Running mates: the roundup.

If you'll humor me for a moment, I'd like to present my completely unqualified opinion on Kerry's possible running mates, and what the deal with each of them is. I've read a lot of things from a lot of different sources, and I thought it was about time to put it all together into one "defininitive" list. So far, only Edwards, Clark, and Vilsack have been vetted (Kerry's close friend Jim Johnson is in charge of the official scouting process), but a lot of other names have been tossed around. Okay. Here we go.

The Short List:

• John Edwards: Senator Edwards (from North Carolina) gained fame and fans during his run for the Democratic nomination. Because of his obvious charm and charisma, he's been described as a young version of Clinton, which could help balance Kerry's purported lack of personality. On the other hand, some say Edwards might overshadow Kerry on the campaign trail, which would be bad. Additionally, some people worry that the class warfare rhetoric that helped his cause during primaries will not be popular with moderates, and that his complete lack of foreign policy experience will continue to work against him on the national stage. Still, Edwards' roots in North Carolina might help Kerry win some Southern states, his optimistic message has made him very popular, and the ladies love him.
  
  
• Dick Gephardt: With a long career in public service -- including twenty-six years in Congress -- Gephardt is seen as a safe pick. He has plenty of national campaign experience, since he's now run for president twice. Unfortunately, he's lost both of those bids of course, and nobody wants a perpetual loser on their ticket -- especially one who would be considered a rather boring and predictable choice.
  
  
• Tom Vilsack: As governor of Iowa, Vilsack helped Kerry win his state during the caucuses. He's Roman Catholic and was raised in western Pennsylvania, two biographical details that could help a Democratic ticket win critical segments of the population (namely people in Western PA and religious folks). The Midwest is another expected battleground in which an Iowa governor could definitely be an asset. Also, his orphan-from-an-abusive-foster-home story beats Edwards' mill town sob story anyday. Unfortunately, even though Vilsack is chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, he is hardly a household name, and some question whether he would have the experience to step in as president.
  
  
• Bob Graham: This election year marks Graham's fourth year on the short list for VP (also in 2000, 1992 and 1988). Graham is hugely popular in bigtime swing state Florida (twenty-seven very key electoral votes), where he's a senior senator and has never lost a statewide election. He has that stale loser smell about him now though, since he dropped his bid for the presidency before Carol Moseley Braun. Some say his failed bid proved how bad he is at national campaigning, which is simply no good for a VP, whose main campaign duty is, well -- to campaign. Additionally, Graham keeps these strange compulsive notebooks in which he records everything (from constituent requests to when he went to the bathroom), and Gore's team found it weird enough to disqualify him.
  
  
• Wesley Clark: Retired military general Clark lost his bid for the Democratic nomination, but gained a place in the national spotlight. He's a former Rhodes scholar (like Bill Clinton) and had the coolest title ever as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces (head of NATO). He's also from Arkansas (like Clinton), which could help Kerry in the South. But Clark has never been a senator, congressman, or governor, so many question whether he's qualified for the executive office. Also, he voted for Reagan. Ew.
  

The Longer List:

• Joseph Biden: Sixty-one-year-old Biden, Democratic senator from Delaware, is considered one of the party's experts on foreign policy. He's been in the Senate for thirty-one years, and even considered running for president this year. He was top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, supported military action against Iraq, and is less critical of Bush than Kerry has been.
  
  
• Evan Bayh: Bayh, a senator from Indiana, succeeded former VP-hopeful Joe Lieberman to become chairman of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. Rumors about Bayh as a possible contender for Kerry's VP started flying when he was spotted leaving his office with Jim Johnson.
  
  
• Bill Richardson: Richardson is governor of swing state New Mexico, and -- as the only Hispanic governor in the country -- may be an asset in a close election. During the last election, Gore learned the hard way that the Latino vote could be critical in many battleground states. But that's not all Richardson has going for him. He also served in the House, as a U.N. ambassador, and as Energy Secretary under Clinton. Unfortunately, some controversies about security lapses at nuclear facilities while he was Energy Secretary might come back to haunt him if he runs on a national ticket. Additionally, Richardson has said that he plans on completely his term as governor.
  
  
• Sam Nunn: The former senator from Georgia has centrist policies and strong credentials on defense issues that have been cited as good for a possible VP. Despite some buzz about him in the press, Nunn has specifically said (a) Kerry has not spoken with him, and (b) he would probably decline an invitation to be VP.
  
  
• Mark Warner: As Democratic governor of usually-Repblican Virginia, Warner's gubernatorial campaign was bolstered by the fact that he ran as a fiscal conservative with a modern stance on gun issues. His recent tax hikes have made some question whether or not he's really a conservative, but his dashing young face might be just the thing statue man Kerry needs.
  
  
• Bill Nelson: Senator from Florida whose energy and eloquence on TV has been duly noted by high-ups in Washington eager to put a little vim into Kerry's campaign.
  
  
• Max Cleland: A former senator from Georgia, Cleland is also a fellow Vietnam vet who has defended Kerry's positions on national security by saying to the Bushies: "If you don't go to war, don't throw rocks at those who do."
  
  
• Jane Harman: The Democratic Congresswoman from the Santa Monica region of California is ranking member of House Intelligence Committee and is considered strong on fighting terrorism. She's apparently done a lot of flip-flopping with her voting though, which is not the kind of consistency accused flip-flopper Kerry needs.
  
  
• Howard Dean: Governor Dean still has legions of loyal supporters and continues to receive campaign nominations even though his campaign is officially over. Still, many have pointed out that he does not have the required chemistry with Kerry and that they really went head to head during the primaries. Also, Dean is from the Northeast, like Kerry, and -- geographically speaking -- that's just not what Kerry needs.
  
  
• Hillary Clinton: She's one of the party's best fundraisers, but -- while she's hugely popular with some -- lots of people hate her. Also, she might overshadow Kerry on the ticket, and she's said time and again that she plans to finish her term as New York State senator.
  
  
• John McCain: I know he's a Republican, but some have said he's just what Kerry needs to score a definitive win in November. During his 2000 campaign for the Republican nomination, he was a big hit with the media and with moderates in both camps. McCain and Kerry are close personal friends. But if we're talking about likelihood, a comment from McCain's spokeperson Marshall Wittmann (responding to rumors about McCain being Kerry's pick for VP) is worth noting: "It's not going to happen -- end of story, period, exclamation mark."
  
  
• Beyonce: I'm not trying to ruin my credibility here, I'm just trying to do a full roundup. I'm not making the suggestions, I'm just listing them. Okay? So. Dave Pell of Electablog points out that the former Destiny's Child singer is adored by the public, has beat everyone she's come up against, and certainly would be an outside-the-box choice for someone considered very much inside the box.
  
  
• Dave Pell: That's right, Dave Pell of Electablog, Forbes Magazine's #1 political blog, has also nominated himself. I thought it was at least worth mentioning. You disagree? Too bad.
  

Other names mentioned at least in passing include: Joe Lieberman (Connecticut senator, Gore's VP choice, presidential candidate, centrist), Al Gore (Clinton's VP, presidential candidate), Al Sharpton (perpetual presidential candidate), Dennis Kucinich (Congressman from Ohio, presidential candidate, way left lefty), Kathleen Sebelius (Governor of Kansas), Phil Bredesen (Governor of Tennessee), Janet Napolitano (Governor of Arizona), Harold Ford (Congressman from Tennessee), and Mary Landrieu (Senator from Louisiana).

Even though only one person will end up being Kerry's running mate, it doesn't mean these people will just drop off the radar. It's worth pointing out that Kerry and Edwards were both finalists on Gore's list, edged out only by Lieberman. So keep these folks in mind, no matter what. You never know where they'll be in four years.

Is someone missing from my roundup? Let me know so that I can add them.

Thanks to Political Wire and Electablog for linking to so many good articles about the election. Here's a partial list of the articles I read in doing research for this guide:

• Biden pushed as Kerry VP pick Robert Novak in Chicago Sun-Times
  
• Kerry's Latest Colors Howard Fineman and T. Trent Gegax in Newsweek
  
• Unofficial VP audition at Democrats' meeting Billy House in Arizona Republic
  
• Presidential candidates court Hispanic voters Annabelle Garay Associated Press
  
• Nunn likely would say no to Kerry Houston Chronicle
  
• Harkin consulted in VP search Jane Norman in Des Moines Register
  
• Handicapping the ticket [pdf] Mark Barabak in Los Angeles Times
  
• Running Mate Rumors Fly Mark Barabak in Los Angeles Times
  
• The Running Story of John McCain Howard Kurtz in Washington Post
  
• Kerry's Running Mate Still a Guessing Game Lois Romano in Washington Post
  
• Kerry's Running-Mate Review Weighs War, Economy, Regional Votes Bloomberg News
  
• What John Kerry Needs: The Estrogen Factor Lakshmi Chaudhry on Alternet
  
• Bob Graham back in the race - for VP Adam Smith in St. Petersburg Times
  
• 4 potential running mate picks hit trail with Kerry Patrick Healy in Boston Globe
  
• How To Pick a Running Mate David Shuster on MSNBC
  

Cross-posted at Fire & Ice.

Fire Rumsfeld: Action Center

Fire Rumsfeld: Action Center

Take action now! This is a little mild for my taste- I think he should be prosecuted for War Crimes- but an investigation is step one.

Iraqi Female Prisoners Face Future of Shame -- or Death

One woman told her attorney that she was forced to disrobe in front of male prison guards. After much coaxing, another woman described how she was raped by U.S. soldiers. Then she fainted.

Raped by a U.S. soldier and then she fainted. Removing a woman's headscarf is traumatic enough. But rape? I can't even wrap my head around these heart-breaking accounts. We normally embrace victims here in the US, but the culture is so much different in Iraq.

A woman who is raped brings shame on her family in the Islamic world. In many cases, rape victims have been killed by their relatives to salvage family honor, although there is no evidence this has happened to women who have been prisoners in Iraq.

As the administration decides when or if to publish more prison abuse photos, let's hope the identity of all the victims remain anonymous. I wish we didn't know the identity of the first prisoners photographed. The stigma is unbearable, and they're already emotionally sentenced to a lifetime of humiliation and disgrace.

--Tracy Wilkinson, LATimes
[link] - (no registration)

Posted by: Susan Cook & cross-posted to - Easy Bake Coven.

Alice Sheldon and James Tiptree Jr.

What do these names have in common? They both belonged to this person. I've been thinking about Tiptree stories a lot lately. I haven't read them for years, but I plan to pull out my copies of OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE and UP THE WALLS OF THE WORLD and refresh my memory.

If you're an SF fan of a certain age, what I'm about to tell you is a well known story of a well known author. ....Probably well known. It's been so long since I last read SF and Fantasy regularly, and I am now so far removed from the fen of my youth, I don't remember anymore just how popular Tiptree was during her writing career that lasted roughly 20 years--1968 to 1987-- but I believe she was fairly well-known at the time, and certainly won many awards. For those of you who have never heard of James Tiptree Jr., a pseudonym used by the author Alice Sheldon, nor of Alice Sheldon herself, nor read any of her remarkable, razor-sharp writing: it's time you did.

Galen Strickland has done a fine job of summarizing Sheldon's life on his most excellent site The Templeton Gate.

James Tiptree, Jr. [was] the most commonly used pseudonym of Dr. Alice Hastings Bradley Sheldon (1915-1987), a clinically trained psychologist and a former operative of the C. I. A. Her father was a lawyer and world traveller and her mother was a world-famous geographer and author of more than thirty travel books. Much of her formative years were spent in Africa and India and her first career was that of a graphic artist and painter. She then joined the Army and spent most of World War 2 in a Pentagon sub-basement, working in photo intelligence for the Army Air Corps. It was there she met her second husband, Huntington Sheldon.

She was discharged in 1946 having obtained the rank of Major. The Sheldons attempted a business venture, which failed. They both then joined the newly formed C. I. A., her husband retaining his position with that agency when she resigned in 1955. She attended college sporadically for many years, and also taught statistics and psychology. She obtained her doctorate in experimental psychology in 1967. The following year her first SF story - "Birth of a Salesman" - appeared in Analog (as by Tiptree), although she had previously published a story in The New Yorker under her real name as early as 1946.

Her pen-name was derived from a brand label on a jar of marmalade - don't bother looking for that label in your supermarket unless you live in England - and her most convincing argument for its use was that her business colleagues would be sure to censure her if they knew she wrote science fiction. Her true identity was not known for many years by even the editors who purchased her stories. She never met or spoke on the telephone with anyone connected with publishing, and all correspondence was directed to a post office box in rural Virginia. In various letters to editors, fanzines, and other writers an outline of her biography was given, and although her work included several sensitive and sympathetic female characters, it was generally assumed that Tiptree was male. I have never been sure exactly when and by whom her deception was discovered, but it did not occur until sometime in 1976, around the time of the death of her mother. As late as 1975, Robert Silverberg, in his introduction to Tiptree's second short story collection, Warm Worlds and Otherwise, would make this very bold and now obviously incorrect remark:

"It has been suggested that Tiptree is female,
a theory that I find absurd, for there is to me something
ineluctably masculine about Tiptree's writing."

This was for a collection that included a story which in retrospect should have given us unmistakable clues as to the gender of the writer. The title itself is quite ironic - "The Women Men Don't See" - and the story is a veritable microcosm of the man/woman dilemma. The narrator is a male who escorts two women toward their rendezvous with an alien spacecraft. He is unable to understand their motives, but it is evident they view the adventure as merely trading one set of alien masters for another which may prove to be more tolerable. This story was nominated for a Nebula in 1974, but Tiptree withdrew it from competition. She would later reveal to Ursula LeGuin her reason for doing so was the many remarks concerning the story being an example that a man was capable of writing interesting and sympathetic female characters, and a prize for the story would have only added to the deceit her pseudonym had already created.

The story I think of most these days is "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" which was published in 1976 when Sheldon was 61. In it, three contemporary American astronauts are caught up in a time vortex that sends them several hundred years into the future. For reasons that are made apparent to the reader sooner than to the story's astronauts, there are no men alive on Earth in this future; the entire population consists of a few thousand women, cloned from a few basic genome types. When the male astronauts encounter no one who is not female, they grow increasingly frustrated that they are not meeting anyone 'with authority' , and ask repeatedly: "But, where are all the people?" (Meaning, where are all the men).

Now think about the current situation with Abu Ghraib prison. Male prisoners are being raped, tortured and abused, and the world reacts with disgust and horror. Female prisoners are being raped, tortured, and abused, and somehow the reaction of the world is much more matter of fact. Many people will be thinking: Yeah, ...so? This is the everyday world that women live in. Nothing unusual. A fact of life.
But, what about the people? You know: the men. Oh, well that's different. And why is that? They're not used to it. Rape, torture, and abuse are not a given, an everyday fact of life for men.
I'd love to read what Alice Sheldon would say about Abu Ghraib.

[Strickland]:
Along with "The Women Men Don't See," her second collection includes several other impressive stories, most notably two award winners, "Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death" (Nebula) and "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (Hugo). The latter is considered by many to be the first of the cyberpunk tales, long before William Gibson arrived on the scene. Others that I would recommend are "All the Kinds of Yes" and "The Last Flight of Dr. Ain." STAR SONGS OF AN OLD PRIMATE was the next collection, published in 1978, a little more than a year following the revelation of Tiptree's true identity. The most notable story is again an investigation into the gulf between the sexes. "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" won both the Hugo (in a tie with Spider Robinson's "By Any Other Name") and Nebula awards as the best novella published in 1976.

She and her husband "Ting" (short for Huntington) in later years spent much time in the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico. The Quintana Roo is part of the Yucatan Peninsula; the area which contains Cancún, Cozumel, Isla Mujeres and Tulum. It is the home of the modern-day descendants of the Mayans. "Alli" and Ting had a great love for this area, and Alice wrote several memorable stories about it, collected in the volume TALES OF THE QUINTANA ROO, published in 1986.

I gave my sister and her husband a copy of that book one of the first years they went down to Akumal, a still relatively sleepy little town sixty miles south of Cancún, in the heart of the Quintana Roo. When they returned I was delighted to hear that they had not only read the book cover to cover during their stay in Akumal, but also were so thoroughly spooked by the stories they stayed awake an entire night, sitting on the beach with a lone lit candle, watching the moonlight on the waves.

[Strickland]: Even though her persona was penetrated mid-way through her writing career, Tiptree/Sheldon will forever remain an intriguing mystery. She rarely spoke of her personal life, and never of her work for the government, so it is through her fiction we must attempt an analysis of her philosophy and her legacy. Sadly, the end of her life was as tragic as the previous years had been enigmatic. In failing health herself, she fulfilled a promise she had made to her now blind and bed-ridden husband years before.

On May 19, 1987, at the age of 71, Alice Sheldon took the life of her invalid husband, aged 84, and then shot herself in the head. They were found dead, hand in hand in bed, in their McLean, Virginia home.

Whatever you do, do NOT end your reading about Alice Sheldon before visiting this wonderful site, and especially the deeply personal remembrance by her close friend Mark Siegel.

The James Tiptree Jr. Award is an annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender. Created and first given in 1991, it is awarded annually at WisCon, the world's only feminist SF convention. WisCon 28 will be held on Memorial Day weekend, May 28-31, 2004 in Madison, Wisconsin.


Cross-posted on my blog.

Be part of a gender/internet survey.

I know from these two years of posts and contacts that various Blog Sisters have had experiences as "female bloggers" about which they feel very strongly. Here's a chance (or maybe, for some of you, another chance) to have your experiences counted in a data gathering dissertaion project.

Click here to participate in a online gender survey being conducted by Gemma Rietdyke, a graduate student at Manchester University.

This is how she describes her project:
On first consideration, the internet provides women with a genderless forum. A place where we can interact free from social barriers and restrictions that we experience in the real world which are mainly due to gender stereotyping and resulting behaviour. With no visual clues, we can in theory, interact with our online friends without being a woman and the inequalities and discrimination that we often face. However, in practice is this true? Many women have reported that they experience intimidation and harassment online simply for exuding or having a female persona. Other women report that the internet has empowered them as a woman, building their confidence as their opinions are takan on their merit rather than judged by their gender. Exploring this area of gender dynamics offers an insight into whether gender is a biological or social concept.

This is what Gemma told me: To date, I have been accused of
spamming, undertaking research 'that's not really life or death' and being a male basher the minute I enter into mixed forums. Can blog sisters help me?

C'mon. I know that many of you have experience-based opinions internet-related gender issues. Share them with Genna and get them included in an official study.

Politics: Ben & Jerry's rocks the vote

I signed up with Rock the Vote today. I did so by going to the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream site and signing a pledge to vote on November 2. I also agreed to contact at least five friends by email and encourage them to rock the the vote. But, hey! I have a blog, so why not let more people in on a good thing? If I were not already a registered voter, I would have gone to www.rockthevote.com and signed up.

Consideration? (You know how lawyers are, eh?) In return for joining Rock the Vote, I am getting a free download from the iTunes Music Store. I am competing in a contest to win a trip to Vermont to be a Ben & Jerry's Flavor Guru for a day, plus a new iMac and iPod from Apple, too.

The form is short and Ben & Jerry's will not sell your identifying information to marketers. So, there is no reason not to join. Go ahead. Rock it.

Note: This entry also appeared at Mac-a-ro-nies.

Alpha Politics

Alpha Politics

By Madeleine Begun Kane

"A" is for John Ashcroft and the liberties he's mauled.

"B" is for Barb Bush and hub. Dub's birth is all their fault.

"C" is for Ms. Condi Rice, who speaks so many lies.

"D" is for the Dixie Chicks, who dare to Bush despise.

"E" is for our soon to be Ex-Prez George Dubya Bush.

"F" is for Al Franken, and his mean and funny Rush.

"G" is for Gen. Boykin, who believes Bush speaks with God.

"H" is for Ms. Karen Hughes, who's tall of tale and bod.

The rest is posted here and
here.

Boing Boing: London: The (Magnificent) Biography

Cory likes London.

DreamKitty.com: Hello Kitty USB-HUB

I want, I want, I want.the Hello Kitty USB-HUB. It's my every stationery fetish come to life. I am eleven.

From Talking Points Memo

Josh Marshall

Josh Marshall has a transcript of Scott McClellan's refusal to deny that Bush conspired with Prince Bandar - the guy they call "Bandar Bush", who is just like a son to George the first- to lower oil prices if they got rid of Saddam.

QUESTION: There were no conversations specifically about the President’s reelection?

MR. McCLELLAN: You can ask Prince Bandar to --

QUESTION: But from the point -- I mean, conversations are obviously two ways.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- what his comments were. But the conversations we have are related to our long-held views that we have stated repeatedly publicly, that market forces should determine prices.

QUESTION: To follow up on that then, I would gather that the White House view is one of expectation that the Saudis would increase oil production between now and November.

MR. McCLELLAN: Our views are very well-known to Saudi Arabia. Prince Bandar made a commitment at the stakeout that I will let speak for itself. You all should look back to those remarks.

QUESTION: We’re missing the allegation here, which is that Prince Bandar and the Saudis have made a commitment to lower oil prices to help the President politically. Is that your --

MR. McCLELLAN: I’m not going to speak for Prince Bandar. You can direct those comments to him. I can tell you that what our views are and what he said at the stakeout is what we know his views are, as well.

QUESTION: Does the White House have any knowledge of such a commitment?

MR. McCLELLAN: I’m sorry?

QUESTION: Does the White House have any knowledge of such a commitment?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I’m not going to speak for Prince Bandar. You can direct those questions --

QUESTION: Is there a deal?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- I wouldn’t speculate one way or the other. You can direct those questions to him, but I’m telling you

QUESTION: I’m not asking you to speculate either. Do you have knowledge of such a commitment?

MR. McCLELLAN: I’m telling you what our views are and what we've stated, and I'm telling you what I do know, which is that our position is very clear when it comes to oil prices and what our views are. And Prince Bandar spoke to you all just a few weeks ago out at the stakeout after meeting with some White House officials and expressed --


QUESTION: So you have no knowledge of such a commitment?


MR. McCLELLAN: -- and expressed their view. I'm not going to try to speak for Prince Bandar. You can direct those questions to him.

QUESTION: The President is confident that the American elections are not being manipulated by the world's largest oil producer?

MR. McCLELLAN: Our view is that the markets should determine --

QUESTION: The market doesn't. It's a cartel.

MR. McCLELLAN: But our view is that that's what -- that the markets should determine prices. And that's the view we make very clear to producers around the world, including our friends in OPEC.

There's an article about it here:http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20040421-1819-whitehouse-bandar.html

Is it getting any clearer to Americans that we are just pawns in a game?

thank you... :)

I just want to thank Elaine for the invitation to the group... I'm proud to be a Blog Sister, and I only hope to make you all proud too... :) my blog is at http://zingela.blogspot.com... I've just started it, so bear with me!
*hugs*

Heather

Affordable Housing ... that stays affordable!

How would you feel about a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with no money down and a mortgage set at $400 a month for the next 30 years? This is the deal I am currently putting together for 17 native Hawaiian families who have been granted 99 year leases to Community Land Trust (CLT) land under the Dept. of Hawaiian Homelands. They are working with Self-Help Housing to build their own homes under the supervision of a construction supervisor (with subcontractors for plumbing, electric, excavation, and masonry) and the mortgages will in fact vary from $256 - $600 per month, depending on family income. This is fact, not theory.

"A Community Land Trust (CLT) creates affordable housing by taking the cost of land out of the purchase price of a home.... Homeowners leasing CLT land under their home enjoy the security, control, tax advantages and ability to build equity just like any homeowner. -- Homestead Community Land Trust - Seattle, WA

So I ask you again, how would you feel about having such an opportunity? How about the idea that anyone could have such an opportunity, even though they may only make $10 an hour?

If you do have apprehension at this idea, you would benefit greatly from taking a close look at your psychological belief in scarcity and the need for "survival of the fittest." I would like to suggest that a more evolved way of looking at how people live in community embraces the idea of shared land, private houses, where everyone wins and no one sacrifices. Even the current owners of the land do not lose. The land is bought from them at market rates then developed by the land trust which then turns around and leases it off to the families who will build their homes there. Let me say this again. Everyone wins and no one loses! This is wisdom in action.

If you agree, consider putting your words and actions where your wisdom is. Read the full entry at Indigo Ocean to learn more, then find out what is being done in your area to create a community land trust in which you can participate.

Ode to the August PDB

The infamous August PDB has been declassified and released and the Bush & Co excuses continue:

Ode to the August PDB
By Madeleine Begun Kane

When Condoleezza Rice speaks out
Does anybody buy her?
It's hard to fathom how she fumbled warnings, oh so dire.

"Historic," Condoleezza shouts
About that August briefing.
I guess that's why that PDB did catch the Bushies sleeping.

The rest of my Ode to the August PDB is here.

Happy Lucky Me - The SushiLover Jersey

And I want the Happy Lucky Me - SushiLover Jersey.

I read this just now and suddenly I'm crying and crying and cannot stop.

I didn't know him, but he was from my town.
He was only a few years older than my kids.

When I yank myself back from this very personal precipice of horror and try to be detached, I can see that news like this is beginning to feel like the casualties statistics from Vietnam. In 1965 I remember starting to pay attention to the death toll reports, and being a little in awe; a "Gosh, I'm living through History or something!" attitude. As months and then years went by, I started numbing up, until the death reports simply got monotonous and I dismissed them as "the SOS."

Nearly forty years later: I'm living through History; I'm numbing up; More of the "Same Old Shit."

As a result, I've decided to go to choir rehearsals tomorrow night. It'll be the first time I've gone since...... October 2001.
After 14 years I bugged out of the Canticle Choir, once my refuge and my weekly free therapy session, because other responsibilities and obligations were pressing in and the proverbial Something had to give.

For some reason, probably having to do with being Norwegian and Lutheran, I've been able to separate my disillusionment with my church from my love of choral singing. Fact: If you are a Lutheran of Scandinavian heritage living in the Midwest, chances are overwhelming that you sing in a choir. Choral singing is rampant here. Everybody's in a choir. Always. I may be forever disenchanted with the church, but nothing could possibly drive me away forever from singing in a church choir. It is absolutely the most spiritual, soulful, therapeutic and cathartic activity I've ever experienced.
[Yes, including sex. I am a middle-aged woman, and one of the best perks of that job is knowing that I'll never mince another word in my entire life if I don't want to. Get used to it.]

So, here it is Holy Week 2004, and I'm sobbing over a 22-year old kid from Eden Prairie who was killed in Iraq , and I don't know how to deal with the emotional pain. I know the Canticle Choir will be singing a requiem at the Tenebrae Service at St. Andrew Lutheran on Good Friday, and so I will be there too, singing.
We will be doing either the Brahms German Requiem, in English, or the Rutter, or the Fauré. The Brahms is wonderful, but I'm hoping for the Fauré. Has there ever been a more beautiful, all-encompassing musical expression of comfort and meditation and love? I say No.

Okay, now you go listen to the Fauré Requiem. Right now. Peace.

Cross-posted on my blog.

Daily Kos Song

If you've been following the Daily Kos controversy -- a great summary is here -- you might enjoy my song parody on the subject, the Daily Kos Song.

Calpundit moves to Washington

The Washington Monthly, that is. Kevin Drum, the Calpundit, has moved again. Last year, he bid Blogger good-bye for Movable Type. Now, he has a new blog at the Washington Monthly. He says being a part of Big Media (well, middling media, really) will not cramp his style. For readers not familiar with the Calpundit, he focuses on politics, but also probes business and does his share of cat blogging.

Forwarding Address. . . As promised — assuming you take a generous view of "a day or two" — starting today I will be blogging for the Washington Monthly magazine's new blog, Political Animal. Here's the new address:

www.washingtonmonthly.com

I will probably still post a few personal items here occasionally, but basically my entire blog is being transplanted to the Washington Monthly's site. Nothing much will change, really, at least at first. It will still be me doing the same thing I do here, unedited and unplugged. We may add some guest bloggers in the future, but the details are a bit murky at the moment. We'll work it out as we go.


So please add Political Animal to your bookmark list, and if you're a blogger please add it to your blogroll. See you there!


NOTE: The link above is a direct link to the blog. It will be right smack in the middle of their newly redesigned homepage. It should become active around 7 am Eastern time on Wednesday.


UPDATE: Honest, I really am blogging over there now. Go read all the new posts. Go now!


And add Political Animal to your bookmarks. Just click on the link above with your right mouse button and then click "Add to Favorites. . . ." It's easy!

Long time readers of Mac-a-ro-nies know Kevin is one of the big dogs who led me to become interested in blogging and helped me become a good blogger. His address may have changed, but I am sure the quality of his blogging has not. I have updated my blogroll to follow Kevin to Political Animal. You should, too.


What's the art?


Kevin has two cats. I assume they've moved to Washington, too. The cat pictured is Jasmine.

Note: This item is part of a column that appeared at Mac-a-ro-nies.

Fact-Free Bush Song Parody

The Flip-Flopper-In-Chief would have us believe that John Kerry's the real flip-flopper. This, from a President who never lets the facts interfere with policy. Which brings me to my latest song parody, Fact-Free Bush. Feel free to sing it to "She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain," using this midi link which opens a second window.

Fact-Free Bush (to be sung to "She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain")

By Madeleine Begun Kane

When the facts get in the way you change the facts,
And when facts get in the way, give facts the ax.
When the facts get in the way,
When the facts get in the way,
When the facts get in the way you change the facts.

When Iraq is not as threat'ning as you claimed,
Say you never said it was, play language games.
When Iraq is not as threat'ning,
When Iraq is not as threat'ning,
When Iraq is not as threat'ning as you claimed.

When your job projection numbers are quite wrong,
Blithely claim you never bought them all along.
When your job projection numbers,
When your job projection numbers,
When your job projection numbers are quite wrong.

That was always my position, is your line.
Doesn't matter if you've really changed your mind...

The rest of my Fact-Free Bush song parody is here.


(This post originally appeared here.)

'I Saw Papers That Show US Knew al-Qa'ida Would Attack Cities With Airplanes'

'I Saw Papers That Show US Knew al-Qa'ida Would Attack Cities With Airplanes'

The hits just keep on comin', don't they Shrub?

Republicans Under Investigation

Daily Kos || Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.

The Daily Kos has a great list of all the Republican bigwigs currently under investigation.

He'd have listed the Democrats, too, but there aren't any.

Big Bush Lies -- New Anti-Bush Book

Congratulations to the brilliant Jerry "Politex" Barrett of BushWatch fame, creator and editor of the soon to be published (May 1, 2004) Big Bush Lies: 20 Essays and a List of the 50 Most Telling Lies of George W. Bush. (Full Disclosure: I'm proud to be one of the book's 19 contributors, having used the lawyer side of my recovering lawyer brain, to write the education lies chapter.)

As you can see from Big Bush Lies' front and back covers, it features twenty original essays by academics, activists, legal experts, financial leaders, and journalists. The essays document Bush lies and inconsistencies about Iraq and WMD's, foreign policy, the environment, energy, health and science, religion, education, women and minority policies, national security, 9/11, campaign lies, and other topics.

I've posted links to all the contributors here.

Anita Roddick on International Women's Month

My boss-lady and fellow Blog Sister, Anita Roddick, is honoring International Women's Month by periodically posting profiles of amazing women activists from around the world. Besides it being cool just anyway, the profiles she's posting come from my last book! So I admit to some self-servingness to this post (so sue me).

If you're interested, check out the profiles of Aborginal rights activist Isabell Coe and Indian anti-globalization activist Vandana Shiva. More coming soon ...

Picturing Women: An exhibition about how women are figured, fashioned, turned into portraits, and told about in words and pictorial narrative.

Picturing Women: An exhibition about how women are figured, fashioned, turned into portraits, and told about in words and pictorial narrative.

CodePink

CodePink

I found this on the Code Pink site and wanted to Share.

Quote from Nazi Hermann Goering:


"Naturally the common people don't want war, but after
all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the
policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag
people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist
dictatorship.  Voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This
is easy. All you have to do is to tell them that they
are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for
lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
It works the same in every country."

Technology: Audio expert profiles iPod users

As an owner of her third iPod, one from each generation, I am either a person of great taste, a control freak or both, according to an expert on users of audio in the contemporary urban environment. I choose the cooler designation, person of good taste, of course. Some technologies are off-putting, but I haven't found the iPod to be one of them.

Lecturer Dr. Michael Bull is "the world's leading -- perhaps only -- expert on the social impact of personal stereo devices," according to The New York Times.

Bull, a lecturer in media and culture at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, is the author of Sounding out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday Life, a book Bull calls the "definitive treatment" of the impact of the Sony Walkman and its descendants.

Now Bull has turned his attention to Apple's iPod.

Bull is currently interviewing iPod owners about how, when, where and why they use the iPod, and how it integrates into their everyday lives.

The interviews will be the basis of Bull's forthcoming book, Mobilizing the Social: Sound Technology in Urban Experience. The book, to be published next spring, will examine the impact of cell phones and car sound systems, as well as the iPod.

Bull believes a cigar is more than a cigar. According to him, our avid approval of a device that allows us to decide when and where we listen to music is a way to control our environments.

WN: But does it make people antisocial? Is music less of a social experience than it used to be? The New York Times ran an article last week about New Yorkers using their iPods to block out the city. But isn't that the point of personal stereos? What's different about the iPod that wasn't true of the Walkman?

Bull: People like to control their environment, and the iPod is the perfect way to manage your experience. Music is the most powerful medium for thought, mood and movement control....


The Times asked what becomes of the public space when the public space becomes privatized. What about the others -- the person in the supermarket checkout you don't recognize is there? It asks whether the public space becomes colder as the personal space becomes warmer through music.


There's a lot of studies in the literature that demonstrate with the urban space, the more it's inhabited, the safer you feel. You feel safe if you can feel people there, but you don't want to interact with them.

Music allows people to find pleasure in the place they're existing. (Personal stereos) make the user's life much better. It helps them manage urban life.... Urban life is one of the reasons they're using these devices. How often do you talk to people in public anyway?

As some of you know, I have written about public and private space topics often because they intrigue me. I agree with Bull that this is another form of the issue. I believe some limitations on public space, such as Starbuck's rule against patrons taking pictures in their establishments, do make public spaces colder. However, I don't see that occurring with the iPod. I usually listen most when I am in transit, especially when walking or taking public transit, which consists of buses, trolleys and trains where I live. If I were not listening to music on the iPod, I would be reading a print magazine or book, or, tellingly, reading the news, a periodical or a book on my PDA. So, the iPod is replacing a noncommunicative behavior. Furthermore, there are other forms of current technology that use space in the same way, such as the previously mentioned PDA and cell phones. One of the attributes of the iPod is that it is private. Unlike talking on the phone, I am not forcing other people sharing the public space to share my experience when I'm listening to music. An interesting side effect of being into the iPod for two years is that I find leakage from portable CD players and lesser MP3 devices more annoying than I did before. I have come to believe that, unless asked to share, one should keep one's music to oneself.

But, what of Bull's belief the iPod can be used as an avoidance mechanism? That is true some of the time. When I am listening to my iPod, with the white earbuds in my ears being so noticeable, I am able to thwart some unwanted social contact. As recently as yesterday, I deflected a hopped up panhandler. I watched him annoy a man from several feet a way. The vagrant, who was filthy and smelled like sewage, walked alongside the man and kept tugging at his elbow while demanding money. I was next. My response was to look straight ahead as if I had not even noticed him. The earphones made the pose credible. The panhandler left me alone and sought out another person a few feet ahead of us. He went through his routine of pestering the mark again. Such experiences aren't unusual. If one is listening to the iPod and affects the 'in another world' look required, people one does not want contact with get the message.

A new twist is that the latest generation of iPods have a truly functional remote. One can have the earphones on, but have turned the iPod off by remote. So, you do hear what is going on around you. But, unless he is hip to the remote, the observer does not know you can hear everything going on. The user gets to grant permission to other people to talk to him or her. Or not.

I may be atypical. I do talk to other people in public. Not every stranger I see, but enough to share public space and meet new people. I look forward to seeing how Bull supports his belief that most people want to avoid interaction with others in his book.

If you are an iPod owner, you can participate in the study by contacting Bull.

Note: This entry also appeared at Mac-a-ro-nies.

Amplification: The researcher is looking for female iPod users. So, if you are an iPod owner, he wants to hear from you. Bull can be contacted on his webpage.

In Praise of Old People

A fellow graduate student recently remarked, "It's so difficult to get tickets to any of the cultural events around here because so many old people get all of them early." Although I emphasize with him (I've been hard-pressed trying to get tickets too) this only illustrates all too well why we "whippersnappers" shouldn't underestimate the elderly.

There's a lot nitpickers and economists alike could find to complain about in the over-the-hill population. They continue to drive when their reflexes have deteriorated. They're stubborn and set in their ways. They're a tax on the health care system and the younger members of their family. Some of them dress funny. And others may have taken the youth-obsessed culture a little bit too much to heart and have dressed up like teenagers. And at worse, they regress back to the point of infantilism. Many of these reasons, though, can be thought of as fears about aging. People don't want to lose control. They don't want look into that mirror of the inevitable future.

But older people aren't sacks of potatoes with a mouth. They're people who have been around for a while. They're wiser and if not that, at least they have more experience. They're living bits of history--something a textbook or a video could never replicate. But is this really the reason that we go on living for a couple more decades after our reproductive fitness has declined to zero?

Other animals don't have the benefit of social security checks, but that doesn't explain why after they produce their last offspring, they soon die. In the extreme case, there are insects that emerge into their adult forms for one day. They mate like mad, lay the eggs, then die. There is no such thing as old age for our six-legged friends. One theory on why humans have a longer life much past the reproductive peak is that it confers survival advantage to an individuals offspring. This makes sense if one thinks about it--some insects don't take care of their offspring, instead they let their eggs fend for themselves. Humans on the other hand are more social animals and take care of their offspring for far longer. First hand evidence are college kids. Theoretically, they're old enough to go out into the world by themselves, but in reality most of them still have some sort of financial support from their parents.

In a recent Nature article by Lahdenpera et al. (PubMed abstract) this group explores the fitness benefits conferred to the offspring of post-reproductive women. The grandmother effect was first proposed by George C. Williams in 1957 (Evolution, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 398-411):

In the human male and in both sexes of other animals, reproductive decline is a gradual process, as is the senecence of other systems. In the human female, however, it is rather abrupt, and some special explanation is required. At some point during human evolution it may have become advantageous for a woman of forty-five or fifty to stop dividing her declining faculties between the care of extant offspring and the production of new ones. A termination of increasingly hazardous pregnancies would enable her to devote her whole remaining energy to the care of her living children, and would remove childbirth mortality as a possible cause for failure to raise these children. Menopause, although apparently a cessation of reproduction, may have arisen as a reproductive adaptation to a life-cycle already characterized by senescence, unusual hazards in pregnancy and childbrith, and a long period of juvenile dependence. If so, it is improper to regard menopause as a part of the aging syndrome.

Lahdenpera et al. propose that the grandmothers become "helpers" by both taking care of their children and grandchildren, thus giving both survival advantages. They give experimental evidence to the theory through statistical sampling of two pre-modern populations in Canada and Finland. Controls for various factors such as age, offspring sex, geography, socio-economic status were taken into account by using a general linear model. From the data, both sons and daughters who had mothers living past menopause were able to raise more children to adulthood independent of wealth. However, less grandchildren were born if the grandmother did not live in the same place and a grandmother's beneficial effect to survival did not kick in until after the child was weaned.

Well, what about men? By just eyeballing some numbers, we can immediately see that men don't live as long as women (although there are articles trumpeting that the lifespan gap is narrowing). Williams also mentions this in his paper. Unfortunately, there is no "grandmother effect" equivalent in males because they are exposed to more risks such as fighting each other and spending too much energy on courtship displays.

Cross-posted at Syaffolee.

Mad Kane Hires An Ombudsman

For years I've been flooded with emails challenging the accuracy of MadKane.com. At first I did what most publications do -- I ignored them. But as time went by, I realized that something had to be done. So in keeping with recent trends and in the interest of sound journalism, I've appointed an ombudsman who'd like to be known only as "Bud." Here's part of Bud's first report:

• The poem entitled Dubya's Poetic Injustice states that during George W. Bush's Election 2000 campaign, Bush promised to be a "compassionate conservative" and to have a "humble foreign policy." After this poem was published, we learned that Bush was "crossing his fingers" whenever he made those promises, so "they didn't really count." We regret this error.
  
  

• According to a State of Disunion crossword puzzle clue, President Bush believes that raising twins is even harder than waging war. While Bush did in fact make that statement, he has since changed his mind and now acknowledges that waging war is "an itsy-bitsy bit harder than raising twins." We are sorry for failing to keep up to date on this issue.
  

• In Dubya's Don't Blame Me Song the lyricist itemizes several things as not being George W. Bush's fault, including the jobless rate, 9/11, the mission accomplished banner, and the lack of WMD's. We have since learned that many more things weren't the President's fault and we regret our lack of comprehensiveness.
  

The rest of
Ombudsman Bud's first report is here.

My Beatles Birthday and International Women's Day

I'm celebrating both here,, where..

Today is International Women's Day. I remember well when, in the mid 70s, during the first International Women's Year, so many of us young American women counted on the energy of our IWD efforts to truly change our worlds.

In her speech at the First International Women's Year Conference, Betty Ford reminded us that "The long road to equality rests on achievements of women and men in altering how women are treated in every area of everyday life." From where I sit and read and watch, we haven't moved very far down that long road in those 30 years since.

Instead, each week there's some additional TV program touting the miracles that plastic surgery works on the lives of poor, plain, unloved females. Instead, more and more women strive to unleash the power of Victoria's Secret, buying into yet another misleading fantasy about what it is to be truly female and powerful, attractive and persuasive.

Today, while other places in other parts of the world at least acknowledged the importance of what this day symbolizes, American voices were mostly silent and unaware..........

"The Passion" is rooted in controversy

The National Catholic Reporter has tried to put paid to one of the controversies over actor Mel Gibson's reportedly reactionary movie, "The Passion of the Christ." Gibson and others in his circle claim the Pope, John Paul II, approved the film's interpretation of the death of Christ, saying: "It is as it was." However, other persons in positions to know deny the Pope made such a statement.

Vatican reporter John Allen explains the episode from its beginning.

I sympathize with those weary of the controversy surrounding the alleged papal reaction, "It is as it was," to Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ. Not even the most rabid ultramontanist believes papal infallibility extends to movie reviews, so the film will rise or fall on its own merits, apart from anything John Paul thinks. Moreover, the increasingly farcical he said, she said nature of the story is hardly edifying.

Yet there are times when a story is important not so much for its content as for what it reveals about the players involved, and the institutions they serve. Such is the case with the pope's alleged comment, and I'm afraid it doesn't reveal much flattering about anyone.

Allen explains how he believes the 'confusion' arose.

Here's how we got here.

On Dec. 5 and 6, a Friday and Saturday, John Paul II watched “The Passion of the Christ” in his private apartment along with [papal secretary Archbishop Stanislaw] Dziwisz. On Monday, Dec. 8, Dziwisz received [Steve McEveety, the movie's producer] and his wife along with Jan Michelini and Alberto Michelini, Jan’s father. Their conversation took place largely in Italian, a language McEveety and his wife don’t speak. The Michelinis afterwards translated for McEveety what they believe they heard Dziwisz say, namely, that the pope’s reaction to the film was, “It is as it was.” Later that night, McEveety screened the movie for Navarro.

That the Michelinis had access to the pope is not difficult to explain. Alberto Michelini is a well-known Italian journalist and politician, who in 1979 accompanied the pope on his first trip to Poland.

. . .For the record, both Alberto Michelini and Navarro are members of Opus Dei.

Members of Gibson's inner circle promoted the claim the Pope had smiled on the film. The Vatican, through Dziwisz, issued a statement Jan. 19, denying that had occurred. Gibson's people still say they have information proving their claim of approval by the Pope is true, but haven't released it.

Allen is inclined to hold the Vatican more responsible for the controversy over the alleged statement by the Pope, than reporters, who he feels were misled.

The Vatican has made, as the expression goes here, the worst brutta figura. It comes off looking bad. Even if officials were acting for the noblest of motives, they have stretched the meaning of words, on and off the record, to their breaking point. Aside from the obvious moralism that it’s wrong to deceive, such confusion can only enhance perceptions that the aging John Paul II is incapable of controlling his own staff, that “no one is in charge” and the church is adrift. These impressions are not healthy in a time when the church’s public image, especially in the United States, has already taken a beating on other grounds.

Dean of religion Dwight Moody has been thinking about another controversy related to the film -- the claim that it is anti-Semitic because it assigns blame for the death of Jesus to Jews. He warns readers the relationship between passion plays and hatred of Jews is well-established.

“The Passion of Christ” hits the big screens Feb. 25. Mel Gibson is the writer, director and producer of this movie. He weaves material from a medieval mystic into the biblical narrative of the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life.

The Gibson movie has received much more attention than the Bratcher movie. Many Catholic and Evangelical leaders have attended preview showings and have come away with glowing endorsements.

Others are not so sure.

Passion plays have a long history of anti-Jewish bias. For centuries, the worst time to be a Jew in a Christian community was during Holy Week, when passion plays incited the religious fervor of the people. Too often this fervor was directed against the Jews who were called “Christ killers.” About a decade ago, the Vatican released new guidelines on passion plays, including a prohibition on assigning blame for the death of Jesus.

Moody prefers to view the death of Christ as multi-faceted. According to how one approaches it, responsibility can be placed on all the parties, humankind and even Christ himself.

Religion scholar James Martin has been interested in Opus Dei for years. He is considered an authority on the organization. Understanding OD may mean understanding why and how these controversies arose.

Opus Dei Is the most controversial group in the Catholic Church today. To its members it is nothing less than The Work of God, the inspiration of Blessed Josemaría Escriva, who advanced the work of Christ by promoting the sanctity of everyday life. To its critics it is a powerful, even dangerous, cult-like organization that uses secrecy and manipulation to advance its agenda. . . .

His [Escriva's] group grew rapidly, spreading from Spain to other European countries, and in 1950 received recognition by the Holy See as the first “secular institute.” Over the next two decades The Work, as members call it, moved into Latin America and the United States.

Escriva, who was sainted shortly after his death, is said by his critics to have been anti-Semitic and have ". . . pro-Nazi tendencies."

Martin's criticisms of the sect, based on interviews with members and former members, emphasize the secretive, cult-like behavior of Opus Dei and its manipulation of college students.

The controversies that have dogged the movie reflect those that have been associated with Opus Dei. The unsubstantiated claim of approval by the Pope seems typical of Opus Dei leaders' arrogance and overreaching. Nor is the charge of anti-Semiticism new.

It is tempting to say the allegation of anti-Semitism will be resolved when the film is released. However, that platitudinous perspective is not necessarily so. Instead, the matter may become more pregnant than it is now.

Note: This entry also appeared at Mac-a-ro-nies.

File under D for Duh

According to a University of Helsinki study published recently in the American Journal of Public Health, obese women, especially those with higher education or in upper white-collar positions, earn an average 30% less than their thinner counterparts. Read the whole article here, or if that link doesn't work, try here.

Might I just say: Welcome to the wonderful world of double-whammy prejudice!
Like simply being a woman in this society isn't enough of an uphill battle, those of us who have the effrontery to be not only women but also fat women get socked in the pocketbook as an additional punishment for our heinous crime of corpulence. It ain't news to me, honey.

Cross-posted on my blog.

Political Dish Crossword Puzzle

I had such a good time creating my first interactive crossword puzzle (about Bush's State of the Unon speech) that I decided to do another. I hope you enjoy my Political Dish crossword puzzle.

Okay, sisters.

Does anyone know what the difference is between The Diva Cup and The Keeper? Both are "menstrual cups" that serve as an eco-friendly alternative to tampons and pads, but I can't decide which one is better. I'm pretty sure The Keeper has been around longer, but I don't know that for sure. Does anyone know more about this than I do?

AWOL Jobs

Jobs are AWOL, and so's my brain. I say that because in my flu-frazzled state I forgot to mention my latest satirical poem. It starts:

AWOL Jobs
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Our jobs are disappearing
To nations far and wide.
While Dubya has no plan at all
To stem this risky tide.

His people make up numbers
Of jobs they will produce.

The whole poem is here.

Act for Justice

From The Armchair Activist and Human Rights Campaign



The fight is on. I am calling on you and everyone you know to stand up for making justice for all a reality in the US. Please follow this link and take action to demand an end to the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (aka Unequal Rights Amendment) and a beginning for marriage equality.

My goal is to recruit 1000 people to the Million for Marriage effort. Please join us.

from all facts and opinions

In case you're considering seeing the move

I posted my review of The Passion of the Christ here.

But even more to the point is my response to a question raised in the comments to that post that ends with this:

The mindset that made this movie is the same one that caused feminist Monique Wittig to write:

“There was a time when you were not a slave, remember that. You walked alone, full of laughter, you bathed bare-bellied…You say, it does not exist. But remember. Make an effort to remember, or, failing that, invent”.

And so I was not surprised when the image of evil had a wickedly female face. I was not suprised when a snake slithered from around her feet and, of course, the Christ stomped on it.

The women in the film cry a lot, watch a lot, constantly flit around the edges of the action.....

No wonder we still have to invent.

Biblifying the law of the land.

I got the following from my son's website, out Oregon way. He says it's being emailed around, but this is the first I've seen it. It sure does make the point -- at least it should to anyone who doesn't look at the world through a two-inch pipe.

As certain politicians work diligently to prevent marriage between two people of the same sex, others of us have been busy drafting a Constitutional Amendment codifying all marriages entirely on biblical principles. After all, God wouldn't want us to pick and choose which of the Scriptures we elevate to civil law and which we choose to ignore:

Draft of a Constitutional Amendment to Defend Biblical Marriage:
* Marriage in the United States of America shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5.)
* Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)
* A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)
* Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)
* Since marriage is for life, neither the US Constitution nor any state law shall permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9-12)
* If a married man dies without children, his brother must marry the widow. If the brother refuses to marry the widow, or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)
* In lieu of marriage (if there are no acceptable men to be found), a woman shall get her father drunk and have sex with him. (Gen 19:31-36)

I hope this helps to clarify the finer details of the Government's righteous struggle against the infidels and heathens among us

LA Weekly: News: Soldier for the Truth

LA Weekly: News: Soldier for the Truth

Now here's a real heroine! Read this and pass along the link.

primpin for the Lord

Who made the rule that you don't put mascara on false eyelashes, anyway? Certainly not The Lord. According to ordained minister and former theme-park hostess Tammy Faye, Jesus was a fun guy and wouldn’t have minded this or any of the other decorative liberties taken by one of his favourite accomplices.
The issue of cosmetic restraint is just one of the many beguiling questions tackled by Reverend Tammy Faye Messner in her new self-help text I Will Survive... And You Will, Too! The recently released book, whose author is firmly positioned front and centre as Inspirational Celebrity Survivor, also offers friendly advice on the correct handling of regret, love, loss and wigs.
There are also some recipes.
One topic the book doesn’t directly address is the demise of the PTL, or Praise The Lord, phenom she helped build with her former husband Jim Bakker.
During the 1980s, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker reigned as televangelism’s glitziest and most likeable couple. Despite accusations of tremendous high-living that included reports of wardrobe items being flown cross country in a private jet at a six figure cost and gold-plated plumbing fixtures, the all-crying, all-singing duo struck a chord with millions of ordinary credit-card carrying Christians.
From her home in North Carolina, with dogs Muffin and Tuppins nipping at her hot pink heels (“I painted my shoes the most gorgeous colour with nail polish!”), the Reverend explains the homespun appeal of the PTL Club.
“We were a husband and wife that loved life and we were real. I came on the air mad at Jim many times. And I told people “I’m mad at my husband today. I’m really mad at this guy today!” I’m a brutally honest person, and I think that works for people.”
“You know, life’s not perfect and we let people know that our life wasn’t perfect either.”
The world beyond Christian television learned just how imperfect the Bakkers’ lives could get when in 1987 Jim resigned from PTL following a scandal involving ministry employee and future Playboy playmate Jessica Hahn.
Allegations of shenanigans with Bible Study babes aside, the worst was to come.
Television viewers may recall the offer of lifetime partnerships to "Heritage USA", a Christian vacation park in Fort Mill, South Carolina. These partners were promised free accommodations pending availability in return for their donations. It was found that PTL did not keep its pledge and was accused of knowingly desisting from building rooms for guests and partners.
In 1988, Reverend Jim Bakker was indicted on several counts of fraud and one count of conspiracy. He was initially sentenced to 45 years of prison.
By the time Jim was paroled in 1993, he and Tammy had divorced.
So, does the new downsized, self-help propelled Tammy feel differently about prosperity preaching today?
“No, I don’t. The bible says that the worker is worthy. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being able to live in a nice home and drive in a nice car.”
Tammy Faye explains that nice digs are, very often, the by-product of a Christian life. “That’s one of the exciting things about serving God. He will help you to prosper. I don’t think that’s wrong.”
The Reverend contends that media reports of their lavish lifestyle were grossly exaggerated. Their so-called mansion, she insists, was a lakeside shack with rotten floorboards.
“We were very handy and we fixed that house up and that’s where we lived almost the whole time we were at Heritage USA.”
All monies, she said, went directly to build the Ministry of Fun that was Heritage USA. “God’s people willingly paid for it.”
“We didn’t misuse that money. They said we took millions of dollars.” Indeed, that’s what they said.
The Reverend, who is still on agreeable terms with her former husband, is eager to clear this matter up – despite no question about the scandal having been asked. In a final effort to elucidate she offers, a little unhelpfully, “We didn’t live any different than anybody else who was at our economic level.”
One has to wonder if, at any interval, Tammy’s faith was tested. No, she says, it never really was, but she did find one instruction a little hard to take.
“The Bible says: In all things give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you and that was the hardest verse in the bible for me to get my head around.”
While she may not have always been able to give thanks for the dark times, she acknowledges that her experiences can help her help others as she does in her latest instructional manual.
“I was sent to earth just to help people. I’ve been through almost everything a person can go through. I’ve been through cancer, I’ve been through great loss.”
“I went to the top. The very top you can go. Except maybe president of the United States.”
She has, she says, visited the bottom in the last decade. And now she is residing “somewhere in the middle”.
This middle ground, for a High Trailer artefact like Tammy Faye, definitely seems fertile.
Beginning in the year 2000, Messner began to stalk the terrain truly befitting any oddball American who might have been written by David Lynch.
Her first legitimate stop in Weirdsville USA was the Sundance film festival for her own premiere. The camp, faintly artsy and wildly sympathetic documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye narrated by former Drag Superstar RuPaul introduced her to a gay congregation. Despite the fact that she thinks gay marriage is wrong and that homosexuality is a sin (“But no worse than any other sin. I’d rather talk to a homosexual than a liar or a cheat.”) her flock of fruits is growing.
The film, she says, “changed my life”.
In the last year or so, she’s shared a bill in San Francisco with John Waters. “He’s a nice man,” she says of the celebrated oddity “he just has a dirty mouth and a dirty mind. So after he finished, I said to the audience ‘I got a mop and I’m gonna clean up after John Waters!’”
I ask if an Internet rumour that she will duet with Marilyn Manson has any substance. “Well, no honey. What happened was he came into town to do a concert and he asked if he could meet with me. Well, I’m not gonna say no! So we met at a television station and we talked about God for two hours.”
She has also been talking God recently with moustachioed porn protagonist Ron Jeremy. She and Jeremy have been teamed with former CHiPs television star Erik Estrada and eighties white rap embarrassment Vanilla Ice for a Big Brother style reality experiment called Surreal Life.
The Reverend is thrilled about the premiere of her new show on America’s WB. “I have a 64 foot billboard up on Times Square and I ‘m on all the buses in New York.”
She cites Surreal Life as “one of the top ten experiences of my life”. Somehow, it’s hardly surprising that several of Tammy’s fondest memories have been caught on tape.
Tammy Faye is an American original. She’s met everyone and is up for anything. Her next collaboration or scripture meeting could involve anyone from Michael Moore to Paris Hilton. Or both.
“When I was a little girl” says Tammy Faye “I would be riding up and down on my bike in International Falls Minnesota I had one prayer: God please don’t let my life be boring.”
“Honey, He answered that prayer.”

Ralph & Rove

It looks like Ralph Nader is poised to announce another run. I guess he found this email persuasive:

From: Karl_Rove@Whitehouse.gov

To: Ralph_Nader@Spoiler.org

Subject: What will it take?

Hey Ralphie. How ya doing? Long time no talk.

I didn't think we'd need you in '04, but things aren't going as well as I expected.

The rest of Karl Rove's email to Ralph Nader is here.

Allow me to introduce myself: I'm the Antichrist, apparently

When I left work at the end of the day Friday, I got a little reminder of what a multitudinous milieu of attitudes and thought processes we're living in. I walked across the parking lot to my car, and when I got close saw a frozen gob of spit on one of my windows. No mistaking it. I couldn't see any other frozen substances of any kind on my car; just this one loogie, hocked across one of the back windows on the driver's side. That's the spot where I have fastened, on the inside of the window, a fairly innocuous pro-choice bumper sticker. Hmmm. Coincidence or conspiracy?
A quick check of the window on the other side of the car, the window that displays the sign commenting on the war in Iraq, showed spotless, clear glass, so I assume that the person who left the iced-up editorial comment is a one-issue expectorator. Tsk. That must get pretty boring.
As usual, I'm left to reflect: is this a great country, or what?! Seriously. Freedom of expression. Freedom of expectoration. Goddess Bless America!

Tild

good news gals

If you’ve ever hankered to find out just what the Messiah thinks of fragrance-free facial cleanser, fresh breath and Britney’s choice in footwear, help is finally at hand. Answers to these and assorted other contemporary spiritual questions, like “If God made pot, why can't I smoke it?” are now available online for a very reasonable $US14.99.
Revolve might look like an uptight life-style mag aimed at Teen girls too young to know the difference between cut-price fashion stock photography and legitimate street style. What this unlikely US best seller actually contains, apart from frequently perplexing advice columns and wholesome beauty guidance, is the complete New Testament.
Parcelled in the candy pink imagery and language endemic to magazines such as Seventeen or Tigerbeat, Revolve aims to bolster the faith of young Christian women and allow for ease of access to The Word. It also encourages a habit of good posture and advises against speaking with food in one’s mouth.
Thomas Nelson, the world's largest English language publisher of the bible, has craftily recognised that adolescent readers do judge the Good Book by its cover.
“Our research with teens showed that they found the bible too big or too freaky … to carry around” says the bible’s spokesperson and Brand Manager Laurie Whaley. She’s a member of the team responsible for making faith a more portable, and stylish, possibility.
In an effort to trade God to a teen-aged demographic, the company has added items such as a New King James Version with Compact Shoulder Strap and the thrill-seeking Extreme Teen Bible to its colossal product range in recent years. It was not, however, until the August 2003 publication of Revolve that the house effectively penetrated its challenging teen target.
Revolve is a marketing success story that was born of internet-based research. Maidens of the primarily Christian focus group complained that when confronted by the big, freaky bible they were simply at a loss to pick it up.
“When we asked teen girls ‘what do you read?’ we had the response ‘we read magazines’,” explains Whaley, a fantastically perky 29 year old Tennessee native, from her home in Nashville.
“Revolve was the number one selling bible of 2003” says Whaley. Current published estimates indicate that it retains its number one position to date. Although exact sales figures are unavailable, industry reports indicate that this new New Testament was a surprise hit nationwide and that a second six-figure print run has all but sold out.
Revolve has been so successful that a version for teenaged males, Refuel, is planned for release next month. “We’ve had some awesome emails from teen guys saying I’ve seen Revolve at my girlfriend’s house I would really like to get something for guys” says Whaley.
Whaley is thrilled by the success of a title that is sure to enjoy republication. She envisages, “an 18 month cycle for getting new editions. When we talk about content changes, obviously we’re not talking about the bible!”
Purist elders need not fret. This sassy New Testament will not revise the Last Supper to include a sponsored appearance by uber-teens, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. The New Century Version bible is unchanged; it’s just had a teeny makeover to draw out its inner beauty.
While the Greatest Story Ever Marketed will itself remain intact, there will be amendments to Revolve’s images and celebrity references in future editions.
The publication’s quizzes and reader advice sections that have proved such a hit with a young Christian audience will also be updated. It will be intriguing to see if Revolve’s editors can uphold the bravura standard set in the current issue.
In questionnaires that ask “Are you Crushing too Hard?” and “Are you Dating a Godly Guy?” (I checked, and I’m not) readers are marked for their chastity.
As instructive as are the quizzes, the genuine highlight for many readers of Revolve is the sidebar “Dear Abby” style column. “We have a feature called Blab Q and A. We answer questions from real teens on topics on everything from cloning and tattoos to oral sex to suicide to homosexuality and a variety of different things.” Says Whaley.
What, asks one question from a Real Teen, do you think about boyfriends tickling their girlfriends? “Tickling equals foreplay” counsels the anonymous Christian den-mother, whose knowledge of the Scriptures is so thorough that it extends to tickle-fight protocol. Tickling, needless to impart, must be rebuffed at all costs.
Similarly, thoughts of sex, an act described as “ a beautiful gift that God has given to married people”, in anything other than an educational way are sinful.
As for homosexuality: to employ the faux-hip parlance of Revolve, get outta here, girl!
Blab Q and A makes it clear “ that homosexuality is not the teaching of the scripture.” says Whaley
“God is going to love you regardless of your sexual orientation. But if you struggle with liking the same gender you might want to seek some help.”
There is much within Revolve that a progressive Christian might find repugnant. Reportedly, the first print run contained the axiom “God made guys to be the leaders. That means that they lead in relationships". Another questionable inclusion was this statistic “African-American teens are 40 percent more likely to have had sex than Caucasian teens." This may very well be the case. However, in a document so open in it scorn for promiscuity, the insertion of the fact is, at best, in poor taste.
The ugly conservatism of Revolve can be partially forgiven when one considers the needs of its target market. There are young women who, when confronted with the choice, would prefer tuition in virtue to the wanton, mid riff baring wriggling of Britney. Not every adolescent female is comfortable with the idea of life lived as a temptress in stretch denim. There are many gradations to choose, of course, between Vestal and Vixen. Kids, however, seem to be fond of extremes. It is the extreme temperament of Revolve that ensures it gels like teen spirit to some.
In a country equally adept at producing Christians and Target Markets en masse, Revolve just had to appear. Whether it is God’s handiwork or the greedy evildoing of Mammon is anybody’s guess.

Mass Distraction

I'm starting to lose track of all the Bush scandals. We have GuardServicegate, Plamegate, Oilgate, Harkengate, Yellowcakegate -- I'm sure I must have missed some. But of course none of this matters because -- horror of horrors -- John Kerry is a
Massachusetts Liberal!

Jackson apologizes for Super Bowl stunt

In the interest of research, I tried to interview a four-year-old boy about breasts. He was a tough nut to crack. First, he sang words that rhyme with breast. Some real. Some not. (We play word games sometimes.) Then he hung upside down from a chair and made faces. Just when I thought he might be about to express his outrage about the pictures of Janet Jackson's boob he had seen, he grabbed my iPod and I had to chase him around the room several times to get it back. So, I have no tearful remonstrations by a victim to report.

Meanwhile, Jackson has admitted there was a plan to expose her red underwear at the end of the steamy song she sang with Justin Timberlake.

In a statement released Monday night, Jackson apologized and said it was a last-minute stunt that went awry.

"The decision to have a costume reveal at the end of my halftime show performance was made after final rehearsals. MTV was completely unaware of it," she said. "It was not my intention that it go as far as it did. I apologize to anyone offended -- including the audience, MTV, CBS and the NFL."

Jackson's official Web site was bombarded with angry postings. Her spokeswoman, Jennifer Holiner, said a red lace garment was supposed to remain when Timberlake tore off the outer covering.

The most unattractive man in America, Michael Powell, is still claiming to be shocked (yes, shocked!) by the event. Unfortunately, Powell heads the Federal Communications Commission.

Powell promised an investigation, with potential fines of up to $27,500. If applied to each CBS station, the fine could reach the millions.

In response to multiple phone calls from the public, acting Houston police chief Joe Breshears reiterated that no criminal charges would be filed.

Despite the apparent premeditation -- the display coincided exactly with Timberlake singing, "I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song" -- all involved denied that the peep show was planned.

"This was done completely without our knowledge," said Chris Ender, entertainment spokesman for CBS, which was deluged with angry calls. "It wasn't rehearsed. It wasn't discussed. It wasn't even hinted at... This is something we would have never approved. We are angry and embarrassed."

An examination of the FCC rules suggests the conduct may not violate them.

Over-the-air TV channels cannot air "obscene" material at any time and cannot air "indecent" material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The FCC defines obscene as describing sexual conduct "in a patently offensive way" and lacking "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." Indecent material is not as offensive but still contains references to sex or excretions.

Furthermore, in the past, the FCC has saved severe fines for premeditated acts that explicitly break the rules. This one or two second event, that most viewers did not see clearly, is hardly that.

On Monday's Nightline, veteran newsman Ted Kopple observed that more people watched the exposure on TiVo and the Internet than caught the real thing. Doesn't that suggest that at least some of the folks cavailing about the behavior sought it out?

And, let's not let Powell off the hook. Michael Powell has plans, I suspect. Po-lit-i-cal plans. Just like the other parties in the saga is he out to exploit it. Here's an opportunity for him to reap name recognition the head of the FCC doesn't usually get. And, since ole lipless has been an unpopular FCC chairman, he will play this to the hilt.

At this juncture, I think there is enough blame to go around - including Jackson, Timberlake, MTV, CBS and the NFL itself, which does its share to encourage vulgarity. I still believe the entire episode has been blown out of proportion.

Note: This entry also appeared at Mac-a-ro-nies

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Mad Kane Interviews Dick Cheney

Back in 2001 when I did my first interview with Vice President Richard Cheney, he told me his cave door's always open. And sure enough, it is. Here's my second interview with Vice President Cheney:

MADKANE: Mr. Vice President, welcome. Let's start with the rumor that you're about to be kicked off the Bush/Cheney ticket. Is there an imminent threat that President Bush will run with somebody else?

CHENEY: Absolutely not.

MADKANE: What about a dangerous threat?

CHENEY: No.

MADKANE: A serious threat?

CHENEY: Negative.

MADKANE: An immediate threat?

CHENEY: None whatsoever.

MADKANE: What about a mortal or grave or serious and mounting threat?

The rest of my 2nd interview with Dick Cheney is here.