Little Miss Attila

Roots, Branches, Leaves

La Shawn talks about what it's like to be Black in America, with no knowledge of where your family came from in Africa—no records, nothing.

It's an interesting question, how much this stuff matters to us. How much meaning it has. How much meaning we give it.

Do you have a family tree? Does it enrich your life? How far back does it go?

Not a Bad Idea

Someone has started the first newsfeed meant specifically for bloggers and news junkies. This does look like it's a good complement to The Command Post.

The name actually is "Newsfeed." The slogan actually is, "news for bloggers. News for junkies."

And there's some sort of deal going wherein I apparently get a free T-shirt if I refer enough people over there (though perhaps I have to share it with Michele). So click away; do it for the children.

Yes.

I took the day off yesterday. I had the chance to spend time with my husband, and it was lovely.

Missed me, didn't ya?

Politics Made Lyrical

Jeff Goldstein has a series of suggested names the Ben & Jerry's people can use for their Ted Kennedy tribute ice cream. My favorite?—Scotch Almond Neat, and no, I don’t want any goddamn water with it.

Go, now. Linger. Read his poem about Sandy Berger, while you're there.

On "Trousergate"

There are all kinds of sub-issues related to the Sandy Berger story. I still don't have clarity on the down-his-pants (or in-his-socks) vs. in-his-pockets issue, and I'm not sure I care about that: he concealed this material in his clothing, and that's that. He claims that only the handwritten notes were in his jacket and pants (and possibly socks), but we'll see. I'm a good deal more concerned with the two events he claims were accidents: removing top-secret documents, and destroying top-secret documents.

This guy was National Security Advisor. One would think that he can handle the basics of the job—like preserving the integrity of classified documents, and knowing what he's putting into his leather portfolio.

Clearly, he's either incompetent, or covering up for Clinton.

But even if this is all the result of carelessness, it's an egregious lapse. Clinton should be embarrassed that this guy, who cannot handle the basic requirements of his job, was his National Security Advisor. Instead, he's laughing it off, which may say something about how seriously he takes the security issues facing this country to this day.

My newspaper-reading friends tell me you still have to dig to find mentions of this story in either the LA Times or the NY Times, which is outrageous.

Stephen Green had a good opening volley on the story, and is covering it well; be sure to scroll around on his main page after reading this entry.

The Irish Lass has a nice roundup; once more, you might take the time to do some scrolling, since she's all over this.

Prof. Reynolds remarks:

[T]he decision to charge someone, even someone admittedly guilty, is always a matter of discretion, and criminal charges against a former National Security Adviser are a rather big deal. It's easy to understand why the Justice Department might be reluctant to bring such charges even if it's satisfied that all the elements of the crime are present.

To which Dr. Joyner replies:

Quite true. I'd like to get a better explanation of exactly what Berger was trying to accomplish and let this one percolate a bit more before deciding what punishment, if any, is appropriate. Berger gave many years in the public service and, so far as I'm aware, this is the first time he's even been accused of anything remotely sinister. Even aside from the baffling issue of why, I would be interested in knowing--if it's knowable--what harm Berger's theft caused.

There has to be a consequence for this type of behavior, though. If a former National Security Advisor-- invested with so must trust that it never even occurs to anyone that he needs to be monitored while in a room with highly classified material--can plead "oops" on something so blatant, I don't know how we can ever hold a soldier accountable again.

As usual, you'll also want to go to James for the best links to hard news sources on this issue.

Byron York, writing in National Review Online, has two major points. To begin with, he feels there's no way this was accidental:

It appears that some of the evidence in the case casts doubt on Berger's explanation. First, Berger has reportedly conceded that he knowingly hid his handwritten notes in his jacket and pants in order to sneak them out of the Archives . . . Berger's admission that he hid the notes in his clothing is a clear sign of intent to conceal his actions.

Second, although Berger said he reviewed thousands of pages, he apparently homed in on a single document: the so-called "after-action report" on the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium plot of 1999/2000. Berger is said to have taken multiple copies of the same paper. He is also said to have taken those copies on at least two different days. There have been no reports that he took any other documents, which suggests that his choice of papers was quite specific, and not the result of simple carelessness.

Third, it appears that Berger's "inadvertent" actions clearly aroused the suspicion of the professional staff at the Archives. Staff members there are said to have seen Berger concealing the papers; they became so concerned that they set up what was in effect a small sting operation to catch him. And sure enough, Berger took some more. Those witnesses went to their superiors, who ultimately went to the Justice Department . . . . The documents Berger took — each copy of the millennium report is said to be in the range of 15 to 30 pages — were highly secret. They were classified at what is known as the "code word" level, which is the government's highest tier of secrecy. Any person who is authorized to remove such documents from a special secure room is required to do so in a locked case that is handcuffed to his or her wrist.

York finds Berger's focused pilferage highly interesting, since it appears that the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium plot has been the subject of a lot of debate and considerable criticism:

The report was the result of a review done by Richard Clarke, then the White House counterterrorism chief, of efforts by the Clinton administration to stop terrorist plots at the turn of the year 2000. At several points in the September 11 commission hearings, Democrats pointed to the millennium case as an example of how a proper counterterrorism program should be run. But sources say the report suggests just the opposite. Clarke apparently concluded that the millennium plot was foiled by luck — a border agent in Washington State who happened to notice a nervous, sweating man who turned out to have explosives in his car — and not by the Clinton administration's savvy anti-terrorism work. The report also contains a number of recommendations to lessen the nation's vulnerability to terrorism, but few were actually implemented.

The after-action review became the topic of public discussion in April when Attorney General John Ashcroft mentioned it in his public testimony before the September 11 commission. "This millennium after-action review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 and cites luck as playing a major role," Ashcroft testified. "It is clear from the review that actions taken in the millennium period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government."

In May, a government official told National Review Online that the report contains a "scathing indictment of the last administration's actions." The source said the report portrayed the Clinton administration's actions as "exactly how things shouldn't be run." In addition, Clarke was highly critical of the handling of the millennium plot in his book, Against All Enemies.

It is not clear how many copies of the report exist. Nor is it clear why Berger was so focused on the document. If he simply wanted a copy, it seems that taking just one would have been sufficient. But it also seems that Berger should have known that he could not round up all the known copies of the document, since there were apparently other copies in other secure places. Whatever the case, the report was ultimately given to the September 11 Commission.

What a clumsy, stupid thing to do. If the intention was what York is implying—to cover up the Clinton Administration's incompetence and lassitude regarding national security—Berger should have the book thrown at him. He is, essentially, Clinton's Rosemary Woods.

Sizzle vs. Steak

I know everyone is upset about Alex S. Jones' piece in the Los Angeles Times. And, of course, there is a sense that the L.A. Times wants to somehow reverse the tide, and get people to read more Dead Tree Media again—especially the Times—and fewer blogs.

But the LAT published a piece critical of the blogosphere for the same reason any of us write provocative blog entries.

They did it for the hits.

Shall I Buy a Book, or Abort My Baby?

I have a few things to say about the Amy Richards story.

First of all, this is what it is, boys and girls. Abortion in America. I've read a sampling of the articles about people who are shocked—shocked!—about the story of Amy Richards and the selective reduction she had when she found out she was pregnant with triplets.

When I found out . . . I felt like: now I'm going to have to move to Staten Island. I'll never leave my house because I'll have to care for these children. I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise. Even in my moments of thinking about having three, I don't think that deep down I was ever considering it.

I think the problem people have is with the apparent nonchalance, the sort of frivolity they see in her decision.

My immediate response was, I cannot have triplets. I was not married; I lived in a five-story walk-up in the East Village; I worked freelance; and I would have to go on bed rest in March. I lecture at colleges, and my biggest months are March and April. I would have to give up my main income for the rest of the year. There was a part of me that was sure I could work around that. But it was a matter of, Do I want to?

Ultimately, she decided to kill her two twins and let the singleton live.

But the fact is, most abortions are had because of a much smaller level of inconvenience. A lot of abortions are chosen by high school girls and college women who could easily make adoption plans and deliver healthy babies. They could give this gift to the world and themselves by delaying less than a year of schooling. And in most cases, they wouldn't even need to go on bedrest.

The problem people are having is with the attitiude. Society's stance is, "I don't mind young women having abortions as long as they feel bad about it. Provided they agonize over the decision, it's okay."

Say what? "We don't mind your terminating the pregnancy, but you must feel some guilt."

I have a friend who got pregnant when she was in college. She did the expected thing and got an abortion. They stayed in touch. She once told me she felt sentimental about this particular guy, though they'd broken up long before.

"Why?" I asked.

"You know," she replied. "Blood of my blood."

"If you're so weepy about it, why did you guys kill the baby?" I asked.

We want our daughters to do the convenient thing. We want them to eliminate the fetuses, because it would break their little teenage hearts to give their babies away. We want sentimentality, but only in short, staccato bursts. ("She shouldn't have to give her baby away. So we're encouraging her to kill it.")

Plenty of women have abortions for reasons a lot more frivolous than selective reduction. At least in the case of selective reduction there is a significant chance that one or more babies would die anyway. Not so with a healthy singleton inside a 20-year-old girl.

We need to re-think our approach as a society, because our current position is, "hey, one term in your college education is worth more than a human life. It's your body. This entity is no more significant than an appendix."

Then we are surprised when someone socialized in this culture takes us at our word.

There is no "safe, legal and rare." We are way beyond that kind of thinking. It is a dodge. It is a lie.

Where we are is, women and girls put their own convenience ahead of the lives growing inside them. And the men in their lives—and often their own parents—pressure them to do it.

Why do we want so much to pretend that it's something other than what it is?

Secondly, I'm tired of hearing abortion compared with the raising of a child. That's a false dilemma, and most of you know it. Women should have these children and let them be adopted into loving homes.

And, third, this is all too real to me. I had an abortion when I was 19, mostly because my boyfriend made it clear that he would make my life miserable if I gave birth to the baby. (He did anyway, but that's another story.)

I felt no regrets until a few years ago, when the failure of my infertility treatments led to to realize that was my one chance to have a biological child. And now, married and living in a nice house in the suburbs, I've been waiting for six years, and must resign myself to another long wait—a year or two, they say—while the adoption process rolls along. It wouldn't take so long if more girls and women made the right choice. And I'd feel much better asking them to do the right thing if I had myself.

Reading the original comments on Michele's entry made me cry over the tragedies of those who have suffered miscarriages and infertility: a new life is a gift. It really is. We should, at the very least, accord it some respect.

And twins and triplets? I've wanted mutiples since the moment my husband and I decided to have three "pre-embryos" put inside me during our first in-vitro cycle, knowing we would never selectively reduce, unless my own life was in danger. I had to think long and hard about whether I could manage bedrest and a high-risk pregnancy. I'm 5'1", and at this time I weighed maybe 110 pounds. One implanted, and I was pregnant for a few days before it died. That was two years ago. I went through two more IVF cycles. No dice.

Even now, though, I hope: at the adoption agency I wrote down that we want twins. The odds are long, of course.

In conclusion, I'm a hypocrite. Because I'm just as appalled by Richards' brutality and callousness as anyone else is. And I would have adopted her twins in a trendy, intellectual New York minute.

Repeal Roe v. Wade. Take this issue back to the states. And let's slow this thing down. Please.

UPDATE: I finally got a chance to read Michelle Malkin's thoughts on this. She has a useful post on the article, and some thought-provoking comments by readers as well.

Free Sex!

This is really cute: an organization that calls itself "FTV," or Fuck the Vote, has decided the way to convert Bush voters is to bed them. Since they are "better looking" than us, and "hotter," they are going to use "the only means" at their disposal to dissuade us from voting for Bush. (They said it; I didn't.)

Visit the site, but here's a taste:

SEXY LIBERALS OF THE U.S. UNITE in taking back the government from the sexually repressed, right-wing, zealots in control! Everyone knows liberals are hotter than conservatives - we look hotter, we dress hotter, our ideas are hotter, and we are infinitely hotter in the sack. We must use this to our advantage - as one more weapon in a diverse arsenal to strip the conservatives of their power (by stripping them of their clothes first).

Believe it or not, even the most seemingly deeply rooted right-wing ideologue can be manipulated by sex. As we all know, the sex drive is a powerful beast that has the potential to change people. People lie for sex, they cheat for sex, they even kill for sex - and you can be sure that they will change the way they think (and therefore vote) for sex. All you need to be armed with are your sexy progressive values, a razor-sharp wit, your genitalia, and a mindset that doesn't mind taking one for the team.

At Fuck The Vote we provide a Pledge Sheet that can be used conveniently before becoming physically intimate with a conservative, The Pledge Sheet asks the signee to make a promise to vote for anyone but George Bush in the November election. FTV has not endorsed a single candidate but recommends strategic voting. We also encourage FTV fans to take road trips this summer to swing(er) states to collect pledges. If you collect a pledge let us know about it on the Swinger States page! Have safe fun fucking over Bush while fucking for votes.

I'd encourage anyone to go ahead and sign the pledge offered them by an FTV "model," take the Halloween candy, and then vote their conscience anyway. All's fair.

Hat tip: Mikal.

UPDATE: Right on the Left Beach reminds me to tell you that this site is as UN-WORKSAFE AS IT GETS. It's not so much the images it employs, which are rather tame, but the narrative audio that plays during your visit, informing you—and anyone within earshot—just how slutty liberals are and how homely conservatives are, and exactly how badly we all need to be f'd. (The actual word "fuck" is used repeatedly, and not as an expletive in the least.) Be careful out there.

Mission: Highly Improbable

I slept too late today, and I'm stiff all over. Yesterday evening the Hub Spouse and I had a few friends over. Which marks the first time we've entertained here since 1998 (a birthday party for a friend) and 1999 (when my husband was making his little indie movie, and we filmed it here).

I kept it small (12 people), and tried to make it manageable. The largest ulterior motive was to create an incentive for me to straighten up the house a little bit. That worked, as far is it went, though there's still plenty to do. The living room was still a horror story: 25% of the floor space was taken up by piles of magazines and papers. So a few recalcitrant piles certainly remain. I did clear a path to the husband's Emmy awards, in case anyone wanted to check them out (someone did). [Come to think of it, there was a gathering for my husband's family here in the summer of 2000, if that counts, wherein there was clutter around the edges, and we had houseguests in 2001, with clutter rampant.]

And of course the motive behind de-cluttering is to clear things out to the point that we can have a social worker over here without her running away, screaming that we're unfit to be parents. (Yes. My ulterior motives have ulterior motives.)

Still, once the spouse and I talked about having a party at all we began to realize—or admit out loud—how much my clutter cuts us off socially. Ideally, my husband would like to be able to have the writers who work for him over here: it's only right.

I wonder if this particular soiree occurred because I didn't want to get to the point of no return, and die among piles of magazines like those poor clutterers one reads about in the newspapers.

This party was mostly my friends, though they weren't all people who knew each other; I was trying to stay away from the dynamic wherein people sit around talking about their shared history. And, just to be fair, there will be a party this fall skewed toward my husband's friends, to which I'll only invite a couple of my own.

The victories: 1) I only got irritated once, and that was when I snapped at my bestest guy friend for something that was irrelevant (and none of my business). For me, no moments of panic, no "oh shit, it's all ruined! go home everybody, my grand plans have been foiled!" is a big achievement. I don't enjoy the fact that I was an asshole for five seconds, but on the Attila Girl scale that's small stuff. I'll make my amends, and life will go on.

2) While mentally taking notes on "what worked, what didn't" for the next party, I was able to recognize and tell myself that more things went well than went wrong. That's big stuff for me, considering how much of a perfectionist I am.

So we need to do this a minimum of 2-4 times a year. And this one event had huge symbolic importance.

(Little Mr. Mahatma: you and your wife—and the boys, if the gathering's large enough to absorb their energy—are at the top of the list for the next Attila Party; I was concerned about keeping it small enough for people to fit onto my little balcony. Thought you'd want to know.)

Moseying Down Memory Lane

Allah has a new poster idea for the Kerry-Edwards campaign:

This should really energize the campaign.