July 05, 2004
Extra Sleep = Secret STD Armor!
An editorial in Sunday's Statesman invites us to consider this:
One thing teenagers can do to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases is to get plenty of rest.I was lucky. My parents - who happen to believe that premarital sex is a horrid sin - told me how babies were made when I was six. I learned about tampons and condoms from a Girl Scouts sex educator when I was ten. In high school, I volunteered for the local AIDS Services office as a health educator, learning every other sex-ed related lesson the average person (or, honestly, nymphomaniac) could ever possibly want to know.No, this didn't come from David Letterman's nightly "Top 10" spoof of popular culture and political events. It's a serious, though not accurate, recommendation that is found in one of the health textbooks that is likely to end up in Texas classrooms.
My experiences were remarkably unique - many parents choose to avoid uncomfortable conversations with their children about sex and leave health education up to the schools. Or believe that their religious institution will teach their child everything they need to know. That's precisely why efforts to block contraceptive education by our Christian-fundamentalist State Board of Education must be publicly challenged. Consider the fact that, on different scales, Texas ranks first or second in the nation for teen pregnancies.
It will hardly be surprising to most of my readers that abstinence-based education programs for teens are no more (and probably less) effective than sex education programs which teach teens about contraceptives. One need look no further than the local XYZone project at Johnston High School for results - people I spoke with for my thesis research noted that only one of the more than 100 adolescent men who received comprehensive services from the program fathered a child. Abstinence rates among the fathers also increased. Guess what? The program counseled young men not only on abstinence but also contraception and the responsibilities of fatherhood.
A coalition of health educators, parents, and involved citizens have set up a website to challenge political efforts that promote the irresponsible "ignorance is bliss" attitude towards health education. Check it out and voice your concerns about this utter nonsense.
July 03, 2004
Send in Jimmy Carter: UN to monitor US?
It seems that a nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to U.N. General Kofi Annan requesting election monitors for November. I'm sure some people will write this off as a partisan stunt but, seriously, shouldn't every major election should have neutral, third-party observers? Maybe insuring the legitimacy of our electoral process would even have the effect of convincing a few more voters to participate.
July 02, 2004
40 Years of Civil Rights
How sad that I've made it most of the way through the day without realizing that today is the 40th anniversary of 1964 Civil Rights Act. LBJ School Dean Edwin Dorn has a thoughtful piece on Austin's civil rights progress and ongoing challenges in today's Statesman.
Americans Love Bill of Rights Again
Good news! 65 percent of Americans surveyed approve of the First Amendment, up from just 49 percent two years ago. Link.
Propaganda or Practical Joke?
Let's say you wanted to help the Republican Party spin criticism of the war on Iraq for political gain. Or you were were living vicariously through the lives of real service men and women and adopting the virtual personality of a person serving in Iraq. Or you were just a little crazy. Maybe you'd decide that it was a good idea to find any place on the Web that would give you an audience for your nonsense, right?
Charles Kuffner of Off The Kuff posed an interesting question yesterday about a very odd comment posting on his blog:
I can't tell if the person who just now left the second comment on this post is a joker with a good working knowledge of Internet trivia, or someone testing out a new comment-bot. Anyone wanna take a guess?The comment, if you check it out, is incredibly odd. At first I assumed it was written by a very mediocre writer or someone with a very poor grasp of English but that didn't quite make sense...certain parts of the comment are quite lucid although they don't make sense in their context.
Loving Google as much as I do, I decided to engage in a little investigative journalism. A search for the opening line came up with two additional letters reportedly from two different U.S. Marines (here and here). My curiosity piqued, I started pulling other random phrases and conducting Google searches:
"MEDEVAC'd her and her family to receive treatment" came up with another letter from Marine Hal Camp, almost (but not quite) identical to the G. Gordon Liddy letter mentioned above.
"because as Pat Boone points out so well in his article, there were no secrets about the abuse" locates yet another posting, this time anonymous, which also rails on the media's depiction of the abuse scandal in Iraq.
"We are training up their local police forces" locates "an interesting email from a Marine involved in the rebuilding stage" and, yet another, heartwarming Liddy-esque letter.
I stopped there. Maybe this post is, as Charles Kuff suggested, just a joke. The signature would certainly suggest that was the case but the connections to other, seemingly serious, pro-war postings online seem a bit too well-researched. Not to mention that the joke would be a whole lot funnier if the excerpts from other "letters" were pasted together in a way that they actually made sense. The fact that the signature links to the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research is kind of funny, though I doubt that's intentional.
What's not funny is the possibility that someone is playing on the goodwill of average Americans towards U.S. troops to spread misinformation. That, my friends, is morally indefensible.
July 01, 2004
Holy Guacamole
Democrats conduct research to impeach Perry
And if that wasn't enough...
At least one Republican state representative, who asked that his name not be used because of possible political ramifications, said he was studying the impeachment process along with House Democrats.Via BOR!
June 30, 2004
John Kerry Wednesday
Okay, so we're celebrating John Kerry day a week early this week. The Kerry campaign is making a major push to squeeze out a few more pre-convention dollars before the end of June (tonight). This is the last time before the convention that the campaign will report fundraising figures, an important measure of competitiveness with the Bush campaign. It's also our opportunity to outraise the Bush campaign four months in a row.
If you're planning to donate to the campaign at all, you've only got a few more weeks to make it count. Throw a little of your paycheck JK's direction today and get it over with - I promise to stop harassing my readers as soon as we hit $1000. Current total is $600 - click here to donate.
June 29, 2004
Happy Texas Tuesday
The post-convention week for Texas Tuesdays bloggers has turned out to be remarkably productive - we've already secured interviews with nine State Rep candidates. Vince Leibowitz of the Free State Standard takes the lead this week with an interview of Texas House District 10 candidate James "Jake" Gilbreath. If elected, Gilbreath, 21, would be the youngest member of the Texas House.
Two local candidates will be profiled in coming weeks. I'll be interviewing former SafePlace Executive Director Kelly White (who's running for State Representative in District 48) in late July. Charles and Karl-T from the Burnt Orange Report will profile District 50 candidate Mark Strama next week. Stop by Texas Tuesdays and check it out.
June 28, 2004
Sorry Mickey
As if we really needed further evidence that the current generation of Disney leadership is driving the company into the ground...
MOVE OVER MICHAEL MOORE…Sounds craptacular. Via Salon.
Disney & Move America Forward
Team Up to Show a Brighter Side of America(SACRAMENTO) -- Move America Forward is teaming up with Walt Disney Pictures to present an exclusive screening of Disney's "America's Heart & Soul" on Monday, June 28, 2004 at the Crest Theater in Sacramento, California. The private screening takes place at 1:00 PM and members of the news media are invited to attend. "Americas Heart & Soul" opens in theaters nationwide on Friday, July 2nd.
Unlike the negative and misleading storyline of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," Disney's "America's Heart & Soul" features a collection of upbeat storylines of real life Americans who pursue their passions in a way that underscores what makes America a great nation.
