GET TOUGH ON CRIME
New autopsy in boot camp death
indicates boy died of beating

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Prosecutors say a teenager who collapsed after a boot camp beating did not die of natural causes, but stopped short of saying he was beaten to death.

A noted pathologist said earlier today that results from a second autopsy seem to indicate a 14-year-old boy died from a beating by guards at a juvenile boot camp, not from a blood disorder as a medical examiner initially ruled.

"My opinion is that he died because of what you see in the videotape," said Dr. Michael Baden, referring to a surveillance tape showing guards kicking and punching Martin Lee Anderson's limp body the day before he died.

After seeing the videotape, the boy's parents agreed to have his body exhumed and asked Baden to observe a second autopsy.

Click here for the rest.

If Abu Ghraib was no surprise because we already knew that US citizens are treated the same way in American prisons, then this is no surprise because we know about Abu Ghraib. I'm so sick of this shit: in America we have this chronic mentality that dehumanizes anyone society has branded a "bad guy." That's the same psychological motivation behind a quarter century of "get tough on crime legislation," which throws the convicted into hell holes of torture and rape, and the same psychology behind the mass torture of POWs held by the US military. Our nation is sick in many ways, but this is perhaps the sickest of all. I wholeheartedly agree that society has an absolute need to keep dangerous people off the streets, but this business about kicking their asses for extended periods of time not only makes no sense because it heightens pre-existing anti-social attitudes, but also because it's totally immoral. Convicts are human beings just like you and me. Torturing one means torturing all. Fucking sick.

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Isaac Hayes quits South Park, citing
religious 'intolerance and bigotry'

From the AP via the Houston Chonicle:

Last November, South Park targeted the Church of Scientology and its celebrity followers, including actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, in a top-rated episode called "Trapped in the Closet.'' In the episode, Stan, one of the show's four mischievous fourth graders, is hailed as a reluctant savior by Scientology leaders, while a cartoon Cruise locks himself in a closet and won't come out. Stone told The AP he and co-creator Trey Parker "never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin.''

Click here for the rest.

So the show's been running for, what, nine years, and Hays only now decides that it's over the top. As much as I love the singer of "Shaft," the man who played the "Duke of New York" in Escape from New York, I've just got to call him a big pussy. That is soooooo like a Scientologist: freak out when your "religion" is criticized. Good thing there's not a lawsuit, or one hundred lawsuits, which is also soooooo like a Scientologist. Scientology is a big fucking joke, a total sham rip-off. If any religion deserves scorn and ridicule, it's Scientology. Too bad Hays feels he's got to go; I damned sure hope they continue on without him. Frankly, they're probably better off.

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HATE THE SIN, NOT THE SINNER
Bigotry From Cradle to Grave

From AlterNet:

The Texas Observer, a liberal newspaper, conducted interviews with several fundamentalists as part of an effort to understand the support in the state for the recent anti-gay marriage ban.

Mary Ann Markarian of Sugar Land, who described herself as an ordained minister for M.A.P. Ministries, Inc., explained that she would encourage people to vote for the constitutional amendment. "But not," she said, "because I dislike homosexuals. I know a lot of homosexual people who are wonderful people, who are very kind and gracious, who are my friends. "But sin is sin. We're not animals," Markarian said. "The proof is in the pudding."

Here comes Cameron: "Ninety-two percent of all gay males engage in rimming, the process of licking the rim of the anus and ingesting various amounts of fecal matter. Forty-seven percent of all males engage in fisting, the act of placing their fist in their partner's rectum for sexual pleasure." Markarian went on in the interview about other practices, and then turned to mortality rates, which again clearly mimic Cameron's discredited research. "The median age of a homosexual dying with AIDS is 39 years old; that's wrong, not natural. The median age of all other homosexual men dying from other causes is forty-two," she said. "The median age of death for lesbians is 45 years old--of lesbians.... Think about it and then tell me that God doesn't have some problem with this whole thing."

All of this nonsense, of course, is purportedly about protecting the family. And all of the organizations and leaders mentioned heretofore also resist reproductive freedom; opposition to legal and accessible abortion formed the core of much of their organizing, fundraising and lobbying throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

Click here for the rest.

I am continually amazed by how the fundamentalists obsess about homosexuality. At first glance, it makes no sense: homosexuality, according to the Bible, is one sin among many; traditional fundamentalist dogma asserts that no one sin is worse than any other--they're all bad in God's eyes. So why all the attention to homosexuality instead of say, murder or theft or exploiting the poor? The answer, as suggested above, is the more generalized concern with sexual morality. Or, I should say, their sexual morality. Again, the same principle applies, that sexual sin is no better or worse than any other sin, but since human beings are fairly obsessed with sex generally, it is no surprise that fundamentalists are too.

I think it's safe to say, because there is no Scriptural basis for holding up one sin as worse than any other, that fundamentalists are simply jealous of the free-wheeling sexuality of gay folk. Well, gay men, who tend to be more promiscuous, to be precise, but you just know these right-wing Christians have also got to be intrigued by some of that hot lesbian action, too. Anyway, my point is that, even though I agree that the Bible is pretty clear about homosexuality being a sin, fundamentalists' anti-gay attitudes have little to do with the Bible, which is ultimately, in this case, simply a justification to bitch and moan about the sex they aren't having.

This doesn't even get into the fact that, to fundamentalists, following the law doesn't get anyone into heaven--one must be "saved" first, that is, become a Christian. It makes no sense to insist that people who aren't believers should do what the Bible says. Maybe they've got a good point with gay Christians, but, otherwise, it's really none of their damned business, and the Bible essentially says so: go save 'em first, and then you can castigate them.

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THIS MONTH'S STAR TREK CALENDAR PICTURE IS...



Spock, Kirk, and McCoy facing V'Ger at the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

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Woman Claims She Was Fired for Bumpersticker

From the Progressive:

She and her boss were speaking in a parking lot when her boss noticed the bumpersticker.

“Isn’t that the Al Franken leftwing talkshow?”

Laroca says she thought maybe this was a trick question so she hesitated and then said yes.

“Don’t you know our country is on high alert?” her boss responded, according to Laroca. “For all I know you could be Al Qaeda. You’re fired.”

Schultz asked Laroca what she did next.

“I picked up my jaw and drove home,” Laroca said.

Click here for the rest.

My acting teacher, who is liberal and very interested in politics, made a poignant observation last week: after everything, Iraq, multiple scandals, Katrina, you name it, there are still around forty percent of the country who continue to support Bush. I corrected his 40% figure with the number I like better, CBS's 34%, but he still made an incredible point. To many Americans, reality is what they choose to believe it is, and Bush is their leader no matter what happens. That's really not so surprising. To this day there are Nixon supporters who believe he got a raw deal; some still even believe that Vietnam was a good war, and that we were hounded out, not by the VC and NVA, but by hippies at home. It sounds like the fellow above is one of those types. He's still stuck in post 9/11 hysteria and hyper-patriotism--he supports his President no matter what happens, supports him to the point that vital democratic concepts such as free speech and dissent are overruled. Yeah, it's amazing. How the hell do we get through to these people?

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Enough of the D.C. Dems

From the Progressive, uber-Texan Molly Ivins explains why the Democrats suck:

Mah fellow progressives, now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party. I don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I will not be supporting Senator Clinton because: a) she has no clear stand on the war and b) Terri Schiavo and flag-burning are not issues where you reach out to the other side and try to split the difference. You want to talk about lowering abortion rates through cooperation on sex education and contraception, fine, but don’t jack with stuff that is pure rightwing firewater.

I can’t see a damn soul in D.C. except Russ Feingold who is even worth considering for President. The rest of them seem to me so poisonously in hock to this system of legalized bribery they can’t even see straight.

Look at their reaction to this Abramoff scandal. They’re talking about “a lobby reform package.” We don’t need a lobby reform package, you dimwits, we need full public financing of campaigns, and every single one of you who spends half your time whoring after special interest contributions knows it. The Abramoff scandal is a once in a lifetime gift—a perfect lesson on what’s wrong with the system being laid out for people to see. Run with it, don’t mess around with little patches, and fix the system.

Click here for the rest.

Real Art blogger Miles writes in comments in response to what I wrote yesterday about how the Democrats seem ineffective at best and self-defeating at worst:

I have faith. You'll soon see why I'm still a Democrat.

Miles

Well, I hope so. However, I don't see anything happening at the national level to give me faith. The so-called liberal party continues to run like frightened rabbits from what they believe to be the successful right-wing demonization of the word "liberal." They may be right about the word itself, but not the principles for which the word stands: in poll after poll Americans support liberal ideas and policy, for everything from better wages and universal health care to withdrawal from Iraq and less corporate influence on government. Strangely, the Democrats seem to believe that most people are conservative, and strongly urge candidates to pander to the right. And most of them take that advice. What the hell kind of liberal party is that? The Democrats may very well be considered the opposition party, and that's nice and all, but how, exactly, do they oppose? In the grand scheme of things, a little rhetorical opposition doesn't really amount to much. A lot of rhetorical opposition might get them somewhere, but I'm just not hearing it. Why the hell are these guys so damned timid in their criticism of Republican America? Why aren't they breathing fire? Now is clearly not the time to worry about offending people--for that matter, such a fear has never held back the GOP, and its amazing that the Democrats haven't seen how successful that strategy's been.

Personally, I would love it if the Dems found some backbone and started really fighting the good fight, really became a liberal party. But as far as I can tell, these days the Democrats are simply an institution concerned mostly with preserving itself as an institution, the proverbial self-perpetuating bureaucracy--their inoffensive robotic technocrats are the perfect manifestation of such an institution. In the same way that Disney World has it's animatronic hall of Presidents, the Democrats offer animatronic candidates and policies, good enough to function publicly and sometimes even win, but without any life or soul.

Miles, how can you not be totally outraged with these guys? Every day that they don't call for Bush's impeachment is a kick in America's progressive crotch. Every day that they don't call Bush a criminal is a lie of omission. How can you support that?

Of course, you know, Miles, I still think you're a great guy.

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Republicans fret as Bush's popularity sinks

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

"Obviously, it's the winter of our discontent," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.

Republican Party leaders said the survey explains why GOP lawmakers are rushing to distance themselves from Bush on a range of issues — port security, immigration, spending, warrantless eavesdropping and trade, for example.

The positioning is most intense among Republicans facing election in November and those considering 2008 presidential campaigns.

"You're in the position of this cycle now that is difficult anyway. In second term off-year elections, there gets to be a familiarity factor," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., a potential presidential candidate.

"People have seen and heard (Bush's) ideas long enough and that enters into their thinking. People are kind of, 'Well, I wonder what other people can do,'" he said.

The poll suggests that most Americans wonder whether Bush is up to the job. The survey, conducted Monday through Wednesday of 1,000 people, found that just 37 percent approve of his overall performance. That is the lowest of his presidency.

Click here for the rest.

Well, okay, I'm totally loving this. It's proof to me that in the long run, Americans always realize that conservatives don't have their best interests at heart--of course, I must admit that Bush's incompetence plays heavily into what's going on now as well. But I'm going to relish this while I can. As the article goes on to observe:

In addition, strategists in both parties agree that a divided and undisciplined Democratic Party has failed to seize full advantage of Republican troubles.

Ain't that the truth. In my opinion, the Republicans have a very good shot of holding onto Congress this November. They know they're in trouble. They're disciplined. They've got more money and they cheat. They're going to campaign like their lives depend on it. Meanwhile, the Democrats are going to campaign like John Kerry did in '04. That is, cautiously, trying to outflank the GOP by pandering to the right, which will do nothing but make people want to vote for the real deal, that is, for Republicans. It's kind of a drag. This is the Democrats' best chance in over a decade to get back both houses, but I have this awful feeling that they've learned nothing from being pushed in the mud repeatedly--I should rephrase that; I mean, from voluntarily jumping in the mud repeatedly. I guess I can hope, at least.

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Retired Supreme Court
Justice hits attacks on courts
and warns of dictatorship

From NPR's All Things Considered via the Raw Story courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

In an unusually forceful and forthright speech, O’Connor said that attacks on the judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms. O’Connor began by conceding that courts do have the power to make presidents or the Congress or governors, as she put it “really, really angry.” But, she continued, if we don’t make them mad some of the time we probably aren’t doing our jobs as judges, and our effectiveness, she said, is premised on the notion that we won’t be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts. The nation’s founders wrote repeatedly, she said, that without an independent judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. But, said O’Connor, as the founding fathers knew statutes and constitutions don’t protect judicial independence, people do.

And then she took aim at former House GOP leader Tom DeLay. She didn’t name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group Justice Sunday last year when DeLay took out after the courts for rulings on abortions, prayer and the Terri Schiavo case. This, said O’Connor, was after the federal courts had applied Congress’ onetime only statute about Schiavo as it was written. Not, said O’Connor, as the congressman might have wished it were written. This response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint, said O’Connor, her voice dripping with sarcasm, was that the congressman blasted the courts.

Click here for the rest.

This serves as yet another reminder that the leaders who call themselves conservative these days are anything but. Historically, conservatives have well understood, better than liberals, I think, that the basic Constitutional breakdown of our Federal government structure was, for various reasons, extremely well designed, and not to be tampered with. They're not called "conservative" for nothing, after all. But these guys today, the ones riding the strange stampede called by some the "Conservative Movement," seem much more interested in power, absolute power, liberals-have-no-business-running-the-country power--indeed, in their rush to make manifest their vision for America, they've also ignored the importance of diversity of political views, the so called "marketplace of ideas," which has also been valued traditionally by conservatives. In short, in their drive to ram a few conservative ideas down America's throat, they've decided to throw out some of their most important beliefs, embracing change-at-all-costs, essentially selling out the entire notion of conservativism in the process. That's why I keep saying that I don't understand what conservatism is anymore. But now that I'm thinking about it, it seems to me that I do, indeed, know what conservatism is: it's the conservatives who have no idea what they are these days.

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Controversy Breeds Controversy as
My Name Is Rachel Corrie
May See NY Stage

From Playbill:

The London play, My Name Is Rachel Corrie, penned by actor Alan Rickman and journalist Katherine Viner, about the death of an American protestor killed in the Gaza Strip, may now see the New York stage, according to The New York Times.

Amid dueling press statements between London's Royal Court Theater and the New York Theatre Workshop — where a planned Off-Broadway run of the work was scheduled then postponed — the UK-based company has fielded offers from other stateside producers interested in transferring the work.

And

"We always try to minimize the distractions around the production so our constituency can hear the artist's voice. This takes a great deal of planning and listening to accomplish. In the less than two months we had to mount the proposed production of the Royal Court's My Name Is Rachel Corrie, we found that there was a strong possibility that a number of factions, on all sides of a political conflict, could use the production as a platform for their own agendas. We were not confident that we had the time to create an environment where the art could be heard independent of the political issues associated with it."

Click here for the rest.

On the surface, this whole controversy makes very little sense.

Rachel Corrie was a young American activist protesting Israeli brutalities against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip: in 2003 she was standing in front of a Palestinian home to prevent if from being demolished by the IDF; the Israeli soldier operating the bulldozer ran her over and killed her. My bet is that it was an intentional act of murder, but, of course, Israel's government calls it an accident. Anyway, good old Alan Rickman, a.k.a. Severus Snape from the Harry Potter movies, wrote, produced, and directed a one-person show about her life, based on her diaries and letters.

It did well in London and was about to open in New York, but was abruptly cancelled for vague and mysterious reasons--the final paragraph from the excerpt above is one of the various explanations offered by the artistic director of the theater that was going to perform it. Another explanation offered had something to do with Israeli Prime Minister Sharon's recent stroke, and Hamas' gaining control of the Palestinian Authority, and how doing the show right now would be perceived as being in bad taste. Or something to that effect. (More on the controversy, as explained by Vanessa Redgrave in an interview by Democracy Now, here.) Anyway, it's obviously all bullshit. Clearly, something has happened behind the scenes that's intimidated the hell out of the New York Theatre Workshop. There are rumors, apparently, that the mayor's office had something to do with the cancellation, but we'll probably never know what the deal is.

But here's something I do know, which makes me speculate. The pro-Israel lobby in the United States is extraordinarily strong, stronger than the NRA, strong even when compared to the lobbying efforts of major corporations. Further, these organizations' strength isn't simply directed toward Congress: they're also bigtime into public relations activities, and have been fairly successful in muting criticism of Israel by branding it as anti-Semitism--obviously, Jews and the government of Israel, while related, are not at all the same thing, and criticizing a state is perfectly reasonable political and artistic speech, but that matters little to the pro-Israel lobby, which is as vicious and relentless as Karl Rove in smearing their opponents. Coincidentally, the pro-Israel lobby has a strong presence New York, with a lot of political influence and money at it's disposal. See where I'm going? I'm not saying they made this theater company "an offer they can't refuse" or anything like that. But if NYC's mayor really did intervene in the situation, it was either at the request of the pro-Israel lobby, or Bloomberg was simply trying to placate some potential political upheaval.

Anyway you look at it, this whole thing stinks. I understand political pressure and I understand how difficult it is to keep a theater company on its feet and functioning even without that pressure. But this company shouldn't have chickened out; they've failed in their mission as artitsts and dealt their own credibility a serious blow. After all, the political heat makes this show all the more significant. It means they're dealing with extraordinarily important issues. Instead of being inspired by the controversy, they backed down. What the hell kind of artists are these people?

Good thing there are other offers to produce it.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Frankie



Phil



Sammy



Paz



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Evidence of water found on Saturn moon

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

The orbiting Cassini spacecraft has spotted what appear to be water geysers on one of Saturn's icy moons, raising the tantalizing possibility that the celestial object harbors life.

The surprising images from the moon Enceladus represent some of the most dramatic evidence yet that water in liquid form may be present beyond the Earth.

Excited by the discovery, some scientists said Enceladus should be added to the short list of places within the solar system most likely to have extraterrestrial life.

Scientists generally agree several ingredients are needed for life to emerge, including water in liquid form and a stable heat source. But so far, the evidence of any large amounts of water in liquid form on celestial objects beyond Earth is circumstantial and indirect, based on scientists' analysis of rocks and other data.

Click here for the rest.

Needless to say, if this pans out, it will be monumental. Not only would the discovery of extraterrestrial life right here in our solar system most likely motivate a massive pouring of money into NASA, but there is also the potential for great numbers of fundamentalist Christians being forced to reevaluate their beliefs. That is, the book of Genesis says nothing about life being anywhere but Earth, and fundamentalists, who assert that the Bible should be interpreted literally, would spin their heads around and around being confronted with hard evidence that their version of creation can't possibly be true. On the other hand, fossils are easily rationalized away by these types, so maybe I'm being too optimistic. But, man, liquid water...that's pretty big news. At this point, I'd bet a hundred dollars that we find, at least, microscopic life there. And if we find microscopic life so close to home, there's a much bigger chance that intelligent life exists somewhere else. This is pretty damned cool.

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Company backs off on port deal

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Bowing to ferocious opposition in Congress, a Dubai-owned company signaled surrender today in its quest to take over operations at U.S. ports.

"DP World will transfer fully the U.S. operations ... to a United States entity," the firm's top executive, H. Edward Bilkey, said in an announcement that capped weeks of controversy.

Relieved Republicans in Congress said the firm had pledged full divestiture, a decision that one senator said had been approved personally by the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates.

The announcement appeared to indicate an end to a politically tinged controversy that brought President Bush and Republicans in Congress to the brink of an election-year veto battle on a terrorism-related issue. The White House expressed satisfaction with the outcome.

Click here for the rest.

Well, that's a good thing, I suppose. Thing is, the questions I and many others had about the deal were never answered. That is, the problem with allowing a United Arab Emirates state-owned company to take over operations for several key US ports seemed foolhardy because of allegations that the Middle Eastern nation's royal family is fairly close to Osama bin Laden and that their government participated in transferring nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Is that really true? I mean, never mind the port deal, these guys are officially listed as allies in the "war on terror." Are these the kind of allies we want?

I guess neither the White House nor the UAE really wanted the discussion to head in that direction.

Actually, looking back on most of the press' coverage of the deal, it appears that nobody else really wanted to talk about it either, which leads me to a mea culpa. My buddy Matt, when I first posted on the issue a couple of weeks ago, commented that he agreed with Bush when he said that the outcry over the deal was racist. I now must reverse myself and agree with my pal Matt. Which, I suppose, means that I also agree with the President. Yikes! It's pretty clear from the absolute bipartisanship and fury of the criticism that something more than honest questions about the UAE's links to terrorism were motivating opposition to the deal. As quite a few pundits have observed at this point, the White House has been fostering anti-Arab hysteria since 9/11, so the hysteria about the port deal should come as no surprise. That is, I've come to believe that most Americans opposing the deal probably didn't know the specifics of the actual criticism, the alleged links to bin Laden and nuke tech transfer. No, it seems pretty clear now that most Americans were freaking out over this because it's an Arab company. That is, the primary factor here probably is racism.

So, the deal isn't happening because of fierce public and political outrage about it. Like I said, that's good, I guess, but I don't really know one way or the other, to be honest, because nobody seemed to want to press the White House on the terrorism links. And, damn it, now I really want to know what the truth is. I'll probably never know.

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THE NUTS BEHIND SOUTH DAKOTA'S ABORTION BAN

From PBS's The News Hour via Crooks and Liars, Bill Napoli, a state senator and strong supporter of the new law, explains how "except where the life of the mother is threatened" can be liberally interpreted to include rape, incest, or threat to the mother's health:

BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

Click here to see the video.

Okay, obviously this guy's a total lunatic. I might have thought that he's simply stupid, but the "she was religious" thing takes him into insanity. Clearly, going on with the hypothetical pregnancy in this situation would not be threatening to the life of the mother. Extraordinarily traumatic, yes, but not life threatening. In other words, Napoli is full of shit--what makes him crazy is that he appears to really believe what he's saying. And what he's saying is a pretty clear indicator of where his mind is: bad girls can't get abortions, but good girls can, and Napoli and his ilk get to decide what "good" and "bad" mean. It's not simply about life with these people; it's about controlling sexuality. And don't get me wrong, by the way. I'm not saying the ban would be acceptable if it included the rape, incest, and health exceptions; my position is in support of what the pro-lifers call convenience abortion on demand, no questions asked. But my point about this guy's way of thinking is that the people behind this law are freakin' nuts. Not even Texas is acting this quickly--there are more than a few in the pro-life movement who believe that this SD law might backfire somehow, either because of its over-the-top brutality, or because of its hastiness. This doesn't even get into the Orwellian doublethink these people have to employ in order to stake out such bizarre political positions. I know that there are plenty of rational people who oppose abortion; ultimately, it's a pretty tangled issue, ethically speaking, but it seems that the movement has more than its fair share of absolute lunatics. Looks like a lot of them live in South Dakota.

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Study: Law has reduced abortions in Texas

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Abortion rates dropped for girls ages 15 through 18, even though the 18-year-olds were not subject to the law. But the drop was more pronounced among the younger girls. Their rates fell 11 percent to 20 percent more than the rate among the 18-year-olds did.

"The law has definite behavioral effects," said lead researcher Ted Joyce, a Baruch professor of economics.

And

In the study, girls 17 1/2 or slightly older were one-third more likely to have an abortion in the second trimester than girls already 18 when they became pregnant, indicating many waited until they turned 18 to escape the notification requirement.

Abortion later in pregnancy carries a much higher rate of deadly complications, though the overall risk is still extremely small.

The study "draws attention to the way that these kinds of laws can put teens in a compromised position that puts their health at risk," said Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research group that specializes in reproductive issues.

Click here for the rest.

In short, this Texas law causes unwanted pregnancies among younger teenagers and maneuvers older teens into potentially life-threatening situations. Sounds like a good law to me. No, wait, I mean the exact opposite: this law is fucking stupid. I understand the pro-life rationale behind this, that parents have a say in every other medical procedure that their children may or may not have, but that's simply a rationale. In no way does this point of view take into account the emotional issues or parent/child power dynamic involved that make parental control of their children's medical decisions problematic as far as abortion is concerned--that is, it's not a very compelling argument they have, and I think they realize it. But that doesn't matter; it worked well enough to get the bill passed. What's really going on with this parental consent law is that it's part of an overall strategy of incrementally chipping away at abortion rights until they exist on paper only--this same strategy also includes terrorism against abortion providers in order to scare them out of business and froth-mouthed protesters ramming bloody fetus pictures in the faces of every individual entering a clinic where abortions are provided. Sadly, this strategy has been, to date, pretty darned successful in some parts of the country. People are worried about the new right wingers on the Supreme Court reversing Roe. The more I think about it the more that seems unlikely; the right wing has just had too much fun bashing the 1973 landmark decision--they've gotten a lot of political mileage out of it. How nice it would be for them if they could have their cake and eat it too, create a de facto situation where abortions are impossible to get, but still legal, and therefore worthy of teeth gnashing.

These anti-abortion people are damned treacherous.

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Madonna says her daughter is obsessed with gay people

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

The pop diva, considered by some to be an icon in the gay community, tells the magazine her 9-year-old daughter likes to guess who is gay: "Oh, and the other thing she likes to do when we go out, she says, 'Mom, do you want me to point out who the gay men are?' And I say, 'Okay, but I think I already know.'"

Click here for the rest.

Wow. Is Lourdes already nine? Time flies.

Somehow, the news that Madonna's daughter is obsessed with gay people comes as absolutely no surprise. Like mother, like daughter. Madonna's been drooling over gay folk for almost as long as I can remember, putting their images in her videos and movies, including homoerotic fiction in her sterile coffee table book of "erotica," 1992's Sex, and depending on the gay community for CD sales as her musical output becomes ever more bland. For Madonna, "gay" means money and fun. Of course she's teaching her daughter the facts of life as she understands them: always suckle at the gay teat, Lourdes, it won't ever let you down.

All kidding aside, my personal bet is that Lourdes will probably end up having particularly healthy attitudes about homosexuality. In that respect, Madonna's bound to be a pretty good mother. Good for them.


(MAX NASH: Associated Press)

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Good night and get lost! Chris Matthews exhumes McCarthy

From Attytood courtesy of Eschaton:

Ironically, the topic was the Oscars. Smerconish and Matthews -- whose brother is a GOP candidate for lieutenant governor here in Pennsylvania -- were running down the list, and they came to "Good Night and Good Luck." A casual listener might expect broadcaster Matthews -- who has pretty much the same job, if not the same gravitas, as Edward R. Murrow some fifty years later -- to praise the flick -- but think again. Here -- with an assist from Smerconish's producer, the fabulous T.C. Scornavacchi -- is what he really said (and you can listen to the actual clip here):

You know, one-sided, to some extent liberal propaganda. Because you know there Communists – I’m sorry…there were Communists in the government…I could go through the whole list – Elizabeth Bentley, Harry Dexter White, and of course Alger Hiss – there’s a whole gaggle of them.

And the biggest nonsense of this sort of revisionist history is that there wasn’t a Communist threat and that McCarthy was just a drunken fool. Well, he may have been a drunk – he certainly was – and he may have been unable to shoot straight, but there were lots of targets there. He just didn’t hit any.

Click here for the rest.

Yesterday's communist is today's terrorist. That is, the potential presence of Soviet spies in the US didn't even come close to justifying the vicious witch hunt Senator Joseph McCarthy unleashed in the in the early 1950s, just as the potential presence of terrorists in the US doesn't justify depriving tens of thousands of their civil rights today. I'm sick of this right-wing attempt to turn McCarthy into a force for good: along with new support for the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, this whitewash of McCarthyism serves only to create a bogus historical narrative in support of some of the more psychotic manifestations of Bush's "war on terror." The Senator from Wisconsin was a force for evil, destroying the careers of some of America's best and brightest artists for their perfectly legal political views and associations, while at the same time turning Cold War fears into a national hysteria. And here's the kicker. McCarthy didn't really know whether our nation was overrun by communists or not; he simply took advantage of the times in order to advance his own political power. Pretty much like a lot of politicians do today. The bottom line here is that anybody who in any way asserts that McCarthy was good for this country is a total lunatic, automatically disqualifying himself from any serious discussion about the welfare and direction of America.

Like I said, I'm sick of this shit.

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A COUPLE OF GOOD ANTI-BUSH RANTS

Both by Seattle Weekly columnist Geov Parrish, both from Working For Change:

Forget Dubai Ports; look at the rest of Bush's record

So it has come to this. After two stolen elections, a secret energy task force, Enron and assorted other corporate scandals, massive tax cuts for the rich, the largest federal debts and trade deficits in world history, blowing up the ABM treaty, killing stem cell research, laughing off global warming, allowing 9-11 to happen, stonewalling its (and every other) investigation, failing to catch Osama bin Laden, the PATRIOT Act, still-unsolved anthrax attacks, launching a secret prison system, denying due process to both foreigners and Americans, engaging in torture, monitoring Americans' phone calls, e-mails, and faxes without a warrant, launching unprecedented foreign and domestic propaganda campaigns, blurring the line between church and state, trying to overthrow Hugo Chavez, using lies to launch an illegal invasion of Iraq, badly mishandling both the occupation of Iraq and the resulting insurgency, outing Valerie Wilson (and lying about it), grandstanding on Terri Schiavo, pushing through a miserable Medicare prescription drug law, privatizing public lands, trying to privatize Social Security, securing CAFTA, appointing two reactionaries to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Abramoff scandals, and botching Katrina's aftermath as well as its rebuilding, among many, many other things -- after all that -- the tipping points that bring Cheney and Bush to this abysmal public standing are shooting a lawyer and defending an ordinary transnational corporate deal.

Click here for the rest.

New Orleans drowned, and Bush really didn't care

Does George Bush have any ideas? Does he care about anything other than power and his own political fortunes? (And, of course, the less ethereal fortunes of the backers who have made his power possible?) Forget ideology. Has there ever been this inept a president in this country's history? Has there ever been this negligent -- criminally negligent -- a president in this country' history?

When the head of FEMA is bracing for "the Big One," he doesn't call the mayor and ask, "Ray, everything under control?" He calls the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the universe, the man who with a few orders and signatures can mobilize unimaginable resources in a matter of minutes.

Bush didn't. And for agonizing days, while New Orleans flooded and thousands drowned and many thousands more begged the world, on camera, for shelter, food, water, and safety, the entire federal apparatus under the command of one man went about its business and then went home and watched the disaster unfold on the evening news.

And then, not only did Bush try to shuffle off blame with his levee comment and the White House insistence that it was really the fault of local (Democratic) officials, but for the next six months all that promised federal relief and assistance has turned into a quagmire of Republican cronyism and broken promises. Everything, to these people, is about sound bites in service of power and enriching friends.

Click here for the rest.

When I first started blogging, I spent a lot of energy trying to make it clear that Bush was a bad guy, either evil or incompetent. Or both. Back then, late 2002 and through the Iraq invasion in 2003, I was amazed at how insane our country seemed. The whole 9/11 narrative about how Bush was a strong leader going after the "evil doers" simply blew my mind. For anybody with an open mind it was just as obvious then as it is now: George W. Bush is the worst President this country's ever had. It's strange how things change so quickly. Bush was a superhero only three years ago; now he's polling as badly as Nixon during Watergate. I'm really happy that most of the country has finally figured it out. But it's all still so strange. We go on with our lives, go to work, eat, hang out, etc., while America continues to face perhaps its biggest crisis since the Civil War. I don't feel like I'm in a crisis--okay, Katrina felt like a crisis, but I'm talking about the overall picture, about how Bush is running this nation through the sewers with virtually every move he makes. Anyway, I figured it was time for some plain old fashioned Bush-bashing. Go check out Parrish's essays; they're very satisfying.

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"IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PIMP"

I don't usually watch the Oscars myself, but Becky does. Only moments ago, as I was walking from the kitchen with a Dr. Pepper to my computer in our study, I noticed rapper Ludacris introducing the stage performance of the Oscar-nominated song from Hustle and Flow, "It's Hard out Here for a Pimp." I just had to check it out. And lemme tell ya, it was one of the most amusing performances I've ever seen.

The set was a ramshackle inner city home interior. Inside was a diva style singer in a Seven Year Itch style Marilyn Monroe dress singing the title line, alternating with three thuglike rappers who took the verses while they danced in an intensely masculine and hip hop way. Downstage, in front of the set, were about fifteen fly dancers, both male and female, of several races, gettin' jiggy with it, metaphorically speaking of course. The overall effect was four totally different kinds of images coming together in an awkward and funny, but somehow pretty groovy, whole. Never mind the fact that it's kind of hard to have any sympathy at all for a pimp, the sympathetic character in Hustle and Flow not withstanding: feeling sorry for sexual exploiters of women has its own gallows humor about it.

Anyway, Becky just told me that it got the Oscar.

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WAS PAT TILLMAN KILLED FOR HIS POLITICS?

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Case of former pro football player's
friendly-fire death to be reopened

Gen. Peter Pace said the Army was launching a criminal investigation into the April 2004 death of Tillman — an Army Ranger shot by fellow soldiers in what previous military reviews had concluded was an accident — because the Defense Department's inspector general determined it was an additional step that needed to be taken.

A Pentagon official told The Associated Press on Saturday that a criminal investigation would focus on possible charges of negligent homicide. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the new investigation had not formally begun.

And

Tillman died on April 22, 2004, when he was struck by gunfire during a firefight along a canyon road near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The Army said at the time that the barrage of bullets came from enemy fire.

A report by the Army later found that troops with Tillman knew at the time that friendly fire had killed the football star. Officers destroyed critical evidence and concealed the truth from Tillman's brother, also an Army Ranger, who was nearby, the report found.

Click here for the rest.

Right after he was killed, I was reading comments about it over at Eschaton and one guy, a Vietnam vet, was asserting that Tillman was fragged by his fellow troops. I pointed out that he was engaging in speculation, that there was no known evidence to even suggest such a thing. He agreed with me, but said fragging was a distinct possibility: Tillman, we all believed at that point, was a hyperpatriotic, gung-ho, fightin' he-man, the kind of reckless nut who might endanger his entire unit with his get-them-ragheads behavior. After all, the press releases coming out of the Pentagon painted the guy as some sort of modern day Rambo, all badass and ready to kill or die for his country; the fragging scenario certainly seemed possible.

That was then. Now I wonder if this vet guy had it right but for the wrong reasons.

It seems that the Pentagon willfully covered up the circumstances surrounding Tillman's death; important evidence was destroyed almost immediately, and news of that didn't come out for months. Of course, they're calling it all a mistake, but then these are the same guys behind the Jessica Lynch show, and are not to be trusted. Compounding matters is that Tillman turned out to be not some sort of Rambo, but a patriotic left-winger who read Noam Chomsky and believed that the Iraq war "is so fucking illegal."

Is it possible that Tillman was fragged by fellow soldiers, not because of a wild blood lust, but because of a perceived lack of loyalty to his unit, that is, because of his left-wing politics? This is, of course, pure speculation. But there are many unanswered questions about his death, and the institution reopening the investigation, the Pentagon, has already lied about it. There's a good chance we'll never know, exactly, what happened, but I think I've managed to show that there were motive, means, and opportunity, the three pillars on which all murder prosecutions stand, suggesting that Tillman's death may have been more than a "negligent homicide."

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How the Economic News is Spun

From CounterPunch, another essay by the conservative former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan, Paul Craig Roberts:

When the US Department of Labor, for example, releases the monthly payroll jobs data, the press release will put the best spin on the data. The focus is on the aggregate number of new jobs created the previous month, for example, 150,000 new jobs. That sounds good. News reporters report the press release. They do not look into the data to see what kinds of jobs have been created and what kinds are being lost. They do not look back in time and provide a net job creation number over a longer period of time.

This is why the American public is unaware that higher paid jobs in export and import-competitive industries are being phased out along with engineering and other professional "knowledge jobs" and replaced with lower paid jobs in domestic services. The replacement of higher paid jobs with lower paid jobs is one reason for the decline in median household income over the past five years. It is not a large decline, but it is a decline. How can it be possible for the economy to be doing well when median household income is not growing and when economic growth is based on increased consumer indebtedness?

Click here for the rest.

The above excerpt is but one example of the rhetorical playground known as "economics." The long and the short of this is that, even though economics as a field of study has a great deal of social value, economic pronouncements most certainly do not have the same kind of credibility behind them that real sciences do--economics, like psychology, depends on way too many assumptions to come to any clear and concrete conclusions. Nonetheless, politicians and the news media behave as though the economic conventional wisdom is as authoritative as science. Compounding this problem is that the field, when compared to physics or chemistry, is extraordinarily undisciplined in that there is no objective standard for fact-checking. That is, in a real science, if one scientist issues a fantastical statement about how the universe works, hundreds of other scientists then try to recreate whatever experiment led the first scientist to his fantastical conclusion in the first place. If it checks out, then it's no longer fantastical; if not, that scientist is a crackpot. While economists can recreate statistical studies, there is no way to really do the same thing with ideas about what those numbers mean; there are better and worse arguments, of course, but, ultimately, interpreting economic data is usually very subjective, and because most Americans are unaware of the field's lack of objectivity, there is very little skepticism when the oracles of Wall Street speak. Obviously, people with power and agendas take great advantage of the confusion. Consequently, Americans continue to struggle to stay afloat, often slipping under, even though "the economy improves."

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