

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

As You Climb The Ladder Of Success

Don't forget the crotchless panties.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Don't Worry, Be Happy
To be religious takes non-think, and there's an acceptance of that non-think as part of being religious by religious people -- even if they wouldn't admit to it, or they dress it up as "faith." Faith is agreed stupidity. Faith is willingness not to think too much -- or at all.

My cab driver in Philly tried to cheat me. Bad idea. It was Sunday morning. The cab company said it would be maybe $18-20 to the airport; it probably would have been much less because we didn't encounter a car on the road at 7:45 am, and got from Locust and 40th at Penn to the airport in under 15 minutes.

As we were arriving at the airport, I noticed the cab driver hadn't turned the meter on. Ugh. Ex-New Yorker here. That's fine if you want to make a deal with me for the price (if that's legal), but not if you don't ask me first...because it generally indicates that you're about to rook me, or try. When I told that to the guy, and indicated that I was an ex-New Yorker (ie, a raving bitch when taxi drivers try to scam me), he wavered a little, then told me the rate would be $26.10 -- the flat rate from the airport, whcih I'm sure accounts for heavy traffic at the end of the day, etc.

Nice try. Baaaaad idea. I told him so. "But, Miss, I am a Christian," he protested. Hah. He picked the wrong girl for that argument, and I told him so, explaining that I was an atheist, and most likely a lot more ethical than he was. I gave him $20, which was probably overly generous, come to think of it, and told him that I'm a big tipper and he screwed himself. (I generally tip cab drivers 20% -- so he conceivably could have made $26 if it had been a $20 cab ride). And then, when I was inside the airport, I called and reported him. A black eye for a black eye, you could call it, if you want to get biblical.

Most hilariously, NPR was playing in the cab -- some woman talking about her book on (religious) doubt, and how there's been a long tradition of it, and how being an atheist became evil during the communism fear years, as it was associated with being a communist. It was then they tacked "in God we trust" on the money, and "under God," into the pledge of allegiance -- both embarrassments for a nation that Consitutionally mandates separation of church and state. And by the way, Gregg told me Detroit's Father Coughlin, a notorious anti-semite, equated being Jewish with being atheist as much as he could.

Here's the political version of the cab driver's "But, Miss, I am a Christian." Yeah, all you fundies out there, turn off your brain and support whomever professes to be a believer. Here's a link from Andrew Sullivan -- to some WorldNut Daily guy advocating blind allegiance to the god guys in power. What a dunce. And what do you want to bet that George Bush's "faith," in some small or some larger measure, has a little more to do with the god squad getting him off the sauce and the Rove squad getting him elected than anything else.

"Don't you know that you are aiding the enemy when you speak against President Bush? I will bet you that of all the presidents since 1950, with the exception of President Ronald Reagan, President Bush is by far the best. We and hundreds of thousands of Americans stand by the president. Of course, he is not perfect, but he is a man of God. If you are a born-again Christian, you will support him and pray for him every day. We are called, no, commanded, to pray for our president," - an email to WorldNet Daily. Its title? "Born Again? Then Support The President."

Political pornographer Ann Coulter's a Christian, too, by the way. Or says she is. I'd bet she, like George Bush, is what I call "a convenient Christian," a category which doesn't exist among non-believers. Not believing takes intellectual thought and work, and a willingness to be unpopular (and unelectable) among all the religious zombies who can't bear being de facto told their belief is moronic by the very existence of those who don't drink the Kool-Aid.

And sure, there are religious people out there who do good, and I read about an increasing number of Christians who are speaking up about Christianity supposedly being about helping the poor, not fomenting hate of non-believers, and the rest of the ugliness practiced by so many of the fundies.

And as Daniel Dennett points out, there are people who believe in god, and then there are people who believe in belief in god. I'd venture a whole lot of people are the latter -- especially any believers who post here. To keep up in the fray here, you can't be a moron. I can't really imagine intelligent people I know believing, without evidence, in some big Imaginary Friend in the sky moving pieces of their lives around like it's chess.

I mean, come on, you not only think there's a god but that god gives a shit about whether you get run over or not while running across the street to get a latte?

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Sidekicking Some Ass
I love people who won't take injustice lying down. Great story. Here's an excerpt:

June 6th, 2006: The people in the pictures below have my friend’s T-Mobile Sidekick. Instead of doing the honorable thing when finding someone’s phone in a taxi, they instead kept it.

I have found 8 cell phones in the last couple years in taxis. EVERY single one I have contacted the owner (by leaving a message on their voice mail or by answering their phone and telling their friends that I have the phone) and returned it promptly. When people have found my phone, they have also in turn returned it.

When my friend realized that she had left the Sidekick in the taxi she asked me to immediately send a message to the phone saying that we would give a reward for the phone. There was no response. After a day of waiting, she had to go to the store and spend over $300 on a new Sidekick. When she put her SIM card in, she saw that the person(s) that had taken the phone had not only signed on to AOL leaving their name and password in the phone, but they had taken pictures of themselves.

I immediately contacted the AOL name: Sashacristal8905 and requested that the Sidekick be returned. I was immediately told that my “white ass” didn’t deserve it back. That she was not a “white bitch” (my friend who is a blonde white girl had pics on the phone this person had obviously seen) stupid enough to return a phone she found. After lots of threats, she said she and her boy would wait for me at:

Sashacristal8905: i got ball this is my adress 108 20 37 av corona come n do it iam give u the sidekick so I can hit you wit it

So, anyways..this is my story. If you happen to know these people in the picture please let me know at: stolensidekick@gmail.com I am not going to go to the address posted above, because a.) Not going to waste my time going to a probable fake address b.) If it is real, there will be a physical altercation and I would probably wind up arrested which would do no good to anyone. I’d rather just embarrass the thief as much as possible. Teach them a lesson on the etiquette of returning peoples lost belongings.

via my very talented crime novelist friend, Denise Hamilton

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Thank You For Not Guzzling
As you can see, I'm back in LA.

Pictured here (photo by Gregg), talking on a phone from the past, after photographing what I hope will be one of the cars of the future, at least for people who usually drive solo, like me.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Oh, The Horror, The Horror...
Not for me. But, for a bunch of puritanical idiots in St. Petersburg, Florida. An Advice Goddess Blog lurker-regular e-mailed me:

Here's something I just had to send...the St. Petersburg Times recently did a feature article on a mother-daughter stripper team, and received the predictable avalanche of complaints by head-up-ass readers. I thought that was the end of it, but several days later and much to my surprise, a few more reasonable letters about that same article were printed. Two in particular were exceptional...here they are:

Re: Letters in response to the Mama's Girl story. June 3.

Letter writers protesting the story on mom-daughter strippers seem basically to have two complaints: The Times isn't judgmental enough, and sex exists.

Of the first, let me applaud this 'family' (says who?) newspaper for presenting a story about how one woman kept her family together and solvent. It may indeed say something we don't want to admit about our economy that the daughter can support herself better by stripping than by working for grunt wages at Taco Bell or Kmart, but I appreciate that what it does say is left to me to interpret. (First impression? She's responsible, having spent the cash on real estate rather than bling.)

On this point, it seems the Times has learned the lesson about not judging others better than those who profess it as a matter of faith.On the second point, these prudes need to remember that each of them was conceived out of lust. Like it or not, all life begins in the rut, and our culture's inability to respect, indulge and understand our magnificent animal desires - the desires that have created every single human--- is why we have strip clubs in the first place. Appalled that despite millenniums of repression, sexuality isn't against the law? Take it up with your mom and dad.

Andrew McAlister, Tampa


Just a story about a different lifestyle

Re: Mama's Girl responses.

What makes all these people think that this article was so offensive? It was simply about a lifestyle engaged in by this family. Like it or not, there are many different lifestyles in this country. By printing this story and other stories of different lifestyles, this newspaper does what it is supposed to do: expose us to information that we ourselves do not have the time or resources to observe or learn about. Where were all the puritans when the story about the Indian woman and her arranged marriage were printed. Isn't that just as demeaning to women?

We don't have to read every story that is printed in the paper. All anyone had to do was read the caption to know what the article was about. As for all the comments about children seeing this article, isn't that the job of parents and teachers? To first look through the paper and remove anything they may find objectionable before simply handing it over to the precious innocent darlings?

How is it that I never see complaints about all the articles about fraud, murder, corruption, war and the other mayhem printed daily? Aren't your children reading those articles? In every issue of the newspaper there are articles that are inappropriate for children. As a parent, it is my job to be aware of what my child is reading, not the newspaper's.

Catherine Matthies, Spring Hill

To show my solidarity with all the stripper girls out there, and to again do my part for my poor blog readers who complain of being starved of "welder-wife tail" and the like...this one's for you.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Welcome, Thieves! Yoohoo, Muggers!
If somebody breaks into your house and robs you, and you catch him, do you:

a. Call the cops
b. Thank him for dropping in, and ask him to stick around and cater your dinner party.

Indiana Republican congressman Mike Pence, writing in The Wall Street Journal (a free article), has the right idea -- "A Middle Ground on Immigration - Yes to guest workers, no to amnesty":

...My bill does not include a so-called path to citizenship, i.e., an amnesty, for the some 12 million illegal aliens in this country. Instead, it insists that they leave and come back legally if they have a job opportunity in the U.S. They will be allowed to do so under the terms of a guest-worker program that will be implemented by firms in the private sector, not by a new government bureaucracy.

Private worker-placement agencies--"Ellis Island Centers"--would be licensed by the federal government to match guest workers with jobs that employers cannot fill with American workers. These agencies will match guest workers with jobs, perform health screening, fingerprint them, and convey the appropriate information to the FBI and Homeland Security so that a background check can be performed. Once this is done, the guest worker would be provided with a visa issued by the State Department. The whole process will take a matter of one week, or less.

My immigration reform plan does not favor illegal immigrants. Anyone may apply for a guest-worker visa at the new Ellis Island Centers; indeed, the plan may actually work to the advantage of applicants who have never violated our immigration laws, since guest-worker visas will be issued only outside the U.S.

There will initially be no cap on the number of visas that can be issued; for the first three years, the market and the needs of U.S. employers will set the limit on the number of guest workers. This is necessary in order to provide the incentive for illegal aliens in this country to self-deport and come back legally. After three years, however, a reasonable limit on the number of these "W" visas will be determined by the Department of Labor, based on employment statistics, employer needs and other research.

Nevertheless, there will be a limit on the amount of time guest workers can spend in this country. They would be allowed to renew their visas, but only for a period of up to six years. And in order to receive their first renewal, they would be required to study English and pass an English proficiency class.

After six years, a guest worker must decide whether to return home or seek citizenship. But he will do so under the normal rules and regulations of our naturalization laws. There is no path to citizenship in my bill.

Lastly, my immigration bill includes strict employer enforcement. It does so by incorporating the employer-enforcement provisions contained in the House-passed Border Protection bill. Thus, there will be established a nationwide electronic employment-verification system through which employers will confirm the legality of each prospective and current employee.

Employers who choose to operate outside the system would face stiff fines. Once the new enforcement system is in place, jobs for illegal aliens will dry up.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Dinner With Dennett
In lieu of a blog item of substance (because I'm flying back from HBES to L.A. today), I'll just name-drop.

Let's just say it was some pretty interesting dinner conversation. After Daniel Dennett's brilliant keynote address on "wild memes" versus "domesticated memes" (more on that after I make my deadine) I went looking for my friends who were saving me a seat at dinner. Just as I found them, Daniel Dennett spied a couple of open seats at the table and asked if he could sit next to me. What was I going to say...no? By the way, he's not only smart, he's very witty.

Others at the table were my friends Kaja Perina, (that's her -- editor of Psychology Today, who's the one who made the magazine worth reading -- and worth looking at, too...talking to Daniel Dennett)...and Albert Ellis-trained therapist and Albert Ellis Institute workshop leader/supervisor Nando Pelusi...professor Catherine Salmon, who wrote Warrior Lovers with Don Symons and co-edited Evolutionary Psychology, Public Policy, and Personal Decisions...and Catherine's friend, law prof Kingsley Browne, whose book I just bought, Biology At Work: Rethinking Sexual Equality, and linguistics and computer science prof Mark Liberman, and a couple other people I don't know that well. That's Kingsley in the background talking to...Vanderbilt law prof Owen Jones, I think...who spoke eloquently in a panel discussion on teaching evolution at lunch, and joined a few of us in a chat afterward about paternity fraud and the ridiculousness of political correctness.

More, soon, on what all these people actually had to say. And, sorry, boys and girls, I'm even more inspired (and informed) to rail against religious primitism after hearing and sitting next to Daniel Dennett, along with hearing some of the other speakers at HBES.

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Who, Exactly, Do Our Elected Representatives Represent?
Congress may gut credit-report protections like the credit freeze (available to consumers in California and 17 other states), writes Richard Burnett in the Orlando Sentinel. Thank the sleazebags in the credit card industry with their pretend problems, which they're using as an excuse to remove consumer choice:

A new state law that would allow Floridians to block access to their credit histories could be superseded by one of several federal proposals now working their ways through Congress.

Consumer advocates say one of the federal measures in particular would eviscerate the state "security-freeze" law, which was designed to protect credit files from identity theft.

If enacted, the federal bill would also nullify Florida's existing "breach notification" law and similar laws in other states that require companies to notify people when their personal data is stolen or otherwise compromised, critics of the federal measure say.

...The industry wants to limit the opportunity to freeze a credit history to those victimized by ID theft or those who have good reason to suspect their personal financial information has been compromised.

Many consumers may not realize how inconvenient a freeze on access to their credit records can be until they try getting quick approval to finance a purchase, said Anthony Dimarco, vice president of the Florida Bankers Association.

"My biggest concern is if a consumer signs up for a freeze, then goes shopping at a department store and wants to get instant credit approval to buy something," he said. "Suddenly, reality raises its head. You can't unfreeze your credit instantaneously. The person may realize that's not really what they want."

Supporters of a security freeze argue, however, that the peace of mind it brings is worth the inconvenience. The state law includes a formal process that allows a person to temporarily lift a freeze on a credit history within three days.

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Worming Your Way To Good Health
Are you too clean?

Thursday afternoon at HBES, the Human Behavior & Evolution Society conference at Penn, UC Riverside behavioral ecologist Marlene Zuk talked about how we make a mistake in ridding our environment of parasites, which we evolved with from the beginning.

Zuk writes in her abstract:

...What if parasites are, while not desirable, still somehow essential?

Zuk said in her talk, "Our relationship with our parasites is so close that we actually do ourselves damage if we remove them completely." She detailed a few of the unexpected downsides of removing our pathogens (put away that Purell, you clean freaks):

Asthma, which is more common in industrialized countries, increased 75% from 1980-84 in US. Asthma is less common in rural environments, and families with more children, pets or farm animals. Just having older siblings likely to be associated with decrease in asthma.

Drinking unpasteurized milk means people are less likely to have allergies (we idiotic Americans don't allow unpasteurized cheese, except for some hard cheeses at Whole Foods and other such stores). Pasteurized cheese tastes like nothing compared to unpasteurized [and healthier] cheese. What about the danger of listeria?! Come on...all of France isn't coming down with it from unpasteurized cheese, now are they?

Endotoxin, a component of bacterial cell walls, may be a crucial component of the human body. It's particularly prevalent in rural environments. And higher endotoxin levels in bedding were associated with lower levels of asthma in a study 812 European children.

In other words, as Zuk said in her talk, "An environment lacking in immunological stimuli increases the risk of developing asthma, allergies, eczema..." and more.

"I’m not saying worms are great we should all have tons of them in our intestines," she explained. It's just that we do need some.

Zuk spoke about the work of J.V. Weinstock and others on the use of pig whipworm in alleviating Crohn's disease. Here's a brief description of their pig whipworm study by Karla Harby on Medscape:

Orally ingested ova of Trichuris suis, the porcine whipworm, has been found to be active in an open-label study of Crohn's disease, and in a small scale, placebo-controlled trial in patients with ulcerative colitis.

"Inflammatory bowel diseases are diseases of the 20th century," said Joel V. Weinstock, MD, from the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City, in a press briefing here during Digestive Disease Week. "These diseases are extremely rare in less developed countries, suggesting that we're doing something different."

These trials were designed to explore the hypothesis that infection with parasitic worms (helminths) is protective or ameliorating in these conditions, because such infections down-regulate immune responses.

In the open-label trial, 29 patients with refractory disease, and a Crohn's disease activity index (CDAI) of 220 to 450, ingested 2,500 T. suis ova in a beverage every three weeks for 24 weeks. By week 12, 22 patients (75.9%) experienced a decrease in CDAI of more than 100 points, or had a CDAI of less than 150. Another 18 patients (62.1%) were in remission. (Four patients withdrew early because of disease activity or pregnancy.) Researchers and patients observed no adverse effects or complications.

She called Crohn’s disease "another disease of the advantaged." Jews got it first; presumably from not eating pork. People who wear shoes get fewer worms. People who live in modern urban areas lack the intestinal worms of rural people. And that parasites common as little as 70 years ago, like Trichinella, are now rare.

In the 40s, she reported (from Weinstock's work, I believe), one in six people showed exposure to Trichinella. By the 80s, it was only 5 percent of the population. Weinstock figured maybe he could use pig worms to treat Crohn's, which don't establish themselves in humans, but stimulate the appropriate mucosal (immuno) response.

If you're eating breakfast, stop here.

Weinstock gave Crohn's sufferers a solution of worm eggs in Gatorade. In a 2004 double-blind study, 3/4 of the patients showed remission of the disease after six months.

And finally, she presented a solution -- an evolutionary approach to parasite control, reflected in this slide from her presentation:

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Research And You Will Find
Postered presentations of work at the Human Behavior & Evolution Society conference in Philly, at Penn. One of the most amusing was Signs of Love or Signs of Lust? The Value of Body-Modifications as Mate Attraction Cues, by UCLA's Melanie Bromley, who found evidence that lower body tattoos on women indicate a willingness to have a one-night-stand.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of her poster, because she was in a dark corner (nor do I have a picture of the little red Canadian flag just above a certain other researcher's ass!) but here are a few others:

UPDATE: We caught our researcher friend with the tattoo with her pants down. Well, okay, with her skirt up. Here's the exclusive world premiere look at that Maple leaf of hers:

P.S. Crid, don't say I never did anything for you (i.e., requests for "more welder girlfriend tail").

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Keeping Up With Robert Frank

Cornell economics professor Robert H. Frank, the New York Times columnist and author of Luxury Fever and other books, gave the opening lecture at the Human Behavior & Evolution Society conference I'm attending in at Penn in Philadelphia. His was a very interesting talk about absolute versus relative consumption.

Relative consumption is your consumption as compared to that of your neighbors; your satisfaction measured in "keeping up with the Joneses." But, he points out that, contrary to popular "wisdom," money can buy happiness, as life is simply easier and more pleasant if you're wealthy.

The problem is, according to Frank, as one segment of society gets very wealthy, lower segments of society feel pressured to acquire more outward displays of wealth (fancy cars, bigger houses) to appear to be keeping up.

Frank told a story about his days teaching in Nepal (I think with the Peace Corps), and how he had this house with a leaky grass roof. In America, he noted, such a house would be simply unacceptable, but there, it was a better house than all the other teachers had and he was very happy with it. He also gave the example of this car:

If you drive a Nova in Havana, Cuba, you've got status. In Beverly Hills, you've got a problem.

While people think concerns about relative position come from growing up in a capitalistic society, he pointed out that they seem to be hardwired nervous system components. Evolutionarily, people should care about relative position because it affects material payoffs; for example:

--food in famines
--mate access
--effort monitoring
--choosing right arena (sorry, forgot what this one means, exactly, and no time to go to my recording)

I loved this Mencken quote he put up:

He sees the "expenditure arms race" -- the increased spending by the average person on flashy luxury items to keep up with the rich, who can afford those items -- as a serious problem, as it's financed by decreased personal savings and increased personal debt. Here's an example from his Luxury book:

There is a real reason, sometimes, for appearing richer than you are, as it may help convince people you're of a higher status, and, perhaps, give you a job because of it.

But, maybe there's a rationality and evolutionary psych-based solution to this: articulating and pointing out, to the average person, the longterm cost of overspending, and suggesting to that they instead live within their means (that's the rational part), and "cheat" (that's the ev psych-inspired part) to appear wealthier and higher status when it matters.

They could, for example, shop cleverly so they appear rich and high status when it actually has tangible benefits (for a job interview), and then be mindful of what keeping up the expenditure arms race means for their savings and future when it has no tangible benefits. So...maybe buy a Hugo Boss suit when it's on sale in August, and you'll look the part of the guy who should get that job. But, live in a reasonably sized house so you aren't blowing your retirement savings.

Frank and I talked later, and I asked him about what I call ethical capitalism, mentioning the work of the English economist Pigou, who talked about businesses factoring into their profit the cost of their goods to society, instead of expecting society to pay (à la Exxon in Alaska, etc.). He recommended this book, Capitalism At The Crossroads, by Stuart L. Hart.

He finds it hard to believe that we're giving tax breaks to the highest earners in society when we can't afford to monitor loose nukes in Russia, or our ports, or fund Homeland Security properly in New York City.

He told me he's basically a libertarian, but has a more expansive vision of what constitutes "harm" in the the libertarian "do no harm." I do as well. Why, for example, should people be allowed to pollute unnecessarily and endanger the rest of us by driving these vast SUVs? He reminded me that Dave Barry renamed the one below "The Subdivision":

He mentioned Mickey Kaus' recent contention that the rich are downscaling to sedans. I agree that some are, but I still see a segment of the population in Los Angeles with brand new gigundo SUVs -- who seem to be using these vehicles as their way of bragging, "I'm so rich, even $4-a-gallon gas won't stop me from driviing this thing."

Frank and I have the same libertarian take on personal risk. He told me his notion about people riding motorcyles without a helmet -- which is pretty much the same as mine. Here it is from a past Advice Goddess Blog entry:

I have no problem with anybody who wants to ride a motorcyle without a helmet, or walk on a tightrope between two skyscrapers -- providing they have either some special health insurance premium or a card in their wallets saying that when their brains become huevos rancheros on the sidewalk, they stay huevos rancheros on the sidewalk.

I was flattered to find that he knows (and misses) my column, which the Ithaca Journal dumped after I wrote "Sex isn't special. Monkeys do it, and not because somebody gave them flowers or expensive jewelry." More about that soon, as I just called the managing editor at the paper, Bruce Estes, to see if they'd pick it up again. I'd like to think Estes and other editors and publishers (such as the grudge-holding Amy Alkon haters at the LA Times) would follow Cathy Seipp's advice in her column about Alisa Valdez-Rodriguez on what papers should be running:

That Alisa can be a royal pain is obvious even just from the titles she's considering for her next book (I think she should stick with her first choice, the excellent "Girl Crush.") These include: "All-American Bitch," "Selfish," "Me, Me, Me," "Boosters, Bitches and Babes" and "Latinas Who Lunch."

But that's what makes her such a great story, and you'd think that especially in these days of declining circulation, editors would jump at the chance to engage readers rather than bore them.

Beyond that, the public isn't well served when stories are assigned (or not) on the basis of who Brenda Starr and friends feel like talking to this week. Newspapers are a public trust, and those who work for them have an obligation to rise above their personal squabbles and hurt feelings.

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The Life And Times Of A Political Porn Star
How desperate do you have to be to be famous and sell books to say the stuff Ann Coulter does? I want to hear from Republicans and conservatives about why they have and do find this woman's bile stomachable. Anybody?

Come on, I know you're out there. I'm disgusted, for example, when KABC radio's Al Rantel has her on his show, as if she's about something other than disseminating sensationalistic hate and divisiveness in service of her own fame and fortune. What productive, constructive thoughts has Coulter ever had? Do tell.

Here's her latest, and probably her worst yet, from an Editor & Publisher story:

Syndicated columnist and author Ann Coulter appeared on the Today show on Tuesday, promoting a new book. Host Matt Lauer asked her to explain certain remarks in the book aimed at activist 9/11 widows, including her charge that they were nothing but "self obsessed" and celebrity-seeking "broads" who are "enjoying" their husbands' deaths "so much."

After she defended these statements, Lauer inexplicably closed by saying, "always fun to have you here."

Elsewhere in the book, Coulter refers to the widows as "witches" and asks, "how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies"?

...The Post interviewed one of the widows, Mindy Kleinberg of East Brunswick, N.J. -- part of a group Coulter dubbed "The Witches of East Brunswick." Kleinberg said, "We are trying to make sure that nobody else walks in our footsteps. And if she [Coulter] thinks that's wrong, so be it."

E&P reprinted the widows' statement from crooksandliars.com:

We did not choose to become widowed on September 11, 2001. The attack, which tore our families apart and destroyed our former lives, caused us to ask some serious questions regarding the systems that our country has in place to protect its citizens.

Through our constant research, we came to learn how the protocols were supposed to have worked. Thus, we asked for an independent commission to investigate the loopholes which obviously existed and allowed us to be so utterly vulnerable to terrorists. Our only motivation ever was to make our Nation safer. Could we learn from this tragedy so that it would not be repeated?

We are forced to respond to Ms. Coulter’s accusations to set the record straight because we have been slandered.

Contrary to Ms. Coulter’s statements, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored these men and miss them every day.

It is in their honor and memory, that we will once again refocus the Nation’s attention to the real issues at hand: our lack of security, leadership and progress in the five years since 9/11.

We are continuously reminded that we are still a nation at risk. Therefore, the following is a partial list of areas still desperately in need of attention and public outcry. We should continuously be holding the feet of our elected officials to the fire to fix these shortcomings.

1. Homeland Security Funding based on risk. Inattention to this area causes police officers, firefighters and other emergency/first responder personnel to be ill equipped in emergencies. Fixing this will save lives on the day of the next attack.

2. Intelligence Community Oversight. Without proper oversight, there exists no one joint, bicameral intelligence panel with power to both authorize and appropriate funding for intelligence activities. Without such funding we are unable to capitalize on all intelligence community resources and abilities to thwart potential terrorist attacks. Fixing this will save lives on the day of the next attack.

3. Transportation Security. There has been no concerted effort to harden mass transportation security. Our planes, buses, subways, and railways remain under-protected and highly vulnerable. These are all identifiable soft targets of potential terrorist attack. The terror attacks in Spain and London attest to this fact. Fixing our transportation systems may save lives on the day of the next attack.

4. Information Sharing among Intelligence Agencies. Information sharing among intelligence agencies has not improved since 9/11. The attacks on 9/11 could have been prevented had information been shared among intelligence agencies. On the day of the next attack, more lives may be saved if our intelligence agencies work together.

5. Loose Nukes. A concerted effort has not been made to secure the thousands of loose nukes scattered around the world – particularly in the former Soviet Union. Securing these loose nukes could make it less likely for a terrorist group to use this method in an attack, thereby saving lives.

6. Security at Chemical Plants, Nuclear Plants, Ports. We must, as a nation, secure these known and identifiable soft targets of Terrorism. Doing so will save many lives.

7. Border Security. We continue to have porous borders and INS and Customs systems in shambles. We need a concerted effort to integrate our border security into the larger national security apparatus.

8. Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Given the President’s NSA Surveillance Program and the re-instatement of the Patriot Act, this Nation is in dire need of a Civil Liberties Oversight Board to insure that a proper balance is found between national security versus the protection of our constitutional rights.

-- September 11th Advocates

Kristen Breitweiser
Patty Casazza
Monica Gabrielle
Mindy Kleinberg
Lorie Van Auken

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Block(head)buster Video
Here's some smart business for you. I went to rent some DVDs at Blockbuster for my trip to Philly for the Human Behavior and Evolution Society conference. (I'm writing this blog item from Philly, and I'll be blogging or live-blogging some of the sessions here, including Daniel Dennett's talk on Saturday night.)

Anyway, I like to watch French movies on my iBook on the plane when I'm not writing or trying not to die of coach-class hypoxia from being something of a fragile canary when it comes to altitude acclimation in oxygen-deprived environments.

Getting back to Blockbuster, I asked the very nice woman ringing me up if they could please carry a few more French movies, as I'm pretty much through all the ones they have, and I'll start having to go to Vidiots (actually, I LOVE Vidiots, and prefer Vidiots, an independent movie rental place, but it's far from me). The clerk told me she wished they could order more foreign films, and other movies they know their customers would like ("We know our customers better than they do," she said), but Blockbuster won't let individual stores request videos. They just send everybody the same shit.

Hello? Have they noticed Netflix eating their lunch?

It does sound like they're going to have some Internet vid rental program -- but, naturally, they didn't give their employee a very good script to go through about it. And, as a sporadic renter (only for travel -- I have Dish Network, including TV5 from France at home, with the capacity to save programs and watch them later), I'm really not interested.

Yoohooo, Jackie...what do you have to say about this business genius? And anybody else have other examples of "customers last" dimwitted business practices like this to share?

P.S. More from HBES probably later, and/or in the next few days.

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White People Are Eeeee-Vil!

Evil White Person With Grey Doggie, Post Breakfast

Check this out. A "White Privilege" conference, about how horrible white people are:

The White Privilege Conference

(WPC) provides a forum for critical discussions about white privilege, white supremacy and oppression. WPC is recognized as being a challenging, empowering and educational experience. The workshops, keynotes and institutes are designed to be engaging, informative and practical/useful. The conference participants and presenters include corporate and non-profit folks, students, educators, activists, musicians and artists. This conference is not about beating up on white folks. This conference is about challenging the society in which we live and working to dismantle systems of white privilege, white supremacy and oppression.

There's a link to a video, but unfortunately, I couldn't get the sound to play.

Why don't these idiots get it? You don't advance in society by sitting around whimpering about being victimized, but by getting up off your ass and creating something.

One of my close friends is a black fashion designer, and I sometimes remind her that she might take advantage of all those editors looking for "designers of color" -- something that doesn't occur to her because she thinks of herself as a designer and businessperson, not as a member of an oppressed class.

Years ago, she got a scholarship to F.I.T. (Fashion Institute of Technology), but didn't have the money to live in New York City while attending school. Did she sit around sobbing? No, she sewed up a bunch of clothes and sold them around Los Angeles out of the back of her station wagon, and now her clothes are worn by movie stars, and they clamor for her wedding dresses in Japan. You can see them here, at KevinSimonClothing.com. (She's Kevin -- self-named, just as she's self-made.)

A few years back, she created a weekly group for female entrepreneurs, of which I was a part, at her house, and hired a business consultant to come speak to us every week. Hmmm...maybe Kevin's just too busy to realize how oppressed she is!

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The 119 Lb. Gorilla
"Bad girl to rival the bad boys" Ava Gardner is the subject of a new biography by Lee Server.

Chris Petit reviews it in the Guardian. I just loved this line:

Asked by a reporter what she saw in Sinatra - a 119lb has-been - she replied demurely that 19lb of it was cock.

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Log Cabin Republicans See The Light
The dumbshits finally realize supporting George Bush might have been a bad idea:

An Open Letter to President Bush from Patrick Guerriero

Mr. President,

On behalf of millions of gay and lesbian Americans, I write to denounce your decision to divide the American family by promoting an amendment that would insert discrimination into the United States Constitution. Your decision to use the grounds of the White House—America's House—to advance discrimination is an insult to millions of fair minded Americans from all walks of life.

Mr. President, gay and lesbian Americans pay taxes, contribute to community and family life across our great nation, and worship the same all-loving and compassionate God. Thousands of gay and lesbian Americans, under your command, serve proudly in our nation's military, fighting to win the war on terror and promoting liberty across the globe. Your effort to codify discrimination against our families, including men and women in uniform while the nation is at war, is offensive and unworthy of the office of the Presidency. Great Republican Presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan have united Americans and appealed to our best hopes, not our worst fears.

Wedge-issue politics may score short-term political points but will end up eroding your ability as President to unite the American people behind winning the war in Iraq, enhancing border security, advancing immigration reform, and controlling spending. Your call for "civility and decency" in this debate rings hollow because the effort to write discrimination into our Constitution is intolerant and uncivil.

While Americans deserve a chance to debate contentious issues, the constitutional amendment process you propose denies states the right to handle this issue as they deem appropriate. This proposal runs completely counter to our Party's conservative belief in federalism. We suggest you listen to your own Vice President who has reminded us that this is an issue that should be left to the states. And, we suggest you listen to your former U.N. Ambassador and former United States Senator John Danforth (R-MO) who has called this amendment one of the silliest ever proposed in our nation's history.

While decent Americans can respectfully disagree about how to offer fairness to our families, your White House event today further legitimizes the voices of intolerance who have made an industry out of denigrating gay and lesbian Americans. That legitimization has sadly fueled discriminatory state amendments across America that go beyond denying civil marriage equality—by denying even domestic partnerships or civil unions that allow for hospital visitation, inheritance rights, and basic dignity to life-long loving couples.

Mr. President, the White House has been the site of historic legislative triumphs that expanded liberty and opportunity for the American people—from expanding equal opportunity for women to the signing of the Civil Rights Act to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Today, you desecrate America's House by using the White House grounds to denigrate part of the American family. History recalls those moments in America's past when our nation's leaders expanded liberty and fairness for American citizens. History also remembers those political leaders who have stood in the doorway of equality and tolerance.

Mr. President, may God bless our great nation—and each and every American who believes in the promise of the Declaration of Independence that all Americans are created equal.

Let's have more Arlen Spectors in the Republican party. From a New York Times story by Maria Newman:

Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said that while he believed marriage should be between a man and a woman, he said he would vote against the amendment to ban gay marriage because the matter was already being addressed by the states. He quoted the late Sen. Barry Goldwater as saying that government "ought to be kept off our backs, out of our pocketbooks and out of our bedrooms."

"This is a matter which ought to be left to the states, and the states are taking care of it," he said. "It's a matter of privacy, it's a matter of tolerance, two very, very highly placed values in our society."

Another Republican, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, said that he would support the amendment, and that he was disturbed that some critics of it said the measure amounted to bigotry against one group in society.

"What people are trying to do here is make fundamental policy for the country on a fundamental issue, and that's marriage," he said. "It is not bigotry to define marriage as between a man and a woman."

If that were the case, Mr. Brownback said, then people would have to conclude that people in the states that have banned gay marriage, as well as the many religious leaders who backed them, were bigots.

Yep. That's about the size of it.

via Huffington Post

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Blame God If You Don't Have Emergency Contraception
The, well, ASSCLOWNS running our government are simply not to be believed. Brian Alexander writes in Glamour about "The new lies about women's health" -- how doctors can no longer trust the FDA for objective, science-based information. And, in a fantastic, comprehensive article, he goes into details about the lack of approval for Plan B, the morning after pill -- based, not on science, but on the meddling of religious wackos:

If it had been left up to the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, American women would be able to walk into any drugstore and buy the emergency contraceptive Plan B over the counter (OTC). When the committee was convened in 2003 to review Plan B, a "morning-after" method of birth control that can reduce the odds of pregnancy by 95 percent if taken within 24 hours of unprotected sex, all 28 members agreed that the drug was safe and effective. The vast majority of them also voted to make it available OTC at any pharmacy. Susan F. Wood, Ph.D., then the head of the FDA's Office of Women's Health, heartily supported that decision.

Because of her focus on women's health, Wood examined the research and closely watched the review process for Plan B, a drug that has been available by prescription since 1999. Among the facts: Several studies showed that it works with few side effects and that making it more accessible does not lead to an increase in unsafe sex or promiscuity. In 2000 alone, the drug prevented approximately 51,000 abortions, according to a Guttmacher Institute estimate. But women who need Plan B often have difficulty obtaining a prescription and getting it filled—hence the need to approve it for sale OTC.

"One member of the panel told me, 'I wish we had data this good on everything that comes before this committee,'" Wood recalls. Fast approval should have been a mere formality.

But Christian fundamentalist groups like the Southern Baptist Convention and powerful religious conservative organizations like the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America campaigned hard against OTC status by lobbying members of Congress, testifying before the FDA panels and bombarding the agency with letters. They argued that the drug was dangerous, would lead to unsafe sex and would corrupt children. Pia de Solenni, director of Life and Women's Issues at the Family Research Council (a pro-life group that also believes there are "long-lasting negative consequences of premarital sex," including "emotional problems" and "future marital breakup"), also argued inaccurately in a press release that Plan B "will most certainly make [women] ill from an overdose of hormones and potentially cause further complications."

The campaign worked. Rather than rely on the recommendations of its medical advisory board, the FDA delayed ruling on Plan B for nearly two years. Why? Insiders speculated that the delay was, in part, the handiwork of conservative activist and ob-gyn W. David Hager, M.D., an active member of Christian right political groups and the author of As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now. Appointed by the Bush administration to the FDA panel that reviewed Plan B, Dr. Hager first voted with the committee that Plan B is safe and effective, but then went on to write what he termed a "minority opinion," laying out a case against OTC status. Contrary to numerous studies and the review panel's findings, he argued that the drug might not be safe for teens and that they might not understand package instructions.

They manage just fine in France, you moron. Alexander continues:

Shortly thereafter, Steven Galson, M.D., a high-ranking FDA official, cited similar concerns in a letter to Plan B's manufacturer—denying the drug approval at that time. Some women's health advocates had hoped that the logjam would break when Lester Crawford, DVM, Ph.D. was confirmed as FDA commissioner in 2005. But last August, Crawford put off a decision indefinitely.

Why did Plan B get deep-sixed? According to FDA officials interviewed by the Government Accountability Office, the decision to deny approval for Plan B had been made by top political appointees at the FDA months before staff even completed reviewing the application; many others suggested that pressure from the religious right played a key role.

FDA spokespeople have denied those accusations, but religious-activist organizations crowed about swaying the FDA, and Dr. Hager claimed the decision was God's work. "I was asked to write a minority opinion that was sent to the commissioner of the FDA," he told an assembly at the Christian Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. "God took that information, and he used it through this minority report to influence the decision."

This is a long and compelling article. Read the rest at the link, and check out all the perversions of data about condoms and more, and pseudo-science and outright lies presented as science -- and mostly using our tax dollars, to boot. Oopsy! And guess who's trying to ban birth control!

via Metafilter

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Blog Week In Review - Amy's First Podcast

I made my first appearance on Pajamas Media's Blog Week In Review podcast. Other guests were Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds and Eric Umansky. Fellow Creators columnist Austin Bay hosted, and the lovely manly and talented Ed Driscoll produced. Just a hint, but this isn't the last podcast I'll be doing! (I'll say no more than that...for now.)

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A Fuggin' Funny Way To Talk About A Short Dress
Fug sister Heather writes about Amy Smart's short yellow slip dress:

Are you not in the least bit concerned that the wrong gust of wind or the right long lens might accidentally put the "pap" in "paparazzi"?

Note to Amy: Flip-flops are not shoes unless you need to step on something besides the rug or the bathroom floor tiles when you get out of the shower.

And the foot spats are just beyond the beyond. This chick looks like a lawn jockey from the ankles down.

And, finally, if Robert Downey is going to look like this on a regular basis, he should pass out hard drugs to anybody he passes in daytime.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

HTML Hell

photo by Gregg Sutter
I'm getting buried by spam comments, so I've disabled live links from my comments. Feel free to post links, but you can post just the text, no "href" to make them live. Sorry, but it's completely horrible and terribly time-consuming to deal with all this spam.

Find me a spammer and I will melt the person into a small, coin-like lump with my angry glare alone. I am a libertarian. I don't believe in ever touching another person (you know, my right to punch you in the nose ends where your nose begins and all that)...but if I obliterate you from existence with the sheer force of my rage, well that's just tough shit for you, now isn't it?

Oh yeah, and yesterday, in addition to all the spambots hitting me with multiple posts hawking masturbation helpers, hairy pussy, and various pharmaceuticals, some Wisconsin realtor apparently thought he'd leave a little turd advertising his business in my comments on a site I pay for and work very hard on. Just wondering, but what about reading anything I write would suggest I'd be a wise person to shit on?

I just left the guy a voicemail at his office that he's not going to enjoy. The moron left his work phone number in his spam, complete with his extension. I wish they'd all do that. I give really good phone when I'm so mad I'm beyond screaming at people.

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UPDATE: The Wisconsin realtor in fact left so much information in the spam (which, by the way, he claimed not to have posted or know anything about) that I easily accessed his cell phone number. Since I'm sitting here deleting my spam now, at 12:10 am Pacific Time, I decided to dial him in Wisconsin immediately and ask whether he was one of the guilty parties hijacking the fruits of my labors to shill his business.

Not wanting to bother a possibly innocent man, I looked up the IP address. It came from a Wisconsin IP, not one in Romania or The Netherlands. And, lo and behold, it seems I didn't scroll down far enough into the meat of his spam at first glance, because the guy (or his mysterious spam fairy!) appears to have left a recitation of his entire resume within the comments spam! Including his personal interests! Yawn.

Hint to the dull: If you're Selene Luna, Luke Ford, Luke Thompson, or Little Shiva, we want to know what the hell you do in your spare time. If you are...not...we are under-interested, to say the least.

Here's the extent of realtor boy's resume turd somebody dropped on my site (remember, he claims he didn't leave it -- must have been the spam fairies!):

1983 U of W Stevens Point-Bachelor of Science, Business Adminstration
1989 MSTI-Certificates:Supervision, Management,& Accounting
1992 Rasmussen Business College- Certificate:Human Resource Management
1997 Graduate, Wisconsin School of Real Estate
1999 Graduate, Realtors Institute (GRI)
1999 ABR Trained (Approved Buyers Representative)
2004 Certified Residential Specialist (CRS)
8 Years of Real Estate Experince
I've lived in the St. Point area for 11 years and been involved in social groups, YMCA, volunteer work, property management, and church functions.
My personal interests are: baseball, basketball, football, hiking(especially Devils Lake area), biking(sometimes long distance charitable rides), tennis, golfing, racquetball and boating.

I'm not going to post his name and give him free advertising, but when I called him, and he repeatedly refused to own up, I asked him how it was possible that some Romanian spambot had access to such personal information about him: Church functions! YMCA! Hiking (especially "Devils Lake area" -- P.S. you forgot the apostrophe, twitass). And if he didn't post the spam in my comments, as he continued to insist he didn't, was some eastern-bloc spammer spending his time posting Wisconsin real estate agent ads out of the goodness of his shriveled little heart?

As Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford said:

DON'T FUCK WITH ME, BOYS!

If you do, you might get a wakeup call or two. Typically when I'm working out my last little bits of righteous indignation of the day before I crash. Pacific Time.

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Oh yeah, and one more thing -- there's a posted price for spamming me:

If you're a filthy vandal, posting stuff with a commercial link in it on my blog to further your link share on Google, so you can sell more penis pills or separate more fools and their money with your auto loans, just to name a few; please be advised of the cost of doing so: $4,995 per entry, starting immediately, which would be 2:52pm, Sunday, May 2 (2004). Oh, and there's nothing that would please me more than to drag your sleazy spamming ass to small claims court and sue you blind for the money.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Bush Goes Fishing
Trying to catch those old fundanutter supporters of his by dragging out the gay marriage ban. Yoohooo...Mary? Mary Cheney? Bushie's such a nice man, isn't he? Think of him when you can't visit your partner in the hospital or get the big fat tax breaks married people do, and repeat that mantra, dear. Jim Rutenberg talks to Bush's base in a story for The New York Times:

"It was so central in the 2004 election," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative research group, said of same-sex marriage. "And the day after, the president began a crusade to reform Social Security and it went nowhere. Why not put energy into something that's vital for our society and our country?"

Oh, you mean like institutionalized denial of equal rights for gays and lesbians, based on your primitive adherence to religion? "Vital for our country" in what way? In lurching us back to the middle ages...so maybe we can finally lay our hands on Osama?

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Maybe We Should Blame The Victim
In the comments to The Missing Wink, my Advice Goddess column I posted recently, a woman who calls herself "myce" trots out the same old expected defense about not blaming the victim. But, hmmm, maybe that's not so good for the victim. "myce" writes:

I see your point about personal responsibility, Amy, but a man just wrote that he was nearly murdered and his children endangered, and you put the blame on him? *He* ruined his son's life, and not the violent psycho who did that to him?! So then, for the sake of personal responsibility, do you also blame a woman who is beaten nearly to death in front of her children? If she tries to leave the relationship and is subsequently murdered, is it still her fault for having the bad judgement to be with the loser in the first place? Is it her fault if her daughters grow up to be terrified of men? I ask because that is the impossible standard you are holding a man to. Yes people do make mistakes in relationships especially when they are young and naive, but you don't know the exact circumstances of the relationship. Some people have a Jekel and Hyde personality and may not show their true colors until it's too late. Or maybe he was a victim of psychological abuse/brainwashing, ie. "Battered (Man) Syndrome." Whatever happened, I think it is very cold-hearted to blame him after he and his children suffered so much. It's like telling a rape victim that she was "asking for it."

My reply:

I realize the canon says "don't blame the victim," and it's a pity, because it allows people like this guy to feel like something "happened" to them -- something over which they had no control... rather than accepting responsibility for their choices -- if there was even that much "agency" in their actions. People rarely go suddenly psycho. If you're involved with some sick and horrible person, chances are it isn't because Little Red Riding Hood turned into the wolf overnight.

Idiots involved with idiots should have themselves sterilized.

And to wrap up that part before, maybe if more people "blamed the victim," there'd be far fewer victims. Camille Paglia had a great bit about this in one of her books, asking that girls start behaving like they're responsible for their own behavior. No, nobody should be raped, but going up to a frat boy's bedroom with 12 guys is kind of like driving to NYC and parking your car and leaving your keys on the hood. I believe that was Paglia's example if I'm remembering correctly.

"myce's" comment was in response to "Steve's" comment, pasted in below below:

Maybe an introduction is in order here ...

I raised my boys alone after their mother took off on a cross Canada drunk. I spoke as a pro for fathers with custody and fought hard for basic human rights for fathers with custody. I worked my way through college while the single mothers were supported through college by massive government programs. I am men's movement to the core.

I speak of Jungian psychology because Jung type thought works and works well. It is also the only psychology which does not trash men with abundant sexism. The statistics are the Jungian view.

So, let's start over.

My son is gay: He needed to attract a man with the right qualities as he shares my repugnance for gay promiscuity.

My other son will never get involved with a female (or a male as he is straight) : He watched the horror I went through during the fight to get the right to collect child support & other "women's" rights.

After I was attacked --I nearly died--, (for daring to try to get basic rights for males), he watched me lie on the floor in my own vomit & urine for two days, while he --too small to do anything sensible-- tried to keep his baby brother alive. He blames women for chearing for the violence against his father and other men who were only trying to get some help for their kids. He is wrong to blame all women, but I cannot change his mind. His childhood was full to the brim with very evil women and no one as of yet has found a way to breach that pain. We have not even found a willingness to deal with evil females ...

My step-daughter is an interesting woman. She will probably be the youngest area manager her company ever had. Her ex is almost the definition of the bad-man. She needs to make a change in the type of male she finds attractive: The best way to do that is to take charge of the dating situation. Thus, the Jungian way.

You will notice there is nothing pro-feminist in what I say. Rather, there is pragmatism and care and concern for others and ...

We will not arrive at a situation in which all people are treated fairly with attitudes based on absolutes. Absolutes are what harmed my older son and nearly killed me. Abolutes see no problem in starving small children because they are in their father's custody. Absolutes are what feminism gives, as poison, to our young.

People are what they are. Some good, some bad, most in the middle. People think the way they do, some like the classic male, some like the classic female, some like neither classic view.

I could hate all women: I have abundant cause; few men have more cause. I do not hate: That would wrong. The way out of our gender mess is to see what is, not the absolute, not the political, not the stereotype ... no, we must simply see what is.

Thus, I disagree with your absolutist point of view.

My reply:

"It is also the only psychology which does not trash men with abundant sexism."

Oh, come on. You're wrong from the get-go. Read any Albert Ellis? "Change the way you think and you'll change the way you feel"? And you're disturbed because you're thinking irrationally? He's one of the founders of cognitive behavioral therapy, and his REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy) is based on the ideas of the stoic philosopher Epictetus, not the work of Andrea Dworkin. My own work is based in reason and data.

Men like you, poisoning your boys against women, are as bad as the nuttiest of feminists. Take responsibility for your bad choices. Don't blame them on all womenkind. I went out on one date with a hell of a lot of men in my thirties. Why? Because finding somebody ethical (among other things) was of primary importance to me. I didn't just hope people would turn out to be good men. Taking care to look at what particular men I went out with were really made of, I seriously searched for a good man. When I was 39, I finally met him.

It's unlikely the woman you were with went suddenly psycho, or suddenly became some horrible person. She was that from the start, right? But, you got involved with her anyway, and then, idiocy of all idiocies, produced not one but two children with her. Your children had a bad life because daddy was a naive idiot. I had bad boyfriends, too. I saw them as learning experiences, and sometimes expensive lessons, but not people you marry and have kids with. How barbaric of you.

You'll find there's nothing "pro-feminist" in what I say either. It's all rational and pretty objective. Then again, I blame myself for being naive or whatever the case may be when I get involved with shitty people, I don't blame peoplekind.

YOU WRITE: "He is wrong to blame all women, but I cannot change his mind. His childhood was full to the brim with very evil women and no one as of yet has found a way to breach that pain. We have not even found a willingness to deal with evil females ..."

You've probably ruined your child's life. It's unlikely he can dial back from this. How tragic. It's a pity you need a license to cut hair, and all you need are a working dick and working ovaries to have a child.

Again, there are a lot of people out there. You chose to get involved with the woman you did. I suggest you read The Art Of Living Consciously by Nathaniel Branden and start taking responsibility for your own actions. Sadly, your son will probably have to be alone all his life, thanks to you. Think about that. Think where the blame lies.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Considering Buying Harry Reid's Vote?
Apparently, there are better ways to spend your money. AP writer John Solomon reported that Reid inappropriately took accepted boxing match tickets from the Nevada Athletic Commission, then, oops!, neglected to vote the way they wanted him to. But, oops! That's the part Solomon neglected to report. More from Media Matters:

Solomon also revived his previous allegations of links between Reid and disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a Republican, and purported to offer more evidence of such a connection. But as with his previous articles on the topic, Solomon failed to prove that the links in question -- including several meetings and fundraising activities involving Abramoff's law firm or clients -- led Reid to take actions favorable to Abramoff's interests.

...In previous reports, Solomon has similarly suggested unethical behavior on Reid's part while ignoring crucial details and relevant context that undermined the suggested improprieties. In a February 9 article, Solomon highlighted numerous routine contacts between Reid's office and Abramoff's lobbying firm and clients and juxtaposed these incidents with actions later taken by Reid. In one case, Solomon suggested that Reid coordinated with Abramoff regarding legislation to raise the minimum wage in the Northern Mariana Islands, which Abramoff opposed. But as Media Matters for America noted (here and here), Solomon failed to inform readers whether Reid subsequently acted to benefit Abramoff's interests. In fact, Reid not only voted for the legislation opposed by Abramoff, but co-sponsored it. In the same article, Solomon highlighted Reid's opposition to a Senate bill allowing a Michigan tribe to open a casino that would have rivaled a casino owned by one of Abramoff's tribal clients. But while Solomon suggested that Reid had moved against the legislation at the tribe's behest, he ignored that Reid's actions were entirely consistent with his longtime opposition to off-reservation gambling.

In the May 29 article, Solomon noted these prior reports and purported to offer more evidence that Reid took "several actions benefiting disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's clients and partners as they donated to him." Solomon then listed several interactions and fundraising events involving Reid -- a longtime member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee -- and leaders of various tribes represented by Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff's lobbying firm. But Solomon offered only one piece of evidence that Reid took any action specifically benefiting any of those tribes. In 2003, he sponsored legislation providing $100,000 for a soil-erosion study to a Louisiana tribe represented by Abramoff's firm. But as Solomon noted, Reid's action came after he received a request by members of Louisiana's congressional delegation.

Just another example of "liberal bias" in the media, huh?

via Metafilter

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Enough With Bought And Paid-For Politicians
Molly Ivins writes:

The extent to which not just state legislatures but the Congress of the United States are now run by large corporate special interests is beyond mere recognition as fact. The takeover is complete. Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay put in place a system in which it's not a question of letting the head of the camel into the tent -- the camels run the place.

It has all happened quite quickly -- in less than 20 years. Laws were changed and regulations repealed until an Enron can set sail without responsibility, supervision or accountability. The business pages are fond of trumpeting the merits of "transparency" and "accountability," but you will notice whenever there is a chance to roll back any of New Deal regs, the corporations go for broke trying to get rid of them entirely.

I'm not attempting to make this a partisan deal -- only 73 percent of Enron's political donations went to Republicans. But I'll be damned if Enron's No. 1 show pony politician, George W. Bush, should be allowed to walk away from this. Ken Lay gave $139,500 to Bush over the years. He chipped in $100,000 to the Bush Cheney Inaugural Fund in 2000 and $10K to the Bush-Cheney Recount Fund.

Plus, Enron's PAC gave Bush $113,800 for his '94 and '98 political races and another $312,500 from its executives. Bush got 14 free rides on Enron's corporate jets during the 2000 campaign, including at least two during the recount. Until January 2004, Enron was Bush's top contributor.

And what did it get for its money? Ken Lay was on Bush's short list to be energy secretary. He not only almost certainly served on Cheney's energy task force, there is every indication that the task force's energy plan, the one we have been on for five years, is in fact the Enron plan. Lay used Bush as an errand boy, calling the governor of Texas and having him phone Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania to vouch for what swell energy deregulation bills Enron was sponsoring in states all over the country.

It seems to me we all understand this is a systemic problem. We need to reform the political system, or we'll lose the democracy. I don't think it's that hard. It doesn't take rocket science. We've done it before successfully at the presidential level and tried it several places at the state level. Public campaign financing isn't perfect and can doubtlessly be improved upon as we go. Let us begin.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Translating The White House
Jared Bernstein clears up a few things on The White House's misleading statements on how well we're doing economically.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

The Daily Newspapers Are The Last To Know
The Washington Post's Laura "Rumplestiltskin" Sessions Stepp wakes up from a coma and discovers "the wingman." Like, yesterday:

You know the wingman. He's the guy who accompanies his buddy to a bar to help him pick up babes. He does whatever it takes to give his friend some time alone with the girl of choice: telling flattering lies about him, enticing away the sidekick girlfriend, running interference at the approach of a rival male.

Yes, we do know the wingman. We've known about him for years (This blogger, for example, first heard of the wingman in 2003, and this guy wrote about him in 2002, and this guy, in 2001). But, I guess that's why "we" are not writing about relationships in The Washington Post -- and Amy Dickinson, Carolyn Hax, and Laura "Rumplestiltskin" Sessions Stepp are.

All these features editors sit around pulling their hair out about how to get "young people" to read their sections. Wondering why so many young people aren't -- when they're running these ladies above -- and bloggers like Susan Spano (conspicuously absent from the WSJ travel blogs article recommending La Coquette and The Paris Blog)...and columnists like this one: Cheryl Lavin, with "Tales From The Front." Yeah, from the front of the 50s.

Yet, Wednesday, an editor on the features editors' list-serve I subscribe to bragged that she was running Lavin. Serving, I guess, all those "young people" who are in their early 60s. Here's Lavin on short men and dating:

Dear Cheryl: I'm a man who's 5 feet 4 inches tall and 135 pounds, but I'm attracted only to big, tall women. I've been out with women 5-foot-10, 180 pounds.

Is there a reason for this do you think? Most women look at me strangely when I tell them I like tall, big women. Do I have a psychological problem?

-- Large in Spirit

Dear Large in Spirit: I don't think you have a problem; I think you have a preference. Some guys like blonds, some prefer redheads, others will date only brunets. The only problem, as I see it, is finding big, tall women who like short, thin men. But they're out there. You can spend a lot of time and money seeing a shrink, finding out why you prefer your women on the Amazon side, but the time and money would be better spent making yourself the best short guy you can be.

Oh, and here's my take on the subject. With actual substance included.

If somebody's a better columnist than I am, great, run 'em. If you're just afraid of getting angry letters from 3 little old ladies...well, maybe you should leave your job and give it to somebody who doesn't keep their balls in a little locket on their dresser at home.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Amy On Tammy Bruce Today
I'll be on Tammy Bruce's radio show on Talk Radio Network, streamed on the Internet, at 9:30 a.m. PST. Click here to listen live.

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

War Is Swell
How come we don't read or hear about how smashingly the war's going? Andrew Sullivan makes a good point, via a reader e-mail in response to an e-mail from a soldier from Iraq:

I would ask your erstwhile military reader that if a car bomb in Detroit today killed five policemen, as happened today in Mosul; if the president was forced to declare a state of emergency in Dallas because 140 people were kidnapped and killed this month, as was the case in Basra; if a priest was gunned down in Washington D.C., as was the case today in Baghdad where a Shiite muazzin was killed; if the major of a Westminster, Md., was killed by a bomb hidden in his air conditioner, as was the case in a city 60 miles north of Baghdad today; if jittery police forces fired upon and killed two women, one of them pregnant, north of the capital - if all of these related events happened in the United States this day, May 31 - a day after another 54 were killed by a car bomb in Washington - do you think the news media would, or should, report that despite the violence, all was well in most of America?

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« May 2006 | Home | July 2006 »

Extreme Meek Over
I just posted a wimpy guy's guide to dating -- my latest Advice Goddess column. Here's an excerpt from my answer to a guy who secretly pined after a friend for five years:

Oh, the trials and tribulations of the imaginary romance. You’ve spent five years of your life with this woman -- but only in your head. Of course you lack the confidence to contact her now. What are you going to say, that during imaginary sex with her, it’s possible you gave her an imaginary STD?

When you’re 5, imaginary friends keep you from being lonely. When you’re 25, they keep you from having a life. At the moment, you’re well on your way to becoming that 50-something guy on my boyfriend’s block who’s always sputtering that he'll never be one of those chumps who pays for everything on a date. No, he won’t, because he’s unlikely to ever have one, since he’s too socially constipated to speak to any woman who isn’t a clerk at 7-11 selling him beer. Of course, there’s always that chance a lost hooker will get a flat on his street, see the light in his parents’ garage where he lives, and offer him a freebie in exchange for putting on her spare.

Like this guy, you probably work hard to avoid acknowledging the existence of the weenie within; perhaps by clinging to helpful, action-stopping mantras like “good things come to those who wait.” Sure, they do -- if your idea of a “good thing” is the bus. No, women don’t make it easy for men. Just decades back, they’d flirt to signal to men that they could ask them out without being rejected or maced. These days, women often make it a complete mystery, or seem to be signaling at everybody at all times -- stopping just short of making lingering eye contact with a fire hydrant.

How can you know for sure that a woman wants you? You can’t. If you want a woman, ask her out. If she says no, gather up the remains of your ego, glue them back together, and ask somebody else. Had you done this when this woman came back on the market, you’d either be dating her or you’d have moved on to become a real friend. Instead, you were the friend version of the “funny uncle,” pretending you had platonic intentions while secretly festering with lust.

(continued...)

The rest is here.

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