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June 29, 2007

"Black" is an Adjective, Not a Noun

I am really surprised by what I view as offensive language being used by AP reporter Nedra Pickler and Democratic consultant Jenny Backus today in a Forbes article about Barack Obama, entitled, "Vying to be the 'Second Black President.'" What offends me is the repeated use of the word "black" as a noun. It may not seem like a big deal, and not being black myself maybe I'm fighting someone else's fight, but in my mind, it objectifies and thereby demeans black people to call them "blacks." I've never felt comfortable with it. For the record, I don't like the term "whites" either.

Here are the offensive passages:

Polls show that blacks are closely divided between Obama and Clinton, with other candidates gathering less support. …

Blacks generally are more liberal than average voters - liberal longshot Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio was the other audience favorite - so the trick for candidates is to appeal to blacks without alienating the rest of the electorate.

Democratic consultant Jenny Backus said Obama's effort to speak to whites and blacks resulted in his best debate yet.

"Obama took his performance to a different level by showing the ability to have a conversation that was about race that wasn't just one way," Backus said. "He was talking to both whites and blacks in his answers."

I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Blacks - as a plural noun can be pejorative, as in South Africa. Black people is more sensitive.

In fact, after stewing about this all morning, I was gratified to discover that this very issue has come up before in coverage of Obama's candidacy when, back in January, the AP referred to him as "the lone black" in the Senate. At that time, Keith Woods, Dean of Faculty at Poynter Institute, a school for journalists, had this to say of the use of "black" as a noun:

"Using color as a noun reduces the person to a species, and an imprecise one at that, particularly where Obama is concerned. He's bi-racial and, thus, more than a "black." But the larger issue for me is that it's an act of dehumanizing the person, summoning up their essence by rendering them an inanimate color.

It's no more complicated than that, and the solution is as simple as turning race/color into an adjective and adding man, woman, politician, father, etc. If that takes more effort to craft a headline, lead, super or crawl, well, that's a problem for journalists that the subjects of their journalism and the rest of the consuming public ought not have to shoulder."

The AP also in January ran a lead on Fox News reading, "Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois said Tuesday he is taking the initial step in a presidential bid that could make him the nation's first black to occupy the White House."

I making a mountain out of a molehill? Does this bother black people as much as it bothers me?

Posted by Becky at 12:16 PM |

Obama Just Lost My Vote

Well slap me on the face. Barack Obama has come out in opposition to impeachment of either George Bush or Dick Cheney. It's hard to imagine he could have said anything that would have upset me more, particularly considering his justification for the statement.

Although he says he says he is distressed by the "loose ethical standards, the secrecy and incompetence" of a "variety of characters" in the administration, he holds to the view that we should "vote the bums out."

"I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the president's authority," he said.

"I believe if we began impeachment proceedings we will be engulfed in more of the politics that has made Washington dysfunction," he added. "We would once again, rather than attending to the people's business, be engaged in a tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, nonstop circus."

Is the illegal wiretapping of American citizens in violation of the FISA law not a "grave, grave … intentional breech"? How about torture in violation of the Geneva Conventions? Or turning our legal system – as in the Department of Justice (and the U.S. Supreme Court, too, by the way) – into political arms of the Republican Party in violation of the Hatch Act? What about the outing of a covert CIA agent? Are we to look the other way at such clear examples of high crimes and misdemeanors simply because we don't want to get into a power struggle with the forces of darkness? Would Obama be unwilling to take on this tough fight and cave too easily to those forces if he was elected? Doesn't he realize that we need a leader who will engage and defeat these people so we can have our country back?

We all want to get to the "people's business," but I think we have more pressing matters to attend to first. And making sure these two criminals are punished for what they have done to America has to be a priority. They've gone too far for us to be nice and move on.

Posted by Becky at 08:39 AM |

June 28, 2007

Mainstream media once again goes conservative

In another egregious example of mainstream media toe-ing the conservative line, Republican pollster Frank Luntz will be providing the ONLY analysis of tonight's Democratic forum on PBS.

For those unfamiliar with Luntz, here is the wiki on him. The money paragraph:

Frank I. Luntz (born February 23, 1962) is an American corporate and political consultant and pollster who has worked most notably with the Republican Party in the United States. Luntz's specialty is testing language and finding words that will help his clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate.”[1] Luntz formed The Luntz Research Companies in 1992, and maintains offices in Alexandria, Virginia, and New York City.

No Democratic pollster will be providing commentary on the event at PBS with Luntz.

Posted by Carla at 04:12 PM |

Ex-Ex-Gays Apologize for Preaching Gay Cure

Three former ex-ex-homosexual ministers have publicly apologized for the harm their gay cure efforts have caused many gays and lesbians who believed their claims that prayer could cure them. They say they sincerely believed in their work, but over time they realized that not only were they not "cured," but their conversion efforts were inflicting a "wrenching human toll" on other gays who came to them for help.

"Some who heard our message were compelled to try to change an integral part of themselves, bringing harm to themselves and their families," the three, including former Exodus co-founder Michael Bussee, said in a joint written statement presented at the news conference. "Although we acted in good faith, we have since witnessed the isolation, shame, fear and loss of faith that this message creates."

Now a licensed family therapist in Riverside, Bussee left Exodus in 1979 after he fell in love with a man who was a fellow ex-gay counselor with the group. He speaks out frequently against ex-gay therapies.

"God's love and forgiveness does indeed change people," said Bussee, who remains an evangelical Christian. "It changed me. It just didn't make me straight."

The three former leaders from Exodus, who are all "committed Christians" but "still gay," said they knew people who had tried to be "cured" of their homosexuality who instead had become depressed and even suicidal because they did not change. Rev. Mel White, founder and president of a faith-based gay rights group called Soulforce, praised the three, saying sexual orientation "isn't a light switch that you can switch on and off."

Of course, those who remain in ministry at Exodus disagree, saying thousands have been "cured" of homosexuality through prayer. This being a blog, I'm going to give you my own opinion about that. I think they're also telling the truth. From everything I've seen and read, what makes the most sense to me is that sexual orientation covers a very broad scale from one extreme to the other, with most of us falling somewhere in between entirely straight and entirely gay. Some people are so close to the middle they can happily swing either way. Those people probably can switch back to being straight after having been gay and live happy, fulfilling lives. But the closer a person is to one extreme or the other, the less likely a transformation is. The prayer part isn't, in my opinion, God's intervention. It is a personally empowering form of meditation that strengthens one's belief and resolve and thereby increases the odds of a successful outcome for those who are in the "swingable" zone on the scale.

Posted by Becky at 02:48 PM |

USDA Screws Organics Industry Again

That "USDA Organic" label just lost a little more of its meaning. The USDA has decided to allow 38 new non-organic ingredients to be used in products bearing the "USDA Organic" seal. Anheuser Bush will be allowed to sell "Organic Wild Hops Beer" that contains absolutely no organic hops. Intestines from factory farmed animals raised on chemically grown feed, given synthetic hormones and antibiotics, and fed slaughterhouse waste will be allowed to be used for "organic" sausages, brats and breakfast links. And fish oil containing PCBs and mercury will be allowed in "organic" products. If you find this unacceptable, the Organic Consumers Association is collecting electronic signatures on a petition, or you can send a sweet little personal note referencing "AMS-TM-07-0062" to Robert Pooler, Agricultural Marketing Specialist, National Organic Program, USDA/AMS/TMP/NOP, 1400 Independence Ave., SW, Room 4008-So., Ag Stop 0268, Washington, DC 20250.

Posted by Becky at 11:34 AM |

For this Former Witness, it's DeLay-ja Vu

Boy, is the Tom DeLay case sounding familiar. A dirty right-wing politician gets caught laundering money and engaging in other illegal behavior, he is taken to court, his reputation is justifiably smeared, he challenges the court's decision based on a technicality, the decision is overturned on that technicality, and all the stupid right-wingers shout, "He is vindicated!" and promptly forget every dirty thing we factually know the politician did.

NW Republican, predictably, says, "Of course the Democrats really don’t care about whether the charges were true or not. What they really wanted was a political issue." And then turns the conversation toward the political attack campaign being waged against Democrat Betsy Johnson (which Loaded Orygun has so excellently debunked) while entirely failing to see the irony in doing so.

For Tom DeLay's part, he says:

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today ruled that I was wrongfully indicted by Ronnie Earle, the Mike Nifong of Texas, on laws that didn’t even exist. The court affirmed the decision to throw out the conspiracy indictments because they were based on laws that weren’t even on the books. What Ronnie Earle accomplished is no rookie error – it’s a political attack using our legal system as the primary weapon.

Ronnie Earle’s politically motivated indictments cost Republicans the leader of their choice, and my family hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. The damage he has done to my family and my career cannot be rectified, but the courts have recognized a significant portion of the injustice and ruled accordingly. For nearly two years I have been willing and eager to go to trial and with this ruling, we are thankfully closer to that day.

Yep. Sounds familiar. Read the actual news story here (note that the criminal conspiracy charges were dropped, not because they weren't true, but because "conspiracy to violate the election code was not a crime until 2003," which was after DeLay engaged in his conspiracy). You've just got to love those technicalities. To learn more about the background of the DeLay case, check out Wikipedia's overview. Oh, and disabuse yourself of the notion that faithful right-wingers will ever look at the facts about their own dirty politicians.

Posted by Becky at 11:11 AM |

June 27, 2007

Wicked Science Takes on the Soul

Cornelia Dean has a very interesting piece entitled, "Science, Religion and the battle for the human soul," that points out how modern science is throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of most religions by seriously challenging the very notion of a "soul." The result is that many religious believers are beginning to see science as "wicked."

[A]s evolutionary biologists and cognitive neuroscientists peer ever deeper into the brain, they are discovering more and more genes, brain structures and other physical correlates to feelings like empathy, disgust and joy. That is, they are discovering physical bases for the feelings from which moral sense emerges - not just in people but in other animals as well.

The result is perhaps the strongest scientific challenge yet to the worldview summed up by Descartes, the 17th-century French philosopher who divided the creatures of the world between humanity and everything else. As biologists turn up evidence that animals can exhibit emotions and patterns of cognition once thought of as strictly human, Descartes's dictum, "I think, therefore I am," loses its force.

For many scientists, the evidence that moral reasoning is a result of physical traits that evolve along with everything else is just more evidence against the existence of the soul, or of a God to imbue humans with souls. For many believers, particularly in the United States, the findings show the error, even wickedness, of viewing the world in strictly material terms. And they provide for theologians a growing impetus to reconcile the existence of the soul with the growing evidence that humans are not, physically or even mentally, in a class by themselves.

Some scientists aren't ready to give up entirely on the concept of a soul. For instance, V. S. Ramachandran, a brain scientist at the University of California, San Diego, voiced a very "New Age" concept that cuts to the heart of Christianity and many other religions:

[T]here may be soul in the sense of "the universal spirit of the cosmos," but the soul as it is usually spoken of, "an immaterial spirit that occupies individual brains and that only evolved in humans - all that is complete nonsense." Belief in that kind of soul "is basically superstition."

The "universal spirit of the cosmos" describes the belief by some that God is in everything and everyone. Some take the concept to the next step, believing that each individual is a manifestation of God and is, therefore, God. These concepts are, of course, heretical to Christianity and certainly have the potential for creating a lot of social problems.

Nancey Murphy, a philosopher at Fuller Theological Seminary and ordained minister in the Church of the Brethren, pushes even further against traditional Christian thought in her attempt to hold on to the notion of a soul:

Evolutionary biology shows the transition from animal to human to be too gradual to make sense of the idea that we humans have souls while animals do not. All the human capacities once attributed to the mind or soul are now being fruitfully studied as brain processes - or, more accurately, I should say, processes involving the brain, the rest of the nervous system and other bodily systems, all interacting with the socio-cultural world.

The catch here is that if animals also have souls, then do they go to Heaven when they die? Do they sin? Did Jesus die for them, too? What about insects? What about viruses? Traditional Christianity simply cannot, as I see it, comfortably accommodate the notion of the animal soul. It is fundamental to the Christian religion that each individual possesses a unique, distinct eternal soul or, in a slightly different interpretation, that each individual is an embodied, living soul with a spirit that returns to God and that will reside in Heaven with God eternally. But non-human animals do not enjoy that special favor.

Throughout society, we are all struggling with the question of whether we are something more than a lot of soulless animals with higher intelligence. The implications are too serious to not consider the question. I am fairly certain that despite valiant attempts at apologetics and rebuttals to scientific thought, eventually most fundamentalist Christians will find themselves pressed into a corner over this matter, forced to reject science outright as being a deceptive tool of the Devil, or to accept science and reject their Christian belief in the distinct, individual soul - or perhaps any soul at all.

Are we nothing more than highly evolved, soulless animals in a godless universe just hoping to survive? Or do our lives have a greater meaning? Do animals have souls and, therefore, great meaning and importance, or do only humans have souls, thereby affirming that we are the centerpiece of all God's creation? Are we all connected through one universal spirit, in which case we are really all one? Or do we each have unique eternal souls that live on and are accountable to God after we die?

If you could know the answer for certain, and knew that your own deeply held beliefs just might be dashed as a result, would you still want to know the truth?

Would you be more comfortable living in a country ruled by laws based on science, or laws based on the beliefs of a particular religion, but not necessarily your own religion?

Posted by Becky at 11:52 AM |

June 26, 2007

McCain's Own Private Fantasy World

As if we didn't have enough evidence that John McCain creates his own reality, he seems to just keep adding to the pile. Upon learning that his polling has slipped into the single digits, McCain simply responded, "That poll is just not true." Oh. Okay, then.

Last week, the Tampa Tribune reported that in a "desperate fundraising blitz to close out the 2nd quarter" McCain's website listed a schedule of past fundraising events that had not only never actually happened, they had never even been planned.

And now he has asked Paul Galanti, a member of Swift Boat Veterans, to host a fundraising breakfast for him – this after having blasted the group for its "dishonest and dishonorable" lies about John Kerry.

Cashing in his principles for support from a Swift Boater is consistent with McCain's do-anything-to-win campaign tactics, which have included walking away from the campaign finance reform he once championed, trying to distance himself from the immigration bill that carried his name in the last Congress, and even embracing the potential of ethanol now that he has to campaign in Iowa.

On top of that, McCain, who has enjoyed a reputation as populist working to diminish the power of lobbyists in Washington, has more lobbyists on his staff and among his advisors than any other Presidential candidate. As an aside, I am happy to report that my personal favorite, Barack Obama, is also the "least entangled with K Street," with "no lobbyists on the payroll or serving as key advisers," while Hillary Clinton is the Democratic candidate with the most lobbyists on board.

Posted by Becky at 03:17 PM |

12,000 Tragedies

This past weekend at a get-together with some friends I met a fascinating woman who works as a foster parent. As I listened to her share her experiences, both heart warming and heart breaking, I could not help but admire the level of selflessness displayed by those involved in the foster parenting program. At the same time, the problems faced by the children who are placed in foster care are usually so great that despite the best efforts of these amazing adults, the children are destined to carry deep scars into adulthood. And it is a problem that is growing. According to a new report from the State of Oregon, more than 12,000 children were victims of abuse and neglect in Oregon last year – representing a 7% increase from the previous year and growing faster than the population. The primary cause of this increase – half the cases - is substance abuse, including meth.

The state received 60,746 reports -- mostly phone calls -- of suspected child abuse and neglect in 2006, more than a 10 percent increase from 2005. Of the total, 25,606 were referred for investigation. A number of families were the subject of multiple reports.

Seventeen children died as a result of child abuse last year. Fifteen were younger than 5, and two had open cases with the state at the time of their deaths or injuries. In 2005, 18 children died of abuse.

During the 2005 legislative session, strict laws were passed limiting access to cold and allergy drugs containing pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient in meth. That law did not really begin to have an effect until mid-way through last year, and the primary target of the legislation was meth labs. It has been very successful in stopping the Oregon meth labs, but not so much the meth itself. 65% of America's meth now comes from labs in Mexico, as is readily apparent to anyone who has driven around Tijuana in recent years, where massive piles of empty boxes of cold medicine can be seen littering the highways (to be fair, Mexico is working to stop the problem on their end, as well). Since Oregon's crack-down on pseudoephedrine, the purity of seized meth is down and prices have more than doubled. Experts hope this will translate into decreased use. With any luck, that will, in turn, translate into fewer cases of child abuse and neglect. The 2007 Legislature also passed $10 million in new funding for drug treatment for parents who are in danger of losing their children.

The 2007 Legislature has worked with Governor Kulongoski, whose own childhood has inspired him to work particularly hard on behalf of Oregon's children, to pass several bills designed to improve their lives and their chances for success. For instance, one of the bills places children with family members where possible. As my new friend told me, once the relationship with a parent is broken, it is nearly impossible to form that bond again with any other adult. The reason is the parent is supposed to offer a forever-bond. You cannot break a forever-bond with a child and expect that child to believe in forever, ever again. Placing them with an adult with whom they have already bonded – a family member – eases that problem somewhat. A very big THANK YOU to all our legislators who have supported these efforts.

The difficult part, really, is dealing with what is often permanent physical and emotional damage inflicted on these children through neglect and abuse. The woman who shared her experiences with us told of one woman she knows who cares for drug-addicted babies, several at a time, each of whom cries incessantly all day and night. She herself cares for teenagers who are the product of many years of neglect and abuse and she detailed the psychological strain and self-esteem issues they face. It's far worse than simply feeling "different" or "wanting love." These kids deal with psychological and emotional problems that are so severe they require medication. How many of us would be willing to care for such children for 8 hours a day, let alone 24?

My new friend also explained that the long-term psychological impacts of neglect are actually worse than those of abuse. And with drug abuse, neglect is more often the result. She said one girl she cares for was neglected as a very young child and was placed in foster care at the age of two. Yet her sense of insecurity about having her needs met was so ingrained into her psyche that despite many years of never going hungry and of receiving all the care and attention a child should have, this girl, now a teen, still hoards food and behaves as if she needs to take steps to make sure her needs are met in case the adults in her life fail her again. Over the long term, neglected children continue to feel unworthy, isolate themselves, and fail to achieve. They are more likely to be mentally and physically sick throughout their lives. They are more likely to suffer from cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and hypertension. They die earlier and are more depressed throughout their lives. They have a lot of difficulty rolling with the punches of life. But if they are fortunate enough to run into people who are role models for them in dealing with stress appropriately and mentoring them, they do a lot better. That's a role that everyone can play, even if they cannot handle the 24-hour a day job of foster parenting. We all know people who are struggling to make it, and we all can interact positively and sensitively with those individuals.

All human beings have basic needs that you and I can help to meet. These include: caring and love (a demonstration to the person that they matter), physical affection and human contact (hugs, handshakes, pats on the back), respect (showing consideration and recognizing value and independence), moral guidance and discipline (mentoring and supervision), time together (communicating and interacting), encouragement and support (reassurance and praise), listening ears (hearing without judgment), education (preparation for survival in the modern world), nutritious food, appropriate clothing, shelter, safety (a situation in which they can develop trust), supervision (accountability and behavioral guidelines), good hygiene, medical and dental care, adequate rest, and exercise and fresh air.

My new friend said that recently her own mother went to a court hearing with her regarding a particular child's case. She relayed how her mother left the courtroom weeping because the child's case was so heart-wrenching. Only then did the woman realize the degree to which she had become "used" to the horrors of child abuse and neglect after several years of working with so many troubled children.

If you know a child that is not thriving, has difficulty concentrating and learning, has low self-esteem, is withdrawn and depressed, has poor health, is dirty and unkempt, has rotting teeth and chronic bad breath, is always tired, is unusually small for his or her age, is very thin and always hungry, or who steals or hoards food and/or money from others, you should take the time to find out more about what may be going on in that child's life - and in his or her parent's life. If you know an adult who seems not to respect himself or herself, find ways to let that person know they really do matter. I personally could not do what foster parents do. But I know that in my daily interactions with people, countless opportunities present themselves to make a positive difference in someone's life and help to ease their burden and meet their human needs. Though half of abuse and neglect cases are the result of drug abuse, the other half are not. Maybe the parent(s) involved is struggling financially or has health problems. See what you might be able to do to ease their burdens. Each one of us can do something to help lessen the degree of these 12,000 tragedies in Oregon each year and help prevent their becoming 12,000 more tragedies in the next generation.

Posted by Becky at 10:38 AM |

June 25, 2007

Of Sizemore, Jail, Initiatives, and Karma

Though this headline might make your heart leap for joy: "Sizemore sentenced to 16 months in Prison," it's not a story about that Sizemore. Bill Sizemore is making headlines today, too, but he's actually having a good day: "All indications are pointing to Bill Sizemore turning in hundreds of thousands of signatures tomorrow." If Ted Piccolo is to be believed, and I don't doubt him on this, Sizemore has managed to gather far more signatures than he needed to put two measures on the ballot and will be turning in signatures a year early, leaving him plenty of time to work on even more measures.

One of the measures he will be turning in tomorrow is Initiative 3, which makes state taxes deductible on federal tax returns. He has not yet revealed which is the second initiative. You can look up all his various initiatives at the Secretary of State's website. I'm betting that by the deadline next summer he will have turned in signatures for several different measures, and may even be very close to finished on them already, but for now he will probably watch the response he gets to these two and base his next moves on that. In other words, when the Legislature's initiative reform bills are signed into law and then put into action by the Secretary of State's office, that's when we will see what his validity rates actually are. And that's when he will know how many more signatures he really has to collect.

I am fairly certain you can expect to see two other measures on the ballot next November -- a measure to prevent public employee unions from using payroll deduction to collect union dues if those dues will be spent in any way on political activity, and merit pay for teachers. He has several more that look more like his personal wish list and not necessarily very serious. If Dick Wendt and Freedomworks and Howard Rich are fully funding him, however, he very well might also go for it with all of them. In that case, we'll also see measures to block "incumbent" designations on ballots in judicial elections, eliminate the "single subject rule" for ballot measures, declare it bribery if a political contribution creates a conflict of interest, require two years of English immersion for students who don't speak English, and allow people to make "minor" improvements to their property without building permits (he knows all about this one). Dagnabbit, I might have to support one or two of these. Looks like we have some good discussions ahead of us here.

And that's not all. According to Piccolo:

There is other news in that Sizemore is also concerned with the legislature not playing fair with the drafting of the ballot title as the Democrats try to repeal the “Double Majority” law. The legislature is reportedly considering an attempt at repealing the Double Majority on this November’s ballot. Sizemore is concerned enough that he has drafted two other DM measures and prepared to circulate them for the 2008 ballot.

Watching Sizemore's resurrection is a surreal experience. I actually don't care that he didn’t go to jail, though a conviction would have undermined the credibility of his martyrdom claims. And I don't care that he's managed to weasel out of paying the millions he was ordered to pay to the unions because I'm fairly certain it has been personally costly for him to go through all of this. What I do care about is that he hasn't ever had to admit what he did; that many still believe he was unfairly targeted and thus are further cemented in their ignorant views so they can continue to be manipulated; that rich people with ulterior motives continue to support him and provide him with a platform; that he continues to inspire increasing restrictions on the initiative process; and that innocent people out there are destined to be scammed by him in the future as so many have been in the past. It all offends my sense of justice.

And it makes me very unhappy with Attorney General Hardy Myers, who refused to criminally prosecute Sizemore for fear it would appear politically motivated. Sizemore, like so many right-wingers, used to jokingly refer to him as "Hardly Matters." Sadly, it would seem Sizemore was actually right about that. So when those poor souls in the Justice Department (note tongue in cheek) are feeling overburdened with writing ballot titles for Sizemore's measures and dealing with challenges to ballot titles for Sizemore's measures, I don't feel sorry for them. And I won't feel sorry for them when they have to deal with the future inevitable appeals if the measures pass. The real cause of that problem lies at the feet of the head of their own department. In fact, I see their predicament as proof positive that what goes around comes around. Until I remember Sizemore, that is.

Posted by Becky at 03:38 PM |

Larry? Oh Larry..?

Larry Sabato:

I think it is a very strange thing that CNN chose a potential Democratic presidential candidate to be one of the key commentators on the war . . . could they not see the obvious conflict of interest there? The man was privately organizing to run. All kinds of Democratic activists and financiers have been talking to him, and yet here he is on CNN pretending to be an impartial observer.

Speaking of Wesley Clark about four months before Clark declared a run for President. Clark's response:

I had a very clear understanding with CNN that if I ever decided to go forward in considering becoming a political candidate that I would at that point, leave CNN. That's what I did in June.

This statement was made about 20 days before Clark declared his candidacy.

But where is Sabato now that Fred Thompson is considering a Presidential run AND working for ABC News and for ABC Radio?

NADA.

(h/t: Trapper John at Kos)

Posted by Carla at 03:04 PM |

Five for Five

"Four for four." I'm seeing it everywhere today. The US Supreme Court issued a number of opinions today, and everyone is talking about four of them. But nobody is really talking about the fifth decision, Wilkie v. Robbins, and I find that one to be the most interesting -- and the most upsetting -- of all. A write-up about the case from February can be found here and includes links to the briefs of both parties. Basically, as I see it government officials were just handed carte blanche approval to abuse citizens with impunity, so long as they're not personally gaining from their self-indulgent abuse of power.

The appeal arose after federal officials used their regulatory power to coerce a Wyoming rancher to give the government an easement without just compensation. Among other claims, the rancher sued the government officials in their individual capacities for extortion under "RICO" laws.

Timothy Sandefu, who, it seems, values private property rights as much as I do, explained the decision this way:

One of the important questions in the Robbins case was whether the Fifth Amendment protects a property owner from government retaliating against him when he refuses to give up his land to the government for free. Before Frank Robbins bought his land in Wyoming, the former property owner had executed a deed giving the government an easement over the property. But the government failed to record the deed before Robbins bought the property unaware of it. And that naturally meant that the deed was no longer valid. Rather than negotiating fairly with Robbins, however, the government began a vendetta against him, demanding that he give up his property for no money, and harassing him until he would do so. They bullied him, broke into his property, drove away his customers, threatened him, brought frivolous legal prosecutions against him, and generally made his life hell in the way that only government can do. He filed a lawsuit arguing that this violated his right to say "no" to the government—a right guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment's reference to private property rights.

The Supreme Court basically said that even if government officials engage in behavior that would normally be considered racketeering, if they're doing it in pursuit of their duties for the government and not for any benefit for themselves, then they cannot be held personally responsible for racketeering. It pretty much seals sovereign immunity in stone. No matter where you stand on private property rights, the fact that the Supreme Court has removed personal liability for such outrageous behavior by public officials should send a chill down your spine. If the other four decisions are all about shifting the balance of power away from the citizens and toward those in power, then what we're really looking at here is five for five.

Posted by Becky at 02:01 PM |

June 24, 2007

Kulongoski v. Smith

Bored silly this morning (starting new job tomorrow... finally!) I decided to peruse the latest polls. I remained significantly bored... until I decided to check polling figures for Gov. Kulongoski and Sen. Smith.

I frequently read Blue Oregon and they frequently link to various posts at Carla's other blog: Loaded Orygun. So I know that both blogs, generally pro-Democrat and self-described Progressives have dogged Senator Smith, which shouldn't surprise anyone considering that we're moving inevitably closer to choosing who Oregonian's want to represent us in the Senate after 2008.

Before I get to the polling let me just practice some full disclosure and say that I have never voted against Gordon Smith - mostly because I bought into his self-framing as a moderate - and that I intend to vote against him in 2008 - mostly because I agree with Blue Oregon and Loaded Orygun that his record since Bush got into the White House has not been that of a moderate, his own rhetoric and continued attempts at self-framing not withstanding.

What surprised me about the polling data from Survey USA is that, in a Blue state with a Democratic Governor and an ongoing campaign to unmask Smith as the conservative that his record demonstrates that he is, that Kulongoski's polling data is in many respects worse than Smith's!

The most recent data was released this past Monday and Kulongoski has a lower approval rating and a higher disapproval rating than Smith does. Even more interesting is the breakdown of Portland versus the rest of the state. Portland is widely considered a stronghold of both Democrats and of Progressives (not all Proggies are Dems...) while Republicans and Conservatives tend to do much better in the rest of the state. Yet while Smith does do slightly better outside of Portland and he and Kulongoski have identical approval ratings in Portland, Kulongoski's disapproval rating in Portland is HIGHER than Smith's. Smith has more undecideds than Kulongoski - 9% versus 4%, respectively.

Blue Oregon rightly points out that one needs to look at trend lines too, and there the data doesn't look any better for Kulongoski. While it is true that Smith's trend lines point to decreasing approval and increasing disapproval over the last number of months, whereas Kulongoski's trend lines are significantly more chaotic, a much higher precentage of polling respondants were unsure about Smith than about Kulongoski. It also bears pointing out that Senator Wyden, who enjoys very solid approval numbers over a very long period of time, also took a hit over the last month... a hit equal to that which Smith took over the same period. Which could indicate a souring towards Congress in general rather than towards Senator Smith as an individual.

Of course that begs the question of whether public opinion has soured on Congressional Democrats, as some pundits are saying, or whether it's Congress as a whole that is losing public confidence... or it could simply be an expression of frustration at the rather fundamental disconnect between Congress and the White House. But that's another subject entirely and not the point of this post.

Another interesting demographic was union membership. While Kulongoski edged out Smith by 1% (43% to 42%) for approval among union members, he had much higher disapproval among union members (53% to 46%).

The other thing that jumps out at me, looking over the polling data, is that in the ethnicity breakdown it is only among blacks that Kulongoski enjoys approval by more than 50% of the demographic. Of course Smith only gets above 50% among hispanics. But hispanics are a much higher percentage of the population in Oregon than blacks are. Whites, far and away the overwhelmingly largest ethnic demographic in the state, give Kulongoski lower approval and higher disapproval ratings than they do for Smith. In fact that's the only ethnic group where Kulongoski's disapproval numbers exceed 50%.

So how much weight do these polls really lend to the notion that Oregon voters are souring on Gordon Smith in a way that has bearing on 2008? Especially considering how consistently high Kulongoski's disapproval numbers were for many months before winning re-election, significantly more recently than Smith, only to flounder since?

Posted by Kevin at 01:32 PM |

June 22, 2007

Media Bias Against Hugo Chavez

Having already voiced my concerns over lies being told about one enemy dictator this morning, I might just as well take on the lies being told about another – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Bear in mind I don't like either man, but I also don't like being lied to by other bad men in an effort to rally my support behind their efforts to control the world's wealth at the expense of what is good for the people.

Scott Liebertz posted an editorial yesterday on Counterpunch in which he analyzed how Fox News has "deliberately misinformed its viewers" on the situation in Venezuela. He doesn't support Chavez's actions against RCTV, which is seen by Venezuelan protestors as an assault on free speech. Rather, Liebertz focuses on the "extreme" level of fact "manipulation" that Fox News exhibited while covering the protests.

For example:

- Fox's correspondent in Caracas repeatedly told viewers that Chavez's takeover of RCTV left the country without any "opposition" media. Viewers were specifically told that Chavez was "taking over just about every [media outlet] in Venezuela" and "shut down the media all across the country," and that RCTV was only "the latest" to be taken over. However, RCTV is the only outlet to have been taken over, and several other privately owned stations with very large national audiences continue to broadcast opposition voices. Most of the major daily print media also carries opposition information.

- When a guest attempted to debunk the story, they were called a "son of a bitch" and dismissed, then the next day derided on "Fox and Friends" as "a bit of a Wacko" and "a guy who frequently does not understand what he's talking about" and told he should "shut up."

- "Hannity and Colmes" discussed the matter four times in a week with three guest "experts" (Maria Conchita Alonso, an actress who admits she doesn't follow politics, but was still brought on for two episodes; Otto Reich; and Roger Noriega). Reich claimed Chavez would order the military to kill the protesters as he had in the past (though in the past he never issued any such order, but did declare martial law). Noriega said Chavez was not even allowing Venezuelans to see images of the protests, which was not true. Alonso stated Chavez now owns 65% of the media and Hannity replied, "Now he owns it all," which of course is false.

Liebertz is probably more of a Chavez sympathizer than I am. After all, he has a real problem with calling Chavez a "dictator" – and even more of a problem with Hannity's habit of referring to him as a "brutal dictator" – because he was democratically elected by 63% in an election certified by international observers that included the European Union. I think we're all beginning to recognize that having the form of a democracy doesn't mean that you are a democracy in substance.

On Wednesday, Stephen Lendman also wrote about media distortion of the events in Venezuela, in his case focusing on the "yellow journalism" of the New York Times, which he says has as its "primary mission" "to be the lead instrument of state propaganda." Like Liebertz, Lendman thinks Chavez is getting a bum rap and views him as "the leading model democratic leader on the planet even though he's not perfect." So you know where he's coming from. Still, he makes some very valid points.

He takes aim at an editorial in the Times by former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, who "was in tow with Washington's agenda of privatizations, deregulation, IMF/World Bank diktats, debt service, and overall contempt for the essential social needs of his people. He was also tainted with corruption, and during his tenure violence was used against protest demonstrators, criminal suspects in prisons were beaten and tortured, and dozens of journalists were threatened or attacked for criticizing local politicians or him." Toledo wrote that Chavez's silencing of the media was a move that could spread to other nations in that part of the world, called him a destabilizing figure throughout the hemisphere, and called on other Latin American leaders to confront Chavez. But Toledo was silent as to his own successor, Alan Garcia, who silenced two Peruvian TV stations and three radio stations for supporting a lawful strike he opposed.

In addition to downplaying Toledo's abuses while in office and then giving him a platform to attack Chavez, the Times has done some Chavez-bashing of its own, according to Lendman. For instance, when Chavez opposed Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA), the Times never explained why he took that stand. The paper also accused Chavez of buying influence when he used petrodollars to offer aid to his neighbors, though Chavez's intent was purportedly to promote solidarity, cooperation and respect for other nations' sovereignty. When Chavez raised royalties and taxes on foreign investors, the Times did not explain that the move was to end longtime preferential treatment. When Chavez moved to ensure the Venezuelan people benefited from the country's oil resources, he was condemned for his "revolutionary flourish" and ambition. Lendman goes on and on in a lengthy litany of mischaracterizations of Chavez's actions on the part of the Times. In reading it, you'd begin to wonder if Chavez really is the "leading model democratic leader on the planet."

I don't think he is. But I do think he's driving Washington and the powerful elite crazy. He won't do what they tell him to do. He won't help them screw the people out of the country's oil.

I believe it is only a matter of time before Chavez is assassinated and replaced by a more acceptable dictator who can be bought. The war for the hearts and minds of the American public is going on now; when we're sufficiently stupefied to accept an assassination or overthrow of the government as necessary for the good of the Venezuelan people, he'll be taken down. The uncooperative ones always are.

Posted by Becky at 12:52 PM |

Reining in Right-Wing Talk Radio

Republicans are getting so much heat over Trent Lott's statements a few days ago about the need to rein in talk radio and shut up young Republicans that they're now trying to make it look like it's the Democrats who really want to attack talk radio. Senator James Inhofe yesterday told John Ziegler on his radio show that he overheard Senators Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer say that right-wing radio was a problem in need of a "legislative fix." Inhofe claimed he told them there was no market for liberal talk radio. Ziegler inferred the two women were "conspiring to end talk radio."

Inofe's exact words were:

"I was going over to vote the other day and I was walking with two very liberal gals that didn’t pay any attention to me being with them. They were outraged by something you said or Rush Limbaugh or somebody said that upset them," Inhofe told Ziegler. "They said, ‘we have got to do something about this, these are nothing but far-right wing extremists. We’ve got to have a balance, there’s got to be a legislative fix to this.’" He added: "As we got off the elevator, I said, ‘you gals don’t understand. This is market-driven and there’s no market for your liberal trite.’"

Of course, Clinton and Boxer deny ever saying any such thing, though I personally think they probably did say something very like it, something that Inhofe mis-interpreted. Something that is actually all about saving free speech on the radio. Taylor Marsh tackles the story and links to a new report from American Progress that is no doubt what is causing so much angst on the right. It would seem that Trent Lott didn't know that report was coming down the pike, else he would have kept his own trap shut and not issued his poorly-timed comments.

The report in question, which calls for a return of the Fairness Doctrine and diversity of media ownership to ensure diversity of opinion on the airwaves, is described in a story on the Conservative News Service newswire as a call for greater government regulation of radio and an example of "amazing liberal hypocrisy." In light of yesterday's reports that the vast majority of political contributions by journalists are going to Democrats, this plays well with the right-wingers. Thank goodness, smart people with blogs are always on call, ready to debunk that sort of nonsense.

Posted by Becky at 10:26 AM |

Kucinich and Paul Stand Alone

I'm kind of fascinated that the US House of Representatives voted 411-2 to ask the UN Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Genocide Convention for "incitement to commit genocide" by calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" – and nobody in the mainstream, so far as I have seen, is really talking about it. I would have thought that would be a big deal. Two lone congressmen - Rep. Ron Paul and Rep. Dennis Kucinich - opposed the resolution, and a couple of bloggers are saying it is the result of neocon propaganda. I might disagree with the two congressmen if Ahmadinejad had actually said what has been reported and if he had the intent and ability to follow through, but he didn't say it and he doesn't intend to wipe Israel off the map - hence the propaganda accusations.

Dore Gold, Israel's former ambassador to the UN, writes about how the House's decision came to pass in the Jerusalem Post and says that the decision should "be used to create a global alliance for punishing [through divestment] those who engaged in genocide in the past as well as those declaring their intent to carry it out in the future." Vineyardsaker runs through Gold's description and traces its neocon roots, specifically the "unholy trinity" of Irwin Cotler, Alan Dershowitz and John Bolton, who are behind the now-approved House Resolution. He also shows how Gold's own words prove that the resolution is "yet another attempt to shift the attention away from the policies of Israel." Psyop says it is all about "increasing the psychological pressure on the Iranian government that chooses to remain outside of the American puppet sphere" and points out that Ahmadinejad never said the now-infamous "wiped off the map" statement.

This was a fact noted by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who joined Ron Paul in dissenting, and called for the correct translation of Ahmadinejad's words to be inserted in the resolution. Kucinich expressed my own view, that although he supported Israel's security and was concerned about Ahmadinejad's words, he objected to resolutions that laid "the groundwork for an offensive, unprovoked war." Rep. Ron Paul has published a brief article on the resolution, in which he calls it "an exercise in propaganda that serves one purpose: to move us closer to initiating a war against Iran." And Paul carries the argument one step further, saying in essence that we are like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black:

Clearly, language threatening to wipe a nation or a group of people off the map is to be condemned by all civilized people. And I do condemn any such language. But why does threatening Iran with a pre-emptive nuclear strike, as many here have done, not also deserve the same kind of condemnation? Does anyone believe that dropping nuclear weapons on Iran will not wipe a people off the map? When it is said that nothing, including a nuclear strike, is off the table on Iran, are those who say it not also threatening genocide? And we wonder why the rest of the world accuses us of behaving hypocritically, of telling the rest of the world “do as we say, not as we do.”

I hope you will read the detailed explanation of what Ahmadinejad actually said, as well as how and why it has been mistranslated and turned into a "dangerous rumor" that has been spread around the world, with "catastrophic implications." In this war of words and the accompanying manipulation of the public, the parsing and shading and interpretation of meaning is everything.

Posted by Becky at 09:41 AM |

June 21, 2007

Beware the Invisible Soldiers Bearing Gay Bombs

ABC News is taking a look at some of the really interesting things that the Pentagon is spending some of its $78 billion research budget studying. It's a list that raises questions, stimulates the imagination, frightens, and frustrates. And if one insider is to be believed, the projects are part of an enrichment scheme for the military industrial complex.

When it comes to inventing weapons, our country definitely rewards the most extreme forms of imagination and inventiveness. For instance, three years ago, the military funded a study of psychic teleportation by the Air Force Research Lab. DARPA is now spending $15 million to build self-healing shields that soldiers can shoot through, but which act somewhat like an invisibility cloak by bending light in the wrong way. Stanford and Columbia universities are researching the use of magnetic stimulation to keep soldiers awake and alert for days without sleep. DARPA is working on prosthetic limbs with sensory capabilities that communicate with the nervous system. MIT is developing an "exoskeleton" to diagnose and treat injuries. And drugs have already been developed to enhance aerobic function without harming the lungs.

Far and away the most odd research project ever considered is one that was proposed by the Ohio Air Force laboratory back in 1994, when it asked for $7.5 to build a "gay bomb" that would be filled with such powerful aphrodisiacs that the enemy soldiers would be compelled to lay down their bayonets and impale each other in a whole new way.

The scariest project, in my opinion, is the "low-frequency infrasound," which creates "nausea, loss of bowel control, disorientation, vomiting, potential internal organ damage and death." Or the pheromone marker that can be shot onto particular individuals, followed by the release of swarms of bees that will attack whomever has the marker.

My favorite is right out of Revelation. It's the projection of a giant hologram of God into the sky that will speak to the people.

All of this special weapon speculation is a lot of fun, but mixed into the ABC News story was something that actually was not fun at all. Dr. Alexis Debat, senior fellow for national security and terrorism at the Nixon Center in Washington, D.C. and former advisor to the French minister of Defense on Transatlantic Affairs, said that the military industrial complex is alive and well.

"It's an unwritten rule in the U.S. economy that defense companies play an important role in the stock market as anchors of stability," he said. "Living here in Washington, you have no idea how we are inventing enemies. Hundreds of people are trying to figure out how to make China our enemy because there is so much money and power in the Pentagon."

Keep in mind that our military is currently paying Debat to study how Muslims fight, Debat is a Senior Consultant to ABC News, and he is also writing a book on the history of the CIA. So he's not just some pundit. The reason this caught my eye is that I am a daily reader of WorldNet Daily, the right-wing news/propaganda outlet. I like to keep on top of what nonsense is being fed to my friends and family. And I've been noticing an increasing number of stories focused on how evil China is and implying that China is out to get us by poisoning us and our pets.

Which leads me to drift a little into another topic – the unfolding situation with Iran. If these sources are reliable, then we are looking down the barrel of a very big problem. It is being reported that the USS Enterprise CVN 65-Big E Strike Group, the US Navy’s largest air carrier, will join the USS Stennis and the USS Nimitz carriers in the Gulf, and Washington is considering deploying a fourth US carrier to the region in the Red Sea opposite Saudi Arabian western coast to secure the three US carriers in the Gulf from the rear as well as the Gulf of Aqaba and Suez Canal. One can only assume that air strikes are imminent.

In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has just met with President Bush, purportedly to discuss plans for a joint attack on Iran. Olmert also met with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Pelosi's public comments welcoming the Prime Minister are being seen as an indication that she will lend her support to the planned attack. Specifically, she said, “With the Republican and Democratic leaders gathered here, you see how strong the bipartisanship is for a great U.S.-Israel relationship." Last week, Iran formally complained to the United Nations, saying, "various Israeli officials have unabatedly continued to publicly and contemptuously make unlawful and dangerous threats of resorting to force against the Islamic Republic of Iran."

And the Moonie Times published an editorial Tuesday by Arnaude de Borchgrave saying, "Israel is now boxed in between three pro-Iran entities (Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) and two pro-al Qaeda terrorist groups… Extremists have displaced pragmatists. Moderation doesn't pay in today's Middle East; violence does. And the Bush administration's campaign for democratic reform in the region has petered out… Iran's radical assets in Iraq are biding their time. Benchmarks and timelines are not part of their vocabulary. Iranian parliamentarians are not threatening funding cuts for the mullahs' Iraqi operations — or for their nuclear ambitions."

Today, reports came out that the U.S. is expressing "deep concern" over China's cooperation with Iran in its oil and gas sectors. U.S. State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack warned Chinese companies to refrain from investing money in those sectors.

All of this may mean absolutely nothing. But if I was homophobic or afraid of bees and lived in China or the Middle East, I think I would be watching my back.

Posted by Becky at 02:51 PM |

Are You a "Good American"?

Bradley Schlozman, acting assistant attorney general for civil rights two years ago, canned three career lawyers in the Justice Department's civil rights division, all three of whom were minority women, in order to "make room for some good Americans," as he put it in conversations with four separate lawyers. All three women had good performance ratings and were dumped over the objections of their supervisors, who were ordered to tell them they weren't performing well or were no longer needed. The problem was that the three women were of African-American, Jewish, and Chinese ethnicity and were hired by Democrats, making them not "good Americans." So who did Schlozman consider to be "good Americans"? TPMmuckraker got hold of a complaint filed by a former lawyer in the department alleging that Schlozman was "targeting minority women lawyers" and replacing them with "white, invariably Christian men" - all Bush supporters and, of course, "good [white Christian male Republican] Americans."

Posted by Becky at 12:03 PM |

June 20, 2007

Do something patriotic with your Thursday

If you're free on Thursday night..there's an event in Portland, Oregon that is a must attend.

What: Piety and Politics Lecture
Who: Reverend Barry Lynd, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Where: First Baptist Church, 900 SW 11th, Portland, Oregon
When: June 21, 7:30PM

The event is sponsored by Annie Blooms Books.

Read more at Americans United For the Separation of Church and State, Columbia Chapter.

Posted by Carla at 06:51 PM |

Democrats Appeal Too Much to the Intellect

Drew Westen has written a very interesting editorial in which he basically argues that the reason Democrats have not won the White House as often as Republicans over the past 40 years is that they have been appealing to voters minds, rather than to their emotions. That charge would come as a shock to right-wingers who believe absolutely that the opposite is the case. But Weston isn't so much talking about emotion-based versus intellect-based beliefs as he is about how a candidate presents himself (or herself). The winning candidate will be the one who is the most likable. It's actually more of a personality contest than a contest of ability.

Westen is a scientist and is a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University. Interestingly, I recently linked to a report about one of his studies on the psychology of political debate and campaigns. That study showed that partisans make decisions regardless of the facts, without engaging the rational portion of the brain, and that they get a thrill out of ignoring the reasonable arguments of their opponents. Based on his lengthy work demonstrating the disengagement of reason in political debate, Westen has concluded that if you misread the nuances of what people are feeling, "you lose elections."

According to Westen, polls asking voters about their beliefs on the issues won't tell you what you need to know. "[T]he best predictors of voting behavior are voters' feelings toward the parties and their candidates." Westen compares in detail the highly effective, emotive nature of Bill Clinton's advertising to the ineffective nature of John Kerry's advertising (which worked only to reinforce the negative emotions toward his privileged upbringing) and to the emotionally appealing campaigning of the anti-intellectual George W. Bush (whose privileged background was in many ways similar to Kerry's). And the difference is striking.

Westen's theory explains the popularity of Barack Obama, who "feels" good; the struggles of Hillary Clinton, who doesn't; the warm fuzzies for John Edwards; the difficulties of Al Gore, who comes off as stiff and intellectual; the instant success of Fred Thompson, with his red pickup truck and faux cowboy persona; the failure of John McCain, with his increasingly sour face and nervous demeanor; the lukewarm reaction to the multiple straight-laced, uptight, angry white conservatives; and the popularity of Rudy Giuliani, a guy you'd really enjoy partying with.

As I look down the list of candidates through the how-do-they-make-people-feel lens, I'm guessing Obama could beat any other candidate in the general election, but I fear he won't get the opportunity because Bill Clinton, the king of feeling good, is helping his wife re-create herself to win over the hearts of the left in the primary. But Hillary carries too much negative emotional baggage to overcome it in the general election. That's why, unless Westen's advice is heeded, I think the Republican candidate – likely Thompson – will win.

Posted by Becky at 02:25 PM |

"24" – The Bad and the Ugly (and Maybe One Good Thing)

I've written before about the impact of the television show "24" on our soldiers, resulting in an increase in willingness to torture. The show has also influenced Americans toward more acceptance of torture as a necessary tool to be used in protecting our country's interests. Never mind that our own military long barred its use specifically because it was likely to produce unreliable information (of course, Rumsfeld rewrote the rules to allow it). We've even had the Republican presidential candidates display Bauer-envy. And now Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has succumbed to the torture siren song. The fan of "24" stated last week at a legal conference in Ottawa that "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives."

His comment came in response to a remark by Justice Richard Mosley of the Federal Court of Canada, who said, "Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra 'What would Jack Bauer do?' " It sent Scalia off on what can only be described as an insane rant:

"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. "Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.

"So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes." …

Generally, the jurists in the room agreed that coerced confessions carry little weight, given that they might be false and almost never accepted into evidence. But the U.S. Supreme Court judge stressed that he was not speaking about putting together pristine prosecutions, but rather, about allowing agents the freedom to thwart immediate attacks.

"I don't care about holding people. I really don't," Judge Scalia said.

Even if a real terrorist who suffered mistreatment is released because of complaints of abuse, Judge Scalia said, the interruption to the terrorist's plot would have ensured "in Los Angeles everyone is safe." During a break from the panel, Judge Scalia specifically mentioned the segment in Season 2 when Jack Bauer finally figures out how to break the die-hard terrorist intent on nuking L.A. The real genius, the judge said, is that this is primarily done with mental leverage. "There's a great scene where he told a guy that he was going to have his family killed," Judge Scalia said. "They had it on closed circuit television - and it was all staged. ... They really didn't kill the family."

I'm scared. When a television show can influence the views of a Supreme Court justice, we're in big trouble.

The only good legacy of "24" that I can see is that perhaps it has softened up the American people toward the concept of a black president. On the other hand, both of the black presidents on the show have been the victims of assassination attempts, at least one of which was successful, specifically because they possessed what any right-winger would describe as a naive anti-torture integrity, and neither knew how to choose a decent vice president, so perhaps even that is a mixed bag.

Posted by Becky at 11:57 AM |

June 19, 2007

Tying Christians to Bush is Aggression Against Christians

A letter to the editor from a Christian in Iraq communicates a message that is worth pondering. It was written in response to a letter published last week from a Muslim Iraqi. Last week's letter was entitled, "Which of You Christians Criticized What Bush Has Don in the Name of the Cross?" The Christian's reply, entitled, "To Tie Christians to Bush is an 'Aggression Against Us'," speaks to an issue that is much greater than the experience of Christians in Middle East. It actually should be sobering to Christians all over the world and is an example of what happens when religion and politics are linked. The overt and intricate politically expedient bond that has been developed between the Christian Right and the Bush Administration is actually endangering Christians all over the world.

The Iraqi Muslim wrote:

What did you [Christians] do? Did you condemn those actions??? This is all we ask of you. Did the Christian clergy loudly state to Bush's face that this Christianity that Bush claims to be part of, is not the Christianity of Jesus? Didn't he say at the start of his war that it was a crusade?

It sounds eerily like what Christians over here have been saying about Muslim leaders and their failure to criticize the 9/11 attacks, doesn't it? In any case, it does not matter that the arguments are irrational – the smear is real just the same. The Iraqi Christian responds by distancing the religion from President Bush as far as possible:

In the beginning, many Muslims and Christians welcomed the arrival of American troops which, according to the understanding at the time, came to liberate them from the grip of the dictator. But the hollowness of this claim later became clear. Instead, what really motivated the occupiers, as you mentioned, were their political and oil interests along with the interests of Israel. At that point most people - including Christians - changed their attitudes and condemned this "liberation," which has become an occupation. It is therefore unjust to equate us Christians with Bush.

There is a difference between Bush and bin Laden, but the difference is insignificant. The first is simple and stupid and fell under the influence of his Zionist advisors. This has occurred because he is a religious fanatic of a certain religious sect that claims to be Christian, but is of a sort more related to Zionism. He doesn't know what he's doing and his government, army and people don't share his beliefs. But they must abide by his commands, as is the tradition in Western countries. …

No brother Mohammad, we don't glorify Bush and we feel the same as all Iraqis.

If American Christians recognized the danger in which this administration has placed their own credibility, both at home and abroad, they would be backing away as quickly and as publicly as they could. And if my eyes don't deceive me, it would appear that those Christians who most truly care about their faith are doing just that, while those who are more in love with power than with the teachings of Jesus are scooting themselves ever closer to the man who is actually inviting their destruction.

Posted by Becky at 05:06 PM |

Someone Has to Step in and Save the Children

Three stories over the past three days have called attention to the plight of abused and neglected children across all strata, in all cultures, and in all circumstances. Though seemingly diverse, a common thread runs through these chilling stories.

The most recent story comes this morning out of Iraq, where American soldiers last week discovered and rescued 24 emaciated and abused developmentally disabled boys from a government-run orphanage that doubled as a brothel in Baghdad. The boys had been there for more than a month, and their caretakers had been selling the food and clothing that had been provided for the boys' care and keeping the profits, leaving the boys starved and naked, devoid of any human contact, chained to beds and left to sit in their own waste. The soldiers who found the boys displayed the best of American values, rescuing them from the filth, personally helping to clean them up and make sure they would be properly cared for.

That story came just one day after the announcement by British police that, along with Canadian and U.S. authorities, they had broken a massive internet pedophile ring and rescued 31 children. The children, including one who was 10 months old, had been subjected to unspeakable abuse, including live internet broadcasts. 700 individuals are being investigated, with several already under arrest. Here in the U.S. the investigation continues in 12 states.

The world was shocked this week to learn that authorities in China had uncovered the fact that many workers at a brick factory were slaves, including many children who were starved and beaten to force them to do the difficult manual labor. The slavery was discovered after 400 fathers signed an open letter posted on the internet asking for help in finding their missing sons who, they believed, had been sold to kiln bosses. Regional authorities, the fathers said, had ignored their concerns or even protected the kilns and human traffickers. The fathers said 1,000 children were being forced to work and subjected to extreme cruelty.

Cruelty to children is common to all cultures and all classes. It is as diverse as the imagination and human experience. But one common thread runs throughout these stories: adults saw it and stopped it. They invested significant personal time and energy to rescue children who were caught helplessly in the clutches of their abusers. Someone noticed. Someone spoke out. Someone refused to give up until the children were safe. Someone recognized that the nurturing and safety every child was his or her own responsibility. Someone refused to let evil win.

Posted by Becky at 12:11 PM |

June 18, 2007

John Fund Touts Sizemore Initiative

John Fund of the Wall Street Journal has given Bill Sizemore a big ego boost by touting his forthcoming paycheck protection initiative in a new editorial. It's an honor he's wanted for years. But it may not be the only goodie Sizemore is getting as a reward for attacking unions again.

Fund's article is a sleazy and misleading piece of work, to put it nicely. Entitled, "Card Tricks : Harry Reid hopes to help unions deprive workers of their right to vote," the editorial takes on "The Employee Free Choice Act," which Fund says will take away workers' right to a private ballot. It purports to be about defending workers' rights, but is actually advancing the interests of those who would like very much to keep workers from banding together to protect themselves. The very fact that an anti-union right-winger like Fund is touting worker privacy rights with regards to unionization and praising the workers' rights efforts of Cesar Chavez should tell you that the man is lying through his teeth about what the bill really does. You can read the other side of the debate here.

Not having ever been a union member, nor anticipating ever being one, I am not well-versed on the matter and don't doubt that deception is occurring on both sides of the issue. However, I've written before about right-wing efforts at union-busting generally, and about one of the primary opponents of this legislation, the Center for Union Facts. I know for a fact I can't trust the folks on that side of the debate.

What really interests me about this editorial is that Sizemore has finally succeeded in getting something he's wanted for a long time: a John Fund editorial in the Wall Street Journal in support of one of his ballot measures. Here is the pertinent portion:

In neighboring Oregon, both legislative chambers have now passed a bill allowing public-sector unions to bypass union-recognition elections in favor of the card check model. The Salem Statesman Journal reports that legislators have largely ignored complaints from some adult foster-care providers that during a recent union drive "activists used deceptive means to persuade workers to sign union-authorization cards." No wonder a group called Oregon Taxpayers United is close to collecting enough signatures to qualify a ballot measure that would prohibit government employee unions in the state from collecting money from members for political purposes. The group's head, Bill Sizemore, reports that the measure enjoys 67% support in polls.

What is really funny is that Sizemore's measure has absolutely nothing to do with the card check system, nor does his ability to collect signatures on his initiative petition, and John Fund knows this. Sizemore's latest petition is just another attempt after a long line of failed efforts to cloak his own union-busting endeavor in language that makes it sound like it is all about preventing the use of public resources to collect political funds. He hopes voters will infer that their support for the measure will stop crooked politicians from raising campaign money on public property. In reality, the measure will prevent governments from processing voluntary payroll deductions from public employees' paychecks if that money is going to be used by their union for political purposes. That deceptive presentation is why his union-busting measures always start out with high polling numbers and end in failure.

Sizemore and his financial backers pursue these measures for two reasons. One, they are guaranteed to use up a lot of union money during the campaign season, thereby diverting opposition to other right-wing initiatives; and two, they hope someday to actually succeed in de-funding the Democratic Party by impairing the ability of unions to raise and spend money on political campaigns. I don't say that out of some sort of supposition on my part. That was the specific, explicit strategy enunciated privately to me by Sizemore himself.

The fact that a disgraced Sizemore has been able to accomplish this feat – being recognized by John Fund – on top of even being able to raise funds to collect signatures on several ballot measures while living in a very nice home and supposedly selling real estate (but having no income) should set off major alarm bells for Oregon's unions and their members. I heard a rumor from a reliable source last year that Howard Rich's machine had been the fortunate recipient of a large estate (as in hundreds of millions of dollars) for the purposes of advancing its political agenda. Fund is a long-time friend of key individuals in that machine, including Ed Crane. His machine is also linked to Sizemore via Paul Farago, U.S. Term Limits, who was a monthly contributor to Sizemore and frequent visitor to the OTU offices during the four years I worked there. Could it be that the rumors were true? Someone needs to dig a little harder. This is not a bunch who should be allowed to launch a massive sneak attack.

Posted by Becky at 04:05 PM |

Atheists and Agnostics... by the numbers.

Rick Heller over at Transparent Eye has an intriguing post about polling data on Atheists and Agnostics which links the poll by The Barna Group

The study pits the "no-faith" group against the "active-faith" group with fairly stringent definitions for each and draws some very interesting contrasts... and similarities. The two groups are of substantially different sizes in terms of sheer numbers, although both represent small minorities among the general population. No-faiths account for a reported 20 million Americans while active-faiths account for 58 million Americans

Particularly interesting to me was the finding that Atheists and Agnostics tend to be political Independents. Unfortunately they also tend to not vote, although both groups are heavily dominated by individuals who aren't registered to vote - 78% for active-faiths and 89% for no-faiths.

There is some very interesting common ground between both groups too.

Nevertheless, there were a number of areas of commonality between the two audiences. The two groups were equally as likely to think of themselves as good citizens, as placing their family first, as being loyal and reliable individuals, as preferring to be in control, and as being leaders. Each group admitted to experiencing personal difficulties with similar frequency, including being in serious debt (11% versus 10%), dealing with a personal addiction (13% versus 12%), and trying to find a few good friends (41% versus 40%). Christians admit to being overweight with greater frequency (26% of no-faith, compared with 41% of active-faith), while atheists and agnostics are more likely to feel stressed out (37% versus 26%).

In their interactions with others, the two groups also share common ground. Both audiences were equally likely to say they have discussed political, moral, and spiritual issues with others in the last month. In addition, about one-fifth of both active-faith and no-faith adults said they often try to persuade other people to change their views.

But the most interesting common ground was this:

"Ironically, however, both atheists and committed Christians share one unusual area of common ground: concern about superficial, inert forms of Christianity in America. There are nearly 130 million American adults who describe themselves as Christians, but who are Christian in name only; their behavior includes little related to experiencing and expressing their alleged faith in Christ."

The Barma Group last polled No-Faiths in 1992. Comparing those results with this recent poll reveals that the numbers of Atheists and Agnostics are on the rise as a percentage of the population. Perhaps most telling was TBG's conclussion that the data "contradicts the popular notion" that individuals tend to become more faith oriented as they grow older. To the contrary, it appears that the "degree of secular fervor... appears to stay relatively constant within that generation over time.

Posted by Kevin at 03:38 PM |

Taguba's Treatment Emblematic of Treatment of Us All

As I read through Sy Hersch's latest article on General Antonio M. Taguba, I became increasingly distressed. In it, he tells the story of how General Taguba, a man with guts and integrity, did everything he could to stop prisoner abuse and see justice served, knowing his investigation could damage his career, and was rewarded by being mocked by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, treated as a pariah by his colleagues, and forced to resign. His experience is, in my opinion, symbolic of this Administration's abuse of America's good name and its disdain for our decency as human beings.

The news about the horrific prisoner abuse scandal broke at the end of April in 2004. A week later, Rumsfeld called Taguba to meet him at the Pentagon. The greeting he received, as described by Hersch, was outrageous:

“Here . . . comes . . . that famous General Taguba—of the Taguba report!” Rumsfeld declared, in a mocking voice. The meeting was attended by Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J.C.S.); and General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, along with Craddock and other officials. Taguba, describing the moment nearly three years later, said, sadly, “I thought they wanted to know. I assumed they wanted to know. I was ignorant of the setting.”

In the meeting, the officials professed ignorance about Abu Ghraib. “Could you tell us what happened?” Wolfowitz asked. Someone else asked, “Is it abuse or torture?” At that point, Taguba recalled, “I described a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum, and said, ‘That’s not abuse. That’s torture.’ There was quiet.”

Rumsfeld told Taguba he had not seen his report or the photographs. Yet Taguba had been briefing senior military leaders on his report for weeks and had submitted more than a dozen copies of it to the Pentagon and Central Command, and senior officials in Rumsfeld's office had known of the abuse – in graphic detail – since January, and done nothing. No one, it appeared, would read the report or look at the photographs. As one lieutenant general told Taguba, "I don’t want to get involved by looking, because what do you do with that information, once you know what they show?" Rumsfeld's primary concern in meeting with Taguba was to find out who leaked the photographs to the press.

The next day, Rumsfeld told the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees that he had no idea the "abuse" was so extensive. "It breaks our hearts that in fact someone didn’t say, ‘Wait, look, this is terrible. We need to do something,’" he said, though that was precisely what Taguba was saying and why he produced his report. Rumsfeld's testimony was actually completely contrary to the truth – they not only knew about the abuse, they also knew it was even worse than what the public had been told (and apparently we still don't know the full extent of what occurred there, as it would be too inflammatory).

Taguba, who was asked to investigate the abuse, was ordered to restrict his investigation to the military police at Abu Ghraib. He was not to look higher up for blame, even though he knew "troops just don't take it upon themselves to initiate what they did without any form of knowledge of the higher-ups. …These M.P. troops were not that creative. Somebody was giving them guidance, but I was legally prevented from further investigation into higher authority. I was limited to a box."

So much about Hersch's report underscores the utter lack of respect by Rumsfeld for American values, but his description of Taguba's father's heroism underscores the quality of individual that Rumsfeld was trampling on:

His father, Tomas, was born in the Philippines and was drafted into the Philippine Scouts in early 1942, at the height of the Japanese attack on the joint American-Filipino force led by General Douglas MacArthur. Tomas was captured by the Japanese on the Bataan peninsula in April, 1942, and endured the Bataan Death March, which took thousands of American and Filipino lives. Tomas escaped and joined the underground resistance to the Japanese before returning to the American Army, in July, 1945.

Taguba himself, a devout Catholic who is described by his peers and superiors as "ethical" and "moral," a man with both "brains and integrity," is an outstanding asset to this country's military:

He led troops at the platoon, company, battalion, and brigade levels at bases in South Korea, Germany, and across America. (He married in 1981, and has two grown children.) In 1986, Taguba, then a major, was selected to attend the College of Naval Command and Staff at the Naval War College, in Newport, Rhode Island. While there, he wrote an analysis of Soviet ground-attack planning that became required reading at the school. He was promoted, ahead of his peers, to become a colonel and then a general. On the way, Taguba earned three master’s degrees—in public administration, international relations, and national-security studies.

“I’ll talk to you about discrimination,” he said one morning, while discussing, without bitterness, his early years as an Army officer. “Let’s talk about being refused to be served at a restaurant in public. Let’s talk about having to do things two times, and being accused of not speaking English well, and having to pay myself for my three master’s degrees because the Army didn’t think I was smart enough. So what? Just work your ass off. So what? The hard work paid off.”

When General Taguba did what was morally right and right for this country and investigated the prisoner abuse scandal, he was thanked by being issued a warning from General John Abizaid: “You and your report will be investigated.” Taguba said he suddenly felt as if he was in the Mafia, rather than in the Army. Former friends in the military would no longer speak to him.

Taguba at that point found himself in a losing situation. As he said, "If I lie, I lose. And, if I tell the truth, I lose." He was transferred to a job in the Pentagon so he could "be watched," according to a retired four-star Army general. His upward momentum had screeched to a halt because he had integrity – and did what he was asked to do.

In January of 2006, Taguba received a telephone call from General Richard Cody, the Army’s Vice-Chief of Staff. “This is your Vice,” he told Taguba. “I need you to retire by January of 2007.” No pleasantries were exchanged, although the two generals had known each other for years, and, Taguba said, “He offered no reason.”

One unnamed former senior intelligence officer said, "the good guys—like Taguba—are gone.” They may be gone from our leadership, but they're not gone from America.

Taguba's experience is emblematic of what this Administration has done to this entire country. The goodness of our people has been stepped all over, treated as if it did not matter, denigrated as being naïve, and discredited in the eyes of the world. It is a travesty on many levels, and we must not allow this attitude to prevail. Americans are not well-represented at this time.

Posted by Becky at 10:36 AM |

June 16, 2007

I Hate Our Health Care System

I am one of those unfortunate members of the middle class who has had to deal with some health problems over the past several years, sometimes with insurance and sometimes without it. I've been dismayed to see how the costs have increased over the years, with patients being bled dry. Twenty years ago, if you had insurance you could go to a doctor, pay a small fee, and get what you needed. Today, health insurance costs an arm and a leg, both up front and after the fact, and you rarely get your money's worth out of it unless you're dealing with a catastrophic event.

Several months ago I had a fairly serious health issue and no insurance. I spent several thousand dollars going to specialists, getting tests done, and paying for prescriptions. I was repeatedly told everywhere I went that since I did not have insurance, I would get a sizeable discount. What an insured person would be charge $400 for, I would be charged $250 or $300 for. And ever single doctor refrained from ordering tests or repeat visits unless they were necessary in an effort to keep my costs down.

A few months ago my employer generously offered to put me and my family on a health insurance plan and cover some of the costs. I couldn't afford to cover all of us, so I just put myself and my kids on the plan. I pay about $700 a month toward the insurance costs for the three of us and my employer picks up the rest. I have a sizeable co-pay and have to cover whatever costs the insurance won't cover.

I took one son in to have moles removed from his face and it turned into a plastic surgery nightmare that we will be dealing with for the next two years with repeated visits in which the doctor simply looks at him and tells us to keep applying the prescription ointment. In addition to paying for the insurance and paying the co-pay for every visit, the insurance never covers the visit cost and I am billed an additional amount every visit that is nothing to laugh at.

I took the other son in for allergy tests, we did the tests, and the doctor continually finds reasons to schedule follow-up visits to see how he's doing. Again, in addition to insurance and co-pay costs I am paying more for every visit. I don't even want to talk about the huge portions of lab work I've had to pay for both boys. My moderate co-pay is really more of a situation in which I end up paying half of an inflated bill on top of a high monthly premium. I used to pay all of a reduced bill and no monthly premium.

I realize now that because of doctors taking advantage of insurance companies to see patients more than they need to and ordering tests they don't really need, and insurance companies shoving as many costs as possible off onto the patients, it is actually costing me more to see a doctor with insurance than without, at least for non-catastrophic care.

Now that I'm facing a resurgence of the health issue I had several months ago I'm looking at all these costs and am about ready to simply go to the doctors I already know and forget about using my health insurance. I can't afford their "help."

Posted by Becky at 11:32 AM |

June 15, 2007

An Example of Good Christian Leadership

A good friend of mine just forwarded to me an outline of a sermon that her pastor intends to preach this weekend and I thought it would be helpful in discussions here to take note of the fact that some fundamentalist Christians out there really do "get" the difference between the sort of Christianity that is negative and unloving and the sort of Christianity that follows the teachings of Christ. These notes point out those differences by comparing so-called "religious people" with "biblical Christians":

Religious people live by rules—biblical Christians live by faith. Religious people live in fear—biblical Christians live in confidence. Religious people shame and condemn—biblical Christians love and disciple. Religious people seek to change others—biblical Christians trust God to change others. Religious people seek to control—biblical Christians submit to God. Religious people work hard to do right—biblical Christians ask God to transform them.

Encouraging to see.

Posted by Becky at 02:22 PM |

Grover Norquist Ought to be Criticizing Bush – But Isn't

Prof. Marjorie Cohn writes about how, through a National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive signed on May 9, 2007, President Bush "quietly issued an unconstitutional bombshell" that places "all governmental power in the hands of the President and effectively abolish[es] the checks and balances in the Constitution." This matter of the establishment of a "unitary executive" is of great concern to a number of people and has been discussed quite extensively over the past month. Basically, the directive is, as Cohn describes, a "blatant power grab" that would allow the President, in the even of virtually any emergency situation, to become a dictator. Her report is a frightening read, to say the least, no matter where you fall along the American political spectrum. In fact, it wasn't all that long ago that close Bush advisor Grover Norquist described the unitary executive theory like this: "you don't have a constitution; you have a king."

Norquist describes himself in such a way as to engender a sense that he is a freedom-loving American patriot, and constantly works to appeal to conservatives by wrapping himself in the Ronald Reagan flag. So one would naturally expect that, upon hearing that the President had just put into place a means by which he can set aside the Constitution and declare himself "king," Grover Reagan Norquist would at least issue some public statement of concern, if not lead his freedom-loving minions in a march on Washington. So I did a bit of looking to see whether Mr. Norquist had issued any such statement. No cigar. No press releases at his website. No comments in interviews. Hmm.

Posted by Becky at 02:06 PM |

Trent Lott to Young Republicans and Talk Radio: Shut Up!

When leaders in the U.S. Senate announced they would revive the comprehensive immigration bill and send it back to the floor before the 4th of July, Republican whip Trent Lott came unglued. "Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem," he said, obviously referring to right-wing talk radio, which is stirring up the grassroots. He went on to say that at some point Republican leaders may try to rein in "younger guys who are huffing and puffing against the bill." Lott has a well-deserved reputation as a very old-school senator. He also has a reputation for wanting to shut the mouths of his fellow Republicans. Just last month, Lott said that following their meeting with President Bush, in which they presented their concerns about the Iraq war, Republicans should have "kept their mouths shut."

Posted by Becky at 12:48 PM |

Rudy's Thirteen Commitments

I almost couldn't believe my eyes for a moment yesterday when I read what Rudy Giuliani is promising in exchange for your vote. His list of "Twelve Commitments to the American People" would be more aptly entitled "Twelve Impossible Promises to Make You Feel Good and One That is True." He says this will "keep the American dream alive" and he plans to travel around the country this summer to explain just how he will actually fulfill his plan. I can't wait to see how he thinks he will get this list done. Anyway, after I thought about it a bit, I wasn't so surprised by this list. Rudy apparently sees trite right-wing political positions as just another dress and wig one can put on for fun and take off later when it's time to get back to work.

His "Twelve Commitments" – I mean "Thirteen" (counting the true one that is not stated, but clearly implied) - are:

1. I will keep America on offense in the Terrorists’ War on Us.

2. I will end illegal immigration, secure our borders, and identify every non-citizen in our nation.

3. I will restore fiscal discipline and cut wasteful Washington spending.

4. I will cut taxes and reform the tax code.

5. I will impose accountability on Washington.

6. I will lead America towards energy independence.

7. I will give Americans more control over, and access to, healthcare with affordable and portable free-market solutions.

8. I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions, and protect the quality of life for our children.

9. I will reform the legal system and appoint strict constructionist judges.

10. I will ensure that every community in America is prepared for terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

11. I will provide access to a quality education to every child in America by giving real school choice to parents.

12. I will expand America’s involvement in the global economy and strengthen our reputation around the world.

13. I will continuously blow smoke up your ass.

Ankle Biting Pundits offers a right-wing response. Some highlights:

It's good that unlike the Democrats, he's not just using the phrase "making us safe," but telling us straight up he’s going to do it by staying on “offense” and being pro-active, rather than falling into the September 10th mindset that all the Democrats are pushing. You never hear about them discussing “staying on offense”, but rather, talk about rebuilding coalitions, working with the UN, and other such meaningless nonsense. …

I hope he’s considering cutting taxes even lower than Bush, and refusing to sign any bill that puts higher tax rates back in place, or promises to fight like hell to stop any “sunsetting” of the existing rates. …

I’d feel much better if he mentioned something like “opening ANWR”, allowing more offshore drilling, building nuke plants, etc. … I think he’s talking more about Kyoto-like regulations and other onerous regulatory burdens that are going to kill our economy. …

He’s talking the talk on appointing strict constructionists, but in the last debate he said he “looked to the Constitution” in coming to his pro-abortion viewpoint. I could care less whether he’s personally in favor of abortion or not -but there’s no way he can reconcile the Constitutionality of Roe with his alleged promise to appoint strict constructionists. It’s just diametrically opposite viewpoints, and has consequences far beyond the issue of abortion. …

And it’s good to expose the Democrats and the teacher’s unions as frauds that are afraid of competition. The only people I ever met that were afraid of competition were people who knew that they were going to lose.

Grumpy Lion's response is more like my own:

We don’t need an ‘offense’. It’s not a football game. We need a coordinated program involving the FBI and foreign police agencies, American and foreign intelligence agencies, good working arrangements with governments around the world, and rational leadership in America that doesn’t seek political gain every day by telling us to be afraid. …

You’ll cut moneys that help people, that improve our country, that bring our people together and actually build a stronger America. As for fiscal discipline, forget it. The Republicans (that’s your party, Rudy, and your President) have so trashed the economy that the only thing you can do is cut good social programs. You sure as hell won’t tax your rich friends. …

How the hell are you going to pay for anything by cutting taxes? Be serious. You’ve got a military that eats up going on a trillion a year. How are you going to pay for that? Donations? Bell ringers on street corners? You want to play macho man with the guns and the bombs, but haven’t the guts to be a real man and face the real problems. …

Healthcare is not a free marketplace. Sick people don’t shop for doctors. … We want health care, not health insurance. But you won’t hear that because you’re going to be too busy taking money from the insurance industry and the drug makers. …

Yeah, that’s a good one - don’t tell the kids about sex and they’ll never figure it out. Republicanism at its finest. How are you going to increase adoptions? Throw government money (our taxes, which you want less of) at childless couples? Paint black kids white? Make people adopt kids by force of law? …

How about you give us judges who refuse to carry ideology into the courtroom? Who live in the real world? Who understand how the law affects real people? Who are willing to tell you to go frig yourself, in legal terms? Who haven’t made up their minds in the eighteenth century? Who understand that change is constant and is not evil? Obviously you won’t find many Republican judges like that, so maybe we’ll be stuck with ideologues like Scalia and Thomas and Roberts and Alito who will gleefully take us back to the glorious times before Magna Carta. …

Tell us why the firefighters can’t stand you, Rudy. Tell us about your ego locating disaster command central in the target that was the World Trade Center. Tell us about the non-communicating radios you refused to do anything about after the 1993 attack on WTC. Tell us exactly what you did at 9/11, other than make some television appearances. Go on, Rudy, tell us again how great you are. …

Instead of working on improving public education, you want to hand out government money (from those taxes you’re going to cut, perhaps?) so people can haul their kids into private schools, mostly religious ones actually, that don’t guarantee any better education than is available in a good public school.

Keeping America "on the offense" (1) means more preemptive strikes and more war and a worse reputation around the world (12). From beginning to end, Rudy is doing nothing but spouting mindless rhetoric to make the right-wing happy. I wonder whether he'll change his dress, I mean stance once the primary is over.

Posted by Becky at 10:54 AM |

June 14, 2007

Wingers React to the Fact We're a Progressive Nation

Here's something insightful. If you want a good look at how garden-variety conservatives are reacting today to the news that Media Matters and Center for American Progress discovered America is a progressive country, read the comments on the post about it today on Free Republic. Here is a sample of the most delightfully ignorant and knee-jerk among them. If you're like me, you'll find yourself shaking your head at first, and becoming increasingly flabbergasted at the ignorance.

- "This is what happens when you don’t vote."

Huh?

- "Progressive, as applied to politics today, means half way past socialist on the way to full communism. I wish that they would quit using the term... ‘progressives’ do everything they can to PREVENT progress. The only thing progressive that they actually like are progressively confiscatory taxes."

- "IMO this article is pure Horse crud. The group is looking at statistics generated by sleight-of-hand tactics of the Left, and not seeing the core beliefs of the populace, or as most Leftist organizations are outright lying. If the American populace is so supportive of the Leftist agenda, then why are the Democrats so urgently in need of dirty tricks such as dead peoples, pets, Illegals, etc. votes to get elected?"

- "That’s why the dems had to run “conservative” canidates to get them elected.."

Double-huh?

- "But the left still fights tooth ‘n nail to keep homosexual marriage decisions away from voters...the Amnesty For Criminal Mexicans bill caused a vicious voter backlash...liberals must act like children to make some ridiculous point about FOX News...Rush Limbaugh is still the most popular radio host on the planet...High-tax “blue” states are bleeding citizens...Our military is still in Iraq...George W. Bush’s liberalism has wrecked his presidency...Air America Radio is still a punchline...CBS, NBC, PBS, and ABC news divisions have smaller audiences than Public Access...and Hollywood is having to beg people to come see their leftist entertainment."

- "Of course, the left relies on the courts to move America to the left, since just about every time there's a vote between leftist and conservative values, for example, 'same sex marriage,' the conservative side wins the election, and the left goes running to the courts to have the election overturned. So, I suppose that in a way they're right... As time goes on, and the American society becomes more authoritarian, being ruled by judges and lawyers, it is becoming more 'progressive.' Eventually, they'll just put the conservatives in gulags, perfecting society. After all, it worked so well in the Soviet Union."

- "Maybe these 'polls' and 'studies' are correct... If so, they reflect the growing ignorance in the country (or the growing 'stupidification' of the boomers through gen-X, Y, etc.) that they policies that Media Matters and the Center for American Progress (or whatever that left org. is) support and defend HAVE NEVER WORKED! That’s the one problem with the Democrats and their platforms: the policies have been shown to be wrong ALL THE TIME!"

- "Wonder why they didn't poll to see what Americans think about a one-party system, the progressive one, of course?"

If the problems with these statements aren't apparent to you, then say so and I'm sure someone here will be happy to enlighten you.

Posted by Becky at 05:22 PM |

The Pope Thinks Torture is Better than Abortion

When you think of all the various groups in the world working to protect living human beings and respecting life, few stand out as much as Amnesty International. The group is deeply concerned with protecting human rights and has brought to the public's attention some of the most egregious abuses, as well as worked tirelessly to end them. One would expect a Christian organization to heed the words of Jesus and support such efforts whole-heartedly. If so, one would be disappointed. Because the Vatican is urging all Catholics around the world to stop giving money to Amnesty International immediately.

The reason is that the group is supporting "the rights of women and girls to be free from threat, force or coercion as they exercise their sexual and reproductive rights." Specifically, Amnesty says that women have a right to choose abortion in cases of rape or incest.

Defending the right of women to sexual and reproductive integrity in the face of grave human rights violations, Amnesty International recently incorporated a focus on selected aspects of abortion into its broader policy on sexual and reproductive rights. These additions do not promote abortion as a universal right and Amnesty International remains silent on the rights and wrongs of abortion.

"Amnesty International’s position is not for abortion as a right but for women’s human rights to be free of fear, threat and coercion as they manage all consequences of rape and other grave human rights violations," clarified Kate Gilmore.

Cardinal Renato Martino described the Vatican's position thus: Abortion is "murder" --

"And to justify it selectively, in the event of rape, that is to define an innocent child in the belly of its mother as an enemy, as 'something one can destroy'."

So there you have it. The "infallible" Pope says if a woman is raped in the course of the devastation of her village and murder of everyone she knows by some marauding band of militants, and she gets pregnant, she must bear that child. Or if an 11-year-old girl is raped by her father, even though the baby has a 50% chance of having some sort of developmental or other physical problem as a result of the narrow gene pool involved, and even though that little girl will be emotionally devastated by the experience, she still must go through the birth of that baby. Because that's what God wants. And apparently, God wants that more than he wants people to stop being tortured or enslaved or trafficked in the child sex industry.

See, here's where atheist scientists and their knowledge of when conscious life actually begins could really come in handy and maybe even help to save the world.

Posted by Becky at 04:54 PM |

Impending End of Oil Threatens More than Mobility

In an article in the U.K. Independent, which I know some conservatives would tell you is a left-wing paper, an article today discusses the potentially much-shorter than predicted duration of the world's remaining oil reserves. How to replace that stuff we buy at the gas pump is frightening enough, but what really struck me is that while everyone is talking about alternative energy sources like coal, natural gas, hydrogen, biofuels, and "nukular" energy, all of which have major problems of their own, nobody is really talking about how we'll replace oil in all its other applications.

The article lists the ways we use oil today. As you read through it, imagine a world in which we not only cannot drive anywhere we want, whenever we want (to an extremely mobile society such as ours, this represents a tremendous cultural change), but we also have to deal with these issues:

The importance of black gold

* A reduction of as little as 10 to 15 per cent could cripple oil-dependent industrial economies. In the 1970s, a reduction of just 5 per cent caused a price increase of more than 400 per cent.

* Most farming equipment is either built in oil-powered plants or uses diesel as fuel. Nearly all pesticides and many fertilisers are made from oil.

* Most plastics, used in everything from computers and mobile phones to pipelines, clothing and carpets, are made from oil-based substances.

* Manufacturing requires huge amounts of fossil fuels. The construction of a single car in the US requires, on average, at least 20 barrels of oil.

* Most renewable energy equipment requires large amounts of oil to produce.

* Metal production - particularly aluminium - cosmetics, hair dye, ink and many common painkillers all rely on oil.

It might be a good idea to sit down at the feet of Grandma and Grandpa before they're gone and find out how they managed to survive before oil had saturated every fiber of our existence.

Posted by Becky at 04:39 PM |

Teachers Have a Huge Impact on Kids

Most teachers seem to recognize that they have the power to seriously impact children's lives. Once in awhile, they forget that. A story that has hit the headlines today illustrates what I mean. A boy, who was not the best student and probably your typical disruptive sixth grade boy, was humiliated by his teachers in front of the entire school when, at an end-of-the-year awards ceremony, he was called up front and handed two certificates, complete with his teachers' signatures: "Most Likely Not To Have Children" and "Sir Clowns-a-Lot." The boy stood there humiliated as the teachers and students all laughed at him. It remains to be seen whether the teachers will recognize the needlessly painful and harmful lesson they taught that boy.

It could be that the teachers thought they were being funny and that the boy would realize that. My own son had a somewhat similar experience last year in 5th grade. I noticed shortly after the school year began that he had changed. He was depressed a lot and his normal bubbly zest for life had disappeared. I sat him down to find out what was wrong and learned that his teacher had taken to calling him by a nickname that was a play on his name indicating that he required a lot of her attention (I won't expose him by telling you the nickname, but it was pretty upsetting). My son is one of those incredibly bright and creative kids who has trouble staying focused and remembering what he's supposed to be doing at any given time, so I could understand her frustration, but she did not realize how much she was hurting him. When I talked to her about it she told me she thought it was funny. I explained to her that he did not see the humor in it, and neither did I. She thought he should lighten up and wouldn't take responsibility for the situation.

As the year went on it became clear she simply had a personality conflict with my son. She did not like him. As a result, my son's entire year was very difficult on him. His classmates even picked up on her attitude and constantly put him down, something that had never happened to him before. His natural friendliness began to be interpreted as geekiness. Changing classes wasn't an option, so I found myself spending a good deal of time working him through the issue. It wasn't fair.

This year, my son had a teacher who was herself very creative and easily distracted. She took to him immediately and encouraged his creativity. Throughout the year I watched him slowly transform back into the boy I knew, gaining confidence and regaining stature among his classmates. Toward the end of the school year, the kids were divided into groups and assigned stories of various Greek gods and goddesses that they had to turn into plays and perform for the class. My son's play was hilarious and his classmates and teacher all loved it. His own delightful sense of humor broke down the last remaining barriers between him and his classmates and he was finally back on track. The last day of school, his teacher held an "Oscar" awards ceremony for the class and gave my son two awards – "Best Actor" and "Best Playwrite." Those are the sorts of awards that mean something to a kid. The positive impact she has had on his life is something for which I will be eternally grateful.

Every class is going to have some kids who aren't into school, who challenge authority, who can't focus, who want to make everything a joke, or who are dealing with personal problems that make it difficult for them to function in the classroom environment. Teachers need to be adult about it and be sensitive to the needs of those kids.

I remember one really successful example of a teacher I had who turned things around for a "problem kid" in my 8th grade class. Charlie was very disruptive. He couldn't sit still. He wanted to be the center of attention. He had been the bane of his teachers' existence for years. My teacher recognized right away that this was a problem that needed to be addressed immediately. So she made a deal with Charlie. She put his desk right up front against the wall, put a picture of a castle on the wall above the desk with the words "Charlie's Castle" on it, and reserved that desk for Charlie. When he was in class he was allowed to sit on his desk, even though the rest of the class had to sit in their chairs. This made Charlie feel special, which is what he needed, so he liked the teacher and cooperated with her. The rest of us were more than happy to let him have this special treatment because it meant he quit disrupting everything and we all could get on with learning. I will bet that to this day, Charlie remembers that teacher fondly and that his life was greatly improved by the fact that she found a way to respect him and win his cooperation.

Teachers are incredibly important elements of childhood development. When parents notice things aren't right, as in the case of the boy who received the insulting awards, they need to get involved and demand changes. And when teachers are doing the right thing and rewarding kids, they also need to be praised and supported.

As a final note, I would say that any adult is in a position to have a very positive or a very negative impact on a kid's life. Each of us needs to be aware of how important it is to nurture the young people in our society, as well as provide the support and appreciation needed to those adults whose careers are dedicated to focusing on the development of our children.

Posted by Becky at 12:24 PM |

June 13, 2007

Stuff that cramps by brain

I'm woefully behind on my PK writings..mostly trying to keep my head above water in pieces I'm doing for Loaded Orygun. But I wanted to make sure to point readers to a couple of really interesting things I've come across recently.

First is this piece by Chuck Currie posing an interesting question: John 14:6: Is Jesus The Only Path To God?

Currie's question is based the scripture: Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. – John 14:6 (NRSV)

Currie cites some interesting material that questions the premise that God can only be reached through Jesus Christ.

Also, the folks at Media Matters recently published a study showing that there is a definite lack of balance when it comes to representing Christianity in the media.

The study found that the conservative brand of Christianity is overwhelmingly overrepresented in media covereage as opposed to progressive Christianity.

I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing--but the premise sounds to me like its fascinating.

Posted by Carla at 01:47 PM |

Science: The Rejected Savior of the World

Chuck Colson, of Watergate fame, preached this weekend at a gathering of Southern Baptist pastors, railing against two dire threats: Islamo-fascism and militant atheism. Colson called Islamo-fascism "evil incarnate" (after a slip of the tongue in which he stopped himself mid-sentence: "Islam is a vicious, evil …") and the work of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris "a virulent strain of atheism which seeks to destroy our belief system." As I read that, I thought it might be interesting to look at what Dawkins and Harris have said that have Colson so upset. What I concluded is that Colson is framing his argument as a matter of opposition to religious extremism, when in reality it is about promoting his own brand of religious extremism over another.

Sam Harris had an absolutely enthralling debate back in April with Colson's fellow Bush-Administration-connected right-wing Christian leader, Rick Warren. In it, Harris said he felt that though many parts of the Bible were "absolutely brilliant and poetically unrivaled," other parts were barbaric and he saw the Bible and the Qur'an both as "just books, written by human beings." Warren said he had never met an atheist who wasn't "quite emotional" and "angry" and characterized Harris's books as "quite angry." Harris said that the appropriate word is "impatient," though throughout the interview, he came off as not only intelligent and well-reasoned, but also very patient, even expressing a profound interest in the spiritual experience. He did admit, however to a certain "stridence" in his writing, which, he implied, is a direct result of concern for the very same sort of religious extremism that alarms Colson:

To some degree the stridence of my writing is an effort to get people's attention. But I can honestly defend the stridence because I think our situation is that urgent. I am terrified of what seems to me to be a bottleneck that civilization is passing through. On the one hand we have 21st-century disruptive technology proliferating, and on the other we have first-century superstition. A civilization is going to either pass through this bottleneck more or less intact or it won't. And perhaps that fear sounds grandiose, but civilizations end. On any number of occasions, some generation has witnessed the ruination of everything they and their ancestors had built. What especially terrifies me about religious thinking is the expectation on the part of many that civilization is bound to end based on prophecy and its ending is going to be glorious.

Richard Dawkins is also very outspoken in his criticism of Christianity – virulent, even. Nicknamed "Darwin's rottweiler," he has focused his research and writing on genetics and natural selection, is quite brilliant and bases his views on science and logic, eschewing faith entirely. Unfortunately for Christians, he makes an intelligent and impassioned case for his belief that creationism is a "preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood" and has inspired many atheists with confidence in their views. Unfortunately for Dawkins, he may be a bit too passionate in his views. Regarding the notion of coexistence of science and religion without conflict, he said it was "a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp," and has said that he is "baffled" by the religious belief of scientists who are sincere Christians.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro would probably disagree. In an interview this week, he said, "If science can disprove some aspect of Judaism, then to hold on to it makes me, I guess, a loyal Jew, but a stupid human being… If my religion says that the world is flat, and I can show a photograph that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the world is round, but as a faithful person I’m going to hold onto the flatness of things, then yea, I’m a faithful idiot." He also said religion should let go of the things science has proven to be false. "If religions depends on clinging to things that we know aren’t true, from a scientific perspective, then what does that say about religion? That it is simply this passionate fear of letting go… So, I think that it’s great that we deconstruct this. I don’t think though, that deconstructing this stuff is the same thing as tossing it out." Very pragmatic. I probably fall somewhere between Shapiro and Harris on this.

Like Harris, Dawkins has something in common with Colson. He holds Islamic religious extremism in contempt. It's just that Dawkins also holds Christian extremism – the theocratic approach (which some would call Christo-fascism) that Colson supports – in contempt, while Colson ignores the irony of his warning about religious extremism to fellow Christians. People like Colson would very much like for current events to be viewed as a matter of the West versus radical Islam, but it is closer to the truth to say that much of the conflict in which this country is engaged is a matter of Christians against all non-Christians, including both Muslims and atheists, and Colson's rhetoric ramps up this conflict. Dawkins might view the world conflict more as reason against religion, and I would agree. Harris patiently clarifies that it is science that offers us hope for transcending tribalism and ending the current collision between Christianity and Islam. If he is correct, and I think he is, then science really is the savior of the world. Sadly, it is still a largely rejected savior.

Enter Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, the man known for having inserted so much faith-based rhetoric into President Bush's speeches. Speaking at a global conference titled "Fact vs. Rumor: Journalism in the 21st Century," Gerson said that "the central problem with this anti-religious [atheist] attitude is this: It would remove the main source of reform -- the main source of passion for justice and change -- in American history." Gerson says that moral relativism results in the strong imposing their will upon the weak.

Harris, on the other hand, says atheism is not about moral relativism and says he believes "there is an absolute right and wrong." He says, "Empathy and compassion are our most basic moral impulses, and we can even teach the golden rule without lying to ourselves or our children about the origin of certain books or the virgin birth of certain people."

The core problem for me is divisive dogmatism. There are many kinds of dogmatism. There's nationalism, there's tribalism, there's racism, there's chauvinism. And there's religion. Religion is the only sphere of discourse where dogma is actually a good word, where it is considered ennobling to believe something strongly based on faith…

Our morality, the meaning we find in life, is a lived experience that I believe has, to use a loaded term, a spiritual component. I believe it is possible to radically transform our experience of the world for the better, very much the way someone like Jesus, or someone like Buddha, witnessed. There is wisdom in our spiritual, contemplative literature, and I am quite interested in understanding it. I think that meditation and prayer affect us for the better. The question is, what is reasonable to believe on the basis of those transformations?

If anyone ever figures that out, I hope they'll let me know. In the mean time, with such low tolerance in America for atheism and science-based thinking, I think the odds that reason will prevail over dogma any time in the near future are fairly slim.

Posted by Becky at 01:15 PM |

June 12, 2007

I Don't Hate Them for Being Wrong

A response posted by "Ross" on one of my earlier entries about Freedomworks this week has me thinking about the nature of debate, the shading of facts, preconceived ideas, and ulterior motives. In my piece, I had listed some of the efforts in which Freedomworks is engaged around the country and pointed out that the efforts were funded by corporations to advance corporate interests, but that they were being "sold" to voters as being grassroots-oriented in nature. Ross didn't see it my way at all.

Becky, let me tell you-

You are absolutely, completely, inescapably ignorant.

Your ability to find secret schemes and cover-ups in benign business and politics is unparalleled.

Groups like this one are working for cable choice because the current socialistic regime is such that only large corporations have the time, money, and manpower to circle the state, gaining franchise rights from EVERY city, town, and municipality. As we've seen in Texas, Ohio, and other states that have passed similar laws, IT WORKS. People in small towns and in rural areas do, in fact, get cable- why would a corporation neglect an ENTIRE segment of the population? They're not going to turn down money!

You are too busy trying to find secret Republican plots to think logically and look at the FACTS.

Next time, get your facts straight before you blow out your inane rhetoric.

Oh yeah, Gore and his cronies ARE hypocrites. Kyoto is a bunch of crap that will have a negligible effect upon the environment while destroying the economy. Again, look at the FACTS

Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute wrote a great book: "Al Gore's Science Fiction." It details all of the data that Gore mis-cites or uses incorrectly.

Now if "Ross" is who I think he is, I know he is an intelligent person who is widely respected on the Right for his knowledge, though not a person that one would consider to be a right-wing hack. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that.

There was at time when I would have been terribly bothered by someone calling me "absolutely, completely, inescapably ignorant," not to mention illogical. It used to be, back when I was being a good girl and believing what good Republicans were supposed to believe, as opposed to figuring things out for myself, that if someone challenged my beliefs and sounded rational, I would melt into a puddle of self-doubt. I didn't understand the basis for that belief system, and when challenged, I often realized that my natural response didn't fit with the belief system I was touting. My soul was in conflict with my professed beliefs. When I let go of my formulaic belief system, I got to where I believed almost anything that sounded the least bit reasonable, at least for awhile, until I ran into something that contradicted it, and then I was off on a whole new tangent. Over time, I figured out what I really believed and who I was – I found my sea legs, and now being called names for what I think doesn't bother me anymore.

Whether someone is right-wing or left-wing or somewhere in-between, they look at the world through a particular shade of lenses and see a particular set of facts, from which they deduce particular logical conclusions. Ross knows his facts and believes his conclusions are correct. I know my facts and believe my conclusions are correct. And there are those who think that both Ross and I are delusional because they know other facts. I believe we all have part of the truth, but only by working together can we see the bigger picture, which is why partisan bickering and name-calling and hate and fear are so destructive.

I happen to think that Ross is believing what Freedomworks tells him because the message fits with his free market philosophy. He doesn't have reason to question it. He isn't bothered by the corporate profiteering and perhaps doesn't recognize the amount of effort that liberals have undertaken to make certain that the poor people are adequately served in our society. Or maybe he doesn't acknowledge it because it isn't important in his belief system. Whatever the reason, he and I could argue all day and I believe in the end we would each maintain our positions. I like to think I would actually be listening to him and that his facts would flesh out my facts and help me develop a more rational point of view. I think that is what would happen. I doubt very much that he would be inclined to accept the idea that the profit motives on the part of the corporations that back and control Freedomworks are particularly important or that people like Russ Walker, who means well but is himself ill-equipped intellectually to recognize his real role, merely provide a convenient façade behind which these corporate interests can work to manipulate the system. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I am and I haven't seen evidence to contradict what I believe.

Debates between opponents often end up like this, with the participants talking right past each other. As one individual noted in describing a Republican debate in May:

As I watched it, and even more as I listened to the spinners in the spin room afterwards it became clear that none of the candidates was even remotely engaging in a real debate. They simply decided instead to talk past each other with lengthy recitations of talking points and stump speeches. Whether they were talking about the war, abortion, the Democrats, religion or anything else I don't believe anyone said anything that he had not already said dozens of times on the stump in the last few months.

It is a problem that inflicts the entire spectrum of political debate. A recent study found that members of both major parties had a tendency to make decisions without letting the facts get in the way. In fact, the study found, people actually get a "rush" from ignoring opposing views. When people are watching information that is threatening to their preferred candidates – and one might easily presume the same holds true when they are reading position pieces or news reports about pet issues – the portions of the brain associated with reasoning stay quiet and the portions of the brain associated with emotion and conflict resolution light up.

The test subjects on both sides of the political aisle reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted...

Then, with their minds made up, brain activity ceased in the areas that deal with negative emotions such as disgust. But activity spiked in the circuits involved in reward, a response similar to what addicts experience when they get a fix...

Notably absent were any increases in activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most associated with reasoning. …

Both Republicans and Democrats consistently denied obvious contradictions for their own candidate but detected contradictions in the opposing candidate.

It is absolutely maddening to observe this behavior in someone of a different political persuasion, and it is the reason why I rarely engage in debates with anyone face-to-face unless I truly do not care whether I ever see them again. It is also why I am fairly easy-going about the fact that so many of my former colleagues think I've lost my mind. I am quite certain that if I was in their shoes, I would think the same thing.

But back to the matter of conflicting facts, because really that is where it all gets very tricky. What does a person do when confronted with a situation such as this debate over the true intent behind Freedomworks and the facts seem to be contradictory? According to another recent study, when someone is forced to make a decision based on little or conflicting evidence, they are likely to respond emotionally and illogically. The response is really similar to the deer in the headlights – we freeze up. We melt into a puddle.

The only way to avoid this problem is to get more facts. To do that, we have to be willing to accept the notion that we might actually be very wrong about something. We have to be willing to give another person's ideas a serious chance. It drives my husband crazy, but I often "try on" other philosophies for a few days, let them sink in, study them, and see if they fit. Sometimes I'll keep a little of it, where it makes sense; other times, I realize it doesn't. But I come out of the experiment understanding why it doesn't fit and better equipped to talk about it intelligently.

I'm not above admitting that I have a bias just like everyone else. We all engage in self-delusion and I don't see why I should be any different. But I do try to understand the truth and separate fact from hyperbole. People like Ross probably have a lot of facts up their sleeves. Rather than hold them there and tell others they are ignorant, which does no one any good at all, they should engage fully in the debate and share their information without worrying about whether someone calls them names. Step up and let's see what you've got. Maybe you'll change someone else's mind, or maybe they'll change yours. Or maybe even the best thing of all will happen – maybe we'll see that those with whom we disagree have also done their homework, and as we gain a better understanding of each other we will start looking for ways to work together instead of looking for ways to push each other out of the way.

By the way, my title is tongue-in-cheek. Just in case you were offended.

Posted by Becky at 02:57 PM |

One Black Man is OK, Two is Too Much?

Barack Obama's recent advisory sessions with Collin Powell have a number of people wondering about whether the two might become running mates. For instance, over at Daily Kos the question is being asked, "Why NOT Powell?"

As far as the general election, Obama-Powell might conjure up images of sugarplum fairies in the minds of independents and some Republicans alike. A ticket with elements of appeal to the left, center, and even right is certainly a topic worthy of speculation for a candidate whose whole campaign is about transcending ideology.

My first thought was similar, but then a conservative friend of mind popped out with a comment that really blew my mind. An Obama-Powell ticket would be "too black" and American voters would never go for it.

It blew my mind for several reasons. The first shock came in realizing that both men were black. Until the comment was made, that fact actually had not occurred to me. The second shock came in realizing that my friend not only noticed it, but also thought it was too great an obstacle for the men to overcome. The third shock came in thinking that perhaps racism was more intransigent than I realized.

This conversation came on the heels of an incident that occurred two weeks ago, in which an elderly member of the family, one whom my children love and respect, used the "N" word in front of them. They came to me utterly horrified. I suppose it was a good thing for them to see how recently our efforts as a nation to overcome racism really began and to understand how racism was so deeply ingrained in our culture that it was not even questioned. The incident also gave me a chance to talk to them about how far we have come in just three generations. We have moved from a point at which racism was openly accepted to one at which many children today honestly do not experience it. But we obviously have more work to do. Most voters are old enough to remember when blatant racism was an acceptable behavior, and many still, consciously or unconsciously, are racist. I wish I could say I am not, but I grew up in a racist culture and still catch myself in it more than I care to admit.

A CNN poll back in December found that most Americans still see racism as a lingering problem and many know people who are racist. But few of us will admit to being racist ourselves, though some researchers believe it is likely that 80% of white Americans are. Gallup has been tracking intolerance since 1937. One of the questions it has asked is, "If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be black, would you vote for that person?" In 1937, only 37% would have voted for a black candidate. By 1978, the number had increased to 77%. In 1999, 95% of Americans said they would be willing to support a black candidate of their party. But do Americans really know their own minds? Would they tell the pollster one thing and do another, thereby exhibiting a sort of closet racism?

It seems they will. Pew Research released a report in February of this year in which they said that "the expression of racist attitudes is less socially acceptable now than in the past. This may lead some people to tell pollsters that they are more tolerant than they actually are." As proof of this idea, they looked at several elections in which black candidates did significantly better in pre-election polls than they did at the polls. Over the past decade, however, the differences between polls and election results is slimming down dramatically.

In November of last year, the Washington Post printed a fascinating article that asked whether Americans were ready to put a black man into the Oval Office. It looked at the emotions that might lead Americans to support Barack Obama and, I think, it was dead-on accurate:

Most Americans want to believe that the culture has moved past its racial problems, and that the symbol of that progress would be widely cheered…. Whatever racism remains in this country, it coexists with a galloping desire to put that old race stuff behind us, to have a national Goodbye to All That moment. … [Obama] symbolizes the possibility of a more modern America.

But I am still haunted by my friend's statement. Is it possible that we're OK with a black president so long as he has a good white guy to help him out, but that if we're looking at two black men, well that is just too much? I hope not. I really, really hope not.

Posted by Becky at 11:34 AM |

June 11, 2007

Only Barack Obama Seems to Actually Get It

In reading Chuck Raasch's editorial today, I was struck by the feeling that ever since the Democrats decided to stake out some territory of their own in the area of religion, thereby giving religious liberals a legitimate voting choice, many in the media are beginning to believe that religion must be really, really important to a lot of voters. And I just don't think that's true. All the polling is showing a decreased level of religious fervor across the country, despite a broad basic belief in God, so unless I'm missing something, most people aren't primarily motivated to vote based on a candidate's mastery of religious code words or their sincerity of belief. Yet all the candidates are being asked to talk about it and more and more people are writing about the candidates' religious beliefs. Only Barack Obama seems to understand what we're actually looking for.

Raasch believes the widespread coverage of the matter is reflective of Americans' priorities:

The rising prominence of religion and faith in politics is no accident. It's part of a broader spiritual and political yearning that candidates, pollsters and journalists are struggling to grasp. The candidate who answers with the most authenticity could be the next president of the United States.

The most consequential presidential elections are the culmination of something far bigger than tactical decisions, debate performances or the latest polls.

In 1980, there was a yearning for a rekindled American pride, and along came Ronald Reagan. In 1992, Americans sought someone who could acknowledge their economic worries, and the Great Empathizer, Bill Clinton, answered.

In 2000, Americans sensed an end to the go-go years of the 1990s and saw, in George W. Bush, a new kind of conservative who promised to restore honor and dignity to the presidency.

Leading into 2008, polls show 4 out of 5 Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. Conditions are overripe for a new kind of connectedness, one that transcends politics as usual, one that re-assures Americans there is a way beyond the troubling headlines of war, terrorism and their country's sullied image abroad.

I will agree that Americans are hungry for a "new kind of connectedness," but I'm not sure that connectedness is some unifying religion. I think Americans are as tired of the partisan bickering and hatemongering as they are of this war. I think the reason we got Bush in the first place (outside the whole election-stealing matter) was that he promised to be a moderate that would bring people together. And I think what shot Barack Obama to the front of the pack was his speech at the Democratic Convention, in which he dismissed the notion of "red" and "blue" states, saying instead that we all have values we share regardless of political party.

For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga.

A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that's what this election is about.

Obama strikes one as a person who can bring us all back together, not into one religion, but as one nation. In fact, I'd personally like to see him take the color purple as his campaign color (red + blue = purple) and really focus on that theme. I'd happily place a purple ribbon on my car.

Raasch points to the focus on faith on Obama's website as proof of his thesis:

One of the most conspicuous join-up features on Obama's campaign Web site is "faith-action-change." Click the invite and you'll hear Obama supporters' testimonials about how their faith guides them.

I think Obama has no choice but to do that in light of all of the anti-Muslim sentiment and the disinformation about his own Muslim upbringing (not) that has been circulated. Raasch also points to Mitt Romney's religious statements:

In a Republican debate here Tuesday night, ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney defended his Mormon faith by stating: "I believe in God, believe in the Bible, believe Jesus Christ is my savior. . . . I believe that the freedoms of man derive from inalienable rights that were given to us by God."

Again, we have a candidate who is being forced to address the religion issue because of widespread prejudice and concern about his religion, but that is not the same thing as Americans have some real need for a unifying religion.

I doubt very much that either the media or the candidates will figure this out, but I hope that at least Obama remembers it and doesn't get himself sidetracked on the pointless race to be the most Christian. That isn't what we're after. We just want to feel good about being Americans again.

Posted by Becky at 03:09 PM |

What's Up With the Prison Book Ban?

Inmates at the federal prison camp in Otisville, NY are suing over the fact that so-called "radical religious texts" have been removed from the prison chapel library (though inmates are allowed to order and read such books on their own). Included in the list of removed books are many Islamic texts and some Christian books, including Harold S. Kushner's best-seller "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." In a delayed response to a 2004 Department of Justice review, prison libraries across the country are being limited to between 100 and 150 books for each religion. The concern is that prisons have "been radicalized by inmates who were practicing or espousing various extreme forms of religion, specifically Islam, which exposed security risks to the prisons and beyond the prisons to the public at large." This is seen as a threat to security at the prisons and perhaps even the entire nation. The same DoJ review also suggested audio and video monitoring of activities inside the chapels to prevent said radicalization.

Though some see the move as a matter of preventing Muslims from obtaining "terrorist training books,", others say preventing violent prisoners from having access to religious materials that preach messages of peace is absurd.

Is this really a crackdown on radical Islam, or is it just another attempt by the government to slowly erode the freedoms enjoyed by Americans, freedom of religion in this case?

If, indeed, a connection has been found between Islamic books and violent extremism in the prison system, then why the banning of some Christian books, as well? Does the Born-Again Bush Administration really see Christianity as extremist? Or is this some Regent University Law School graduate's bungled attempt to satisfy the First Amendment by being content-neutral, in total ignorance of the actual tests involved in Strict Scrutiny under the First Amendment? Obviously, prisoners do not have the same rights as the rest of the citizenry, but they do have First Amendment protection and since the passage of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, the extent of that protection is still unknown, but probably greater than previously believed.

Without a doubt, the state has a compelling interest in preventing radicalization of the inmate population. Terrorist plots by inmates and radical indoctrination texts in prisons are a legitimate concern. In an attempt to address the problem, the FBI and Homeland Security last year urged prisons to take several steps:

- Develop more informants and set up more intelligence units in state prison systems. The FBI is encouraging prison systems to set up their own intelligence units and to work with local agents to share information. The bureau won't say whether it has undercover agents in the nation's prisons.

- Train more prison staff to recognize signs that prisoners are turning to extremist propaganda, sharing radical views, and attempting to convert other inmates.

- Conduct background checks on volunteers and workers to ensure extremist Muslim clerics don't have access to prisoners. "Our concern is not with prison inmates converting to Islam," says Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "For many converts, this religion brings the direction and purpose their lives previously lacked."

I don't see on that list anything about removing religious texts from the prisons.

And I find it interesting that the politically well-connected reborn and reahabilitated Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries wrote an article last September entitled, "What's Hidden in the Shadows: Radical Islam and U.S. Prisons," in which he predicted that "If, God forbid, an attack by home-grown Islamist radicals occurs on American soil, many, if not most, of the perpetrators will have converted to Islam while in prison." Colson works inside the prison system to convert prisoners to Christianity. He says "an especially virulent form of Islam" is spreading through American prisons, that those like himself who work in prisons see it clearly, but that Americans are, in general, "in denial" about it. He says this has coincided with "increased opposition to the one really successful antidote—that is, the presence of Christianity."

If Christianity really is such a benefit to prisoner rehabilitation – and reliable studies would tend to indicate that it is – then why the blanket removal of all religious books from prison chapels? Do they hate Islam that badly that they have decided if Christianity cannot dominate, then no religion can be taught there? Anyone understand what's going on here?

Posted by Becky at 02:19 PM |

I'm Rich!

In a new study out of England, scientists determined how much money could buy a person happiness. They surveyed 10,000 Britons, who answered questions about wealth, health and social relationships, and then rated their happiness on a scale of one (utterly miserable) to seven (euphoric). They then calculated the amount of money it would take to bump a person up from one level on the scale to the next level, as well as how varying life events affected happiness. They used that information to place a dollar value on such things as health, social interactions, etc.

[T]hey found that having excellent health was worth the equivalent of a £304,000-a-year [$600,000] pay rise in how happy it made you feel. Marriage increases happiness levels by the same amount as earning an extra £54,000 [$106,500] a year, although, surprisingly, living together was worth more, at an extra £82,500 [$163,000]. Meanwhile, chatting to your neighbours on a regular basis would make you as happy as getting a £40,000-a-year [$79,000] pay boost.

The scale also works in reverse, however, so that the grief of becoming widowed decreases your satisfaction-with life by the same amount as your salary dropping £200,000 [$395,000] a year.

I don't place a lot of stock in this new study. Not three years ago scientists found a genetic predisposition toward happiness. They also found that wealth levels have a very limited impact on happiness. More important are such things as dopamine levels in the brain. So why would the scientists have been able to find a link between happiness and money? This might well be the answer:

“Happier people seem to have more initiative and productivity at work, and their customers and bosses are more satisfied, which can lead to a raise in pay,” said Frisch, an internationally recognized positive psychology practitioner and researcher. Positive psychology teaches a person how to apply his or her strengths, along with new psychology skills, to specific areas in their life in order to increase their overall happiness.

Nevertheless, considering that my health is back to good ($600,000) and my marriage is awesome ($106,500), and I have good friends to talk to ($79,000), It's no wonder I'm happy. Even though I don't have much money, I'm rich!

Posted by Becky at 12:54 PM |

Those Kids Look Good

My oldest son just graduated from 8th grade. I know, it was only 8th grade, but still it was quite an experience for me. My own 8th grade graduation is still fresh in my mind. But the rapid passage of time must be downright astounding for my grandmother, who graduated from high school 70 years ago and just made the front page of the paper for attending her great-granddaughter's high school graduation. My grandmother is one of only seven of her class who are still living. That great-granddaughter she went to see is the daughter of my favorite cousin, with whom I spent countless hours as a child, and whom I have not seen for almost 15 years, though it seems like yesterday.

The endless march of time and age is something we all must face. I love what this parent wrote about the passage of time and watching a daughter head off to start her own life:

She will soon leave for college. This summer, I know, like the end of all good things, will go quickly. She will live away from home, far enough away that we will have to drive several hours to see her. As hard as this is, nothing should be different. There should be no adjustments or modifications. There should be no hesitation or remorse. It hurts, but it is okay. Everything is just as it should be.

Though time is responsible for all of this, time will also be my friend. It is when I'm immersed in the slower passages of it, when I think and worry and wonder, that I will get used to it all. In these quiet moments I will come to terms. I will remember, and I will smile.

The other day I looked at a photo of my boys when they were two and four. It hangs on my bedroom wall, so I see it every day. But this time I really looked at it. I realized with a sudden gush of longing that I really missed those two beautiful, delightful little boys. Sure, they're still with me and they're fantastic, but those little faces were so precious. It's hard for me when I look back through time because I never treasured anything as much at the time as I should have. I didn't know how precious it was when I had it.

My grandmother is such a smart person. She is an optimist. She would undoubtedly tell me to look forward, and not back, and she is right. Because time isn't traveling backward. Most of the time I do look forward, and the night of my son's 8th grade graduation was one of those times. I looked at him, so happy and smart and full of promise, and I watched his classmates, having fun and cheering for each other with such sincere enthusiasm, and I thought to myself we have a bright future ahead of us with these young people coming along.

Apparently, my grandmother saw the same thing the other night at her great-granddaughter's graduation. After the ceremony, she said, "It's always good to see there's hope for the world. Those kids look good."

Posted by Becky at 10:05 AM |

June 08, 2007

Don't Let Freedomworks Fool You

Freedomworks is spending a fairly decent amount of money in Oregon right now on radio advertisements claiming to be working to protect the rights of everyday Oregonians against the onslaught of the big-government politicians. It's a familiar meme for this organization. But Freedomworks has a lengthy track record of working to advance corporate interests while fooling the public into believing otherwise. With such a track record of sleaze, why should we look favorably at its efforts to "protect" the initiative process?

Sourcewatch gives a bit of history of the efforts of Freedomworks (formerly Citizens for a Sound Economy). They include Social Security privatization, which would put Americans' retirement funds at risk for the benefit of corporations and the banking industry. The group has also had a history of working against consumer-protection regulations of the tobacco industry and the pharmaceutical industry. Common Cause offers further information on the corporate history of this group.

One of the efforts in which Freedomworks has recently been involved is in passing the so-called "Competitive Cable and Video Services Act" in Tennessee. According to Freedomworks, the legislation is about allowing "consumers to have a choice in cable providers by eliminating outdated franchise laws that were written decades ago in a different telecommunications era. Easing competitors' entry into local markets would save consumers millions of dollars annually, create thousands of new jobs and expand the availability of broadband services. When companies compete to provide service, consumers win through more choices, better service, and competitive prices." Just what every freedom-loving American wants to hear, right?

But, as Andrew Beutmueller so eloquently explains, the effort isn't what it seems.

The Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association (TCTA), a trade association for the local cable industry, has warned that the absence of agreements between current cable providers like Comcast, which is the state's majority service provider, and local governments around the region allows new entrants to "cherry-pick neighborhoods for services and effectively discriminate against lower income and rural areas."

Under the existing law, each county and incorporated city can contract franchises with service providers that wish to use local rights-of-way to offer their services. The important aspect of this is the requirement that operators build out and serve the entire community regardless of whether local customers signs up for service or not.

Beutmueller doesn't mince words in his description of Freedomworks' campaigns to "deliberately inflame consumers with patriotic rhetoric" and calls the group an "Astroturf shill" for corporations like AT&T, claiming to be working for the little guy but really working to undo or prevent regulations that protect consumers and the public.

A similar effort by Freedomworks recently occurred in Maine, where the group worked to defeat net neutrality legislation, saying their opponents were trying to regulate the Internet and that net neutrality laws "would open the floodgates to government meddling in a market that is currently competitive and dynamic." Freedomworks Chairman and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey said, "Net Neutrality would serve as a disincentive to broadband deployment and infrastructure upgrades, especially in rural areas." How ironic, considering the cable bill mentioned above would actually harm those rural areas Mr. Armey claims to be so concerned about. As Common Cause explains, net neutrality legislation is designed to "protect the open an democratic nature of the Internet" by preventing the creation of "tiers" or "lanes" of different speeds. Their own information would be delivered quickly to the web surfer, while competitors would have to pay to get their information delivered at a moderate speed. Blogs like this one would be very slow to access.

Let me put in the biggest possible plug right here for our own Senator Ron Wyden, who has been working his rear end off for net neutrality. That's one of the reasons he has won my undying devotion.

Freedomworks has a whole new venture going now in response to the success that Al Gore has had raising awareness of global warming. I'll leave it to you to guess who's hired the Freedomworks whore to provide relief. But the line being fed to everyday, freedom-loving Americans is that the global warming legislation that would provide economic incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would "kill jobs." In case you still haven't figured out who the backers of this effort are, here's another hint: they are also targeting proposed price controls on gasoline and legislation to roll back domestic energy production and exploration (as in ANWR). They've unveiled a delightful new website designed 'specially to make Gore, et al look like a bunch of hypocrites: www.Goracle.org. It's just part of a multi-million dollar effort to convince people that ruining the planet is better than ruining oil revenues.

With all of this activity going on, why on earth would Freedomworks be funding an effort to stop reforms of the initiative process that are designed to prevent big out-of-state interests from using it to fool us into voting for things that are not in our best interests? Hmm. I wonder.

Posted by Becky at 02:14 PM |

June 07, 2007

Those Hateful, Angry Liberals!

A sudden burst of concern seems to have suddenly popped up about angry, hateful liberals. I first noticed it this morning with Matt Drudge's link to a self-pitying editorial by Joe Klein in Time ("Beware the Bloggers' Bile"). But as I read the news today I found several other stories and editorials with similar themes.

In his editorial, Joe Klein, who published a story this week with glaring inaccuracies and didn't correct those inaccuracies all day, mopes about how unfair it was that "a number of left-wing bloggers" accused him of screwing up, awarded him "Wanker of the Day," and called him a "water boy for the right wing," along with "many other riffs unfit to print." Waaaah! And that's not the only abuse that poor little Joey has had to endure.

This is not the first time this kind of free-range lunacy has been visited upon me. Indeed, it happens, oh, once a week to each of us who post on Swampland (Karen Tumulty, Jay Carney and Ana Marie Cox are the others). A reasonable reader might ask, Why are the left-wing bloggers attacking you? Aren't you pretty tough on the Bush Administration? Didn't you write a few months ago that George W. Bush would be remembered as one of the worst Presidents in history? And why on earth does any of this matter?

The self-pity just oozes off the screen.

Maybe Klein is new to the interactive, extremely raw human format of the Internet. It's both a blessing and a curse. I myself have been active on listservs, etc., for almost 14 years and I learned a long time ago about the hazards of speaking one's mind a little too bluntly when the faces on the other end aren't visible. When I found my own acrid comments quoted in a research paper on the toxic nature of internet discussions I was quite embarrassed and vowed to remember that human beings were actually involved. Nevertheless, human emotions get the best of everyone and if you want people to read and react to what you have written, sometimes crossing the line a bit will get people's attention. Klein really should know that, but apparently doesn't.

Klein decries the drowing out of "smart stuff" by "a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere." And I think that comment is what upsets me the most. I read a lot of blogs and a lot of blog comments, and I am simply not seeing that. If someone can't take some rough comments in response to their statement of opinion, then they ought to just sit down and shut up. We're all getting berated from time to time, and in fact that very rancor that so discomfits Klein is crucial in forcing bloggers and commenters to sharpen their arguments, link to their cites, and do their job properly. This response to Klein's post is a good example of what I'm talking about, though I don't doubt Klein will feel it is just another barrage of "spitballs" being thrown his way.

Klein says he is concerned that "left-liberals" are in "danger" of making an "odious, disdainful" tone that could become the voice of the Democratic establishment the way that tone has become the voice of the Republican establishment because of people like Rush Limbaugh. It seems to me that to say that is to fail completely to understand the liberal mind. Now any time a blanket statement is made, someone will be able to find numerous examples of where it does not apply, but in general, I have found that liberals are much more likely to be interested in in-depth discussion and debate, and to be willing to tolerate divergent perspectives than conservatives. Moreover, they have far greater reason to be angry right now than I think conservatives have ever had and still, so far as I'm seeing, are more civil, well-informed and open-minded in debates on various blogs.

The next post on liberal anger that I saw this morning was by Chris Kelly at The Huffington Post, where he writes about Dennis Prager and his assertion that "leftists" are angry and hateful. Prager's proof is a bumper sticker that reads "Buck Fush." Kelly's editorial is so angry and hateful that he actually resorts to calling Prager a "dope." Oh, my.

Prager's column contains some hilarious inadvertent irony, most notably in his statement that "leftists," in saying such things as "Buck Fush," "have little or no belief in the concept of 'decency' as traditionally understood by Western civilization..." Equally ironic is his assertion that "leftists" who would use a mock profanity like that have "contempt for society," and are narcissistic, as opposed to those like himself who have been "blessed with common sense." Prager says that "leftist anger – make that hatred – of its opponents is probably the greatest politically inspired hatred in the country." Even the right-wing Clinton-haters never stooped to such lows as to put "Cuck Flinton" bumper stickers on their car. Could it be because they weren't clever enough? Or is that an angry leftist thing for me to say?

Then there's a really ignorant editorial from some nit-wit named Chuck Morse, "Why Do Liberals Hate Bush?," that you just have to read to believe.

Finally, not to be left out, Fox is also attacking liberals. Yesterday, the matter of the Democratic presidential candidates refusing to participate in a debate on Fox came to a head again after Fox News CEO Roger Ailes said at an awards show that "The candidates that can’t face Fox, can’t face Al Qaeda. And that’s what’s coming." This follows Bill O'Reilly's comparison of the candidates to Nazis who "lie, distort, defame, all the time" using "propaganda techniques perfected by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of information." In response to justifiable outrage by Democrats, Ailes later apologized, saying that he was only repeating what many of his Democratic friends have told him. The implication, clearly, was that if the comment seemed hateful, well it was those hateful Democrats who actually said it.

Posted by Becky at 10:46 AM |

June 06, 2007

"Radical Secularism" Isn't Even Real

Carol Towarnicky is calling bullshit on the notion being promulgated by Newt Gingrich that we are as a nation somehow facing "a threat from 'radical secularism.'" "In a country where 96% of the citizenry believes in God," she says, it just simply cannot be the case. Why, then, did Gingrich challenge graduates at Liberty University to "confront the 'radical secularists' who 'insist that religious belief is inherently divisive and that public debate can only proceed on secular terms'"? And why didn't people immediately respond with a big "What the f---?" when he said it?

Towarnicky found the answer in the recent Media Matters report demonstrating the dominance of conservative Christian voices in the media and the stifling of liberal Christian voices.

Helped yet again by a clueless news media, the religious right not only has cleverly framed the discussion about religion in America, it has managed to get many people to equate secular government with secularism. …

When I read the study, it occurred to me that conservative religious leaders are quite clever to attack "secularism" instead of challenging progressive people of faith who differ with them just as profoundly.

Ignoring religious progressives makes it easier to equate religion with conservatism.

And as Towarnicky points out, nothing could be further from the truth.

[P]olls show that most religious people are centrist or progressive politically and much more concerned about moral issues like the Iraq war, materialism, poverty and economic justice than abortion or gay marriage. [Emphasis mine]

Even those of us who are fairly well-informed have been fairly effectively conditioned to accept the idea that faith is more tied to the Right than to the Left. Funny how the statistics never came together in my own head before now. 96% of Americans believe in God, 50% of Americans identify as Democratic, and 35% identify as Republican. How can one possibly believe that Democrats aren't religious?

Of course, the truth won't stop assholes like Bill O'Reilly from pressing the whole secular-progressives-are-destroying-America nonsense he's taken to lately. Fortunately, as this heartening report demonstrates, America has become far more generous toward those in need over the past several years – and after hitting a stark low point in that regard during the time when Gingrich's "Contract with America" was in full swing.

Posted by Becky at 02:23 PM |

Dick Morris Only Partially Clairvoyant

Back in early February, Dick Morris wrote an op-ed stating that Rudy Giuliani had moved into the front of the pack in the Republican race for the presidency. He said he thought that as time moves on, however, "a dark horse will probably move up." He then said:

These names are still obscure, but get to know them - lightning will soon strike at least one: Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (our favorite), Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, ex-Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson and Reps. Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo.

Morris was right that lightning would strike one of the Republican candidates, but it wasn't one of the ones he thought. It was Rudy himself. And now the question is whether last night's "lightning strikes [will] end Giuliani’s campaign." I think they may have an effect on his campaign, but not the way you might initially expect.

Carla pointed out last month that James Dobson was working hard to tank Giuliani's campaign, saying that his decision not to vote for Giuliani, no matter what, was "irrevocable." A good number of Bible-believing Republicans feel the same way and already don't support him. In fact, Giuliani currently has the support of just 36% of Republicans. I am willing to bet that virtually none of them are the sort of religious conservatives that would subscribe to the following sample of reactions expressed this morning in the blogosphere, most, if not all, by people who already didn't support Rudy:

God still speaks through lightning! He is here and he is listening.
You have to find God’s timing rather funny.
A sign for Rudy Giuliani?
God hits Rudy Giuliani with lightning. … You gotta love God's sense of humor. The almighty cracks me up!
Was it a sign from above?
OH MY GOD! Can he message any louder?
God Disables Giuliani from Discussing Abortion
God apparently doesn’t approve.
God does not appear to be happy with Giuliani.
Divine intervention?
God votes against Giuliani.
God joins in.
Divine intervention … Who says God doesn't still speak in our time?
Did Rudy incur heavenly wrath?
Rudy gets struck down during abortion position speech!
God weighs in on candidate's abortion stand … I dare say the lightning strikes … were nothing less than a sign from God.
God sends lightning to tell Giuliani to shut the hell up at debate.
Rudy – Take it as a sign!

"Take it as a sign." That brings me to the effect I think last night's wonderfully funny coincidence of timing may have on Rudy's campaign. I'm betting the Roman Catholic in Rudy didn't sleep well last night. I think the event is going to make him think very hard about his position on abortion. As he said last night:

"For someone who went to parochial schools all his life, this is a very frightening thing that's happening right now."

I will be very interested to see whether Giuliani will go so far as to modify his position on abortion. It's one thing to be political in describing your position so as to avoid offending key members of the electorate; it's another to actually revise your position because you believe God struck you with lightning. That's why I'll be keeping my eye on this one.

Posted by Becky at 09:35 AM |

June 05, 2007

"Ooga Booga" Baloney

God knows I love David Brock, but his recent outrage over Fox News host John Gibson's having used the term "ooga booga" didn't sit well with me. The incident in question occurred last Thursday when, on The Big Story, Gibson was discussing the case of the man who had antibiotic-resistant TB and said, "It seems every time a story pops up about somebody who has suddenly contracted some strange or incurable disease, it's somebody who is either from the third world, or was traveling through some godforsaken hellhole, and somehow managed to contract ooga booga fever." And all of a sudden, just like that, "ooga booga" became a racist term. Well I say, "baloney!"

In context, here is what Gibson said:

Now "My Word." The TB Man story has me completely mesmerized. I've been doing this for a few years. It seems every time a story pops up about somebody who has suddenly contracted some strange or incurable disease, it's somebody who is either from the third world, or was traveling through some godforsaken hellhole, and somehow managed to contract ooga booga fever.

I got dengue fever in Mogadishu, Somalia, just for instance. You tend not to get dengue fever in Los Angeles or Jersey City, I believe. So when this TB story broke about the guy flying halfway around the world with a super-serious drug-resistant strain of TB, I thought it would be the usual scenario. The guy's in the U.S., he's coughing, he knows he's got TB, but doesn't realize he's got incurable TB, gets on the planes. Headed to Europe, to a must-attend wedding, informed there that he has a bad disease, sneaks back into the U.S. because he knows that's where the best health care is. That's the narrative you expect the story to take.

Granted, Gibson has a history of racist remarks – advocating that whites should "make more babies" and calling Iraqis "knuckle-dragging savages from the 10th Century." I'm not defending the guy. And I think he ended up taking the situation to a point that actually is worth making an issue over. When confronted with criticism over the remark, rather than simply saying he was having a little fun with the story and didn't mean anything racist by it, he panicked because he actually is racist and said that he had "invented" the word. Puh-leez. That's about as true as George Allen's assertion that his "macaca" comment was related to a type of hair cut – another guilt-motivated lie.

Gibson's lying actually reached the level of the comically absurd:

"Now, I could have called it Machu Picchu fever or Latino jungle fever or something. I’ve gotten sick in those places too.” (Gibson noted, however, that he wouldn’t have called it “Potomac fever,” after Washington, DC.)

Later, Gibson contradicted himself, claiming he learned the phrase from reading Joseph Wilson’s book, which references Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. “So I, in making up ooga booga fever, I actually mispronounced the name of Burkina Faso. I should have said Ouagadougou fever.”

Okay, so we've established that Gibson is a lying racist. But getting back to the original outrage, do we really have to be so politically correct that we can't laugh at anyone at all? Is it really casual racism to say, "ooga booga"? I don't think so. For one thing, it isn't even associated with a single race. The term is used in relation to comedic depictions of scary uncivilized peoples, such as head-hunters and witch doctors. A popular video game by the name "Ooga Booga" depicts pacific islanders. A book of poetry by Frederick Seidel, described as "the tenderest, most savage collection yet from 'the most frightening American poet ever'" is aptly entitled, "Ooga Booga." There's even an animation studio by the name of Ooga Booga Studio that has some very funny graphics on its website. Are these racist? No way! Was it racist all those times as a kid that you jumped out of the shadows at someone and yelled, "Ooga Booga"? Of course not! Please, people, stop being so damned uptight about this stuff. I mean, it's not as if some comedian said something so blatantly awful as "ching chong." (I thought that whole uproar was ridiculous, too.)

Posted by Becky at 01:03 PM |

Hyperbole from Freedomworks

Russ Walker of Freedomworks is reaching out to liberals in a new radio ad on KPOJ in Oregon. In the ad, Walker jokingly refers to himself as a "right-winger" and asks KPOJ's listeners to consider what he and they might "have in common." He says the initiative process is about to be "hijacked by politicians," and that those who believe in "people being more powerful than politicians" should join him in his effort to protect the initiative process from the "ruthless and blatant" politicians in Salem. Walker says he is joined by such left-wingers as anti-"nukular" activist Lloyd Marbet, pro-campaign finance reform activist Dan Meek, and Ralph Nader. (The latter, particularly, is rather funny considering that Walker in 2004 was featured in a right-wing robo-call targeted at getting Nader's name on the ballot so as to help defeat John Kerry. I wonder if Nader realizes he's being used by a dirt bag with shady right-wing and corporate connections, including big tobacco, to advance a right-wing Republican agenda. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Walker's ad is pure hyperbole, which, though typical of those with his poor thinking capacity, is entirely unnecessary considering that reasonable arguments have been made on both sides regarding this legislation, and Meek has been particularly thoughtful in his explanation as to why he believes the bill is a bad idea.

Walker says that as a matter of "fact," legislators, both "Republican and Democrat are about to gut the initiative process." He then sends listeners to the Freedomworks website, where they are given a list of legislators who are "against the initiative process," and told that these individuals are "trying to gut our initiative process and make it harder for Oregonians on both sides of the political spectrum, left and right, to refer issues to the statewide ballot." Let me repeat: his ad stresses the bi-partisan nature of the attack on the process, and he refers listeners to the website for a complete list of the offending legislators of both parties. The website prefaces the list thus:

The following members of the Oregon House of Representatives voted in favor of HB 2082; legislation that would bog down the state’s initiative process and make it difficult for Oregonians that wanted to sign statewide petitions on any issue to do so.

No party affiliation is offered next to any of the legislators' names, of course; this particular effort is aimed at getting Democrats to call in their support, so it would not be "helpful" to make much of the party affiliations of those legislators supporting the bill. But the list includes every single Democrat in the House, no more and no less – and no Republicans. See, the Republicans, every one of them, are standing off from this issue. Contrary to Walker's statements in the ad, not a single Republican voted for the bill. Why would Walker specifically say both parties were trying to "gut" the process when only one party is supporting the effort? Having been a lobbyist working on bills related to the initiative process some years back, I know for a fact that a number of Republicans have a history of being every bit as active in efforts to "reform" the process as Democrats. They're sitting this one out because they know their votes aren't needed and they want any resulting heat to come down on the Democrats' heads and not their own. They don't want to lose their right-wing base, and they see this effort as an opportunity to build their support with that base. Walker probably feels he is being quite clever and disguising his partisanship.

But the fact is, Walker is a Republican partisan through and through, always putting his "team" first. Everything he does should be viewed as being motivated by partisanship. For instance, recently he was caught having colluded with the Oregon GOP to get legislators’ official photos, which belonged to the State, and use them in Democrat-trashing campaign pieces. He also has targeted key Democrats for their tax increase plans, but not the Republicans who also supported the plans.

Walker clearly loves being a "player," but like anyone who would be hired to act as the front person for a local branch of Freedomworks, he lacks the intelligence to realize he is merely an enthusiastic lackey for bigger, smarter, and wealthier men. Show any sense of independent thought contrary to the Republican party line, and he will viciously attack you as a traitor because Party trumps what is right in his mind. And in my opinion, he has a very small mind.

To make certain we know it, the man insists on mis-pronouncing the word "nuclear," using the redneck version, or, if you prefer, the Homer Simpson version favored by that paragon of intellectual prowess, George W. Bush.

*************UPDATE***************

In case you wondered about the whole "strange bedfellows" thing, like I did, I asked Dan Meek whether he had anything to do with Russ Walker's ad in which he was mentioned by name. He replied as I expected:

I just heard it myself in the car. No, I have nothing to do with it and will object to their using my name. I checked with Lloyd, and he also had nothing to do with it.

Just more laziness and unprofessional behavior from the "nukular" crowd, I guess.

Posted by Becky at 11:49 AM |

June 04, 2007

You Think Gas Prices are Bad ...

With my daily 1 hr. 10 minute commute – each way – I’ve been keenly aware of rising gas prices lately. And because my expenditures on gas have cut into my available funds for lunch each day, I’m becoming more and more aware of food prices, too. I thought they were going up, but I didn’t realize that food prices were rising faster than gas prices.

In the past year, food prices have increased 3.7 percent and are on track to jump by as much as 7 percent by year's end. The current increase is more than double the 1.8 percent jump seen the year before, according to the consumer price index. Meanwhile, gas prices rose 2.9 percent.

Interestingly, a good bit of the food price increases seem to be related to increasing demand for ethanol, which is made from corn. That boosts the price of corn which, in turn, increases the cost of beef and chicken, as well as food cooked in corn oil or made with corn meal. Eggs are up almost 19% in price in one year, chicken is up 7%, and beef is up 5.5%. It wasn't that long ago when you could buy 10 ears of corn for a dollar, but something tells me those days are over. The price of corn has risen so much that other crops, like watermelons, are being replaced with corn, meaning the prices of other produce that are now less plentiful are also climbing.

I’m not certain I like the idea of switching fuels over to a product that competes with something as basic as food. I can live without driving, but I can’t live without eating. On the other hand, weather problems, which some are attributing to human caused global warming (due to burning fossil fuels), have resulted in crop damage that is also increasing food costs. So either way, we’re headed for trouble.

What’s really worrisome to me is the broader economic impacts.

Because food is a category that consumers can't cut from their budget, it's the cups of coffee, the entertainment dollars, and the clothes-and-jewelry budget that are scaled back first. In April, retail sales fell 0.2 percent, the first decline in seven months, according to the Commerce Department. … a stew of high gas prices, food costs , a slumping housing market and adjusting mortgages could be a recipe for trouble for strapped Americans with little wiggle room in their budgets.

I expect the Bush Administration will do everything in its power to hold off the appearance of trouble until a Democratic President is elected. The mess will then be unceremoniously dumped into in his or her lap and the Republicans will spend the next eight years blaming the next worldwide financial crash on the Democrats. I hope the Democrats have the stomach to work on the underlying problems in the midst of the angst and lack of understanding that is sure to permiate the entire situation.

Posted by Becky at 01:55 PM |

The Odd Things We Collect

I grew up in a family that collects things and married into a family that collects things, so I’m used to the notion of collections. My grandmother, for instance, collects spoons and her walls are covered with racks of them. I would bet she has at least 2,000 different silver spoons, each with a unique pattern. She also collects mismatched plates (no two of her dinner plates are the same), bells, cats, and carnival horses. Her collections speak to her appreciation for variety and uniqueness. I have an aunt who collects kewpie dolls and cookie jars and another who collects pitchers and frogs. My brother keeps things like ticket stubs from every concert he attends, skulls of animals, records, different types of beer bottles, and pretty much anything that will remind him of something he did and enjoyed. My father-in-law collects matchbooks as remembrances of places where he has been. My husband collects penguins just because he likes them and neat things he picks up when we’re on trips together. His sister collects beach glass. I collect fish (because I love them), as well as shells and rocks (nature fascinates the heck out of me).

They say that people collect things that have some sort of relevance to them, that help them structure their lives, or that help create an environment, but usually collections have something to do with one’s identity. So I was quite intrigued to learn that Grover Norquist collects toilet paper from around the world, airsickness bags from various airlines and electronic card keys from motels where he has stayed. What do you suppose that says about him?

Posted by Becky at 10:59 AM |

Update

A couple months ago I decided to try my hand at selling rain sticks. In February I decided to take the plunge and submitted several examples to a Portland gallery called The Real Mother Goose and they were accepted, at which point I launched Oregon Rain Sticks. I've had five rain sticks there since mid-March and then just this afternoon I dropped off the initial five rain sticks in at a new gallery down in Newport on the Oregon coast called The Wood Gallery, appropriately enough. Both have some incredible stuff in them and it's deeply flattering to be included in such a group.

I also brought on a partner who brings a few things to the proverbial table that I'm weak on. So far he has only made one rain stick and it's not even finished. But he's already given me some new design ideas and he's also exploring different types of products using the same basic design concept, which has resulted in a half dozen or so finished prototypes. But the original design and concept are mine. As far as I know, and I've done a number of web searches over the last couple years, nobody anywhere is making anything quite like these. There are plenty of people making rain sticks, but none look like mine.

It was like Richard Dryfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind when he was driven by the mental image of the mountain where the aliens would land until he just had to make a model of it. These were kinda like that for me. I had a mental image and it ate away at me until I made one. I thought that would be enough and it was for a couple years. But then it came back last year and that's when I started planning to try to make some money off the idea.

That's the fun stuff...

Unfortunately my employer for the last 6+ years imploded the week before last and effectively no longer exists as a for-profit corporation. A court-appointed Receiver took over and is in the process of closing out accounts and getting ready to liquidate the assets. He hired a handful of us as temps to finish out a few jobs that were almost done, and thus cost a lot less to finish than the resulting payment added up to. That lasted for a week and a half and now I'm job hunting. Fortunately I have about 22 years experience doing what I do and have had a steady stream of interviews. Nothing yet, but I'm on the short list for two jobs that interest me and which pay decently.

I have high hopes for the rain sticks and someday I hope to do that full time. But for now I can't survive without a day job.

So anyway, that's what I've been up to lately. The rain sticks are a big part of why I don't write nearly as much as I used to. But I do try to participate regularly as a commenter and thoroughly enjoy reading and commenting on Becky's posts.

Posted by Kevin at 10:35 AM |

June 03, 2007

Amazing Animals

Having recently devoured with great enthusiasm the BBC’s “Planet Earth” series, I am extremely excited about a new film that will be hitting theaters in October. It’s a spin-off of the series and is being called “Earth.” It will follow three animal families and their attempts to survive in a warming climate. Included will be the migration of a mother whale and her calf, the migration of a family of elephants across the African desert in search of water, and the efforts of a mother polar bear to find food for her cubs. It sounds incredible and I cannot wait for this film!

Speaking of wonderful animals, my mother sent me a link to this fantastic video of a dancing horse and it simply blew me away. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. What a great personality!

Speaking of animal personalities, scientists are trying to find an explanation for animal personalities. They think it’s all tied to evolutionary responses to reproductive and survival needs. I'm delighted that people are recognizing that all animals, great and small, have personalities, but I'm not buying the scientists' explanation at all. Animals make choices because of their personalities. They don't develop personalities as a result of their survival choices. But what do I know?

Posted by Becky at 08:26 AM |

June 01, 2007

Hugo Chavez Flips Off Yet Another Member of the GOP Base

Hugo Chavez made some real enemies when he decided to nationalize Venezuela's oil, and now he's gone and made his situation even worse by booting Monsanto out of the country. In what is being described as "the most sweeping restrictions on GMOS in the Western Hemisphere," Chavez has announced that genetically modified crops cannot be cultivated on Venezuelan soil. He may well be a dangerous socialist dictator-in-the-making, I don’t know, but in the mean time he sure is doing a good job of looking like a populist. And I'll admit I'm getting a kick out of thinking about how maddening this man must be to the big corporate interests who spend so much money to skew our own government's regulations to suit their own interests.

Posted by Becky at 01:02 PM |

Drink Up!

I got a real kick today out of this interview of Barbara Holland in the Washington Post. Holland, described as "feisty old dame" and a "curmudgeon," has just published a book called "The Joy of Drinking" – perhaps best described as "an ode to booze" - that promises to make a lot of drinkers feel a lot better about themselves. Being a person who is rather fond of imbibing all sorts of fermented treats, I'm thinking this might just be a book I'll have to go buy. Holland's last book was called "Endangered Pleasures" – a book in which she "praised cigarettes, naps, bacon, swearing, loafing and other precious joys." Her core message appears to be that we are worrying far too much about being healthy and good, and that enjoying life means letting our hair down and having some fun, even it it's not necessarily good for us.

She's in favor of joy but she feels it's under attack. She wrote the book as a protest against the decline of social drinking and the rise of broccoli, exercise and Starbucks.

"I was getting sick and tired of being lectured by dear friends with their little bottles of water and their regular visits to the gym," she says. "All of a sudden, we've got this voluntary prohibition that has to do with health and fitness." She pauses. "I'm not really in favor of health and fitness."

But isn't it good to be healthy?

"I suppose so," she says, "but it's largely a crapshoot. The ghost of my sainted mother hovers around, talking about how self-centered it all is. They're always thinking about themselves -- how far I ran, how much I can bench-press, how I ate three servings of broccoli. For heaven's sake, get over yourself."

I really like this lady. She goes on to talk about the fun that was had in Washington back when it was OK to drink heavily at parties, states how having a "teetotaler president" "puts a damper on things," explains why booze is "the social glue of the human race," attributes civilization to the softening of "our natural suspicious hostility with a few stiff ones," and talks about the role of booze in the founding of our republic. And she pines for the old days, when people actually talked to each other in bars.

It is pretty hard to beat the simple joy of drinking with other people, getting a little silly, singing and dancing, and just being happy – and that's why I do it on a regular basis. Whenever my kids try to convince me that they should be allowed to have some unhealthy treat like fast food, and I tell them it's not good for their heart, they love to quote Spongebob Squarepants, "not good for the heart – good for the soul!" And that's really the thing with drinking.

When asked whether, being a curmudgeon, she is "kind of cranky," Holland answers, "I don't know. I complain a lot about how various things were better in the olden days, but I don't feel particularly cranky. If you drink enough, you don't feel cranky." As she and the interviewer talk over a bottle of wine, they find themselves "suffused with a mellow glow and the happy feeling that, despite all evidence to the contrary, the world is wonderful and life is a delightful lark in convivial company." What a perfect description for the social drinking experience.

It is good to live a long healthy life, and I hope that I will be one who does. But at the same time, I'd rather have a shorter, richer life than a longer, boring one. I think Holland would agree.

Posted by Becky at 11:39 AM |