ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Mark Derr says small dogs are stigmatized as women’s pets. Bigger dogs are associated with men and work, such as herding sheep or finding prey for hunters. But a Chihuahua? It's just a companion, and being a companion has little value in our society.

The four-year ascent of Barack Obama from state senator to president marks not just the triumph of a man, but the coming of age of a movement.

That movement belongs to liberal (or "progressive") Democrats, who in less than a decade have remade themselves. Once respected only in academia and the news media, they have become a fighting force. They systemically digitized the means of political organization and strategy, with the ultimate goal of dominating the political system — "Crush their spirits!" was Daily Kos blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga's pre-election rallying cry.

The Left's online movement is consciously modeled after the Goldwater-and-Reagan-era conservative movement. To those trying to build the Left, the vast right-wing conspiracy was an object not of scorn, but of admiration. They studied the Right's network of think tanks, issue groups, and talk-show hosts, looking for clues on how to push a message with brutal efficiency. They took these lessons to heart and shaped them to fit the web. Ironically, today's Right has much to learn from them.

The Left has created not just a collection of unshaven bloggers but a machine that beat the Right at its own game.

When Michelle Obama took to describing her new role as mom in chief, my first reaction was to wince at her words. My second reaction was to identify with them.

I was okay, actually, with what Obama said. But I worried: Did she have to say it out loud, quite so explicitly? Is it really good for the team -- the team here being working women -- to have the "mommy" stamp so firmly imprinted on her identity?

And most of all: What does it say about the condition of modern women that Obama, catapulted by her husband's election into the ranks of the most prominent, sounded so strangely retro -- more Jackie Kennedy than Hillary Clinton?

...

"My first job in all honesty is going to continue to be mom in chief," Obama told Ebony magazine, "making sure that in this transition, which will be even more of a transition for the girls . . . that they are settled and that they know they will continue to be the center of our universe."

Obama seems comfortable, now, in the back seat, but that seeming serenity did not come easy. In "The Audacity of Hope," Barack Obama offers a glimpse of an earlier, more conflicted Michelle, whose "anger toward me seemed barely contained" as she struggled with the pull between work and family while her husband launched a run for Congress.

"No matter how liberated I liked to see myself as . . . the fact was that when children showed up, it was Michelle and not I who was expected to make the necessary adjustments," Barack Obama writes. "Sure, I helped, but it was always on my terms, on my schedule. Meanwhile, she was the one who had to put her career on hold."

Expected to -- by whom? Had to -- says who? I remember reading this passage two years ago, when the book came out, and thinking: Hey, buddy, she has to scale back only because you're not willing to.

And yet, Barack Obama could have been describing so many women today when he explained that, for Michelle, "two visions of herself were at war with each other -- the desire to be the woman her mother had been, solid, dependable, making a home and always there for her kids; and the desire to excel in her profession, to make her mark on the world and realize all those plans she'd had on the very first day that we met."

The sisters, known as the "Unforgettable Butterflies," became a symbol of the crisis of violence against women in Latin America. November 25th was the date chosen to commemorate their lives and promote global recognition of gender violence, and has been observed in Latin America since the 1980s.

Her cousin was dealing crack cocaine at the time. While she never sold drugs, Lomax wired money and ran errands for him. He was arrested, and Lomax was charged as a co-conspirator in the drug-selling operation. Around this time, she converted to Islam, choosing the name Hamedah ("one who praises") Hasan. Refusing an offer of a lighter sentence if she testified against her cousin, she was found guilty and given two life sentences, two 40-year sentences, two 20-year sentences, a five and a four year sentence—despite the fact that she was a first time non-violent offender. Federal Judge Richard Kopf stated publicly he would have given her a fraction of that time had he not been bound by harsh mandatory sentencing guidelines, which had been rushed through Congress in the 1980s.

The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.

For more than 30 years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service have reviewed any federal plans that could potentially protect endangered animals or plants. Under the administration's proposed rule, these independent scientific reviews would no longer be required if the agency in question determined that its activities would not hurt the imperiled species.

The ultrasound proposal, by Sen. Dan Patrick , R-Houston and state Rep. Frank Corte Jr., R-San Antonio, would require women who seek an abortion to first have an ultrasound — although they would not be required to view the image — and to listen to the fetal heartbeat.

"Once an ultrasound is performed, and a woman sees it, she may decide to change her mind and not have the procedure," Patrick said, "and that's a wonderful thing, if that woman decides to keep that baby or put it up for adoption."

A similar proposal passed the Senate last year but stalled in the House.

With Democrats gaining more seats in the House, the ultrasound bill's chances might be even worse this time, said Sherri Greenberg , a fellow at the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

A disturbing survey published by the White Ribbon Foundation in Australia shows that one third of boys believe "it's not a big deal to hit a girl", one in seven thinks "it's OK to make a girl have sex with you if she was flirting" - and one in seven girls has experienced sexual assault or rape.

This echoes a Sheffield University study of 35 teens, in which boys freely admitted trying to get girls drunk to have sex with them. The study's author concluded that sex education needs to start strengthening girls' self-esteem and encouraging male empathy. I suspect that tackling the rape culture is going to necessitate much more radical measures too, including addressing the rise of violent pornography, sexist advertising, lap dancing clubs, stag party sex tourism ...

Buckle up everyone - it's a long road ahead.

"Matthews is extremely threatened by Hillary Clinton and powerful women in general. He is not gay, but the guy is not interested in women, they don't excite him or send tingles up his leg.

Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department's top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies -- including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions -- into senior civil service posts.

The transfer of political appointees into permanent federal positions, called "burrowing" by career officials, creates security for those employees, and at least initially will deprive the incoming Obama administration of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs.

Similar efforts are taking place at other agencies. Two political hires at the Labor Department have already secured career posts there, and one at the Department of Housing and Urban Development is trying to make the switch.

Anger toward Lieberman seems to have softened since Election Day, and Democrats didn't want to drive him from the Democratic caucus by taking away his chairmanship and send the wrong signals as Obama takes office on a pledge to unite the country. Lieberman had indicated it would be unacceptable for him to lose his chairmanship.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) easily won a vote to remain chairman of a key committee today and will stay in the Democratic caucus despite his high-profile criticism of President-elect Barack Obama and his support of Sen. John McCain during the presidential campaign.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said that "Joe Lieberman is a Democrat. He's part of this caucus."

I certainly respect E.J. Dionne far more than I do Will Saletan. But it must be said that his new column has a pretty strong whiff of the "originating policies pro-choicers have been advocating for many decades" routine that Saletan has patented. Apparently, the solution to ending the conflict over abortion includes "contraception programs, even if these are a sticking point for some social conservatives, along with 'programs that are going to encourage women to bring their children to term.' Among them: expanded health coverage for women and children, more child care, adoption help, and income support for the working poor." Since pro-choice liberals have pretty much always supported these policies and they don't seem to stop the anti-choice minority from supporting criminalization (as well as opposing most or all of these programs, almost as if reducing abortion rates isn't a terribly important goal for American "pro-lifers"), it's not clear what's actually supposed to change about the abortion politics here.

But the real problem with Dionne's argument is his apparent belief that enacting this (as stated) worthwhile program would somehow "make cultural warfare a quaint relic of the past." This won't happen, simply because anti-abortion politics tends to be bundled up with an array of other reactionary attitudes about women and sexuality that undercut support for other policies that will reduce abortion rates

When I present the idea that its not the aggressive anal/choking/cum splattering that makes porn unethical or unfeminist, but the conditions under which the performers are doing said acts, people say...‘Its impossible to know what the working conditions are.’ It isn’t impossible....Just as people research textile factory conditions and then put pressure on corporations—-the same could happen with porn.

But after a Ph.D., a law degree, and a year on Wall Street to pay off student loans, I was already 32, and sterile. I have begun telling the young professional women who seek my advice not to follow my example too exactly.

a stunning triumph for the early 1960s notion of colorblindness. Children’s Defense Fund president Marian Wright Edelman wrote in Politico that “… my fellow Americans are willing to do what Dr. King envisioned: vote for a President based on the content of his character rather than the color of his skin.” Edelman’s language is consistent with Obama’s strikingly colorblind campaign.

Summary: On The O'Reilly Factor, Dennis Miller stated of Gov. Sarah Palin: "[M]ostly women on the left hate her, because to me, from outside in, it appears that she has a great sex life." He continued, "I think she has non-neurotic sex with that Todd Palin guy. I think most of the women on the Upper East Side, their husbands haven't been aroused since Mailer signed copy of The Executioner's Song at Rizzoli's back in the early '70s."

Although there has been concern about the safety of Crestor, the researchers found no signs of significant risks. The study was funded by AstraZeneca, which makes Crestor, but the company had no influence over the analysis, Ridker said. He and his hospital receive royalties from the high-sensitivity CRP, or HSCRP, test, but other researchers said that was no reason to doubt the findings.

Some skeptics, however, argued that the actual risk reduction for an individual would be very small, given the relatively low risk for most middle-age people, so the benefits easily could be outweighed by the costs of thousands more people taking tests, drugs and being monitored by doctors.

"We're already struggling to provide health services for the 46 million Americans who don't have health insurance in the United States," said John Abramson, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. "This is going to drain away a lot of money from the system for little or no benefit. We know that there are lifestyle interventions that are effective."

Ridker and others, however, said that the benefit was clear.

"We could prevent a lot of heart attacks, stroke, bypass surgeries, angioplasties, and save a lot of lives," Ridker said. "To me, that's a good thing."

Two scientists, drawing on their own powers of observation and a creative reading of recent genetic findings, have published a sweeping theory of brain development that would change the way mental disorders like autism and schizophrenia are understood.

The theory emerged in part from thinking about events other than mutations that can change gene behavior. And it suggests entirely new avenues of research, which, even if they prove the theory to be flawed, are likely to provide new insights into the biology of mental disease.

At a time when the search for the genetic glitches behind brain disorders has become mired in uncertain and complex findings, the new idea provides psychiatry with perhaps its grandest working theory since Freud, and one that is grounded in work at the forefront of science. The two researchers — Bernard Crespi, a biologist at Simon Fraser University in Canada, and Christopher Badcock, a sociologist at the London School of Economics, who are both outsiders to the field of behavior genetics — have spelled out their theory in a series of recent journal articles.

"The reality, and I think both of the authors would agree, is that many of the details of their theory are going to be wrong; and it is, at this point, just a theory," said Dr. Matthew Belmonte, a neuroscientist at Cornell University. "But the idea is plausible. And it gives researchers a great opportunity for hypothesis generation, which I think can shake up the field in good ways."

Their idea is, in broad outline, straightforward. Dr. Crespi and Dr. Badcock propose that an evolutionary tug of war between genes from the father's sperm and the mother's egg can, in effect, tip brain development in one of two ways. A strong bias toward the father pushes a developing brain along the autistic spectrum, toward a fascination with objects, patterns, mechanical systems, at the expense of social development. A bias toward the mother moves the growing brain along what the researchers call the psychotic spectrum, toward hypersensitivity to mood, their own and others'. This, according to the theory, increases a child's risk of developing schizophrenia later on, as well as mood problems like bipolar disorder and depression.

The theory leans heavily on the work of David Haig of Harvard. It was Dr. Haig who argued in the 1990s that pregnancy was in part a biological struggle for resources between the mother and unborn child. On one side, natural selection should favor mothers who limit the nutritional costs of pregnancy and have more offspring; on the other, it should also favor fathers whose offspring maximize the nutrients they receive during gestation, setting up a direct conflict.

The evidence that this struggle is being waged at the level of individual genes is accumulating, if mostly circumstantial. For example, the fetus inherits from both parents a gene called IGF2, which promotes growth. But too much growth taxes the mother, and in normal development her IGF2 gene is chemically marked, or "imprinted," and biologically silenced. If her gene is active, it causes a disorder of overgrowth, in which the fetus's birth weight swells, on average, to 50 percent above normal.

The nation's Catholic bishops Tuesday approved a statement declaring that if the Democratic-controlled Congress and the incoming Obama administration enact proposed abortion rights legislation, they would see it as an attack on the church.

Juan Williams

"Power Panel"

Fox New Sunday

20081109

"I would think that feminists would be up in arms about the way
Sarah Palin has been treated."

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has received her first job offer since failing in her bid to become vice president of the United States, and it comes with a large cash offer. Florida-based porn director Cezar Capone has offered to pay Palin $2 million to appear in an adult film production.

Capone, who calls himself "the king of all MILF films," promises in an open letter on his website that the film would be distributed internationally, shot in high definition, and feature a "beautiful mother recognized by all of America.... as the most desirable woman over 40."

MOGADISHU, Somalia - A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.

Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said.

Initial local media reports said Duhulow was 23, but her father told Amnesty International she was 13. Some of the Somali journalists who first reported the killing later told Amnesty International that they had reported she was 23 based upon her physical appearance.

"This child suffered a horrendous death at the behest of the armed opposition groups who currently control Kismayo," David Copeman, Amnesty International's Somalia campaigner, said in a statement Friday.

Papal officials, Islamic leaders and scholars began a historic summit in the Vatican yesterday, aimed at laying the foundations for better understanding between Catholics and Muslims, and averting future crises in relations between the world's biggest religions.

The three-day meeting is a direct outcome of the Muslim reaction to the Pope's controversial address in 2006 in which he appeared to link Islam with violence and irrationality. Last year, 138 Muslim scholars and clerics, dismayed by the violence the speech had provoked and fearing a "clash of civilisations", issued a manifesto stressing the values shared by Islam and Christianity.

Does sexism still exist in America and are some voters unlikely to choose a woman for president? Of course. But racism also still exists, and undoubtedly has cost Senator Obama as many votes as sexism has cost Senator Clinton. Indeed, both Clintons have played the race card. To Senator Obama's credit, he has not wasted his time whining about this ugly historical legacy, but has worked to create a new reality.

Consider the membership of the U.S. Senate. There are fifteen women and one African-American. Is sex or race the bigger barrier to winning high office?

All sorts of articles and letters appear in the papers about women. Profound questions are raised concerning them. Should they smoke? Should they work? Vote? Marry? Exist? Are not their skirts too short, or their sleeves? Have they a sense of humor, of honor, of direction? Are spinsters superfluous? But how seldom similar inquiries are propounded about men.

Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodriguez Gerada and an army of helpers sculpted it from sand on a Barcelona beach in northeastern Spain.

The team battled days of rain to finish just ahead of Tuesday's election. It is 140 yards long by 80 yards wide — big enough, Rodriguez Gerada hopes — to be photographed on Google Earth. The face was created using 500 tons of sand, gravel and white, brown and black pebbles at a cost of more than $13,000.

The team largely funded the project themselves, and the city agreed to let them use a stretch of beachfront at no cost.

Rodriguez Gerada says he did not intend to endorse Obama.

"The piece is not really based on giving support to Barack Obama," he said. "It is more about questioning Obama-mania."

Still, Rodriguez Gerada said he chose the large format as an allusion to the global importance of the American vote, and to represent the hope Obama has inspired in his supporters.

Yep, Dufus, if Barack becomes dictator — I mean president — and you begin to see your right to bear arms erode like Bill Clinton’s conscience at Hooters and you commence to spot the sport of hunting disappearing like a massive bag of Cheetos in front of a rather peckish Rosie O’Donnell, I sure as heck don’t want to hear any of you Obama backing wussies whine about it.

I know what some of you are thinking: Garsh Doug, Obama said he would “let us” keep our guns, and he doesn’t have a problem with hunting. Yes, I know that Barack said that, Dinky. He also said that Ayers is just a dude from his neighborhood, he didn’t know Rev. Wright was a freak, Iran is a little non-threatening nation, “spreading the wealth” is not socialism and Michelle Obama really is nice and loves America.

Hello!

So . . . young dude . . . before you do something goofy on November 4th by voting for Obama, please, my young gun and hunting fan, please go to Starbucks, order a double espresso and wake the hell up and vote for your Glock.

As the U.S. presidential candidates sprint toward the finish line, the Bush administration is also sprinting to enact environmental policy changes before leaving power.

Whether it's getting wolves off the Endangered Species List, allowing power plants to operate near national parks, loosening regulations for factory farm waste or making it easier for mountaintop coal-mining operations, these proposed changes have found little favor with environmental groups.

The burst of activity has made this a busy period for lobbyists who fear that industry views will hold less sway after the elections. The doors at the New Executive Office Building have been whirling with corporate officials and advisers pleading for relief or, in many cases, for hastened decision making.

According to the Office of Management and Budget's regulatory calendar, the commercial scallop-fishing industry came in two weeks ago to urge that proposed catch limits be eased, nearly bumping into National Mining Association officials making the case for easing rules meant to keep coal slurry waste out of Appalachian streams. A few days earlier, lawyers for kidney dialysis and biotechnology companies registered their complaints at the OMB about new Medicare reimbursement rules. Lobbyists for customs brokers complained about proposed counterterrorism rules that require the advance reporting of shipping data.

One rule, being pursued over some opposition within the Environmental Protection Agency, would allow current emissions at a power plant to match the highest levels produced by that plant, overturning a rule that more strictly limits such emission increases. According to the EPA's estimate, it would allow millions of tons of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, worsening global warming....

Jonathan Shradar, an EPA spokesman, said that he could not discuss specifics but added that "we strive to protect human health and the environment." Any rule the agency completes, he said, "is more stringent than the previous one."

“We aren’t a bunch of little old ladies in tennis shoes,” Pacelle says, paraphrasing his mentor Cleveland Armory, an animal rights activist. “We have cleats on.”

It's strange how often we romanticize aspects of America that we blithely destroyed because there was money to be made. And it's even more strange that having destroyed such things, we replicate them shoddily, and market them as antidotes to the very psychic emptiness that made the real things seem worthless.

Architects, locked for so long in the ideal of home ownership -— from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, where everyone would have their sovereign acre of prairie (and a Wright house planted squarely on it), to Frank Gehry’s twisty luxury condo tower in Lower Manhattan —- have difficulty generating any comparable vision of the American home. It is telling that the most gifted designers today —- American and not -— can only come up with snappy new wrappers for prevailing, but finally fading, ideas. The current bursting of the “housing bubble,” and the coming financial shakeout, which will be global in extent, and giga in scale, could leave them with more time to consider the reality of how most people live, and about the nature of home in the contemporary world.

The concept of non-ownership would be good a place to start. Or, at least, with the idea that money is not at the heart of it.

Some of the sketches...remind me of medieval maps: the known world is an island of familiarity, simultaneously shown much larger than scale but made tiny and precious by the monsters of “Terra Incognita” that surround it. In the case of a 15-year-old girl from Bradford, today’s dragons are “moshers,” “chavs,” “Asians,” and “posh people” – all “Enemys....”

In other words, bored and economically deprived teenagers are transforming 1960s council estates and Victorian terraces into a real-world, multiplayer World of Warcraft.

It was difficult to say which was more depressing – the relentless defense of a featureless piece of open space on the fringes of a Glasgow housing scheme where there is nothing whatsoever by way of amenities, or the confinement to a socially isolated but densely populated and built-up quarter-square-mile of London of young men for whom the culture and wealth of one of the world’s great cities might as well be on another continent.

“I can design the coolest-looking building, or I can engage the fact that the minimum parcel size is huge and the economic and political logics have been inflated to benefit privatization,” he says. “Without advancing housing and lending policies and subsidies, we cannot advance design.”

Some Web sites and conservative Christians have tried to argue that Obama could be the foretold Antichrist. In August, John McCain seemed to tap into evangelical anxiety with his ad, "The One," in which he mocked those who use messianic language to describe Obama.

The Rev. Tim LaHaye, co-author of the millennial Left Behind series, told the Wall Street Journal that he recognized allusions to his work in the ad but comparisons between Obama and the Antichrist were incorrect.

"The Antichrist isn't going to be an American, so it can't possibly be Obama. The Bible makes it clear he will be from an obscure place, like Romania," the 82-year-old author told the paper.