Mother, daughter, officer.

Highway ramp, Saint Paul August 30 2008.

Photo credit to Tony Webster

This picture is off of Twin Cities Indymedia, and the young woman on the left is Megan Wilson. She's seventeen and lives on a big green bus and her house was just arrested.

The big green bus is the "Skills for the New Millennium Tour and Earth Activist Training Permaculture Demonstration Bus", or the Permibus. Two adults, Megan, three dogs, three chickens. I would say more, but there are details in other places.

Megan's having a hard time of it. She knows it's a war for the health of the planet, she's not surprised. And I think she'll be fine. But seeing your life towed away does bring tears to your eyes. The other woman in the picture loves her deeply, and her gaze is on the next few things that need to be taken care of. And the officer behind them wonders why he'd been told that these were the bad people.

Prayers for all of us - activist girls who'd rather be playing with the kids, mothers who are doing what they need to for their families, people who passionately want to change systems, and people who are caught in the systems that so need changing.

In which the weekly standard has a point

This evening, I went out with my boyfriend ("the Bear") and a couple of friends to see a concert at the Ravinia Festival, a summer-long outdoor concert series north of the city. We had a picnic, and we listened to some great music (although far too short a set), and we sat on the lawn and talked politics. Our talk immediately turned, of course, to Sarah Palin. We were rehashing some of the ten available facts about Palin, including her much-maligned lack of "experience," the population of Wasilla, and the fact that she didn't get a passport until 2007. The Bear had some interesting points to make, and if I thought he'd actually get around to it, I'd make him guest-blog them, but he won't, so I'll give a recap.

1) Experience doesn't matter. I balked at this when I heard it, both when we talked on the phone in Denver about Palin and tonight, but I think he's got a point. My developing opinion about how experience matters is that it's a factor, but it's way less dispositive than we seem to think it is, based on how much we talk about it. For example, I think I would still be an Obama supporter even if he were still just a state senator. Even if he'd only been a state senator for a few years. Why? Because I trust him, intellectually, and I think he's got good character, good judgment, and the right temperament to be a transformative political figure. Whereas Joe Biden has tons of experience, and although I like him as a veep, I wouldn't have preferred him to Obama in the primaries (and, indeed, few did). And Sarah Palin is kinda like Obama: a young, up-and-coming politician who rose quickly and generated a lot of excitement in her home state. She's got less "experience" than Obama, and certainly far less than Joe Biden and John McCain, but to me, this is really secondary to the fact that her ideas and policy positions are odious. I'll be honest: if Sarah Palin was a fiercely pro-choice progressive, mother of five kids, who'd risen from mayor of a small town to democratic governor of her sparsely populated state, I'd be kind of in love with her. Wouldn't you? And wouldn't you, although a little hesitant, be excited about her having been selected as Obama's vice-president?

2) We should treat Palin as a serious candidate. I took little convincing on this point. After all, why isn't she? There's no reason to believe that she isn't smart, and she's clearly politically savvy enough to win contested primaries as an outsider. She's risen very quickly, and given that Alaska's pretty politically corrupt, which means it's no doubt full of cronyism, that says something about her. And this is where I'm going to surprise you a little: I just read this Weekly Standard piece by Dean Barnett, and I think he correctly identifies a pattern in the way liberals react to conservative candidates.

So in order to bring down Palin, her malefactors on the left will have to argue a lack of "readiness," which with the thinly credentialed Obama on the other ticket can only serve as a shorthand for lack of intelligence. Chances are, ink-stained wretches are plumbing Palin's every past public utterance desperately seeking the evidence that proves she too is an amiable dunce. Of course, any misstatement on the campaign trail will serve as prima facie proof of her dim intellect. True, political observers have formed gambling pools wagering on when Joe Biden will make his first hilarious gaffe as Barack Obama's running mate. While that gaffe, inevitable as it is, may do damage to the ticket, no one on the New York Times editorial board will conclude from it that Joe Biden isn't that bright. Sarah Palin will not receive the same benefit of the doubt.

In some ways, being Sarah Palin for the next two months and change doesn't sound like a lot of fun. In spite of her many and notable self-made successes, an entire intellectual industry has already sprouted up with the sole intention of proving that she's a moron. The left wants to Quayle-ize her, and their efforts to do so won't be half-hearted.

Although the rest of the article is filled with implications that there's some kind of media conspiracy to treat Republicans with more scrutiny than Democrats, which is utter horseshit, he's got a point in the quoted portion.

What he doesn't say, and what is true, is that immediate clamoring to dismiss Palin as a substanceless beauty queen are not just part of the left's strategy of calling Republicans dummies, but they are borne of vicious sexism. I've heard it in the words that have come out of my own mouth about Palin, and felt it in the visceral reaction I have to seeing her onscreen. And he's right that we want to dismiss her as dumb. As we often do to many Republican politicians. And though it's fun to feel superior, I'm not sure that all our trumpeting about how George Bush is a dumbass has really gotten us anywhere. Just like being sexist towards a female candidate makes women want to defend her, so too does dismissing a politician as dumb make people who perceive themselves to be of average intelligence want to vote for him.

And here, it's not even apropos. Palin is a more than competent speaker and hasn't really done anything to indicate she's not smart. What she has done is adopt political positions that would be, and are, bad for real Americans both in short and long-term.

Does her support for overturning Roe, and her belief that creationism should be taught in schools, and her denial of global warming mean she's dumb? No. She just cares more about the triumph of her political worldview than she does about the Constitution. Just like a lot of Republicans.

I loved Obama's speech at Invesco, but there's one part where he was wrong:

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

No, actually John McCain doesn't care. He doesn't care that millions of Americans don't have health insurance, or if he does, he cares more about party ideology that the government shouldn't be in the business of making sure people have health care. He cares more about the hollow platform of "individual responsibility" than he does about individuals, more about the political benefits of being pro-life than the moral implications of denying women agency over their own bodies. John McCain and Sarah Palin get it. They know. They just don't give a shit.

Dismissing Palin as insignificant isn't going to help us. She didn't get where she is, so fast and to such acclaim, by being a dummy. We should recognize her for what she is: smart, charismatic, and full of support for policy positions that hurt ordinary Americans.

Pre-RNC activities in the twin cities

If you're not reading Glenn Greenwald, Lindsay Beyerstein, and Jane Hamsher, you should be. Because they're covering some seriously newsworthy shit about illegal raids and suppression of free speech in advance of the RNC. (And more power to 'em, as I sit on my ass "recovering").

We're not done yet

I believe that each of your DNC bitches has a backlog of DNC posts waiting yet to be written--I know I do. And maybe Ding has some thoughts to share as well. But! Speaking for myself (though I suspect I'm not alone in this), it's gonna take me a couple days, I think, to get back to it.

So, like, stay tuned.

Fuck you, Howard Wolfson

Guys, remember Howard Wolfson, the Clinton Communications Director who was always appearing on television in an ugly sweater? Well, after the campaign was over, he joined Fox News, as a commentator. That you probably knew. What you didn't know is that Wolfson apparently is still trying to get in digs at Obama's expense, despite the fact that the primaries are over and his own former boss has come out in full-throated, and I believe, genuine, support of Obama.

Take, for example, Wolfson on McCain's Palin pick:

But Howard Wolfson, the former Clinton communications director, said [Palin] could peel away some votes.

"Both campaigns seemed to have decided that Hillary Clinton's 18 millions voters represent a key swing bloc in this election -- both Barack Obama's speech and John McCain's pick were at least partially aimed at them," Wolfson said in an e-mail.

"The fact that Palin is pro-life and pro-gun will be a block for many of Senator Clinton's supporters -- but not all. And it will raise the question for many why Senator Obama didn't pick Senator Clinton as his running mate."

Uh huh. Who needs Republicans when we have a top aide for one of the most popular Democrats in the party giving out their talking points? The implication that Clinton's supporters are going to vote for McCain because of Palin is, I think, quite wrong, and demonstrates the same low opinion of women voters that McCain has demonstrated by picking Palin in the first place.

Here's Wolfson on how John Edwards shouldn't have kept his affair a secret because it apparently cost Clinton the nomination:

"I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com..."Our voters and Edwards' voters were the same people," Wolfson said the Clinton polls showed. "They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama."

Ignoring for the moment the fact that Wolfson is just wrong (the article later points out that after Edwards dropped out of the race, Obama won eleven straight contests), the fact that he continues to be a shill for the Clinton campaign in his capacity as a commentator is disgusting to me. He knows exactly what the republicans want to do, which is milk the identity-politics phase of the campaign for as long as possible, and he's willing to be complicit in it.

Because when the campaign is about race and gender, Republicans are able to get traction because of McCain's identity, his persona as old-white-dude maverick. When the public discourse on the election is about race and gender, there's less time for talking about how Obama's policy positions are more well-developed and more likely to bring good to actual Americans than McCain's. And as long as there's a woman in the race, people can play the oppression Olympics, which is exactly what Wolfson and his ilk will continue to do.

And Wolfson's complaint that other commentators criticized Hillary Clinton is empty whining. First off, Chris Matthews got a ton of shit for the way he treated Clinton, and he deserved it. And second off, neither Matthews nor Olbermann are former employees of the Obama campaign, who are using that very role to get their voice heard. And finally, things are different once the party has actually chosen a nominee, you asshole.

I am just so, so tired of this discourse that treats women voters like they are some monolithic, easily manipulated voting bloc, who don't vote the issues but vote something else entirely, instead of, you know, over half this country's fucking population. And I am tired of Wolfson, who cared enough about being a Democrat to spend his time working for them, working in lockstep with that message and giving it legitimacy from the left.

Twin Cities: Criminalize dissent, privatize public space, militarize police response

It's gratifying, somewhat, to find people from Glenn Greenwald at Salon to several bloggers at Firedoglake blogging about the creepy police state tactics that are going on here in the Twin Cities on the eve of the Republican National Convention, aka "The Also-Rans."

A series of raids has swept across the city (the Uptake has a google map showing the raids) and they all follow the same pattern - a generic warrant (pdf) (sometimes shown or read before the raid, sometimes not), police with guns drawn (sometimes handguns, sometimes assault rifles), lengthy times when people sit around in handcuffs, and then the police go away, generally without making arrests. Then the city code people come by and try to board up the house since there are code violations, like a busted back door. You know, the one that the police just kicked in.

The mantra seems to be - criminalize dissent (particularly 'radical' or 'anarchist' dissent), privatize public spaces (the extensive 'security zone' that is around the convention center) and militarize law enforcement. The raids have generally been coordinated by the Ramsey County Sheriff's office (Saint Paul is in Ramsey County), which is under the aegis of Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher.

While it's generally hard to determine, Sheriff Fletcher almost certainly sits on the Joint Terrorism Task Force in the Twin Cities area - that inter-agency department that includes police at all levels - federal (the FBI), state, county and city. This explains why the Minneapolis raids were led by Ramsey County, despite the fact that Minneapolis is in Hennepin County.

Now is the time for Sheriff Fletcher to get before the cameras to talk about the buckets of urine these dangerous anarchists were collecting, or the Anarchist Cookbooks or the old tires (for burning). That's because two members of his elite task force were just convicted of stealing thousands of dollars of drug money. As firedoglake's Phoenix Woman puts it

Bob Fletcher is the sheriff of Ramsey County. Bob Fletcher is a Republican from the formerly lily-white St. Paul suburb of Maplewood, which has for decades had an uneasy relationship with its southern neighbor. Bob Fletcher is also on the verge of losing his job, as a long-standing FBI corruption probe that has already taken out two of his buddies is drawing its net around him; he may well feel that he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by using extralegal methods to please his RNC pals.

Excellent time to beat up on some smelly, urine-caching anarcho-hippies!

While I will try to provide you further coverage, I would recommend the following sites for keeping track of things. While we have two corporate papers (the Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press) both tend to take the 'stenographers for the police' route, although the inherent disgust that the Twin Cities has for Republicans means that there are City Council members who will go on record saying how insane all this is. These two towns aren't perfect, but they are pretty liberal.

The main reason I might not be able to blog - I'll be working for KFAI 90.3/106.7 FM, the community radio station in town. Unfortunately, our coverage starts on Monday! So listen to the 6 PM news for my stories on the faith beat.

Twin Cities Indymedia
An explicitly activist media center, the Independent Media Centers were formed to give alternative media types a central location at protests like this. Rising to the occasion quite well.

The Minnesota Independent
MNIndy (Mindy?) is one of a network of independent media sites, run by the nonprofit Center for Independent Media (not the Independent Media Center. See above.)

Twin Cities Daily Planet
The Daily Planet is a 'group blog' of Twin Cities alternative, ethnic, and neighborhood media, which also does independent reporting on it's own. Editor Mary Turck has been doing excellent work.

The Uptake
Progressive street video bloggers. They're doing great work too, and have a video production space.

The Stimulator is a video activist who is producing short clips. Salty language, salty politics.

The legal collective for the activists - Cold Snap - is using a twitter channel.

And feel free to contact local political and media figures. I think that the Gustav-is-coming hullabaloo is intended to shove this story of police repression under the radar. So keep your eyes on the real action, and send good wishes our way.

Edits - hope to have fixed the links, and see comment thread for the full exegesis of the last paragraph

On being home

[in bed tonight snuggling with sleepy daughter, who is clutching new favorite toy, a stuffed donkey from Denver]

Her: Mommy, you got this donkey while you were away?
Me: I did.
Her: At the party with Barack Obama?
Me: Yup.
Her: Is the donkey friends with my Care Bears?
Me: I think they will be great friends.
Her: Mommy, Barack Obama likes my Care Bears.
Me: Sweetie, Barack Obama *loves* your Care Bears.

Flip Flop

In an email conversation with a friend in Denver, the one I rudely ran out on when I had to jog across town to pick up Invesco tickets, I mentioned that the venue change from Pepsi Center to Invesco Field didn't really work for me because of immense-ness. She had this to say:

When [Obama] said "It's not about me. It's about you," I felt the "you" had to be big, not just New Hampshire or Iowa or the Democratic faithful, but an entire country willing, and committing, to see race in a different way. The big venue symbolized a more universal acceptance of the significance of the event, in effect demonstrating a social acceptance that could embolden others (maybe your grandmother) to depart from historical fears and biases.

Over lunch I had been discussing my grandma, an Italian immigrant who has voted a straight Democratic ticket her whole life, who loves HRC, who won't vote for McCain, but who may not vote for Obama either because of a racism she can neither name nor let go of. My friend's reading of the immense venue as a symbol big enough to embolden people like my grandma to let go of her fear, is so encouraging, so hopeful (drink!), I can't help but subscribe. Invesco field: nightmare to get in, crowd management an abysmal failure, but crucial embodiment of the inclusiveness of this campaign.

by the way

The woman who so captivated me during the last day of the convention? Was a fellow blogger from So. Cal whose blog I stumbled across a while ago.

Small world.

From the bitch headquarters in Denver, Co.

Gov. Palin, know where you can find out what the Vice President does? Over there in the Constitution!

Still too tired

Luckily, Ezra's take on Palin strikes me as the right one, thereby saving me the trouble of writing it myself.

The choices were all bad. Tim Pawlenty was a lightweight. Joe Lieberman was a liberal. Mitt Romney was a Mormon. Over the past few weeks, it became clear that John McCain couldn't pick anybody for vice-president. And so he didn't. Instead, he picked Sarah Palin.

There's nothing wrong with Sarah Palin. Indeed, she's a perfectly normal politician. A hardline conservative with a good government streak who's proven a skillful political comer in a tiny, remote state. It's just a bit...odd.

McCain speaks often of the transcendent challenges we face. His whole campaign is based on the idea that we need steady, experienced leadership to guide us through a world populated with lethal foreign threats. . . . The simple reality of his campaign is that, for reasons of message and age, his vice-presidential pick matters more than most. If the world really is as he describes it, then experienced leadership is enduringly crucial. And it is not unimaginable that there could come a time in his presidency when his understudy must sorrowfully step forward.
....
Sarah Palin has held a serious political office for less than two years.
....
She has no foreign policy experience. She has no experience making national policy. She has spent fewer than 700 days crafting statewide policy for Alaska. None of this is a moral flaw or personal failing. It just makes it hard to imagine her fit for the vice presidency.

This was, for McCain, a major decision. And we can learn from it. And here's what even his supporters must admit: Country did not come first. Polls did. The calculations are fully transparent. Understanding that he needed to broaden his electoral coalition, he picked a woman. Understanding he needed youth, he picked a young politician. Understanding he needed to emphasize his reformist credentials, he picked a onetime whistleblower. What he didn't pick was anyone able to help him govern, or capable of stepping forward in a moment of crisis. Palin is not an experienced foreign policy hand like Lieberman or a successful and experienced governor like Tommy Thompson. Today, McCain chose his campaign over his presidency. Over our presidency.

Via Postbourgie.

Too tired to blog for reals

Here's my awesome new political proposal, thought up in the shower while musing on McCain and Palin and Norquistian Republicanism and that ilk:

From here on out, anyone who complains about how such-and-such policy or behavior (e.g., "fat people raise everyone's insurance rates!") "costs the taxpayers money" can stop paying taxes.

All they have to do is give up the right to vote.

This will free up everyone else to actually do shit that matters: fund public transit instead of roads, raising corporate taxes as high as they need to be, investing in renewable energy sources.

It's not like the Cheneys et al. actually pay taxes anyway, one; and two, it'll completely kneecap any attempt to argue policy decisions on terms other than the merits.

Now I'm going out to dinner.

Post too long: Meta alert!!

B liveblogged the speech last night, which was great, and everyone should be thankful for the sacrifice made to do so: I don't know if it occurred to you as you read, but it's just a leeeeetle bit dorky to remain seated clickety-clacking away on the laptop. OTOH, it was chilly and at least her lap was warm.

What I wish we could've liveblogged was the process of getting in to Invesco. Oh my hell, people. I know we twittered parts of it, but I really feel like you need a prose-y narrative to do it justice. And frankly I am sort of shocked that there isn't more bad press about what a clusterfuck it was. So, we find out we have these tickets at the last minute. B calls me and says I have 30 minutes to pick them up. All the way across downtown. So I really abruptly and semi-rudely leave the lunch I've just finished with a friend who was gracious enough to accommodate my silly schedule (and incidentally, this friend and I had a really good conversation about, among other things, Biden and judiciary issues that I mean to blog later) and I run from LoDo up to the Sheraton Hotel to get these tickets. No cabs around, of course.




I secured the tickets,community credentials, then set about figuring out how to get to Invesco, which is, in technical terms, ass-far-away from where I was. There were shuttles, which I tracked down to find they were only for press and delegates. I heard there were free bus rides for plebes like myself, but after searching for a stop for 20 minutes I learned that they stopped running at 2MT - an hour ago. So I meet B at the train station she is coming in on, and we decide to take the train in the opposite direction and transfer to get to the Invesco Field stop, which reason tells us will be closed, but LeBlanc tells us is open, and we figure she is already seated and comfortable inside Invesco and must be thinking clearly, so ok.


You know how this goes, right? Invesco Field stop is closed. Cops are directing people on one of 2 routes to the stadium, both about 3 miles. B and I chose the route that involves walking over a closed hiway, because how often do you get to do that? SO we start the long walk and can't figure out why we keep seeing stray people who clearly have tickets but have turned around and are walking the other way. Soon we find out.

We get our sights on the stadium, and on the epic line snaking out from it. We start marching towards the back of it, with me every 5 minutes going, "B, seriously, we should merge in here, we'll never get to the end of this line." B, my friends, is really a rule-follower in this kind of situation. We walk about 1.5 miles to the end of the line, which is, apparently, in the middle of a parking lot. This is amazing people: someone informs us the the line end is square in the middle of the parking lot and spirals out from there, creating the most miserable golden spiral that has ever existed.

B sort of stands next to the line at some random point for awhile while I stand in the porta-potty line. One toilet folks, one. In the whole damn lot. The line moves slowly because completely mystifyingly people seem to like to spend 2+ minutes inside there. So despite things being pretty miserable, we are actually having some pretty good conversation. There is a local high school English teacher behind me who is sharing some of his favorite pedagogical techniques. Also he coaches Denver's lacrosse team, so we chatted up about the league. We talked for a long time with a local couple who were both educators. Everyone was pessimistic - to, like, apocalyptic degrees - but pleasant. I was sure we weren't getting in to the actual stadium.

Then the big news drops: everyone not on the perimeter of the parking lot has been walking in a circle for 3 hours. One of the volunteers has apparently been tracing the winding lines and has concluded as much. Truly awesomely, this news is met with relative sanguinity. Volunteers begin merging the totally futile lines. Now, during this whole time we have been in the line it haas not moved forward in any substantive way. We are still 1.5 miles from the stadium and it is now 5:30 pm. Suddenly, though things change and the line starts zipping along.

[Is this tedious yet, this narrative? Probably. Just imagine how it felt to live it. This is a real form follows function post.]

So we march, fairly briskly, for the next 40 minutes. Also, cops start distributing bottles of water, sadly undercutting the ambitious young folk who were selling $2 bottles along the way.
Our procession toward the stadium is fairly uneventful at this point. I am sunburnt and have to pee again and am hating my laptop with all energy that I can spare. B is pretty upbeat, verging on annoyingly so.

We screech to a halt when we approach the security tents. Why is actually hard to say because by the time we get up to the metal detector/xray line, they are just shoving people through. Bags are being whipped through xray machine, cursorily glanced in and returned. Clearly, someone sent out a memo that the stadium needed filling, and fast, so pick up the security pace.

Finally, at 7pm, Invesco Field achieved! We take an inefficient route to our section, because, hell, why not. On the way, I decide to get in the (long) popcorn line. I am starving. I wait in resigned and somewhat defeated exhaustion. And then, when I am right up at the front of the line, with no provocation whatsoever, the strap on my sundress snaps off. I flash my left tit to 20 other very weary people. I briefly consider not even attending to it, that's how tired I am, but I end up holding it in place with the ear to the shoulder thing that you do to hold a phone without hands while I make the popcorn transcaction and hobble over to our seats, where B ties the strap in place. And we wolf down popcorn.

We sit dazed for awhile. B doesn't know who Michael McDonald is, which upsets me on a level that, under normal circumstances, would be irrationally visceral.

And then the speech. B's liveblog covered most of our reactions to it. I understand from a lot of people that it played magnificently on TV. There are probably a lot of people who were in Invesco who thought it played well too. Being there, for me, was not as intense as being in the Pepsi Center. It was almost too big, too expansive. And, also, we were sitting behind the fucking stage. So.

My favorite part of the speech last night was the bit about the things we can agree on. We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing unwanted pregnancies. We may not agree on immigration, but surely none of us benefits from a mother separated from her infant child. I loved how he acknowledge the passion behind these 'culture wars' issues, but insisted on the possibility of unity. I also like the evacuation of any kind of moral relativism charge: look, there are objectively right, moral things, and one of them is protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination. And then Obama points out that when these issues are harped upon in campaign rhetoric, it amounts to "making big elections about small things." That's right, period. Sort of how this post has made the big thing of seeing the first African American candidate for president accept his nomination for the office all about the small things that comprised the total hassle of getting in the door.

[At some point, one of us will will have to cover the *amazingly* ridiculous process of leaving the damn place. You cannot imagine.]

Confidential

Dear Joe Biden,

This is your opponent. In case you hadn't noticed, she's a woman. John McCain's party is the party that doesn't give a shit about women. They don't want women to have ownership and control over their bodies, and they don't care whether women get equal pay for equal work. John McCain himself is an inveterate sexist, and it's written all over the way he talks about women, and the way he votes on issues that affect them. Joe, I like you. I like you a lot. But you have to be so exceedingly careful about the way you talk about Sarah Palin, and especially the way you talk to her (you know, in the debate). Because the media will just be waiting to jump on you with accusations of sexism. Much more than they ever gave a shit about calling out sexism when it was directed at Hillary Clinton. Fortunately, Republicans aren't very good at seeing sexism wherever it lurks, so you might catch a break from Fox News. But don't expect it from anyone else.

And because you're old, and you're a white dude, I bet that sexist snark is not absent from your famous attack-dog repertoire. Because you're one of the best attackers there is, and sexism has been part of the tradition for a very long time. Don't do it. Be very, very careful.

But don't go easy on her. McCain has picked her in part because she's a woman, and this is a very smart strategic decision. But they can't be allowed to win over women voters when their party is awful on women's issues. I want you to hammer Sarah Palin on this stuff. If I were you, or if I were a reporter, or anyone who had a loud voice, today I would ask Sarah Palin the question:

If you were elected vice-president, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act came before the Senate once again, and the vote was tied, and you were called upon in your constitutionally-mandated role as tie-breaker, how would you vote? Would you, like me, vote that when women are denied equal pay for equal work, they should get restitution, or would you, like John McCain, vote that a Supreme Court decision making it nearly impossible for them to receive that restitution, should stand?

Don't let her get away with the "I'm a woman, of course I care about women" bullshit. Make her answer for the hypocrisy of her party.

Very Truly Yours,

M. LeBlanc

UPDATE: After posting this, reading comments over at Unfogged, commenter Togolosh gives me a great idea: compare her to President Bush! Score.

Enough!

I was at the convention all day today--from the first music to the last firework. And I'm exhausted and sunburned, and sort of shellshocked by the whole thing. But before I go to bed, I want to tell you my favorite part of Obama's speech:

For over two decades, [John McCain] subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy - give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don't have boots. You're on your own.

Well it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America.

This is something that doesn't get said enough. It's so right, and it's so important to engage not just the failed Republican policies, but their failed, faulty ideology. I think it's the right move to keep the campaign grounded in real policy terms, but every once in a while, it's nice to hear him intellectualize it just a little. And the own/own cleverness is perfectly subtle--so so very well-written.

Liveblogging, bitches

7:16 General, general, general, admiral, general. Thats pretty much a big "fuck you" to the other guy. Also, my stupid apostrophe key isnt working.

7:21 "Who will take care of our wounded veterans?" Not to mention all the other sick people in the country, dammit.

7:22 The people behind us are on a first-name basis with "Wes," apparently.

7:23 And with "Joe" too! For such well-connected folks youd think theyd have better seats.

7:24 I admit, I am touched by the obvious affection Bidens wife shows him. I started a post about the candidates families earlier this morning; will finish it at some point, I swear.

7:25 Sybil and I totally cracked up at the shot on the big screen of Bidens granddaughter. Dont know if you saw it, but on the second big round of applause everyone stood up, and the camera switched to his wife and granddaughter (I assume), and the girl was *so* obviously reluctant to have to stand up again. Completely awesome.

7:28 Union dude. Awesome. I think his speech was ind of cool, and I like having the "normal people" up there just before Obama.

7:30 Awesome use of scare quotes by this woman, whose name I missed.

7:31 I dig this woman! Who is she? Shes freaking adorable.

7:33 Ho. Lee. Shit. There are snipers posted up on the tops of the boxes all around the top of the stadium. LeBlanc, take a picture.

7:35 Theyve picked some awesome "average" speakers. "Strong teachers make strong students." LOVE HER.

7:37 Fuck it, I dont care: Im completely thrilled with the way that "si se puede" has become an American phrase in this election.

7:39 Lifelong Republican lady with health problems and no insurance. Nice, nice job, Obama campaign.

7:40 Another ex-Republican. God damn. This is brilliant.

7:42 "My name is Barney Smith, and I want a president who puts Barney Smith ahead of Smith-Barney." Dayamm.

7:43 Folks, I believe we are now witnessing the first ever appropriate use of this song for political purposes.

7:44 Theyre scrolling peoples text messages about "why did you join the campaign for change?" across the big screen. Text DNC followed by your first name and the reason why to 62262! Sybil is totally texting.

7:45 I am seriously thrilled that "Born in the USA" is being used appropriately at a political convention. I bet you Obama just won the English teacher vote.

7:49 Sybil is a big Michelle fangirl. "OMG she looks so great! She looks so great! Look at her!"

7:50 "No flashing until Obama comes out!" is the order. There goes my plan to show my tits to the assembled hordes.

7:51 Behind us: two very nice older people wearing buttons that say "Catholic Democrats." No comment.

7:52 I actually find myself feeling sympathetic to the snipers. That has to be a hard, stressful job, scanning a crowd of a jjillion people, complete with flashing searchlights and shit, for the one lone gunman.

7:54 There are a couple of very fabulous black women a few rows bac wearing very rhinestone-edged black suits and singing along to the music. Very picture worthy.

7:55 Im starving. Im also going to restart my browser and try to get the apostrophes working.

8:01 The guy next to me is about to poke me in the eye with his flag.

8:03 A hush falls. Some guy is trying to sell one of those whirly light-up things like you get at Disneyland.

8:04 Sybil's daughter will never be able to give a speech saying "the only time I saw my mother angry was..."

8:05 Pictures of Michelle and Barack dating: teh cute!

8:06 FUCK THESE PEOPLE. Sybil and I were so cranky an hour ago! And now we're all "awwww!" and swooning! I resent the manipulation, I tell you.

8:10 I am telling you people now: the theme of this campaign is going to be "we are family."

8:11 Huge standing ovation. It *seriously* pisses me off that I can only watch this on the big screen. OTOH, Sybil points out that even if we had a view of the stage, we wouldn't be able to see it over the signs anyway.

8:14 I couldn't hear what he accepted the nomination of! Anyone? Fill me in?

8:15 There is a black woman, probably my age, in the row behind me with tears streaming down her face.

8:17 LOVE the little girls.

8:18 I *wish* I had a better camera. Someone needs to get this woman's face on a screen.

8:21 "We love this country too much, to let the next four ryears be lie the last eight." Black woman behind me: nodding, saying "thank you. Thank you." She caught my eye, we gave each other the nod of acknowledgement.

8:23 "Ten percent chance of change." Woman gives the fist pump in the air.

8:24 The woman's friend is filming the screen with a video camera, and I just want to say to her, "film your friend. Really."

8:26 Maybe it's because I'm blogging and watching the crowd, rather than focusing on the speech, but it seems to me that the speech, itself, is good but not great. The crowd doesn't seem to care, though.

8:27 In the crowd immediately around me, we have: older woman with thinning, messy gray hair; older male hippies with long gray ponytails; several stylish black women in their 20s-40s; very, very short hc pink-faced white guy in a tan suit; older white man w sun-darkened skin next to me wearing union shirt with MLK quote on the back; Quite a few young people; Very happy-looking middle-aged Asian woman with, presumably, her daughter; teenage boy holding up "CHANGE" sign; mixed-race Latino/Anglo couple; thoughtful-looking Eritrean (?) man in a suit; older bald-headed wiry white guy; old man with long white beard; several aging affluent hippie types; a few people in their 30s, I guess, with "Democratic Party of Denver" shirts. I'd say mostly the crowd is split between white "joe six-pack" types, older hippies, and middle-class blacks.

8:34 "End oil dependency in ten years." That's a good promise. I fucking hope he's right.

8:35 Sybil thinks that the "future fuel-efficient cars are built right here in America" line sounds like an empty promise. I think it sounds like the sort of thing that's coming from the new technology/green technology/localism people I blogged about a day or two ago. It's remarkably lefty, in any case.

8:37 The "service = college education" plan is really appealing, I admit. I know that people always talk about education in campaigns, but it's interesting to me that in a year when education is *not* a "big" issue, they keep bringing it up. I'm hopeful. Must remember to blog my (very brief) interview w/ NEA person from a few days ago.

8:38 "Now is the time." Starting to get a rhythm going now?

8:39 I'm curious about how this--including the crowds--is playing on television. It feels to me like the decision to put it in Invesco isn't working so well; the arena is just too big, and everyone's seated, and there's just not the same sense of excitement and intimacy that there was in the more confined (and traditionally "convention-looking") Pepsi center.

8:44 "We are the party of Roosevelt, we are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country." Okay, the stern look on his face while he said this was pretty good.

8:45 Content of speech, in terms of promises and platform--good. Emotion and feeling--not as awesome as it was for Michelle or Hillary or Bill.

8:46 Bit about loving this country, and it being shitty to challenge others' patriotism, is good. The staff people are passing out huge flags as he says this (which you are no doubt now seeing on your screens).

8:48 "What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose." I really like the softening of tone here. I still think it would be more effective in a smaller room.

8:49 I *really* like what he's doing here, addressing the "culture war" issues directly in terms of patriotism. Gay people, pro-choice women: they're Americans too. Thank you, Obama.

8:50 Okay, slight change of mind here: I'm finding this tal about "making big elections about small things" very interesting. It feels like a bold move--the kind of thing that I, personally, love, but perhaps a little "meta" for a nomination acceptance speech. He's talking directly about campaign strategies here, and it's a nice example of content following form, but is it too smart for the medium? The audience immediately around me actually seems rather captivated by it, though.

8:54 Murmurs of "uh huh" and "come on" from a few rows back (not the woman I was so intently focused on earlier; she's got her eyes closed and almost looks as if she's praying now).

8:55 "In America, our destiny is inextricably linked." The explicit echo of civil rights rhetoric here is really very moving. Sybil, however, is not convinced.

8:58 WTF is this lame song? (The fireworks just scared the crap out of Sybil.)

8:59 Okay, now we get the big happy family shot. Bitch out. What I wouldn't give forr a helicopter lift out of here straight to a bar....

Not feeling the hope

Oh. Holy. Shit. The community credential situation SUCKED ASS. I swear to god Sybil and I spent *at least* four hours "getting to" the stadium--three of which meant standing in line, and two of which meant standing in a non-moving line in an unshaded parking lot. Then about six p.m. *someone* obviously got a message to get the goddamn line moving and cops showed up with water, lines got merged and redirected, and suddenly we were booking along.

Of course, it was still about 1 1/2 miles back along the rorute we'd just come, but, hey.

So Sybil's feet are killing her b/c she had to run across downtown to pick up our last-minute passes and then we hiked along I-25 and over to the stadium about three miles, then about a mile and a half back, then through the stadium blah blah.

AND our seats are behind the fucking stage. And the security woman won't let us sneak into the blogger section to join LeBlanc.

Denver friend's mother had invited us to her nicely appointed condo downtown to watch the convention. In a room with a/c and presumably beer. Which we accepted then unaccepted, like the rude bitches we are, because we got these last-minute passes.

Karma, baby. Bad manners don't pay.

Invesco

I'm here. Bitch and Sybil were kind enough to let me take our one press pass. But then through Bitch's perserverance and connections, they were able to get two more tickets! Which you would know if you were following our twitters. I hope they get here soon, even though I won't be with them because they have a different type of pass than me.

I'm in the press section, row 16. It's the bottom lever and I am thus REALY CLOSE to the floor. I could be sitting even closer but then my view of the stage would be blocked. I'm about 150 feet from the CNN pavilion where I can see Wolf Blitzer, Donna Brazile, and Anderson Cooper clear as day. Wolf Blitzer looks like a cardboard cutout of himself. The stage is right in front of me. I have a profile view of the speaker just above a curtain in a press pavilion.

Speakers have just started. The schedule is here.

I've gotta say, I'm so incredibly psyched. My laptop's at 52%, and I'm too scared to leave my spot to go and charge it, so blogging will be light. But my phone's in great shape so I'll be tweeting a lot.

GOOOOOOOOBAMA!

Pepsi buzz

Being on the floor in the Pepsi Center is pretty amazing. B covered this on her first day I think, and LeBlanc revisited, but let me recap: we have a credential for the press level of the facility (which includes the bloggy Bloggers lounge), and there we can get rotating floor passes that we are supposed to return after 30 minutes on the floor, which appears to be an honor system kind of thing. So I did 2 rounds on the floor yesterday.

The first time I caught the Women of the House of Representatives segment, where Congresswomen from a handful of states read brief letters from their constituents. It was pretty cool, especially when I learned that this year's convention is the first in which the majority of delegates are women. Things were pretty breezy on the floor at that time of day, so I could wander around easily. Followed behind Katie Couric's entourage for awhile (later watched her royally piss off a bunch of Pepsi Center staff because she kept stopping people wandering through halls to do spot interviews, so would have her whole TV crew fan out and the staff couldn't get through with carts and such.) and stood right next to Morgan Fairchild for awhile. Very very short that woman, and made up so heavily as to look like a caricature of herself. She wasn't interviewing when I saw here, was just there, being Morgan Fairchild, so I don't know what she was up to at the convention. Just being Morgan Fairchild may be enough I guess.

You want to know who look great in person? That CNN crew. Man do they look good. All of them, even James Carville.

So anyway, when my 30 minutes were up I went back up to the blogger blog lounge with the bloggers, bumping shoulders with Melissa Etheridge on the way, but not realizing till I had moved on. She looks pretty unassuming in person. Up there I ate a totally gross Pepsi Center dinner and bided my time until Bill Clinton's spot so I could go back down to the floor.

Which? Oh.My.God. This is so eager and fanboy sounding, but it was really incredibly exciting on the floor when he came out. No more breeziness at that point, we were packed in shoulder to shoulder. Had I been inclined to wave a flag, which I wasn't, I wouldn't have been able to. When Clinton took the stage and the applause began, everyone was grinning. By the third or so minute of applause, people around me were weeping, actually weeping with excitement. I couldn't stop smiling, there was such an amazing energy. And all this for someone I spent a good portion of the primary being totally pissed at. And yet.

Bill Clinton casts a big shadow over the party and in many ways you feel for those always working in his shadow. And James Carville overdoes it with his Clinton fanaticism and there have been many times in the run-up to this when I have rolled my eyes at yet another comment about how the Clintons need to heal the party's rifts. But I am telling y'all, the feeling on the floor during that speech was one of almost spiritual healing. People were in it, and they were ready to throw in for a bigger reason.

Wow, that was earnest. I really loved seeing Bill Clinton's speech, is that apparent? Not just because of the mood but because I honestly thought it was one of the most persuasive cases made for the Obama presidency that I have yet heard. I thought he nailed it.

So after that, I relinquished my floor pass. At the time I left the floor, they weren't letting anyone at all in, not even seated delegates, because too many floor passes had been issued and there were safety issues. Hell yea there were, I almost got trampled a dozen times during Bill's speech. But I would be so pissed were I a seated delegate who went to piss and then couldn't get back in. Knowing that I wouldn't get back on the floor that night, I left the center and met B and LeBlanc at a NARAL party, which I will let someone else cover.

And finally, do any of you people know anyone? Anyone with 2 extra Invesco tickets? We neeeeeeeed them. Help.

Press Pass

Obviously, I'm having a great time, and I think I can speak for my other bitches when I say we all are. Part of that is the hilarity that ensues when we hang out, part is the energy of being here, part is excitement about the party, part is just adrenaline. But a big part of it is being able to experience what, for most of the country, is "the news" first-hand, without any mediation, without any middle man. It's feeling like you get to have your own opinions before they're fed to you by the network commentators--when I write about a line that I think is funny or effective, that's my take rather than something I end up feeling like I'm regurgitating from the extensive television coverage.

As it turns out, I really have not watched any TV commentary this week. The closest thing I got to watching television was watching The Daily Show's John Oliver do on-the-spot interviews in front of the Pepsi Center. And though I'm not a huge TV watcher, during a week like this I would be tuning in every night to hear the speeches, were I at home.

I just realized this morning how wonderful it is that I get to hear what's being said without the mediation, the constant commentary, the extensive post-gaming, because so much of that commentary is invariably wrong, stupid, inflammatory, or downright offensive. It distracts from the actual messages the candidates are trying to convey. It draws attention to itself, and to the commentators as personalities. Not only does it pre-empt viewers getting a fucking moment to reflect on what they've heard, but it fills our brain space with ludicrous nonsense.

Take, for example, this commentary from Fox News' Megyn Kelly, about Michelle Obama's speech:

During Fox News' August 25 coverage of the Democratic National Convention, anchor Megyn Kelly asked Fox News contributor Howard Wolfson about Michelle Obama's convention speech, "Do you think that, you know, her saying that she loves America, that she loves this country, is going to do it for those who questioned her patriotism?" Kelly noted that during the speech Obama stated, "The world as it is just won't do," then Kelly said: "If you replace 'world' with 'country', you are back to the same debate, arguably, that you have been having about Michelle Obama's feelings about the country. Did she give her critics any fodder with that comment?"

Broadsheet, where I saw this, incorrectly characterizes this absurd take on Michelle's comments as misogyny--no, this is straight-up racism. Despite the fact that the entire Obama campaign is about "CHANGE", and we've got white politicians standing up in droves talking about what's wrong with our country, and our current president, and our standing in the world, no, Michelle Obama is the one who hates the country because she says that the world won't do. Michelle has been dogged by this "she hates America" shit because she's black, and because she's a black woman. I can guaranfuckingtee you that if she were white, this "it was the first time I was proud of my country" "gaffe" that's been recycled for months would have never gotten any play--it wouldn't have even been a story.

And now I'm off to the races--ranting about the absurd stupidity of this comment. Instead of talking about what was actually said. There are dozens like it on every network. And it's distracting. It's frustrating. It takes up space in my brain, which just gets stuck on it because it's so stupid and racist. Being here this week, without mediation, without constant commentary that seeks to be not just news, but its own news-maker, has given me some brain space back. Thanks, DNC.

Grueling

Ladies and Gents, we're having a blast. We're also fucking beat. We hit up two parties tonight, Sybil was on the convention floor squashed in with a million people, and there's been drinking and infrequent eating of things that resemble actual food. Tomorrow, you can expect coverage of today's events, video of California Democrats being adorable, tales of us parlaying our way into stuff, a lesbian air force veteran, how Bitch is sweet to promising young women, and me finally getting around to my treatise on the panel I went to the first day (I've had a lot of thoughts about it). Dinosaurs, being a b-list blogger at an a-list event, fashion among politically active pro-choice young women, and my television debut.

I say all these things not just to give you a preview, but also so I can actually *remember* what to write about. And if you're just tuning in, be sure to check out our twitters, featured in the sidebar (and you can follow links to the full feeds), where we're tweeting up a storm. I'm officially addicted to twitter.

The Robotics of Justice

Sybil and I caught the "Taking Back the Courts" panel at the Big Tent. I'm still annoyed that I couldn't get into the Big Tent, because it seems like it's a good place to blog, with tables and power and wireless. Although it was really hot upstairs, so maybe it wouldn't be worth it anyway.

The panel's moderator was Nan Aron, of the Alliance for Justice, who I've seen before, at a law school event a couple of years ago. She's a great speaker, so I was a little disappointed that she was asking questions instead of doing a lot of talking. But it was a blogger-driven event, so I guess it's good that the bloggers did most of the talking. There was a superb 2-minute speech from Lilly Ledbetter, who has become a fantastic advocate for change in the courts. I missed her convention speech last night because I didn't know it was her, so I didn't pay attention--which is a pity, because I was looking forward to hearing her.

I could talk a lot about why the event was good, but that's boring. Here's my problem with most of the discourse about judicial appointments, of which this panel was no exception: They seem to ignore the legitimate role that ideology plays in judicial decision-making. I think part of the reason is that liberals who talk about the justice system want to appear to be as much on the side of reason and right as possible, and so their perpetual refrain is: we need judges who will apply the law and the facts and not let their politics influence the decisions they make.

While I think it's true that we want judges who will apply the law to the facts, I think this really oversimplifies the issue, and belies a misunderstanding of the way the higher courts, especially the Supreme Court, work.

Cases don't get to the Supreme Court if they're easy, obvious cases. If it's very clear what result applying the facts to the law will produce, it gets decided in the District Court, and that's it. If there's an appeal, the appeals court will affirm the lower court decision unless there was an obvious error.

In fact, the very guidelines of the Supreme Court set out what kinds of cases they can take, and they have to be unsettled questions in some way, like: there's a split between the circuit courts, or there's a new law on which the courts obviously need guidance.

In many of the cases that come before the Supreme Court, especially all the ones that are high-profile issues, there are legitimate legal arguments to be made on either side, and legally legitimate grounds for deciding either way. I don't think this was the case with Ledbetter v. Goodyear--I think the court's ruling flies in the face of settled law about when the statute of limitations starts to run. But in most cases, the justices, speaking purely from a legal perspective, can go either way. So if we ask only for judges who will apply the law, we will not create the judiciary we're looking for.

Judges are not robots, and our body of laws are not a computer program. If the laws were always absolutely clear, we wouldn't have so many lawyers and judges--we wouldn't need them. Having more legal absolutes would mean we lived in a civil law instead of a common law state. I personally think the Constitution, as a robust, ambitious, and bold framework for our judicial and political system, is superior to the hundreds-of-pages-long civil codes of civil law states.

So when Christy Hardin Smith said, at the panel, that "we want people who are going to look at the law and the facts, and nothing else," I think she's got it wrong. Any competent legal mind will look at the law and the facts, but at the highest levels of jurisprudence that's simply not enough.

We need judges who care about people, who care about individual rights and the rights of minorities and women, who are fearful of the tyranny of corporate interests and looking for ways not just to decide cases, but to bring about justice. When there are two valid ways to decide a case, and one will benefit corporations, while the other benefits workers, they will be inclined to find for the workers. We need judges who would be inclined to find for Lilly Ledbetter if there were any legitimate legal rationale for doing so (and there was). And this is why ideology is important--because when there's only a robot brain standing in the breach between tyranny and justice, there's no assurance that the side of justice will prevail.

off topic, but insider-y

Non-convention related, but I like us to all be in the circle: B just made a funny tweet about an anecdote I told over "breakfast."

Because she has apparently noticed I really only put a bra on when I am going to work, my kid is given to picking up bras that are on the floor and wrapping them around her waist, declaring, "I'm ready for work now, mommy!"

As you were.

Random encounters I

Yesterday, over dinner at a bar: Mary Rick with the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, sits down next to me and allows to the bartender as to how she's from California. I start chatting her up, and she tells me that in addition to travelling her for work, she's *also* got her MA project up with Dialog:City over convention week. She gives me a card, I promise to try to stop by. We talk about sustainability, small businesses, Denver and Obama.


I ask her what she thinks about Obama's economic policy, and she says she doesn't know that much about it, but that she's worked with someone who's consulted (?) or something with the campaign about green businesses, the economy, and technological development. Her job sounds absolutely fascinating, and we have a really lively and enjoyable conversation about entrepeneurship and green business development. It's pretty cool to talk to someone who's so thoroughly enthusiastic about environmentalism *and* economics *and* localism.

And it turns out that she ran into some PUMAs at the city park! She didn't know what PUMA was, so I explained about Amanda's research, and she goes "aha." Anyway, she says that it was a totally weird experience: someone started yelling at her, randomly, about being an ungrateful young woman who doesn't know where her rights come from. She's laughing as she tells me this: "so I was like, um, okay, bye!" We agree about the bizarreness of the "pissed off Clinton supporters will vote McCain" meme (this was all before Clinton's great speech last night, mind).

Interestingly, like me, she was "torn" over who to vote for; but also like me, she's now unreservedly for Obama (duh). We agree that Michelle's speech was fabulous and that we're both a little crushed out on her. (Wanna watch it again? Here you go.)

She *also* tells me that she was down at the park when the protesters were arrested the other day. Mary reports that, despite what the newsfolks are saying, there were "maybe forty" protesters, with "four or five cops" per protester, and that the cops surrounded the protesters and boxed them in immediately. She says she especially noted that last bit because, having seen a fair number of protests in her time, generally the police will "give a warning" and "let people disperse," so that only those who are willing to be arrestable stick around to be arrested. Here, though, she says, "no one could get out."

We agree that, on the one hand, good security is important, and we hope that the Obamas are well-protected; on the other, though, public protesters don't really seem to be the proper focus of strict security measures. I'm reminded of the older couple I talked to on the light rail in the morning, who told me they were "afraid" to go down to the park because they'd heard there were "riots."

I feel pretty earnest listening to these delegates

I'm over at the Pepsi Center now, where one can experience both the spatial thrill of being in a place where major sporting events take place, if you get a thrill from that sort of thing (which I do) and the energy of delegates casting votes. It's cool.

Right before getting here, I was with LeBlanc at a "Taking Back the Courts" panel over at The Big Tent [confidential to The Big Tent: you might have better publicized that daytime panels and events didn't require the $100 pass] which included Christy Hardin Smith and Pamela Spaulding. I am sure LeBlanc is going to blog at more length (and with more professional expertise) about this, but I just wanted to note one quick thing.

Pam spoke about various issues at stake for the next administration's court appointees and touched on LGBT concerns, noting the inconsistency of rights people in the community enjoy around the country. "Our rights change from state to state," Pam said. Pam also notes that in many states, members of the LGBT community can have their children taken away. We must act to guard against, "the incredible damage that can be done to families," Pam urges.

Here's something we need to do more of, people (where "we" is the progressive media and just the general lefty population): reclaim the "family values" rhetoric. They are not the side of family values. They are the side of individualism, of 'one-size-fits-all' families, of dictating when women start or enlarge families. They don't own family values, and they don't know shit about *my* family values.

Music to my ears

I'm here at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice "Lift Every Voice for Reproductive Justice" reception, where they've got a powerful gospel singer along with lots of buttons and bumper stickers and tshirts. Anyone want a "Pro-Faith, Pro-Family, Pro-Choice" bumper sticker? I'll try to grab a few on the way out the door, and I'll send them to those of you who ask for one in comments, in order, until I run out.

I really am beginning to be in love with this organization. Click over to that web page: at the time of blogging, the main graphic says "Trust Women: What Does Your Religion Say?" Preach it, sisters and brothers.

Crystal Clinkenbeard, the communications director for No on 48 campaign, also on the Colorado RCRC board, comes over to ask me if I know about Colorado's Prop 48; I plead ignorance. So she fills me in: 48 will *define* "person" as beginning from the moment of fertilization--a fertilized egg would have full legal constitutional rights.

Think of the effects on inheritance laws, property rights, health care--well beyond abortion services. I'm thinking of Sybil's ectopic pregnancy, which we discussed a little over breakfast, and the situation in El Salvador, where women are dying from ruptured ectopic pregnancies because doctors are forbidden from operating.

Crystal says, "it can be difficult for people to believe that there is actually a real threat to our ability to get birth control, or that this law would actually change the Colorado constitution." But both are true.

Which leaads me to the protesters outside. At every single feminist event I've been to this week, attendees have had to go through the gauntlet of irritating anti-abortion protesters, with their posters of late-term miscarriages and anencephalic abortions. Today they'd ramped the rhetoric up to the point where apparently we, pro-choice feminists are the new KKK. Charming.

Once inside, though--and again, at every event, there've been guards and security checking i.d. and lists to make sure the crazies don't get in--the crowd is the friendliest I've seen so far. Having the laptop out, I've had at least four people come over, ask if I'm blogging, ask who I'm blogging for, and introduce themselves. I just finished speaking to the Reverend Maureen White, a Unitarian Universalist minister raised--as it turns out--in the Catholic church, and we agree that once a Catholic, always a Catholic (also that the increasing shrillness of the conservative Catholics on abortion and end-of-life issues is *distinctly* unbecoming).

So yes: if, like the men and women here, you are religious *and* pro-choice, and you want a bumper sticker, leave me a comment. Don't let the Religious Right get away with owning god.

Ballsy

New mission for the convention: to obtain at least one "Protect yourself from John McCain" condom.

And have sex with it.

In fact, if I can get my hands on some I'll send one to anyone who is willing to have safe sex with a partner (or hey, a random hookup) with the John McCain condom. I'm straight, so I need someone else to report on how it is to have gay sex with the John McCain condom. Does it feel great knowing you are protecting yourself from disease and supporting the fight to elect Obama at the same time? I think it would for me.

Let's remember, in the post-Hillary-speech flareup of Hillary/Obama tensions, that John McCain doesn't care about gay people, and doesn't think they should be recognized as full members of society, with the right to marry, and the right to be judged on the content of their character, not the content of the underpants of the person they've got a crush on. And you know what? John McCain not only doesn't care about gay people, he doesn't care about any people who manage to sluttily get themselves infected with a deadly disease. Here's McCain on condoms:

Reporter: “Should U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS?”

Mr. McCain: “Well I think it’s a combination. The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn. He believes – and I was just reading the thing he wrote– that you should do what you can to encourage abstinence where there is going to be sexual activity. Where that doesn’t succeed, than he thinks that we should employ contraceptives as well. But I agree with him that the first priority is on abstinence. I look to people like Dr. Coburn. I’m not very wise on it.”

Damn straight you're not wise. That's why you're talking about abstinence out of some sense of enforced bullshit morality while a fucking epidemic is killing people all over the world. Or maybe McCain never got any updated sex education in the last, I dunno, twenty-five years.

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

It's disgusting. You know what's not disgusting, though? Safe sex with my boyfriend with the John McCain condom. It's fun, it's free, it's great exercise, it's full of love, and it feels damn good.

And it's liberal as all get-out.

Wed morning dispatch

Dateline: still in bed, nominally, but this east coast mommy can't sleep past 6am MT. Didn't actually sleep much at all actually (so expect increasingly delirious posting from me as the day goes on), because .... w00t, Denver!

Despite massive FAA computer problems, my flight out of the busiest airport in the world (I think, I'm not checking because I don't really care) left on time. And there were about 7 other people on it. It was like flying in 1996. I stretched myself across 3 seats and rubbed my hair into the Airtran upholstery. Yum. Got in, got with the ladies and exchanged stories. 3 bitches hanging out involves a lot more giggling than you might think (we miss you, ding!).

More to come.

HRC Liveblog

8:43: I couldn't get onto the floor, everything's full. I'm back in the blogger lounge and she just came on. Watch this space.

8:44: Was that Bill Clinton mouthing "I love you, I love you, I love you?" WTF?

8:45: She says "we unite, as a single party, with a single purpose." Unknown blogger next to me--"Well, I guess she's not going to stage a coup."

8:48: "No way, no how, no McCain." Every line she speaks is very slow, and punctuated by deafening applause. The crowd is WILD. Love this line.

8:51: "Sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits"?! I exclaimed "shut UP!" in the lounge here. Awesome.

8:53: She just now gets into a laundry list of problems. So far I think this speech, while it makes me feel good, hasn't been particularly strong--it's been just as much applause as talking. Come on, Hillary. Give us something good.

8:56: "Were you in that campaign just for me? Or were you in it for [list], were you in it for all those people who feel invisible?" YES YES YES. This is what we need. Cheers of "sing it, girlfriend" here in the lounge. This is great--she's saying what really needs to be said, and what can only be said by her, which is that her supporters really need to STOP being obsessed with her and upset about the primary fight, and FALL THE FUCK IN LINE. I know I sound like one of those assholes, but the real campaign is starting now, everyone. We need to realize that Obama's victory is not a sure thing, and though I plan on criticizing him when I see fit, we NEED this victory and we need it more than we've needed anything in a long time. And this is the most important thing that's been said about party unity since Barack became the presumptive nominee.

10:02: "John McCain thinks the economy is fundamentally sound.. John McCain, in 2008, still doesn't think it's a problem when women don't get equal pay for equal work." Great for her to go after him. And the line about "these days, McCain and George Bush are awfully hard to tell apart" is brilliant--cheers and clapping from the otherwise sedate blogger lounge normally filled with the sounds of typing.

10:05: This invocation of Harriet Tubman is fucking genius. "If you see the torches in the woods, keep going...If you want a taste of freedom, keep going." Great oratory, and what a great way to bust open the media's obsession with pitting African-Americans vs. women. And a New York reference to boot! I love it.

10:07: Strong finish. What a great speech.

Sick of the speeches? The nurses have the answer

While LeBlanc's in the Pepsi center listening to Clinton's speech, I'm over at the convention center listening to the California Nurse' Association and the Progressive Democrats caucus for H.R. 676, written by John Conyers. I'd estimate that there are maybe 300 people here? Not a bad showing--especially considering that a number of the people in the room have "Hillary 08" buttons or shirts on.

You want this bill to become law. H.R. 676 is a single-payer universal health care bill. It "improves and expands Medicare" to cover everyone: as the speakers keep saying, "everybody in, nobody left out." With employer-provided health insurance costing more and being offered less (down from about 60% in 2000 to 53% in 2005, and dropping), unions are getting on board, employers are getting on board, and we need to push the new Democratic leadership not to cave to the insurance lobby once we've got power.

If this is (one of) your issues, the H.R. 676 caucus wants you to know about two candidates running on single-payer platforms: Debbie Cook in California's 46th District, and Andrea Miller in Virginia's Fourth District.

Debbie Cook starts by telling the story of her child's birth 32 years ago, when she and her husband both worked part-time and lacked health insurance, and she was turning down pain medication because she feared the cost. "luckily, a relative died," she says, and left them enough money to cover the bills.

Nice, isn't it? Having to be glad someone died so you can get the money.

Other great statements from Cook:

"Why do not Americans understand that the more we privatize governmet, the more we complain about it?"

"Nurses did not get into healthcare to maximize profits--they got into it to maximize health."

Andrea Miller says she is running because "I don't have health insurance." She's a government contractor whose work is irregular enough, I gather, that there's no coverage. She's campaigning by emphasizing--with beautiful clarity--the difference between health insurance and health care: "health care: good! Health insurance: stupid!" She gets a big laugh with this, but her point is a good one: as she says, an insurance-based system is like going to a restaurant, paying up front, and then not being sure what you're going to get or whether you'll get fed at all. As she puts it, "if we're going to spend the money for rhealth care, we oughta at least get it." I like her.

Now I gotta go get Sybil from the airport. Because I love her more than Pancho Sanchez. Dammit.

Laugh Lines

Gov. Mark Warner: "In four months, we will have an administration that actually believes...in SCIENCE!"

UPDATE: "George Bush came into office on third base, and then went...to second base." ZING!

The Interview That Will Never Be Aired

I just got interviewed by a reporter from Fox News Boston. I don't know why I agreed to do it, but someone said "camera!" and I said "sure!" I missed Sebelius' speech. Since I didn't really answer the way he was clearly going for, I sincerely doubt it'll get aired, so I'll recap it for you.

Fox: So, what's the name of your blog?
Me: Bitch, Ph.D.
Fox: Bitch, Ph.D.?
Me: That's right.
Fox: Why is it called that? What kind of blog is it?
Me: Well, it's a blog about a lot of topics. The name came from my co-blogger, who actually has a Ph.D. I just have a law degree.
Fox: So what do you blog about?
Me: Like I said, it's pretty eclectic. Lately, we've been writing a lot about politics, and we cover current events from what I think you could safely call a feminist perspective. I write about my practice as a lawyer.
Fox: So, are you one of those Hillary Clinton front blogs?
Me: What do mean, Hillary Clinton front blogs? No, we're not a Hillary Clinton front blog and I don't know of any such things. Actually, I voted for Barack Obama.
Fox: Oh. Well, what are you blogging about today? Can you read me one of your posts?
Me: [reads excerpt from post about Kathleen Sebelius] Basically, I'm talking about the blogger response to the choice of Joe Biden.
Fox: Which you weren't happy with.
Me: No, actually I think Biden was a great choice.
Fox: Oh.
Me: But there were a lot of progressive bloggers who wrote that they were disappointed with Biden, and I was responding to that sentiment.
Fox: So, do people ever complain about the name of your blog?
Me: Only one person that I know of. I hate to give him any more publicity, but this guy Bill Donohue from an organization called the Catholic League, put out a press release saying that we should have our credentials revoked, but he didn't seem to give any rationale, so I can only guess it was based on the name.
Fox: But the Democrats are ok with that?
Me: Well, we were given credentials, and I haven't heard anything about them being revoked. Basically, there's only one person who has a problem with us, and I don't think anyone's paying attention to him.
Fox: Uh. Ok. Thanks.

Then then sit there and film me looking at comments on the blog. Priceless, man. I wish I could do this all day, avoiding poorly-laid traps and super-sexist agendas. He clearly thought "wow, I'm going to get a Hillary-hating man-hating feminazi to go crazy on me! Gold mine!"

No such luck, buddy.

The Blogger Lounge

Signs are entertaining, circumstances prevent me from being entertained by the actual convention. Above the water cooler we've got "Do not use plastic cups for hot water. Bad things happen" with a skull and crossbones. Over here we've got "Do not stand on the chairs. You will fall. We will laugh.

I have yet to see any bloggers I know, and the chatter in the lounge means I basically can't hear the feed on the television. Not that it's particularly interesting. Next speaker up that's on the schedule is Kathleen Sebelius, so mayeavy be people will quiet down for that shit. Also, people keep coming in and taking pictures of the lounge. It's not very interesting, people. It's just a bunch of people on computer.

Now there's a middle-aged woman with a heavy Southern accent talking. I don't know who she is because the announcement of her name was drowned out by the local chatter.

Speaking of Kathleen Sebelius, why is it that the buzz in the progressive blogosphere the day after Biden was selected as Obama's VP was that people weren't happy with the choice of Biden, with the alternative, better choices presented being Sebelius and sometimes Chris Dodd?

As far as I can tell, one of the benefits of choosing Sebelius was that she is pretty moderate, and indeed she has been described as "pro-business, pro-military, and that she's from "middle America", which balances out Obama's ridiculous "effete elitist" media-created image. In other words, choosing Sebelius would be choosing someone less progressive than Obama, and it would be a choice based on the same-old, same-old regional considerations (e.g., you have to have veep from the South, cf. John Edwards). If you're a progressive blogger, why is it that Sebelius would have been better than Biden? Is it just because she's a woman? I think having women in positions of power is extremely important, but I don't think this alone makes her a better veep pick than Biden.

I have to go now, some actual reporters want to interview me. I'm sweaty and I look like shit, but how can I turn down the chance to be on TV?

Protests/Counter-Fest at the Civic Center, Washed-up Movie Star

As long as I continue taking buses and keep my walking around in the horrid heat to a minimum, this is going to be a great week. Otherwise, I may go stabby stabby. I'm currently chilling in the (blissfully airconditioned) lobby of the Denver Art Museum, which is a gorgeous modern steel structure that's like a cross between the Pritzker Pavilion and the Jewish museum in Berlin. Actually, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were designed by the same person who did the Jewish museum, but I can't be bothered to look it up right now.

I came to the Art Museum to see this event, "Politics & the Media: Bridging the Political Divide in the 2008 Election." I'll be blogging about that shortly--it was a great, intellectual discussion between some journalism heavyweights who, unfortunately, can't seem to see the rise of blogging as anything but a threat to the old media establishment. I think there must have been about 7 "writing in your pajamas" jokes (and, admittedly, someone who said "they're not writing in their pajamas, but they're not writing from Baghdad." I think I know someone who would beg to differ). I was the only blogger who asked a question, trying to get Cass Sunstein, who was there and who I admire quite a bit, to acknowledge the benefits of blogging from an intellectual perspective, rather than just from a democratization perspective, which seems to be about the only benefit that these old media dogs will cop to.

But I said I was going to blog about that later. On my short walk from breakfast (okay, it was 1:00 p.m., but it was breakfast food) with Bitch, I walked by the Denver Civic Center, which seems to be the home for all of the counter-culture political action. Observed was a World Can't Wait Booth, signs excoriating Christian "fascists" and a sign (which I lamentably couldn't catch a picture of) that had a picture of an ass, with a picture of Obama pasted on one cheek and a picture of McCain pasted on the other, and the text "TWO SIDES OF THE SAME ARSE." And then I walked up to the amphitheatre, where a dude was talking in front of a giant sign that read "PROCESSION FOR THE FUTURE" just as he was announcing their keynote speaker! Who I thought was going to be that chick who got up in a tree and wouldn't come down for a year--what was her name?--but was in fact...

DARRYL HANNAH! Whoa. She spoke for about two minutes, and advised us to be a "living breathing embodiment of our values" and said we should recognize the "interconnectedness of all life." Next to her was a giant sign that read "INDICT BUSH.GOV CRIMINALS."

Just a few minutes later I figured out what the "procession for the future" was--a series of giant puppets, done up to represent the concepts of Justice, Truth, and Peace. The puppet parade hadn't started yet, so I got to get some shots of them up close. I didn't stay for the parade because I wanted to get over the Art Museum, but I think I'll be hitting the Civic Center lawn again tomorrow to investigate some more. Pictures below.

World Can't Wait operation on the Civic Center lawn:



"Christian Fascism--No Abortion--No Birth Control--Slavery 4 Women"



Civic Center Amphitheatre with band:



Darryl Hannah!



Protest Signs on wall at Amphitheatre:



Justice & Peace puppets



Truth & Justice puppets



And I have no fucking clue what this puppet is supposed to represent. Health?

DNC trivia

I believe that M. LeBlanc is probably standing in a Very No Shit Security Line right this minute trying to get into the Pepsi Center for today's convention coverage--which you all are, of course, watching on the teevee in the cool and refreshing convenience of your own homes. (Actually she just texted me that she's chilling in the Art Museum. Literally.)

For my part, I am letting my sore feet relax while the sweat dries right here in the Convention Center, which has handy wireless access in the lobby.

I'm overhearing a conversation between a Clinton delegate and some other guy. (On further eavesdropping, he seems to be some kind of campaign consultant type, or lobbyist, or something. At least, he keeps talking about "clients" and who "gives us business" and such.)

CD: [mumble] Told me, you don't see too many middle-aged white guys who are Clinton delegates.* I said, well, here I am.
OG: What are you guys gonna do?
CD: I dunno.
CD: Oh well. Hillary's a superdelegate; the speaker said that Hillary's gonna vote for Barack.
OG: That's what I heard. We'll learn more from the speech.
CD: That primary was something this year, huh?

There you go, people. That's the big drama from the Clinton delegates: "I dunno." Chris Matthews notwithstanding.

*Actually, the only person I've seen so far with a "Nobama" sticker was an *old* white guy. No comment.

In other convention gossip, the National Women's Political Caucus, after inviting me to cover their meeting, failed to put Sybil's RSVP on their damn list and turned me away at the door! So rude! They tried to hit me up for $20 to "register," but I was all, bitches, I'm *press*. They weren't having it, though. So, despite my genuine love and adoration for the NWPC, I am hereby officially giving them a teensy bit of Bad Publicity for crapping on my credential.

Which brings up *the* major experience of the DNC for us blogger types: running all over downtown Denver to get credentials. Which you have to do, like, every day. For some events in specially secured areas, you have to do it twice a day *and* return used credentials by specified deadlines or they'll nix your credentials altogether. The security really isn't kidding.

Which basically is a good thing. But is also a MAJOR PAIN IN THE ASS, given that it's freaking hot, that the credentialing sites all happen, for reasons of security or disorganization it isn't clear, to be at opposite corners of god's green earth. I'm sure it's great for the calves, and the city has been amazingly thoughtful about providing water stations basically everywhere, but I am not kidding when I say that one frequently has the sensation of sweat trickling down one's back, dripping off one's elbows, stinging one's eyes.

Politics: one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.

Passing the baton

Thank god LeBlanc's plane has landed!

death warmed over

I am too old for this shit, man. My feets are killing me. And I am *so* skipping the Emily's List breakfast tomorrow. I am so very sorry, Emily's List--I love you guys, but I cannot possibly get out of bed at 6 am.

DNC 08: from the couch

I know - I'm interrupting our 'on the floor' coverage from the trio of Bitches in Denver. This Bitch, though, has a teeny thought about Michelle Obama's speech. This is what I crossposted at Screed, from my couch:

9.23 pm - the Michelle Obama intro. OMG. I am a total sucker for a romance story.

(Grrr! I'm kicking myself a little bit. I totally could have met Michelle Obama this week through a professional connection. Dangit!)

Though the bio was just as slick as any other, it was a good piece to counter claims of 'uppity-ness' or 'elitism.' I really don't get it. You can put Michelle Obama next to Cindy McCain and, yet, we're supposed to believe that Cindy McCain is 'of the people' while Obama lives in the rarefied airs of the elite. What a topsy turvy world our pundits and political strategists have created for us.

(Incidentally, I wonder if the convention's soundtrack would be available on iTunes. It kicks ass.)

Ahh. 'Looking down on' vs 'looking over.' Nicely done. (Believable? Maybe.)

What I'm hearing in her speech is the same narrative that I, and other people of color like me, have lived. It's familiar to us. It's a narrative, however, that mainstream America still cannot believe about communities of color; like the Mark Penns of this country, mainstream America can't grasp the fact that black, brown or non-white people have the same American dream as they and that they have lived by that dream and hoped for the day when their lives as full Americans would be acknowledged.

I was saying to a friend today that people of color are the last idealists in this country. Fundamentally, we believe - despite the slights and the snubs and the daily presence of racism - that the Great American Story of fairness, hard work and reward for that hard work still has the possibility to exist. Oh, we can be disappointed; daily, we are disappointed. But we still believe in it and we believe in the application of fairness. This is our creed: If the world works one way for some people, we want the world to work the same way for the rest of us.

What could be more American than that?

And that's what her speech has done - it has subtly re-established Black Americans as citizens of this country, the Mark Penns of this country be damned.

Go 'head on with your bad self, Michelle Obama.

(edited slightly for clarity)

The name wasn't my idea

Women's Equali-Tea ---primary goal is to rally the troops for obama; possibly a little anxiety about clinton supporters?? or is that just an artefact of honoring stephanie tubbs-jones? hard to say, but clinton is mentioned almost as frequently as obama, and there seems to be a deliberate emphasis on the idea that obama *is* good for women....

Ah yes, feminists = baby killers. Tons of anti-abortion protesters outside the University Club protesting the "Women's Equali-Tea" on Women's Equality Day at the DNCC. Lots of cops, too, just in case any of us butch feministas decide to pop a protester in the mouth. (Kidding! I kid!) Actually, the protesters were by and large young, hip-looking women; whoever coordinated this particular protest was pretty savvy about appearances.

Inside, once again, we have air conditioning. Not quite enough, initially, and I myself am beginning to smell! So unladylike. Cruising the room for a minute, I talk to a few nurses from California who invite me to tomorrow's reception in support of a single-payer health system--GO NURSES--which'll be followed by a Poncho Sanchez concert. But if I attend the concert, I won't be able to pick up Sybil at the airport! Which do I love more, Sybil or Latin jazz? Tough decision....

So we appear to be getting started late. Kim Gandy is shmoozing; she actually high-fived someone. I can't get a picture of her because she keeps moving. The "real" press guys, with their enormous cameras and their big boom mikes, are a major pain in the ass in this hugely crowded room, which makes me feel much better about my pathetic little phone camera. Which, dammit, Kim Gandy just cruises by me and I'd put it away. Oh well.

Yes! We're getting started. Kathy Spillar, the vp of Feminist Majority and exec. editor of Ms. Magazine, gets everyone to pipe down. Much applause and hooting at the announcement that we're celebrating 88 years of women's right to vote. Spillar says that "the gender gap will be decisive this year."

First up is Barbara Boxer. "After the last election when we heard about all the problems that occurred in Ohio, I understood that there had to be at least one senator to stand up and object to the electoral vote in Ohio.... so I went to Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, I said Stephanie, this is a tough thing and it's unpopular, and I need to know from you, were there problems in Ohio and lay those problems out for me. And Stephanie, who I respect so much . . . . said Barbara, I saw the lines. I saw single mothers who had to go home to pick up their kids and they waited on line for four hours and they never voted..... And I thank so much NOW for honoring her today."
"We know there are some people who are hurt from the primary . . . . I know how it feels, but I tell you, we must be united...." HUGE applause.

Boxer goes on: ""John McCain has a zero voting record from NARAL. Do you understand?" Mentions voting record on insurance companies and birth control, domestic violence, league of conservation voters, Ledbetter.
Re. former Clinton supporters supposedly supporting McCain: "Listen up. You're gonna have to get out there. You have the credibility. The men and women in this world, you're feminists..... So tonight when you get to that hall, and when you hear Michelle Obama speak, get up on your feet.... here's a woman who did it for herself.... Barack Obama the same, Joe Biden the same. They did it for themselves.... And they're gonna fight for the American dream for the middle class and for all...."

Boxer's "zero" line will be repeated by several other people for the next hour. Also, pretty much everyone is going to eulogize Tubbs-Jones, as well as mentioning Clinton. The combination ends up giving the event an odd feeling of minor defensiveness, but generally the message is "go Obama."

Next we have the Chair of the Congressional Women's Black Caucus Carorlyn Cheeks Kilpatrick: "We've got much work to do.... Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones will always be in our hearts, for her.... [and the young women] let us rise up and build.... God bless you, let's get to work."

Women's Caucus Chair Lois Capps, from just up the road in Santa Barbara: "We want to grow to be the feminist majority in the US Congress... She (Tubbs Jones) was a powerful voice....
"bring out the vote"
"And you know there is a huge difference between the candidates."

Congresswoman Lynn Wolsey: "It won't be long before we have somebody in the White House that not only has a heart but has a brain. What that means to women is we have somebody that wil be with us that understands our power, appreciates our power, and will work with us as we work with him in the Congress and the Senate so that we can insure what Stephanie Tubbs Jones would want us to be doing and that is making a world for our children and our families..."

Olga somebody introduces Jackie Spear from San Francisco, who says, "I"m one of the newest members to Congress and I had a very brief time to spend with Stephanie Tubbs Jones.... each of us is called to do something and if we don't do it, it won't get done. That means each and everyone of us much stand up like Stephanie stood up.... George Bush got reelected because millions of women voted for him and not John Kerry. We can't let that happen this time. We must go out and convince millions of women and men across the country that not just the White House is at stake but the Supreme Court is at stake."

Maxine Waters. Okay, Maxine Waters is *clearly* the star of this event. Big whoops from the crowd. Waters shushes us down, and begins. "There are not a lot of good and wonderful times in Washington D.C. with this administration. The only time that I really feel good about what I do is when I'm with you. [applause.] Thank you so much for the support. [more applause] Thank you so much for the advocacy. [still more . . . oh, you get the idea] Thank you so much for standing up for the women of this nation and others. when i came in today they had the protesters outside and you wonderful women said let me escort you in. You don't understand; I don't need any escort. They need to look out for me..... [applause and cheers] We have marched in the rain, we have marched in the snow we have marched against the anger and the kind of women that are out there today, and I'm gonna tell you they do not frighten us, they do not intimdate us, we feel sorry for them. We feel sorry for them because they do not understand, they can't control their lives if they do not control their bodies.

We honor Stephanie Tubbs-Jones... she was on the trail for Hillary Clinton, she did not move, she did not budge, she was talked about.... She said, when I make a commitment I'm going to stick with that commitment. I committed to Hillary and i'm going to stand with her, and god bless her, she did..... We cannot afford to have John McCain. He is worse than a neanderthal. [laughter, cheers] We cannot afford to have someone in the White House that talks about undoing Roe vs. Wade.... We've got to make sure that our issues are not compromised by anybody, at any time, any place..... We've got a bright, energetic, confident, wonderful person that's gonna be nominated on Tuesday, and I want you to know that nobody is going to work harder and do better for you than we can do for ourselves.... when we talk about choice, we talk about freedom of choice, we talk about conception and when does life begin. It cannot be above our pay grade, we've got to be said what needs to be said, no matter when what and how...." (huge applause)

President of Feminist Majority Eleanor Smeal: "I can remember when we had twelve votes on the floor, but now [feminists are] everywhere, and this platform that's going to be adopted tomorrow is the strongest platform for women's rights ever adopted by a major party in the united states. Don't let anybody say that this is a weaker platform or that they forgot this or that.... It says emphatically that they not only stand for roe they oppose any and all efforts to undermine it.... health care.... the principal author is Karen Kornbluh . . . Senator Biden has been there with us time and time again.... He authored the Violence Against Women act and made sure it was reauthorized both in 2000 and 2006 when McCain voted against it.... we've got a strong ticket and i think one of the most exciting things is that there are women's rights candidates...."

Smeal gets laughs and applause on closing, when she says, "I just want you to know from all of us, we are sorry that this isn't a bigger room, we will never make that mistake again."

Kim Gandy from NOW speaks next: a very short speech, mostly quotations. Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony. I'm distracted from Gandy's speech by Maxine Waters moving through the crowd with a full-on entourage, shaking hands and looking positively regal. The crowd parts before her like she was Moses or something.

There were lots of other speakers--Connie Shultz from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, who gives a very moving eulogy of her "girlfriend" Tubbs-Jones; Dolores Huerta (SO pissed that my phone battery is dead), who gets a lot of applause and has everyone chant "Viva Hillary! Viva Obama! Viva the Feminists! Si se Puede!" Ellen Malcolm, the head of Emily's List; Latifa Lyles, the vice president of NOW Membership; Carolyn Mahoney from New York; E. Faye Williams, the Chair of the National Congress of Black Women, who reprises the "zero" line, making it a pithier, "are we ready to elect a hero or a zero?" Betsy Clark, the President and CEO of the National Council of Social Workers, who makes the really moving point that "for the past seven years, social workers have watched with horror what's happened in this country"; Kimberly Crenshaw, who recently wrote a piece about Ward Connely for Ms. Magzine; Donna Edwards, and finally, very briefly, Stephanie Tubbs-Jones's son, whose name I'm afraid I missed. He says that his mother "loved every cause that you guys stand for," and thanks everyone graciously for coming.

Special bonus feminist note: at one point during the talks, a glass was broken on the floor near me. A middle-aged woman stooped down to try to clean it up with some cocktail napkins, rather ineffectually to be sure; then she found a towel somewhere and covered the glass and liquid. The gesture seemed to me very, well, womanly, and reminded me of the 2004 March for Women's Lives, where a lot of very important people were very accessible and gracious.

Later, while pointing out a few vips in the audience, Kathy Spillar acknowledges the woman who'd cleaned up the glass. Turns out she was Dottie Lamb, the former first lady of Colorado. So, so classy. Kudos, Ms. Lamb.

blogger central

OH. MAH. GAWD. Security is crazy and I missed Obama's sister's speech. Sad!
I'm sitting here with the bloggers from Jack and Jill Politics, Indianz.com, What About Our Daughters? and Disaboom.com. Special thanks to Indianz.com, who rescued me from the most confused elevator operator ever and showed me where the blogger lounge *really* was.

My stupid ass phone battery went out, I've lost my iPod Touch (which was a special Christmas present from Mr. B.! Waaaah!), I can barely hear the television feed because all the bloggers are SO DAMN CHATTY and I'm not sure which stupid light rail line/stop I need to get home (I think I have *just* enough phone battery to call and ask). But, you know, other than that.

Blog notes from the "Women's Equali-Tea" coming right up--as with the last post, an update with pictures will have to wait until I can recharge my fucking phone.

pre-convention goings on: military families against the war, religious coalition for reproductive choice

Convention center achieved! Blessed air conditioning. If my stupid bluetooth ever manages to start working, I'll update this entry with some pics from my cell phone (we're working on some high-tech, high-budget blogging, here). In the meantime, here's what's happened this morning.

Leaving the credentialing hotel, I came across some people from the west coast branch of Military Families Speak Out; picture of their very cool van to follow. They will be having a press conference at 2 pm at the Capitol building, which I'll try to make. I spoke to Pat Alviso, whose son is in Iraq right now, and with Horace Coleman, who is a member of both Vietnam Vets Against the War and Iraq Vets Against the War (the organizations are unrelated except in sharing similar goals). They were also part of a much broader demonstration in the Civic Center Park (pics also to follow), which included a bunch of other organizations the names of which I am too lame to remember.

Later I ran across a bunch of crazy Catholics (I assume), hauling crucifixes down the street and chanting the Hail Mary. I amused myself by reflecting on the recent Bitch/Bill D. smackdown, but did not engage.

In front of the convention center: various shenanigans, including one lone anti-abortion protester with a lovely poster of a late-term miscarriage. Love the propaganda. Surrounding this person was a group from young women from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Yay! I spoke briefly with Emily Goodstein, the director of young adult outreach.

Me: So, let me start with the stupid question: how do you reconcile being pro-choice and a person of faith?

EG: I don't think there's anything to reconcile. I am pro-choice because of my faith, not in spite of it.

Me: Okay, but you're a reform Jew. I'm a Catholic, and I've recently been told that, for instance, Catholics for Choice . . .

EG: A great organization . . .

Me: I agree, but I'm told that they're not "really" Catholic. What would you have to say to that?

EG: Well, just as it's not my place to tell a woman what to do with her body, I'm never going to be in a situation to determine who's a Catholic. It seems a bit hypocritical to be worrying about who's Catholic when we could be working on preventing unintended pregnancies.

Me: Yes! Exactly. So, tell me what the youth program for RCRC does, exactly.

EG: Our youth program is called SYRF [pronounced "surf"]: Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom. We have three primary missions. First, to engage with young adults who would like to organize; we give them a small stipend to organize locally. Second, we run trainings across the country for our organizers and anyone else who wants to learn how to be a leader on this issue. And third, we make small grants to community and student organizations. Basically, our main goal is that we work on creating safe spaces for people who are pro-choice *and* religious.

Goodstein went on to explain that often, the pro-choice religious have a hard time in secular pro-choice organizations, where it's difficult to talk about coming from a position of faith; on the other hand, they have an equally hard time within their parishes or synagogues, where it's often anathema to be pro-choice.

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is hosting a "Strike for Your Rights" event tonight at 8:30 at a bowling alley, Lucky Strike Lanes. They are also hosting a party at the Denver Athletic Club on Wednesday, August 27 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. Both events are open to the public. RSVP for the latter at the link.

Twits

We got some twitter happening over there in the sidebar, y'all. We'll see if we can't all 3 get accounts up and going sometime today. So you won't miss anything! Except beers with us, of course.

five points

Dateline: downtown Denver.

NOTHING IS HAPPENING. There are a lot of cops standing around looking bored. There are a few people with press credentials and Really Big Cameras wandering around looking for something to take pictures of. There are occasional people with some kind of badge around their necks walking purposefully from some event to, one prersumes, there hotels. There are a few tourists taking pictures with camera phones. Or maybe, like me, the tourists with camera phones are bloggers! Taking pictures of . . . nothing!

Dateline: Five Points.

Denver's historically black neighborhood! Vendors are lining the streets selling lots of Obama tshirts. A meeting is happening in Blackberry, a coffee and ice cream shop. Your faithful blogger talks at some length to a community redevelopment organizer about gentrification, the city council (upshot: the local city councilwoman is a white woman, oddly, but she knows her shit about zoning),* and the importance of maintaining the history of the neighborhood. We wander around, accompanied by the community redevelopment organizer (who does not want his/her name published), having landmarks pointed out--the hotel where black artists used to stay during segregation, the tamale shop that's been there since local contact was a little girl--and saying hi to people. The Five Points media center is pointed out to me, as is the library, which has free wifi. We meet a woman who is selling handmade Denver Donkeys, and Your Faithful Blogger makes a mental note to come back in a few days with some cash and buy a donkey (seriously, very cute: recommended as souvenirs, especially for DNCC attendees with children). Everyone, but everyone, is wearing an Obama tshirt, and most of the businesses have Obama posters in the windows.

Shortly before 9:30, a police car and a big SWAT van pull up in front of local contact's parked car. Local contact freaks: "omg, they're giving me a ticket!" Your Blogger and local contact trot across the street to find that no ticket has been issued, but suitably intimidated, we get in the car and drive back to home base.

Not five minutes after we're home, local contact's phone rings. Community redevelopment organizer reports that as soon as we left, the SWAT team returned and began slooooowly cruising the neighborhood, closely followed by a press team with cameras. Whether or not press team is there to film SWAT team and file reports about how Neighborhood Unrest Forced the Cops to Crack Down, or reports about how The Cops Were Out Looking for Trouble, is unclear. The SWAT team unloads from the truck, stands in a big silent line for a couple of minutes, then climbs back on the truck and slowly cruises off. Local contact tells community redevelopment organizer to go home. Community redevelopment organizer insists that he/she is Taking a Stand, and that the vendor licenses are until 11 pm, and dammit, he/she is not going anywhere until 11 pm.

*Later, local contact lets on that she is not a big fan of city councilwoman, who, according to local contact, wants to do shit like bring in Starbucks and Costco to Five Points. Which Your Blogger agrees would be a terrible idea, as Five Points appears to be an absolutely lovely downtown neighborhood with lots of established local businesses.

Reporting to you live from Denver

Hey hey hey, bitches everywhere. I am sitting in a genuine Denver living room right this minute waiting for a genuine Denver activista to come pick me up and drag my butt downtown to the civic center, where supposedly Public Enemy's doing a show later. I also hear tell as to how there's live jazz and blues every night over in Five Points, the historically black neighborhood near downtown, so my evenings are now set.

Oh yeah, I guess there's political stuff going on too. Today Recreate 68 and the pacifists are marching, and I might run into the end of that if and when my friend ever shows up (like activistas and bloggers everywhere, she's always running late. I loff her); in any case, here is what you have to look forward to:

Monday--me at the convention center. Yay!! Apparently the big bloggers can't be bothered to wait in the lines, so we will be your source for all things gossipy and human-interestish from the floor. You can watch the speeches your own damn selves on CNN, so it's not like you need us for that. I'll also be hanging out with NOW and Planned Parenthood that day.

Tuesday--LeBlanc'll be covering the convention floor while I drag my butt out to *breakfast* with the EMILY'S list folks. Then maybe some blogging about the culture wars, or maybe not--I must admit I am a wee bit tired of the culture wars angle on politics. Later LeBlanc and I might hit the "Take Back America" lefty event, ad I will for sure be hanging with the National Women's Political Caucus that afternoon. There are a few other things going on that day, too--blogger events, the "Future Leaders of America," and more partay-ing.

Wednesday--Sybil gets to hang out at the convention center to hear what Bill Clinton has to say; I've warned her NOT to wear a sweater, lest she undermine feminism. There are magazine editors to meet, Repro. Rights events to attend, Taking Back the Courts, and a big, big party with NARAL.

Thursday, we have to fight to see who'll see Obama live, but we'll all be meeting up at the Human Rights Campaign after party.

Okay, so my connection is here. We're gonna run off now. I'll see if I can do some blogging for y'all later this evening....

What does Joe have to say to the average joes?

So, Biden, huh?

I get the logic--yadda yadda foreign policy expertise, yadda yadda so much for the "Obama has no experience!" criticism. And Biden seems generally like a decent human being.

On the other hand--and no one's perfect--there's Biden's support for "bankruptcy reform" back in the day. Which hopefully was just evidence of his acting as a tool for his state's business base, rather than evidence of actual convictions that it's vitally important that when people find themselves going bankrupt they must be forced to repay the credit-card companies that were so freaking irresponsible about who they'd loan money to that they were even willing to send a credit card to a dog. And who are *still* so fucking irresponsible that they're just peachy-keen thrilled to send offers to people who've declared bannkruptcy. After all, under the new law that Biden backed, they can't declare bankruptcy again for six years, so let's hope they rack up the debts all over again.

Which you know, if anyone has an obligation to be "responsible" about debt, it's the companies that create the stuff, write the laws, and know all the ins and outs, as opposed to the poor bastards who got in over their heads.

So anyway, yes, I'm not impressed with Biden's history on that issue. And give the current state of the subprime lending meltdown, that seems like a pretty major issue for this campaign. God knows the Republicans are much worse, but that's not saying much.

I'm curious about how Biden fits into Obama's plans for the economy, as described (interestingly and at some length) by the NYT today.* The general outline the NYT gives seems decent. And I am impressed by his campaign website's differentiation between genuine small businesses and corporations and plan to invest in renewable energy infrastructure. I'm uncertain about whether his tax plans will adequately address the deficit, but they sound okay other than that. I like the *rhetoric* about reformig lending practices. But yeah, given that "Reform Bankruptcy Laws" is an issue right there on the website, I wonder how Biden fits into that. And I gotta say, while it sounds nice enough to "create an exemption in bankruptcy law for individuals who can prove they filed for bankruptcy because of medical expenses" and to "# encourage banks, credit unions and Community Development Financial Institutions to provide affordable short-term and small-dollar loans and to drive unscrupulous lenders out of business," that last one is awfully vague, and that first one, well--what about people who got into bankruptcy for things like "lost a job" or "went through a divorce" or, you know what? even "acted irresponsibly."

After all, if we're going to write laws that let powerful lenders--whose entire raison d'etre is lending and profit--act irresponsibly, it's a bit rich to expect average people with lots of other things to deal with and without high-paid lawyers on staff to always be "responsible" enough to know the ins and outs of laws and contracts they didn't write.

So, Joe: What's up with that?

The out-shouted Majority

Unsurprisingly to readers of this blog, Catholics are not the monolithic voting bloc some people would have you believe. Catholics for Choicee reports on a study (that they didn't themselves conduct) about Catholic opinion and voting behavior with respect to a lot of isues, many of the "values" issues. Some highlights:

Specifically on the abortion issue, seven in ten (69%) say they feel no obligation to vote against candidates who support abortion, and an equal number disapproves of denying communion to Catholics who support legal abortion (75%).

Catholic voters support keeping abortion legal (58% support)

They believe insurance companies should be required to cover and pharmacists required to sell birth control pills. Three-quarters of Catholics support requiring health insurance plans to cover birth control pills (75%). Nearly eight in ten (78%) oppose allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions.

Catholic voters do not approve of schools teaching abstinence only in sex education classes. Six in ten (64%) oppose requiring high school sex education programs to only teach abstinence.

Isn't it interesting how the loudest "spokesperson" mouths are so often out of touch with the majority positions.


Read the whole thing.

(Hat tip, Amanda.)

movin' on up

Alpa Chino: That's the theme song for the Jeffersons!
Kirk Lazarus: Just because it's a theme song doesn't make it any less true.
- Tropic Thunder

Say hello to the new Government Relations Officer at Large Metropolitan Chicago Non Profit.

That almost makes up for not joining my sister Bitches at the convention next week.

disclosures

For those of you who have asked, I did get my hands on an exhaustive disclosure of my credit card's "accident protection" exclusions. Here are about 50% of those exclusions:

lost items; items that are stolen from places of employment, worship, school, or exercise facilities; items damaged during transport of any mode; items stolen from a vehicle, watercraft or airplane, tickets, negotiable instruments, bullion, stamps; losses caused by animals, insects or pets [what, pray tell, are these pets that are neither animals nor insects??]; items purchased for resale, commercial, or professional use; computer programs, operating software, digital applications of any kind; losses resulting from war or hostilities of any kind (including but not limited to invasion, rebellion, riot or civil commotion); losses caused by power surge or mold; losses resulting from Acts of God (including but not limited to flood, hurricane, lightning, earthquake); items damaged on a new home construction site; pets or specimen preserved for display; losses caused by fluids, oils, chemicals, or bodily excretions.

So there you have it, folks. No recourse with insurance, but wow, what a relief it is to have that accident protection. So applicable to so many things.

In much more pleasant news, you people have been absolutely amazing with the donations. Here's what's happened so far: we've taken $166 to rent 2 aircards, so we are guaranteed wireless coverage inside the Pepsi Center (our understanding is that WiFi will be blocked by security and ethernet ports will be very limited). After that expenditure, current tally is about $450.

Just totally unbelievable.

Now (and here's where I prove my Catholic-ness): when B wrote her blegging post, she lamented that I was laptopless for the convention. Which was true. But I now know that my school's IT people will generously let me take one of their laptops with me (if I coat it in saran wrap). So, rather than take that $450 and rush the research over the weekend to buy a machine I don't know much about, I will take their Macbook and use it in Denver.

I feel like you all had reason to believe you were donating to enable my ease-of-blogging in Denver. And I want you to know that I have been able to ensure that will happen without your generous donations. So, given that, if you want to request your donation back, I will happily paypal it back to you and think nothing more of it. To be clear, I WILL buy a laptop when I get back (and keep you posted about what I get), but if you feel disenfranchised about the way this is playing out, please do just shoot me an email and I will make it right. I feel really earnestly touched that so many of you cared to make a donation, I want to be very careful with how I treat that trust.

Alternatively, if now that you know I have a laptop to borrow you'd prefer the bitches blow the money in Denver on liquor and cheap women, that can also be arranged.

How I got to be an atheist

THERE'S STILL TIME TO DONATE SO SYBIL'S COFFEE-SOAKED LAPTOP CAN BE REPLACED!(Bitch really wasn't lying about Sybil doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff, btw).

Since we're talking religion around here lately, I thought I'd tell my peculiar little religion origin story. I grew up in a multicultural household, with two parents who were both of minority religions for their respective cultures. My mother was raised by a Baptist and a Mormon. Together, her parents decided not to impose religion on their children. Their policy was that their kids could decide when they grew up. Accordingly, at age 17, my mother was baptized into the Mormon church and, when she graduated from high school, went off to Brigham Young University to study English Literature.

My father grew up in a big Catholic family in the 40s and 50s in Cairo, where Christians make up only 10% of the population and Catholics a small portion of that 10%. The number of Catholics is so small that few of my father's siblings could find another Catholic to marry, as was strongly indicated by their faith, and most ended up building a hybrid Orthodox-Catholic home. My dad went to Jesuit grammar school, and his mother was a deeply religious woman who went to mass multiple times per week until the end of her life. My dad, on the other hand, for much of his adult life, was something of a lapsed Catholic—although his beliefs hew very closely to doctrine, he told me he found the exclusivity a turn-off. He would always tell me that he didn't accept the notion that any one religion was the only pathway to salvation, and even now on his Facebook page he lists "tolerance of all creeds" as his religion. I find it endearing. At least during the times when I'm not arguing with him about gay marriage or abortion.

When my parents got married, because my mother was much more into her religion than my father was into his, and they didn't want to go the "choose your own religion" route that my mother's parents had gone, they decided to raise their kids in the Mormon church. Every week, we would go to Mormon services, and on Easter and Christmas, we would go to Catholic mass. I also went to countless Catholic weddings, baptisms, and first communions to see my relatives forge on in their religious development. I wasn't quite raise in two religions—I definitely identified as Mormon—but I certainly got a lot of experience with Catholicism.

I was a deeply, deeply religious child. My dad likes to tell a story about how at age 4, I was accidentally left behind in a Paris metro station. When my family rushed back to get me, they found me siting on a bench, happily singing church songs. I explained that I was just doing what my Sunday school teacher told me, which was to sing about how you love Jesus instead of being scared. I remember another day when I was 6—I got lost in a wooded area near our house, and I stopped and prayed long and hard for God to help me find my way. When I soon found a house where I could ask to use the telephone to call my mother, I was convinced that God had heard my plea.

I believed, more than anything, that God loved me boundlessly, and in the power of prayer. I would pray for everything from help finding a lost shoe to help saving my mother from cancer. I prayed every night and morning, I prayed before meals with my family (long and involved), I prayed when I was bored or scared or happy. I tried to always remember to pray to thank God for good things that happened to me, and not just when I wanted something.

When my mother became very sick, I prayed that she would die so she wouldn't be in pain anymore. My best friend told me I was going to hell for doing this. But the thought of my mother dying, though it made me very sad, didn't seem catastrophic because I believed with certainty that we would be reunited in heaven. And I wanted her to hurry up and get with Jesus, where I figured she was probably longing to be after all she'd been through. When adults gave me the sit-down talk about how my mother was going to die, I told them that I knew and that I was ready because she was going to be so happy in heaven.

It sounds fucked up when I put it that way, but I really don't know how I would have coped with her death, as a child, if I hadn't had that intensely strong belief. She died three days before my 7th birthday. I continued to believe just as strong as before, and I think I became something of a little-kid inspiration to the adults around me. I spent hours of my free time singing and playing religious music, and I would give impromptu speeches about the strength of my belief. In the Mormon church, the first Sabbath of every month is "testimony meeting," which is basically an open mic for people to testify to their belief in God and the church. Most were pretty boilerplate: "I'd like to give my testimony, that I know this church is true, and that I believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God..." etc. I would go up there and give long, involved explanations of the strength of my belief and the depth of my faith, and make people cry (and annoy my siblings). At 8 or 9.

I don't know when my faith started to waver, but I think it was around seventh grade, when the tenor of everything changed from "you are a beautiful and sweet special child that God adores" to "if you let boys kiss you, you are a bad bad person and God is very disappointed with you and you must pretend your body doesn't exist." I wasn't cool with shame, man. And, as I've so recently discussed, I was messing around with boys, and I did not like what my religion was telling me about what I was doing. In some ways, the strength of my faith fucked me. I truly believed that God was omnipotent, watching over my every move. I truly believed that my mother was looking down on me from heaven. And I really did not like the thought of the two of them watching me getting felt up by Nick, the kid a grade above me who smoked cigarettes. Not that it stopped me--it just made me feel bad and guilty.

A couple years later, I discovered feminism, and I started to get really pissed off. The fact that only men could hold the priesthood, and got to do all the cool stuff like bless the sacrament, and heal people, and make decisions and go on missions to spread the gospel really irked me. And then I found out that Mormons didn't even allow black men to be ordained to the priesthood until 1978. I started to wonder—how could this God that I loved so much create a church that was this messed up?

My sophomore year of high school, a dear friend of mine confessed to me that he had realized he was gay. I knew my church's stance on homosexuality, and given my new knowledge about my friend, I simply could no longer be a part of their ritual. I started faking that I was going--I would leave the house at 9 on the sabbath, and wander around town, or go sit at a coffee shop, until church was supposed to be over and then walk home. Eventually, my dad got tired of trying to convince me to go. Although my mother'd been dead a long time, my dad had taken up the task of raising us in the Mormon church, even though it wasn't his church. He firmly believed in the idea that religion was a part of your identity, that you should be raised in one and stick with it. And so over the years, when I have told him time and again that I want nothing to do with the Mormon church, he tries to convince me to go back, or at the very least, to find another Christian (and he emphasizes, it should be Christian) denomination I like better.

But the truth is, in the ten years since I found out my friend was gay, I've slowly lost my belief altogether. Part of the reason the belief appealed to me so much as a child was that it was comforting. It was a way to deal with the death of my mother, and it was source of self-esteem—I basked in the thought of how much God must love me. But as I get older, I want less and less to believe that peace can be found in the hereafter, and that I am special in the eyes of God. Instead, my personal creed that there is no hereafter means that we have to try and alleviate suffering now, that life is meant to be enjoyed by ALL and we can not stand idly by in the face of oppression. We can not wait for some merciful or kind God to bring us happiness and joy after we die--we must create our own happiness here, and help build a world where people do not kill each other and our institutions do not keep people afraid.

We have tried for over a thousand years, as a species, teaching people that killing people and holding others below yourself, and being indifferent to the suffering of others was wrong because God said so. I think we can firmly conclude that that strategy was a dismal failure. Instead, the zeal created by religious conviction has led people to hurt others in the name of God.

Many people have a moral center that resides in their religious upbringing. This leads other (stupid) people to claim that atheists must have no morals. I always find this funny, because my moral code, my sense of justice, fairness, and love, is what led me to repudiate religion, and my belief in God, in the first place.

I don't want a moral code that is based on what God or Jesus thinks or wants or demands. I want a human moral code that is based on love and fairness--on not leaving anyone behind, nor accepting that some people are just going to suffer in poverty or illness or pain. And I think God is a distraction from all that--a distraction from the responsibility we all hold toward one another to make this life a life of joy.

Bitch PhD is certainly worst, there's no question about it

part 2
Part 3

I love this! I'm just heartbroken that he doesn't say *what* I'm the worst at. Shuffleboard? Surfing?

He does allow as to how I have a "kinda cute name," though. He still thinks the girl in the header picture's a boy, but hey: that's unexpectedly progressive of him, really.

But since you are obviously still reading Bill, I repeat the question: who the hell do you think you are to police my Catholicism? Or to speak to what offends *my* Catholic sensibilities? As you yourself say, "do not generalize from the individual to the collective."

I love the criticism that since the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal involved "100% of the abusers being male." Way to come out for ordaining women, Bill! I also love the hypocrisy: you get to make obscene jokes, because you're "just having fun," but none of the rest of us get to exercise *our* freedom of speech, because it offends your Catholic sensibilities.

Really, Billy, why don't you try on a little modesty and humility? They're old-fashioned garments, to be sure, but you might find them very becoming.

Sybil needs a laptop

I don't know why the webcast below isn't working, but I'll leave it up in case they fix it.

In the meantime, MasterCard is fucking Sybil over. You've seen those ads where they claim "accident protection"? They lie.

So poor Sybil is laptopless in the week before the Democratic Convention. Now, you all don't know this, but Sybil has been INVALUABLE behind the scenes--every meeting we have, every event we're attending, all the info about how to liveblog and where access is? She's set all that shit up.

So we owe her. If you throw some money into the "make a donation" button over there on the right, I will forward it directly to Sybil. With generosity--and how many extra readers do we have now because Bill Donohue thinks we shouldn't be blogging the convention at all?--she'll have a laptop by the weekend. I'll chuck her the first $50 my own damn self.

Do it to piss off Bill.

P.S. I think that in order to reliably liveblog from the actual convention center itself, Sybil will also need an AT&T wireless card--apparently they expect actual internet-type coverage to be overloaded (or something). So if we get an extra $140, I think it is, she can have one of those, too.

Emily's List Webcast

Live Streaming by Ustream.TV

Dear Mastercard

I fucking hate you so much for claiming that this isn't covered because you don't cover anything related to liquid. At all. Any kind of liquid. That's some bullshit understanding of "accident protection."

To sum up: I hate you. And I hope that all 12,000 people who may visit this blog today (thanks, Catholic League!) reconsider their potential accounts with you.

Same bat time, same bat channel

At 1 pm, Emily's List will broadcast the results of their survey of 1,400 women voters along with a preview of their upcoming campaign to mobilize you, the Ladies, to get yourselves to the voting booth in November. A post with a live feed of the broadcast will magically appear right here on this site at one p.m. eastern. That's ten am PST, for people who (like me) are bad at remembering that they're not the center of the universe.

If you're interested, come back here at one with your earphones on.

In the meantime, here's a little info about what the webcast will be about.

This national study commissioned by EMILY's List and executed by Garin-Hart-Yang Research, talked to more than 1,400 women voters in four distinct generational groups; Gen Y, Gen X, Boomers and Seniors. A fascinating look at the gaps and bridges between generations and what they mean for the next president of the United States, the study will banish myths about women voters and show you:

· The most critical block in this cycle’s election – where are key groups of women on John McCain and Barack Obama?
· What groups of women present the best opportunities for John McCain and Barack Obama?
· What do women want from their next president -- Hope and Optimism or. Safety and Security?
· How to the generations differ on their outlook on politics, race, religion, feminism and other major societal trends?
· Will the women’s movement take root in Gen Y and do these young women care about the gender divides?

On being Catholic

There's been something of a thing going on here. Something about Catholics and the DNCC. Maybe you've heard.

Anyway, I thought I would take the opportunity to reflect on being 50% of this blog's 50% Catholic-ness. And I want to go at it by asking, am I Catholic?

I think B is probably more likely to identify as Catholic than I am. I most often say I was raised Catholic. And boy was I. 12 years of Catholic school, Mass every week and Holy Day, a reader and Eucharistic Minister in my parish, Lenten sacrifices, the whole nine. And my parish was very traditional, not at all progressive. I lost my dedication in college, but still would've identified as Catholic.

When I was getting married, we elected against a church marriage. I wasn't at all interested in asking non-Catholic Mr Vane to deal with all that catechism bullshit. The priest at my home parish knew about my decision and took the opportunity after mass one day to tell me in front of most of the parish that once I got married I wouldn't be welcome to take communion in his church anymore. I didn't go back for 5 years.

There are people out there who would loudly proclaim that I am not a Catholic. Not because of what my life looks like, necessarily (although I don't attend mass) but because of what I believe. Or don't. Here's a sampling:

I don't believe
- in transubstantiation
- in the Resurrection
- in the Immaculate Conception
- in Original Sin
- that the death of Jesus Christ redeemed those who believe in him
- that Jesus Christ was a deity
- in Hell
- in the Trinity

Those are the biggies.

I do believe
- in the right to abortion
- in the right to gay marriage
- in the right to birth control
- in the authority of women as spiritual leaders

On the other hand, I also believe
- in the value of looking to intercessors
- in the power of confessions
- in the power and beauty of ritual
- in the importance of Good Works
- in the authority and influence of mothers

And that list is, for me, bound up in Catholicism, in my experience of Catholicism.

As an adult, most of my friends have been Jewish, and with various understandings of what that means. Some are fairly observant Jews, others are atheists. But they all agree that there is room within the idea of Jewish-ness for that range of experiences (I don't mean to extrapolate that kind of inclusiveness to everyone's understanding of Jewishness, obviously.) And in knowing these people and attending their seders and break-fasts, I have lamented the poverty of my own religious experience, where I never felt the inclusiveness of that range.

And now I want to try to find it. Some days I will likely still refuse to identify as Catholic. But the truth is, there is very little about the adult I am that was not influenced heavily by that Catholic upbringing. My values, when they are counter to Catholic doctrine, are so because I consciously ask them to be so. My instincts remain with doctrine on some raw emotional level. Sometimes an upsetting level. But my adult Catholicism can be different. We accept feminisms, plural. We need to stand up more for Catholicisms.

I'm not a Christian, but on most days, I am still a Catholic.

It's more than just your eyes, dickwad

Remember that study showing that something like 80% of Egyptian women reported having been sexually harassed? The Washington Post has something of an update to the story. Apparently, some anonymous group has been sending emails telling women that they should wear the veil, because "A veil to protect, or eyes will molest." I'm sure the slogan is much catchier in Arabic--I'd wager it probably rhymes. But either way, it's full of bullshit. The WaPo article talks to some women who say they actually experienced more harassment when they were wearing hijab, and though I can't speak from personal experience, I wouldn't doubt at all that that could be true.

I can't say whether any individual woman would suffer more harassment from one day to the next if she were wearing the veil, although if I lived there, I'd try it as an experiment. But I think this theory is spot-on:

Mona Eltahawy, a 41-year-old Egyptian social commentator who now lives, unveiled, in the United States, said that as a Muslim woman who wore hijab for nine years and was harassed "countless times" in Egypt, she has concluded that the increase in veiling has somehow contributed to the increase in harassment.

"The more women veil the less men learn to behave as decent and civilized members of society,"

This puts the blame for harassement squarely on social conventions, rather than on individual women. Because the fact is, there is no rhyme or reason as to who gets harassed and who doesn't, and what kind of behavior/clothing/location/makeup/companionship you have when you get harassed is totally not determinative. And this doesn't just apply to Egypt, either--it applies everywhere.

I'm on record acknowledging the complexity of the hijab issue, and I would never dream of judging any individual woman's decision to take up the hijab. But I'd be failing if I didn't acknowledge that the aggregate effect of hijab-wearing being the norm is negative.

When you have a majority, or, as in Egypt's case, a super-majority of the women in your society covering their heads, when the very sight of a woman's hair is scandalous while the sight of a man's is not, you create the perception that women's bodies are so inherently sexual that men can not be trusted to refrain from groping and pawing them unless they are hidden from view. This over-sexualization of women's bodies leads to violence against them. It creates a lose-lose situation for women. If you cover up, you are hiding your body, and drawing attention to your femaleness. If you don't cover up, you stick out like a sore thumb and are telegraphing with your lack of action that you are "liberated" woman, and thus, you are fit for public consumption. In other words, you're fucked.

This situation makes me so angry. Especially thinking about all the teenage girls growing up with it, because living in that kind of environment never leaves you. Even though I live in a place where harassment is much less frequent, and I'm much more comfortable confronting people, I'm still on guard all the time. I developed a hyperawareness of people around me, and it won't go away. My heart still speeds up a little when I hear a bicycle behind me. I still automatically tense up whenever someone approaches me or starts a conversation with me in public. I automatically scan every man I pass at night for signs of danger. I cross the street if someone's behind me so I can see them in my peripheral vision. And when I feel like I'm in danger, I construct elaborate scenarios to plan out what I will do if any number of things happen suddenly. At one point when I was younger, I actually practiced screaming after one night where I was grabbed and found myself paralyzed, unable to scream or do anything.

And nothing that serious even happened to me. But the daily drumbeat of the world treating you like you're a piece of meat every time you step out of the house takes a toll on your psyche that nothing can erase.

To think about the millions of girls like me for whom this will also be true, it breaks my heart. Egyptian women, let's all, together, throw off the veil. Let's flood the streets in tank tops and shorts, armed with baseball bats and ready to yell at anyone who cocks a leering eye our way.

Hell, we should do that here.

Holier than Thou

Okay, Billy boy, you wanna throw down? I'm afraid I'm in a hurry, so I can't really promise first-rate bitching, but it's still more attention than you deserve, so siddown, shutup, and be grateful--or this bitch will smack your knuckles with a ruler, old-school style.

First off, let's review the difference between civics class and religion class. In the USA, which is a secular country with a separation between church and state, those who write about politics are not required to adhere to your, or anyone else's, religion. You can write that 100 times in your best penmanship tonight, as punishment: "Americans who write about politics are not required to adhere to my religious ideas, or anyone else's." I also want you to be ready for a test on the First Amendment. If you don't pass it, you'll have to retake the course.

Now let's get to religion. I realize that strong language offends your delicate ears, but we're adults here.

Who the fuck do you think you are?

Are you the Pope? A cardinal? A bishop? Are you ordained? Are you even a deacon?

Or are you just a lay Catholic, exactly like half the bitches here? In which case, what the hell do you think gives you the right to speak for the church or to police your fellow Catholics? When was the last time you went to confession and did penance for your pride, or breaking the second and eighth commandments? Or are you too busy with the idol of political influence (that would be breaking the first commandment, by the way) to have any humility left?

Go home and review your bible, you fucking hypocrite.

And while you're at it, you might wanna brush up on your research skills. Because there's *way* more scandalous crap in this blog than some bullshit post about balloon figures. No Catholic school worth the name would give you a passing grade.

Tsing it, Sandra

Okay, sorry for the atrocious pun. But really: I totally heart Sandra Tsing Loh.

Except, of course, for her writing an awesome book about this thing that I've been saying for years. Bitch.



I wish I had time this week to fight with Bill Donohue--who is completely offensive to Catholics, by the way, what with claiming to speak for us all and therefore implying that we're all assholes and bigots--but alas, I've just started teaching again--yay students in classrooms! Seriously, so far, I love my students--PK starts school today, and as of tomorrow through Friday there's that school camping trip which means I probably won't even *be* online much before taking off for the DNC.

Of all the weeks to be martyred. Dammit.

Welcome, Bill Donohue and friends

Thanks for the shout out.

Please, have a look around.

UPDATE (m. leblanc): Hope you enjoy the blog!

Jesus Christ

I'm a really crappy Catholic who hasn't been to mass in ages because most parishes around here *will* insist on being aggressively anti-abortion, and I refuse to deal with that. I don't really believe in the whole white-bearded-guy-in-the-clouds version of God, either.

But. I actually find this offensive. What are these (presumably "Christians" who want all children's toys and games to be some form of religious brainwashing) people thinking?

To my mind, these are way more offensive than PZ "desecrating" a eucharistic wafer. Just saying.

Towelhead

This post is totally disjointed, but that's what you get from a 3 a.m. post after I finished reading a pretty heavy book, when I'm alone in the middle of the night.

I went shopping this afternoon, on my first Saturday off in several weeks. I bought a pretty dress and a few other items. I spent too much money. The time before last that I went shopping, nothing was fitting me, I looked awful in everything, and I left Target so pissed off I didn't buy a single thing. Which was a first. Today, I guess I was feeling hot--everything I tried on seemed to look good. I like days like that, but it means I spent more money than I should've.

After I bought a bunch of clothes, I saw that it was nearly 4, and I was to be at a friend's house for a cookout at 6. So I wandered into Walden Books, to buy a book--I thought I'd find a coffee shop and read in the interim. I picked this book off the shelf, having never heard a thing about it. The title caught my eye, and I thought "Arab-American girl trying to deal with her sexuality while growing up with her old-fashioned father?" Yup, sounds like a book I could relate to. Turns out the book has already been made into a movie, which is coming out in limited release next month.

It's a quick read--I finished it in about 3 and a half hours, total. But I don't know how to feel about it. It was interesting, obviously, or I wouldn't have just plowed through it in one evening. But. It's got graphic depictions of sexual activity involving the protagonist, who's only thirteen. It's got physical abuse. And it's all coming from the perspective of the girl herself, which means there's no "here's the lesson, these people are bad" moralizing. And given that I strongly, strongly identified with the character, I took on her desires. Which sometimes were to have sex with her much older neighbor. Which felt odd, to say the least. And wrong. And because it felt transgressive, it was kinda hot. In a bad way.

At the same time, it's one of the best, most authentic representations of female sexuality I've seen, ever. She actually has desires--and they are complicated. She wants for want's sake, and she also wants to be wanted. It made me remember what it was like to be a teenager. One reviewer complained that it presents 13-year-olds having sex as if it were normal. Thirteen year olds having intercourse might not be normal, but thirteen year olds obsessing about sex certainly isn't.

I think back to spring break of my eighth-grade year, where I had the chance to spend the days with the boy I had been dating for several weeks. We had started "going out" after I asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance. He was extremely cute, although he wasn't popular and I was. But I had a big crush on him because he was the smartest boy in the grade. The night of the dance, he gave me a valentine, and we slow-danced. After the dance was over, he walked me home, and at the end of my street I told him he should turn back because I didn't want my dad to see us. He kissed me, and though it wasn't the first time I had french-kissed a boy, it was the first time I'd really enjoyed it. We didn't kiss again until over a month later, when I spent the day at his friend's house. The friend's mother was never home, and so we could hang out there and do what we wanted. All day for a week, we would make out while his friends played video games.

I remember that my body was out of wack with what I wanted it to do. I heard later from a friend of his that he'd said I'd had an orgasm, but I didn't remember that happening. I remember that I tried to give him a handjob and I was terrible at it and I knew I wasn't doing it right. I remember thinking that 13 was too young to give a boy a blowjob--I wanted to do it, but decided I would wait until I was 14. By the time I turned 14, we had broken up.

Being a teenager was weird. I liked boys, and I wanted them to like me. But even though I wanted to do sexual things with them, it was like my body didn't know how to respond. I wanted, and I wanted to be wanted, but everything wasn't quite in place. Towelhead did a great job of representing that contradiction, and a lot of it felt authentic. When I was a teenager, I didn't want to have sex with adults, but I do remember that I wanted adult men to want me. And I don't think I was particularly unique in that regard. Reading the book made me remember how trying it was to be in that position, of having so many competing forces try to define your sexuality. Forces of repression trying to deny it, boys your age trying to exploit it, adult men sexualizing you but also acting like you needed to be "protected."

It made me realize how nice it is to be a grown-up. Even now, I think about years of my adult life that were spent dealing with aspects of my sexuality that were corroded from adolescence. There will probably be still more of those years to come.

I just don't know--what is the best way to deal with adolescent female sexuality? Sometimes it seems that the perception that teenage girls are so fragile, so endangered, does the most harm of all. Technically, I wasn't "ready" for those makeout sessions in the spring of my eighth grade year, at least, my body wasn't ready to respond. But did it hurt me? I actually have nothing but fond memories.

It helps that the young lad I was frolicking around with did nothing but get smarter, more interesting, and more attractive as we got older. I still dream about him sometimes. And then I wake up to my boyfriend, and I wonder what would've happened if we'd met as teenagers. Most of the time I think we met at the perfect time, when we had both already had several significant relationships, that taught us things that have made us able to be open and connect with each other in a way I couldn't do when I was younger.

But man, if I'd met him in high school, I'd've been all over that shit.

Other than that, though, I really enjoyed the play

Okay, so: last weekend we were in Sequoia, then we drove to Stockton to my dad's (after a full second day in the park, which means we arrived at like 11 pm), then we spent the morning at dad's while I unpacked and repacked the car, then we drove to Napa and had a huge dinner, went wine tasting the next day then ate another huge dinner, got up at 6 am the next day to drive home, had half an hour to get the luggage out of the car before running to the house inspection. This afternoon I'm driving to fucking Moorpark for a college orientation; am writing my syllabus over the weekend, natch, and I start teaching Monday. My dad arrives Sunday with Pseudonymous Kid, who starts school Tuesday; Dad's going to stay on Monday, which is good as it saves me finding a babysitter. From Weds-Friday PK's school has its annual camping trip (which I'll have to sneak away from to teach), and then on Friday evening I fly to Denver for the DNCC.

Shoot me now.

The inspection was very revealing. The house needs work on the plumbing, about 2/3rds of which is galvanized pipe, much of which is starting to corrode; there's a "pool" (the inspector's words) of water underneath the house where the kitchen sink is leaking; there's subfloor damage there and under two toilets, which also leak; the house doesn't have a single grounded outlet and *does* have outlets with reversed polarities, exposed wiring in the garage and attic, missing junction boxes and outlet/switch covers, etc., so it needs electrical work as well; there's earthquake damage to one chimney, the cinderblock walls are none of 'em reinforced for earthquakes and one's leaning; the owners can't even legally sell without properly anchoring the water heater and putting in some working fire alarms; there are several broken or cracked windows and the sliding glass doors to the courtyard--which are all absolutely enormous--don't slide properly and replacing them, or at least the broken one, is going to be a very expensive custom job.

Oh, and the current tenants' dog has mange, which means that there's mange in the house and yard. Though apparently the mites can only survive w/out a living host for 3 days, so that should be okay, actually. Also, there's a dead cat under the house.



Bonus excitement: the parents weren't there when we arrived, and the teenage son got pissed off, took a shit in one of the toilets and didn't flush, and then left the house. So the younger teenage son, who has some kind of mental disability, was left in charge of his two younger brothers and us. He was very helpful and nice and volunteered all sorts of information he shouldn't have, but since they're tenants, it's not really their deal, so I guess they don't care (except to be angry that they have to move). His younger brothers broke a light fixture with golf balls and Mr. B. and I ended up sweeping up the glass all over the kitchen and front room and warning all the kids to put on shoes, which none of them did. Later the parents arrived home with the youngest daughter, and were all upset b/c they hadn't gotten the notice about the inspection (their realtor was there when we arrived and called them and they said well okay, go ahead). Their realtor decided to bail since they were home. They ended up gathering up the kids and going out to dinner, but in their haste they forgot their daughter, who's a year younger than PK, behind, so we reassured her that we would certainly not go until her parents came back and did she know that I have a son just a year older than her who had the same teacher she did for first grade? She told us that it's "lots of fun" to get into the crawl space under the house, although you "get really dirty."

Later, after the mom returned to get the daughter, the inspector told us about the dead cat.




The comic is from Toothpaste for Dinner.

Sexism, Orientalism, Gymnastics, and Girls

I'm a day late and a dollar short on this, what with the Americans winning gold and silver last night, but I wanted to weigh in on the Chinese age eligibility story.
Unsurprisingly, it's a complicated thing to talk about. Yes, there are minimum age requirements for Olympic competition - 16. But that requirement is fairly recent, instituted in 1997. Nadia Camaneci was 14 when she scored those 10s. And age falsification scandals, even before the 16 requirement, are very very common. So, this is to say: it's not some time-honored universal that girls must be 16 to compete in the Olympics, nor is it particularly unique or novel that the Chinese might be fudging the ages of their gymnasts.

That said, the rule is of course the rule. And historically and culturally situated as it may be, it's still there. What are the problematics, then, in discussing it?

Firstly there is the racial component. When all the NBC commentators are talking about how the Chinese gymnasts don't "look" 16 or they "look very young," there is a subtext of "they don't look like a Western girl does at 16." In fact, Asian women often appear younger than Western women. The evaluation of age based on what people look like is neither a scientific method nor an unbiased assessment. (But I'll indict myself and disclose that I think they "look" hella young.)

Then there is the sexism component. This takes two parts (at least). The "because they are girls we must protect them" part and the "policing what female bodies are supposed to do and look like" part. I admit to being less troubled by the former, even when I intellectually recognize it's importance. It is true that we are more reactive about protecting 14 yr old female bodies than male bodies, it is true that we hype up the rhetoric of vulnerability around female atheletes in a way we don't with men. It is true that this is unfair. But I also think it is true that young women are more poorly served by the realities of elite athleticism when it comes to psycho-social body image issues, and therefore deserve heightened attention.

The second part of the sexism component is less complicated for me. Take this Sports Illustrated interview about the age controversy. First Smith Swift tries to frame his concern as primarily health related:

There is a 68-pound girl (Deng Linlin) on that team is claiming to be 16 years old. That is not a healthy body. If she is 16 and weighs 68 pounds, someone ought to put her in a hospital.

But then, when asked if he thinks the 16 yr old rule is a good one, he admits a more visceral-spectator driven investment:

I think it is. I happen to think children should not be competing at this level. It is too much pressure on them. If there is no age limit at all, there is the "ick" or "creep" factor in gymnastics.

Uh huh. Can I unpack that for you, Mr. Swift? What you mean to say is if the athletes are too transparently young we might be forced to confront the brutality of elite athleticism on young bodies and the potential psychological/emotional damage of sports culture on the whole. What's more, there is cognitive dissonance in having to register bodies as mature/advanced enough to perform physically as the best in the world and yet, if those bodies are female, not being able to comfortably sexualize them because they appear too young. "ick."

Finally, though, we get the to the real crux of Swift's objections:

I also think the more womanly figure in these competitions is more attractive to watch for the viewers. You see it in the floor exercise, these tiny little girls doing their dance moves, and it's just like watching a child out there.

There we go. women's bodies are visual objects, and even those this particular sport requires them to be thin and un-voluptuous for maximum efficacy, let's be honest: tits and ass are nice to look at. And these 10 yr old girls can't really keep up.

There is a real discussion and debate to be had about women's athletics and age, but E.M. Swift's bullshit discussion just told you more about why it's always a vexed conversation than I could have.

this and that

Have y'all read The Atlantic piece on the Clinton campaign memos? It's fascinating. Not because it reinforces any previous resentment toward their campaign but, as an ex-corporate wench, I thought it laid out a textbook case on organizational mismanagement: no values/strategy alignment, talent confusion, failed information flow and a paralyzing lack of trust between frontline and 'management' staff. Someone should have read a few issues of the HBR.

What was also interesting, particularly as one of those brown folks whose affect he was trying to 'neutralize,' were the strategy memos from Mark Penn urging the Clinton campaign to go aggressively negative on Obama right out of the gate and play up the foreign Other angle (as well as to keep the Jeremiah Wright thing front and center for as long as possible.) Niiice. Talk about values/strategy misalignment. You don't want race to become a factor in the primaries, but you're quite prepared to tell the nation (a significant part of which is of color) a man of color is not American enough to be a presidential candidate. (Lord, I pray for my people. Which people? The American people.)

It's clear to me the campaign didn't go quite in that direction (though it hesitantly flirted with it in a few ways) but it's always nice to know how easy it is for some folks to throw open their doors and welcome home the goblin of racism, oops, racial resentment.

(I hope it's a learning moment for the DNC but, somehow, I doubt it.)

And remember that problematic draft memo (hm, a theme developing) that was leaked, reavealing the Dept of HHS' intention to classify contraception as abortifacients and to expand already-protected rights of conscious clauses? Well, it seems Mike Leavitt, Secretary of HHS, wrote on his dept's blog last week that it was all a big ol' misunderstanding and that wasn't his intention at all of the drafted proposal. Luckily, the folks at RHRealityCheck.org have turned their fantastic, critical eye on his weak-ass backpedaling.

(Ooh, and here is where you can get to the Secretary's orginal blog post.)

Via Jack & Jill, a link to the Wall Street Journal piece about GOP lawyers gearing up to challenge votes in this general election. Good to know the other side still abides by the tried and true.

Tapped has a few good posts up on the Dems' women's rights plank in the revised platform here and here.

Speaking of platforms (and feminist revolutions) the National Women's Law Center released a poll that revealed women are worried about the future and want the government to act. What's of concern? Economic insecurity (which women feel more acutely than men), healthcare, the wage gap, reproductive justice and the protection of Roe v. Wade, childcare and education. You can download the platform here. Perhaps an incipient feminist revolution could use this as their founding document.

Julia Child was a spy and now I'm going to prepare to tell my CEO how much I rock. (Because I do.)

Carry on!

What I Wish I knew: Graduate Student Teaching

A friend of mine is leading a session in our school's "training grad students to be teaching labor for slave wages in under 2 weeks" program and has been assigned to the "What I Wish I Knew" segment. He asked for some thoughts, and I figured I would share mine here, in the service of Bitch readers who are about to embark on their first semester of teaching as graduate students. Caveat that these are likely humanities skewed:

- If you are designing your own syllabus, ABOVE ALL, err on the side of less reading/fewer assignments. Many of us tend to really overdo it, thinking we have something to prove. We don't; lighten up.

- You can change the syllabus en route. If you need to drop a book or reduce an assignment midway through the semester, it's no big deal.

- The texts/issues on which your scholarship focuses can be the hardest to teach to undergraduates, if the most tempting. If you have written 2 chapters on some poems or events or whatever, it can be much harder to translate that to undergrad speak that it is with something you've on which you've not done extensive research. That is, you shouldn't necessarily try to teach your dissertation.

- Don't worry about being un-grad student-like, whatever that means. A portion of your students every year will be thinking about grad school, and they will all know you are a grad student. By and large, they appreciate knowing the reality of what graduate school means/is/looks like; it is a service you do to them when you don't pretend that there is no different between you and a tenured professor.

- Very few graduate students will get into a situation where they embarass themselves in class; when it comes to knowledgeability, graduate students are over-achievers by nature. That is, you can spend way more time on your teaching prep than you need to. Not because teaching isn't important, or is subordinate to research, but because it can be more immediately rewarding than the other shit you have to do. Don't overdo it. You won't embarass yourself, because really you know a lot. A lot.

- Class participation has as much to do with the accidents of the class (time of day, demographics, room shape) as it does with you. Don't internalize.

- Eventually, being in charge of your own classroom for the first time feels totally awesome.Enjoy it.

When Principles Collide: Domestic Violence Edition

Good morning, bitches and bitch readers. Forgive me for not posting very much (although, really, what's new?); this time I have a good excuse! Since we last spoke, I did the final preparations for and carried out my very first jury trial. I did the opening, the closing, put on both of our witnesses, and cross-examined three of the opposition's four witnesses (my boss did the cross of their main witness). I argued motions and made objections. I did the absolute very best I could, and I was pleased with my performance. But because the judge ruled against us on nearly every evidentiary issue (including several rulings that were just flat-out wrong), and because we had a very difficult case to begin with, I was convinced we would lose. So was everyone else there, including everyone in my office, the other side, and spectators. Even our client didn't seem too optimistic.

But we won! It was a shocking verdict. I don't know how much credit I can take for the win, but given that I can never really know what swayed them, I'm going to take at least some of it. It was a truly awesome experience, and I already feel like a better lawyer for having done it. Just spending a whole two days in the courtroom, talking a lot, interacting with the judge, coming up with arguments on the fly...it really helps. I was surprised at how much fun I had, and how comfortable I felt up there. Unexpected fun was had in voir dire, where I basically just got to chat with the jurors until I got a sense of them--it was an easy extension of my natural nosiness and curiosity about people.

And then, after we'd won, and I went with my awesome friends, who showed up to watch, to get food and drink, I got the most kickass post-trial present:

Fuck, yeah.

So now that I've bragged and gloated, let's get on topic: I want to talk about the new Illinois law allowing judges to order abusers who have violated a restraining order to wear a GPS device. The linked article talks about Cindy Bischof, an Illinois woman who was killed by her ex-boyfriend right after he got out of a mental health facility. He'd spent 60 days there after he violated an order of protection against him, and apparently the stay didn't do him much good. After her death, her family lobbied for this law, and it was signed into law by the Governor last week.

The GPS devices authorized by the new law are apparently sophisticated enough to alert the police when the device-wearer goes within certain areas--the victim's home, her work, or another particular place she may designate (I assume there are restrictions on this--you can't designate, say, a whole town as a zone in which your ex-boyfriend may not be).

I feel extremely conflicted about this. First off, I'll say that insofar as the monitoring devices are used as a substitute for pre-trial detention, I think they're a great idea. Electronic monitoring is extremely effective, and it has the added bonus of not putting people in jail—when they go, they're not likely to come out feeling any more inclined to spare their abused from harm. Detention only fuels the rage.

But electronic monitoring for people who wouldn't be in jail, to monitor their whereabouts, basically putting them in state custody? Pre-trial? I just don't know. This is one of many situations where my multiple senses of justice collide. To me, in a just world, women wouldn't have to be subjected to harassment, violence, and death at the hands of their boyfriends, husbands, ex-husbands, brothers, co-workers, or friends. But in the same just world, poor men, men of color, and mentally ill men wouldn't be locked up at disproportionate rates both pre- and post-trial, creating an underclass of people for whom the criminal justice system is a revolving door of incarceration and freedom to get arrested again.

It seems that our only approach to dealing with the problem of domestic violence is a bad-apples theory, peppered with a healthy dose of victim-blaming (for all the people who are forever asking "why doesn't she leave?!", please see the statistic in the linked article about how when women leave, they end up dead).

These aren't just bad apples. Our society is sick—it is a patriarchy where men are promised power and dominion over women and they are taught that violence is noble, that using force is masculine. It is a pornocracy where children are sexualized, where women's dismembered bodies are used to sell soap, blue jeans, and hamburgers. It is a market economy where the right to have a young woman rub her naked body on you can be legally purchased in any town or city, but where those same young women are arrested for accepting money for giving a blowjob. It is a world where all things deemed within the fake construct of masculinity are positive attributes, and all those within the construct of femininity are deprecated. Where women make less money, hold far fewer political offices and judgeships, where motherhood is "the most important job in the world," a privilege for which mothers are treated like utter shit.

Abusers aren't just bad apples. They are normal dudes. They are the guys you work with, the guys you went to college with, the guys you see in a bar on a Friday night or the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon.

They bear the blame for what they do. But the rest of us do, too. Every guy who stands by and heh-hehs when sexist jokes are made, who views their co-workers or classmates not as colleagues, but as eye-candy, who refuses to acknowledge the misogyny inherent in pornography, is a part of this sick society. Every woman who tut-tuts her friends or neighbors for trying too hard to look sexy, or not trying hard enough, who criticizes other women for being too assertive, who criticizes other men for not being manly enough or showing too much emotion, is a part of this putrid virus.

The criminal justice system does nothing but create more criminals. We need it, like we need a tourniquet to staunch the bleeding of human dignity from every woman on the planet, but it can not, and will not, solve our problems. These GPS devices will not stop women from being hurt and killed, and they will be another chink in the wall that we put between citizens and the state. The lock and the key, the bracelet and the computer, will not stop or even slow the violence.

For that, we need a revolution.

Quick Hit: WTF

I am still trying to crawl out of the hole created by a week's vacation and 3 days of no internet upon returning, so I have nothing to say, really, that doesn't involve some murmurs about the upper-body strength required on the still rings. In lieu of that, I present to you the weirdest fucking story I have ever read.

French dude serially impersonates kids and one time he manages to take on the identity of a 3yr missing American boy, and fools the family, but not totally because ... well. Just read it if you have 30 minutes and feel like a kind of skeevy mind-fuck. (I'm really selling it, I know)

Ugh

Back home, it's really hot, my suitcases are staring at me accusingly and I've no internet access at home. The last bit is giving me seizures since I've just concluded a week in the land of dial-up. I wanted to drop in with a couple of quick hits:

Re: this:  J-E-T-S, WTF? I am still in shock.

Re: the Olympic opening ceremonies, my jaw is still dropped at these gorgeous shots. (hat tip, Dooce's hubby)

Re: things that make me gag: this commercial (Sorry, blogger is giving me a hard time as I try to embed it). Walmart wants you to know that equipping your daughter with cool tops (which apparently can be found at Walmart; things have changed since I was in high school) is all you need to do to make sure she navigates school with confidence and grace. Gag me.

If only for the beefcake

Go here. That would be Professor Eric Rauchway you're looking at, laydeez.

And hey, if you're so inclined, throw the man a few bucks. $36 is one dollar per lap. Donations are tax-deductible and support the provision of a wide range of free services to women with cancer, 71% of your money goes to direct client services, and The Swim A Mile event covers one-third of the Women's Cancer Resource Center's operating budget; it's their major annual fund-raiser.

Plus, you know, middle-aged academic hotties in lycra.

why don't i buy american apparel?

Oh, yeah. This is why.

[h/t Stuff White People Do]

I'm running away!

The B. family is sneaking out of town for a few days to go camping in Sequoia National Park. Being the B. family, of course, this necessarily involves:

1. Sleeping in until 10 am on the day we meant to leave;
2. Having to clean the house before leaving (no, seriously: the dishes will rot if we don't), which should take a couple hours, minimum;
3. Needing to find a pet sitter;
4. Having to write a post for IHE;
5. Having to make some calls to the college to try to find out if they got my necessary information (the second time I've emailed it), when and if orientation is being scheduled, whether it's okay that I'm not going to some of the pre-class stuff happening this week (because dammit, I made my vacation plans before I got hired and I'm not changing them), and btw does anyone know yet how much it is you're actually planning on paying me??? (Sigh. Last-minute adjunct hires are confusing for everyone.)
6. Deciding on whether I should tell Mr. B. that the tent was never wiped off from the last camping trip and should we bother with that before leaving or just let it go?
7. Pseudonymous Kid has to have a tantrum over realizing that we won't actually be *camping* today--we'll just be driving towards the campground, b/c our reservation isn't until tomorrow anyway.

As you can see, we desperately need a few days inhaling the scent of pine and enjoying a little peace and quiet.

I leave you with this bit of shockingly geeky academic political humor, courtesy of my friends Eric and Neddy at EotAW. Yes, these are the sorts of things academics do in the waning days of summer: create dorky youtube videos and run away to the woods.

Does Google know you're a dog?

For entertainment purposes only: this page will gender from your google browser cache.

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 69%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 31%

Site Male-Female Ratio

youtube.com 1
paypal.com 1.04
nytimes.com 1.13
washingtonpost.com 1.15
wamu.com 0.85
latimes.com 1.3
slate.com 1.11
coupons.com 0.53
salon.com 1.13
etsy.com 0.44
sierratradingpost.com 0.8
consumerist.com 1.7
recreation.gov 1.08
kintera.org 0.57
haloscan.com 1.22

Via Broadsheet.

No-baby sex!

Go over and read Jesse Taylor's excellent post about how Big Pharma displays a robust contempt for men by insisting that there wouldn't be a market for a male birth control pill.

But neither [MRAs nor anti-feminist women] will complain about this, because they’re the exact kind of people who would expect men to forget their pills or lie about taking them. Medication and responsibility for fertility isn’t Man Shit, it’s Woman Shit, and you’d best not forget. A major industry deciding that men - millions of whom manage to do things every day which require more effort and less potential reward than birth control - are simply uninterested and incapable of swallowing a tiny pill on a daily basis would seem to be the ultimate argument against men, made in as offensive and patronizing a manner as possible.

Preach it, brother.

In which I blatantly violate the editorial/advertising boundary

Yes, this is from the new ad on the right. I approve this message.

(If you've never seen the youtube video where a man interviews anti-abortion protesters asking them this question, it's an eye-opener.)

Back to school

A new academic year is breathing down our necks. Once again I say "our" because not only do I have to get Pseudonymous Kid ready for school again (like his parents, he's a night owl, so getting back to normal people sleep and wake cycles is a huge nightmare), but I myself am returning to a classroom near me.

Which I'm pretty excited about, really, even though I'm also going through the same old "crap, which text? Ahh!" freakout that always characterized my syllabus planning. This time things are a little more complicated by the fact that I'm adjuncting (for now....), which means I was hired about three weeks before classes start (now down to two weeks). And since I'm teaching comp, which I haven't done in a while, I have to either pick a reader or come up with a bunch of readings that are all available online--no time to do a course packet this semester.

For now, though, I'm psyched. I missed teaching composition at my old job. (No, really, I did! I'm one of those freaky people who likes general-ed courses.) And the college is literally three blocks from my house*. And the class meets every day, which I predict I'll be bitching about by the end of August, but which does have the advantage (since it's only the one class) of actually giving my days some structure again.

So since I'm gonna be back in academia again, I've managed to convince the folks over at Inside Higher Ed that my checkered career makes me uniquely qualified to offer advice to other academics or aspiring academics. Feel free to go over there and pick my brain.



*We're hoping to be moving in September, to a new house that we're in the process of buying; luckily it, too, is close to the college, because remaining a one-car family is a priority to us. Assuming the inspection doesn't reveal unseen horrors, the monthly mortgage payment will certainly preclude new car payments. It also makes me extra hopeful that this course will lead to more steady work.

who killed LaVena Johnson?

Because I've been keeping an eye on stories about the military and violence against women, these are the dots I want people to connect:

Tailhook
Aberdeen Proving Grounds
The Air Force Academy scandal (the resulting report can be found here)
The case of Pvt. Steven D. Green
This NYTimes series on violent death among Iraq War vets
This Feminist Law Professors post (which does a much better job of dot-connecting than I could)
Jamie Leigh Jones and the 'rape problem' with military contractors

To that string of dots, add one more: LaVena Johnson

I think a primary value of feminist work is its ability to uncover women's hidden history, the stories of our existence that tend not to fit neatly in our national or cultural, patriarchal narratives. The stories of women in our military, as well as the women connected to associated industries that support or benefit from the military's work, are taking shape before our eyes and a repeating thread in this narrative is one of sexual assault and brutal violence against women.

(This isn't to say men aren't assaulted; they are, at much smaller numbers. I'm just not writing about sexual assault against military men right now.)

From the testimony of the women at Tailhook after the first Gulf War to the stories from KBR contractors in this latest Iraq conflict, the lives of women linked to the military - as family members, government employees, soldiers, or contractors - is bracketed by sexual or domestic violence. Perhaps, as the Times series sugggested, we can attribute some of this violence to inadequately treated combat trauma. In the Frontline site for the Tailhook investigation, some male officers and attendees attributed some of the behavior by the aviators and officers to post-Gulf combat relief; in other words, they were 'blowing off steam' - and what better way to blow off combat stress than violating women's bodies?

It's clear the military, despite lip service to the contrary after every sexual assault scandal at their proving grounds, academies and bases, has no capacity to deal with the needs of military/civilian women who've been assaulted or harrassed within, or by, the military. Their reporting structure is broken, their punishment structure is an utter failure and their treatment/prevention capabilities seem to be non-existent, despite their best intentions.

About these intentions: after the worst stories broke (especially the Air Force Academy scandal) there was an attempt to improve the military's metrics on sexual assault. Sexual assault trainings and awareness programs were implemented; oversight committees were formed; victims names would be kept anonymous, cutting down on the threat of reprisals; greater efforts would be made to collect and analyze evidence and counseling supports would be made readily available to victims of assault. These improvements seem to send a strong message that sexual assault in the military is unacceptable. But the chances that such a message will drift down to service members is slim. Frankly, it's not in the military's nature to change.

What is it that makes the military what it is, that allows it to do what it does? The military accepts violence as a suitable human, cultural and national response; it creates an environment that feeds on a sense of overweening Masculine privilege; and what makes all of this aggression and privilege acceptable and not merely psychotic is the body of a woman. Whether it is the feminized 'body' of the nation they invade or the bodies of assaulted female soldiers or civilians left in its wake, our military clearly requires the Othered, violated bodies of women to keep a grip on its GI Joe identity. The subjugation of a woman in order to retain the fiction of masculine 'wholeness' is, to me, a function of patriarchy.

(If this sounds familiar, it's because I said something like it in a post about Joe Francis and the Steven D. Green case here.)

There was a human agent involved in LaVena Johnson's death but the bigger culprit is patriarchy.

In the stories patriarchy tells of us, a woman's position is primarily prone. We serve patriarchy either on our backs or we prop it up by conveniently and quietly dying. LaVena Johnson's death was not quiet. She was raped, beaten, tortured, shot in the head and her body burned. Despite physical evidence to the contrary, the army still calls her a suicide, a bootstrapped Dido. Her family is being lied to about the circumstances surrounding her death and the wall of silence around her murder is not just about the military's need to maintain a modicum of public relations discipline (though that's certainly part of it.) The military's silence is also the silence of complicity and it needs to be broken, cracked into pieces for the sake of justice.

(If you want to know what to do about LaVena Johnson's murder, visit ColorofChange.org here.)

I used to think that whatever men could do, women could do, too. But LaVena Johnson's rape and death, along with all the other military women's deaths and/or rapes, prompts me to ask a potentially un-feminist and problematic question: Why should we? Why should women even serve in the military when it's clear the eminent danger they face isn't from combat but their male cohort?

(crossposted at my other blog, Church Gal.)

Quick Hit: Sunday Sexual Harassment

What a lovely world we live in. It's a beautiful day, and unfortunately, I'm at work. I take a break from preparing for my trial to walk a couple blocks to buy cigarettes. As I walk by two men, one says to me "Hey big mama, lookin' good." I stop in my tracks and turn to him and glare. "Excuse me?" "I said hey big mama, lookin' good."

"That's what I thought. Fuck off." I turn around and continue walking.

For the rest of my one-block walk back to the office, I hear the man screaming, yes, screaming at me, as I walk away.

"Oink, oink!"

Louder, more insistent. "OINK, OINK."

There's a woman just behind me, on the sidewalk. She says "You have a blessed day, miss." I turn and look at her with exasperation. "Is he screaming 'oink, oink', or am I hearing things?" She says "No, that's what he's saying. Don't pay him any mind, you're a beautiful woman." I say "Thanks, but someone needs to put these motherfuckers in their place." She says "I think you just did. Who looks like the crazy one now?"

It's incredible how, in five seconds, I went from being a hottie to looking like a disgusting pig.

Our Fine Journalistic Institutions

Two stories this morning have me rethinking the way I read news. Being a generally jolly and sweet person, I am usually inclined to assume integrity on the part of others, rather than be immediately suspicious. When I read specious articles with bizarre or wrong conclusions, I choose to believe that the disseminators of those ideas are merely misguided or zealously ideological, rather than cold-heartedly fabricating sources to serve their political goals.

The first story is about the Wall Street Journal's "TOO Fit to be President?" piece, where Amy Chozick doesn't even argue, but reports that Obama might face problems in November because he is in really good shape. When I read this on Monday, the mind boggled. I hate to just toss out insults, but it really is the stupidest "electability" argument I've heard all year. Everyone knows that candidates are in trouble if they're too fat, because Americans hate fatness. And the fact that many American are overweight doesn't mean that Americans don't hate fatness. Those fat Americans? They're all on diets. Diets that aren't working, of course, because diets don't work, full stop. The attempt to portray Obama as unelectable because he's in shape is made in a glaringly obvious attempt to bolster McCain. You can see it when Chozick says: McCain can't lift weights because of his war hero injuries! But he hikes! Like a manly man!

I'm not joking.

But the tongue-bitingly stupid Chozick piece gets worse. Sadly, No! reports that Chozick, several weeks before the piece was published, posted on Yahoo! message boards looking for people who thought that Obama was too skinny to be president: "Does anyone out there think Barack Obama is too thin to be president? Anyone having a hard time relating to him and his “no excess body fat”? Please let me know. Thanks!"

One lone person, who seems to have been trolling Chozick, replied "Yes I think He is to skinny to be President.Hillary has a potbelly and chuckybutt I’d of Voted for Her.I won’t vote for any beanpole guy." I don't know what a chuckybutt is (like a chuck roast? Someone needs to get their anatomy right), but it sounds bad. Chozick asked the person to email her ("Love your response").

The same day, she posted on a Weight Loss board, saying "I’m researching a story on body image and the American presidency. We don’t want a heavy president but is Obama just a little too thin to relate to “average” Americans? Please share your thoughts. Thanks a million!" (via comments at the Sadly, No! post). No one responded.

Amy Chozick has an awfully low opinion of fat people, and very little insight about how people relate to others. She seemed to think that people who are trying to lose weight would dislike Obama for being skinny. The reason people go on diets to lose weight is because they hate being fat. They not only like skinny people, they want to emulate them.

But beyond the absurdity of her thesis and the contempt for fat people that underlies it, I'm shocked by the sheer lack of integrity that is displayed by this type of "reporting." She literally invents a thesis, assembles a bunch of information about what candidates eat from previous campaign coverage, and provokes people to say things that, to someone only skimming, marginally support her thesis, like "It says, he's just like one of us." Where the "he" is not Obama, but Bill Clinton, and the "it" is eating fast food at McDonald's. The only other quote in the article that's supposed to support her thesis that people can't relate to Obama is: "I mean, really, who quits smoking and doesn't gain any weight?"

She picked these barely-relevant quotes after trying and failing to mine some Obama-skinniness-hatred from Yahoo message boards. Being a blogger, I don't believe that everything you read on the internet is crap, but I would not characterize unmoderated message boards, with no sense of community or purpose, as being reliable in any way. And even those unreliable sources refused to cough up anything to Chozick's liking. And this is her effort to write not an opinion piece, but one in the "Weekend" section of the WSJ. Which means it's ostensibly a news item. For shame.

The second story is much worse. Glenn Greenwald writes at Salon about the suicide of suspected anthrax terrorist Bruce Ivins, and it's clear that he's been covering the story for a long time. This is something that's really been off my radar, since a lot of it happened in 2001 when I didn't read many blogs and didn't follow the news as closely. If you're in the same boat (and even if you're not), please take the time to read Greenwald's piece. The short recap is this:

Just days after Septemeber 11, 2001, the anthrax letters started coming. Whoever sent the anthrax letters was trying very hard to link their efforts to what happened on 9/11: "This is next..Death to America, Death to Israel" and "We have anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great." While the White House and the FBI were focusing on domestic suspects, going on their theory that this terrorism was home-grown, ABC news was stuck on another potential culprit: Iraq.

ABC reported that "four well-placed sources" in the US government had said that tests showed the anthrax in the letters contained Bentonite, which is a "hallmark" of Iraqi chemical weapons practice and thus, Saddam. These "sources" came from the very same government research facility where Ivins, the now-dead suspect, worked, and were completely false. No test ever showed the presence of Bentonite in the anthrax.

But ABC stuck by its story, which entered the American consciousness as proof that Iraq was threatening America and support for the fledgling Iraq war plan. None other than John McCain said on Larry King Live that "The second phase -- if I could just make one, very quickly -- the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication, and I don't have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may -- and I emphasize may -- have come from Iraq." Other examples of public figures making the Iraq-Anthrax connection are in the Greenwald piece. The only support for this connection was the ABC story--a story based entirely on faulty sourcing. And years later, what does ABC do? They don't come clean. Instead, they delete links to Greenwald's article posted in comments of their website. They stand by their story.

A story that came from the very source that purposely created the anthrax campaign, in order to raise the temperature of the American people, scare them, and make them feel afraid. But who were they supposed to be afraid of? Not Bruce Ivins. They were supposed to be afraid of Muslims.

All information via Glenn Greenwald at Salon.

(as a side note: I want to address the issue of Ivins' guilt. In any story like this, there are always people who come along and repeat the mantra, "Innocent until proven guilty!" Ivins can never be proven guilty, because he is dead. The mantra applies to the criminal justice system, where it means only one thing: that the State has the burden of proof in criminal cases, not the defendant. It does not mean that we, as lay citizens, can not come to our own conclusions based on the evidence before us. Jurors are the ones who must come to the question of a person's guilt with a blank and open mind. I, and you, are not jurors in the matter of Bruce Ivins' guilt.)

blogger notification, on the other hand ....

Not that I think y'all would be worried about me, or even necessarily notice my absence, but I'm headed out for a week to visit family.  16 hour drive followed by a week of in-laws, parents and 3rd birthday parties out the wazoo, here we come.

In the meantime, know that I find this funny.

No, I won't take off my topcoat. And that's exactly my point.

parental notification laws suck

Here's an interesting piece of evidence in the argument over parental notification laws and "teen pregnancy": The poster child for a parental-notification law was actually married.

Pregnancy and motherhood are complicated things, folks. Especially if you're talking about them in terms of entire populations like "teenagers" or "Americans" or "women." Oversimplifying these things, as legislation (or, for that matter, moralizing) inevitably does, is Not Helpful.

If you live in California, vote no on 4. (Oh, and given that we've been voting on propositions like this every freaking year for ages, can we just fucking have a moratorium on this kind of crap now, please? Kthx.)