Meanwhile, in Pakistan...

The New Republic online edition has an article which is very hard to believe, but we have all gotten more and more used to 'very-hard-to-believe' matters before breakfast in the last four years. So perhaps this one is true, too:

This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. A succession of high-level American officials--from outgoing CIA Director George Tenet to Secretary of State Colin Powell to Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to State Department counterterrorism chief Cofer Black to a top CIA South Asia official--have visited Pakistan in recent months to urge General Pervez Musharraf's government to do more in the war on terrorism. In April, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, publicly chided the Pakistanis for providing a "sanctuary" for Al Qaeda and Taliban forces crossing the Afghan border. "The problem has not been solved and needs to be solved, the sooner the better," he said.
This public pressure would be appropriate, even laudable, had it not been accompanied by an unseemly private insistence that the Pakistanis deliver these high-value targets (HVTs) before Americans go to the polls in November. The Bush administration denies it has geared the war on terrorism to the electoral calendar. "Our attitude and actions have been the same since September 11 in terms of getting high-value targets off the street, and that doesn't change because of an election," says National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack. But The New Republic has learned that Pakistani security officials have been told they must produce HVTs by the election. According to one source in Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), "The Pakistani government is really desperate and wants to flush out bin Laden and his associates after the latest pressures from the U.S. administration to deliver before the [upcoming] U.S. elections." Introducing target dates for Al Qaeda captures is a new twist in U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism relations--according to a recently departed intelligence official, "no timetable[s]" were discussed in 2002 or 2003--but the November election is apparently bringing a new deadline pressure to the hunt. Another official, this one from the Pakistani Interior Ministry, which is responsible for internal security, explains, "The Musharraf government has a history of rescuing the Bush administration. They now want Musharraf to bail them out when they are facing hard times in the coming elections." (These sources insisted on remaining anonymous. Under Pakistan's Official Secrets Act, an official leaking information to the press can be imprisoned for up to ten years.)

The article does mention one source, Lieutenant General Esan ul-Haw, by name, and he reveals the following interesting tidbit:

a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July"--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

I have no idea if any of this is true. That I still decided to post it is based on the old adage: better safe than sorry, as well as the sum total of my recent innocence-stripping experiences with our current administration. We'll see what happens during the first three days of the Democratic National Convention, won't we?

The Experiences of Some Detained at Guantanamo Bay

You can read some stories here. There is no way of corroborating what these men say, of course, but I think the mainstream media in the United States should not ignore them. Be warned, the reading might not be easy for all.

The One that Got Away

If you write you know all about that feeling of being nothing but a conduit from some deeper, wider, more important place. Maybe you don't feel it often, but you do feel it sometimes, and then writing is more than pleasure, more than joy, something happening elsewhere yet everywhere. You look up from your work, and five hours have passed! Where did the time go?

The answer is that it didn't exist, because you were in an in-between place, out of time and out of space. You were nothing but a door through which the holy winds blow and everything you wrote down was perfect and nothing you wrote down was from you. It is a blessing to have these moments, worth of years of dental visits without novocaine and good beer.

This is what happened to me this morning, and I'm still weak at the knees. Then I erased it all, accidentally, and the sun died. It deserved to die, and I deserve to die and also to tell about it as publicly as possible. What I had on the screen is gone for ever, and this is because I was a clumsy oaf more in need of my decaf gallon than saving these sacred messages from Elsewhere. So. I hope you feel as bad as I do now. No, not really. Just wanted to share.

The Contraceptive Pill: A New Frontier for the Pro-Life Movement

I googled 'contraceptive pill' and 'implantation' this morning, and found literally hundreds of biased pro-life sites. Try it, if for nothing else, than to find out what the pro-lifers are het up right now. The topic of the day seems to be the regular contraceptive pill, not the 'morning-after' type, and its abortifacient characteristics. In other words, pro-lifers argue that the birth control pill kills babies. Or rather, tiny, tiny sons and daughters. The cunning way it manages to do this is by preventing the implantation of the fertilized egg onto the lining of the uterus.

Some sites tell about this in vivid terms: how 'your' desperate, starving tiny son or daughter is trying, trying, but failing to hook onto 'your' now-shriveled and hostile uterine lining. The writers of these tragedies have lost good career opportunities in some of the lesser known genres of literature, but I wish that they didn't assume the reader is a woman who is also the location of these events.

The reason why taking the birth control pill is murder, in the pro-life world, is the possibility that there might be an ovulation even though the pill tries to stop ovulations from happening, and that as a consequence an egg might be fertilized, but fail because of its inability to implant. The reason I was googling with those keywords as well as others more refined was to find out the studies that show exactly how the contraceptive pill stops implantation of the fertilized egg. I was unable to find any such study, and in fact an article in the Prevention magazine states that no such research exists:

At the heart of the debate between anti-Pill forces and mainstream medicine lies a profound difference of opinion about when pregnancy and life begin. The long-standing medical definition of pregnancy, held by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, is that it starts not when an egg is fertilized, but when the fertilized egg implants in the uterine lining.

This distinction is practical: A pregnancy test won't show a positive result before implantation. "It can't be an abortion before there is a pregnancy," points out David Grimes, MD, a clinical professor in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and one of the leading contraception experts in the US.

But anti-Pill doctors and pharmacists say life begins sooner, at fertilization. Sloughing off a fertilized egg, in their view, is a "chemical abortion."

"How many women know that if they become pregnant after breakthrough ovulation, these 'contraceptives' will almost always kill any son or daughter they've conceived?" asks the anti-Pill organization Pro-Life America on the group's Web site, ProLife.com.

Surprisingly, there's no science to back the theory that birth control pills really do discourage implantation. This claim, made by contraceptive manufacturers for decades, has never been proven, Grimes says. Even the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists agrees that it's just speculation.

This is so important it bears repeating:

Surprisingly, there's no science to back the theory that birth control pills really do discourage implantation. This claim, made by contraceptive manufacturers for decades, has never been proven, Grimes says. Even the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists agrees that it's just speculation.

You'd never think that there is any doubt about the scientific basis for the implantation-argument in the tens and hundreds of pro-life websites. No doubt at all. Contraceptive pills are abortifacients!:

The Pill and its "cousins" kill children earlier in their life than surgical abortion. In America, chemical abortions are estimated to kill more than 7 million babies each year -- while surgical abortions kill about 1.5 million babies each year.

That's how pro-lifers think. Even the smallest, hypothetical possibility of a fertilized egg not being implanted is adequate grounds to 'estimate' that seven million 'babies' are killed each year by women who use the birth control pill. This is the next frontier of the pro-life warplan, the natural next step to take after fighting abortion: to fight contraception. The frontlines will no longer be drawn at the offices of physicians who perform abortions, rather, they will be in the wombs of millions and millions of American women. Or that's what the pro-life movement would like to see happen, I believe.

Here's a glimpse of the first moves in this new stage of the anti-abortion war:

Though three states have conscience clauses for pharmacists, there is no such legal provision in Texas, where the CVS druggist refused to fill Julee Lacey's prescription.

The night it happened, Lacey says, she was shocked and responded, "Are you sure? I've had this filled here many times before." But the pharmacist was emphatic. "I just couldn't believe what I was hearing," recalls Lacey. "It was a school night, and I knew I had to put my kids to bed and get organized for work the next morning. I didn't want to run all over town for my Pills." Lacey and her husband complained to the assistant store manager that night and the district manager the next day. Finally, the pharmacy supervisor called and said he would have Lacey's prescription delivered that day. "He apologized and said he was unaware of the pharmacist's moral objections to the Pill. Apparently it was a new belief," says Lacey. (A CVS corporate spokesperson contacted by Prevention confirmed Lacey's story. None of the employees has ever been named.)

All that Ms. Lacey suffered was a small delay and some frustration. But what would the consequences be if ethical refusals by health professionals were more generally legal? What would a woman in a rural area with just one pharmacy do? Where would she go if the only gynecologist refused to prescribe the pill? Do these ethical refusals take into account all the abortions that might ensue because women get pregnant in the absence of the birth control pill they can't get prescribed?

More generally, do ethical refusals consider the fact that many women use the contraceptive pill for something else than pregnancy prevention? It is used to control acne, to reduce fibroids, to control endometriosis and to prevent ovarian cancer, a particulary deathly and symptomless form of cancer (the efficacy of birth control pills in preventing this type of cancer may be as high as 80%). Does this matter to the refusing professional? That the woman denied the pill might then actually die herself? Of course this is unlikely to happen today, given that most other professionals will not refuse to prescribe oral contraceptives, but shouldn't the ethical refuser consider his or her own choices and their consequences alone? After all, most of those denied the pill for birth control purposes will get their prescription filled elsewhere, and if the pill is killing tiny babies, it will do it irrespective of the person who prescribed or dispensed the order.

I'm unhappy with this ethical refusal rule, and wonder where it might lead us. Suppose that I present myself at the front desk of a pharmacy somewhere with a big packet of red and pink condoms. If the clerk helping me doesn't believe in adultery, can she or he quiz me on my marital status and on what I intend to do with the condoms? And does it matter that I'm going to use them in lieu of birthday balloons?

I'm also unhappy with the argument I found on a pro-life website that scientists have conclusively proved that life begins at conception. I believe, deeply, sincerely and fervently, that life begins before conception. The ova and the sperm are both alive and both human, and any man who ejaculates during sleep is guilty of mass murder. Likewise, any woman who needs to buy tampons this month is guilty of serial murder. When I get around to it, I'm going to start my own pro-life movement and go after the Catholic priests first of all. Think of all the lives they have denied! But even if I believed in the lukewarm version the current pro-life movement holds true, I'd be a little bit concerned about going after all women who use oral contraceptives just on the basis of a hunch. This seems a cruel and non-Christian thing to do, though to be fair to the pro-lifers, any woman who gives up her pills right now can still get forgiveness and a place in heaven. I wonder what the writers of this stuff will get when they knock on the final gates? A nasty surprise? Who knows.


Via the Rubber Nun

J. Leon Holmes was Approved

So. Religion has been affirmed, never mind about all that political correctness crap. You might be interested to know that Mary Landrieux voted for Mr. Holmes. I'm sure that she had asked for the permission of her husband before venturing to raise her voice in public in such a manner. If not, she can always repent later at leisure.

Actually, it's a good reminder, a cold shower if you like, about what is important in this world. Religion is, and bombs are and wars. Human rights are very unimportant, except when they come handy as a shield behind which better political plots can be hatched.

And you will not get a link or anything. I'm a fed-up goddess, and in fact I've put in my application to start a new world somewhere far away. Populated by nothing but snakes.

Guess Who's Really Oppressed in America?

This is an easy one: it's white Christian men, especially the ones who try to get appointments as Federal Judges. The most recent victim of this incessant harassment of Christians is J. Leon Holmes, a district court nominee. He's mercilessly oppressed by not only the Democrats, of whom we expect nothing but such stigmatizing, but even by some wishy-washy quasi-Republicans! Yes, indeed, moles have buried deep into the Republican underbelly, and the season to get rid of them is now!

So tremble, Arlen Specter, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Olympia Snowe! Quiver and shake, ye women of the Republicans in the House and Senate! We shall smite you down in your arrogance! We have heard mutterings and rumblings that all Republican female Senators are against this noble and valiant Christian soldier, and we warn you that the Right will prevail.

Why does any misguided soul oppose our brother-in-faith J. Leon Holmes? He is, after all, wielding the sword against abortionists and people who refuse to see the righteous truth in the commands of the holy Bible. All Leon is accused of is stating clearly that which we all know to be true deep in our bosoms: that women are not equal to men. It is not Leon's fault that this is how things are, what is written is written. And what is written must be true. Read Ephesians 5 yourself if you doubt me.

And did you ever hear anything more idiotic than this:

Critics have portrayed Holmes as anti-woman. Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, issued a statement yesterday saying that "Holmes' record and extreme views about the role of women and other subjects will make it impossible for many who come before him to believe they will get a fair hearing."

How lamentably wrong can these communists be? What is wrong with taking Epheseans 5 as your guiding light in deciding on court cases concerning the weaker sex? What is wrong with holding the holy truths about the submission of women above the purely earthly concerns of this republic? What is fairer to women than the religion we know to be the only right one?

See, brethren, how we battle the dark forces. Yet they rise again and again, and in their anger and wrath trample over our sacred rights and the True Way of Life. They oppress us and don't let us rule over their pagan multitudes. They discriminate against us and don't let us preach the true words from the judicial pulpits. We are the oppressed and the victimized, we are the ones who must be affirmed.

Please rise and assure that our brother J. Leon Holmes receives the judgeship that is his by right. If he can be denied on such puny grounds as not seeing the sexes as equal, how can we ever grant equal opportunity to those of us who hold even firmer views on these matters?


Via Holden on Atrios.

John Edwards

So now it's a campaign of the two johns. About the only real opening this gives the wingnuts.

Edwards was a good choice, I think, if there is such a thing as a good choice in thir particular election year. Anyone Kerry would nominate would be treated to an immediate autopsy by the right-wing pundits. Just to see what Edwards might have in store, I went around looking for any nasty things that was said about him.

Here's a sampling:

From corporate America:

Wall Street was also concerned about Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's selection of John Edwards as vice president. Edwards, a trial lawyer, is seen by the conservative investment community as a proponent of the expensive class-action litigation that often plagues corporate America.
"Clearly, Edwards isn't the choice of business. But the primary question is John Kerry the choice for business?," Pears said. "The answer to that question is less clear for John Kerry, and he's the one running for president, not Edwards."

From the Bush/Cheney campaign:

The Bush/Cheney campaign released new TV ads in an attempt to downplay Kerry`s announcement. They show Bush and Republican Senator John McCain hugging on the campaign trail and say McCain was Kerry`s first choice in a running mate, not John Edwards.

From Republican commentators more generally:

But Larry Sabato also says Republicans will question whether John Edwards is qualified to become vice president.
"Edwards is so inexperienced," he said. "He has never served in public office before this one Senate term and he has a very thin resume in the Senate. He really was not a very dedicated senator. So, I think the question can fairly be asked, is this fellow really ready to assume the presidency on a moment's notice in this very dangerous time?"

and from the mouth of the beast itself, the National Review Online:

Party strategists will undoubtedly answer that in the general election it is the presidential candidate who really matters, and that in the area of national security, voters placed much more trust in John Kerry. That's true. But given that the war in Iraq, and to some extent the larger issue of national security, will likely dominate the fall campaign, it's also true that Kerry has chosen a running mate who is extraordinarily weak on those issues that matter most.

All this sounds very weak to me. Which means that John Edwards was a good choice for Kerry. Let the games begin.

Blogger Pains

The Blogger is experiencing growing pains again. If you have trouble getting here or to any other blogspot site, it's not your fault. Normally trying again a couple of times will work, or if not, alternating http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com with http://www.echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com should do the trick. We apologize for this inconvenience, but plan to do nothing to fix it as blogspot is extremely appropriately priced. Though I will personally scold them, again.

Women Priests

I am for them, but the Roman Catholic church is somewhat less enthusiastic. Well, considerably less enthusiastic. This is not hard to understand: if women became priests, who'd be left to do all the drudge work that is needed in running the churches? Still, I don't understand the Pope's brain on the topic of women. He appears to have but the faintest idea of what women are. Maybe this isn't so unexpected given the way the Catholic church makes sure that its priests will not live in families which would be one way of finding out about women, at least partially. Not that women are very different from men, of course, but it seems to be part of the Pope's belief systems that they are. For example, women can't be priests because they weren't among Christ's disciples (ok, I have no idea if the Pope believes this, but many in the church do, and I want to make the argument here). This hasn't stopped the church from electing a Polish pope, and I'm willing to bet my pocket money against the possibility that any of the original disciples was Polish. In any case, some scholars argue that Mary Magdalene was a disciple and that her role was erased in later rewritings of the gospels.

I think that women should be priests because I would have made a wonderful priest, if I had happened to have been born Catholic (and human). This makes me believe that we are losing countless numbers of wonderful priests because of attitudes which really should be outdated by now. I also don't like giving little girls messages about their second-class status, and being told that you can't become a priest simply because you are a girl tends to do funny things to your head. It may even serve to breed future feminists!

So the following news should be regarded as good ones by all concerned:

Six Catholic women, including two Americans, were ordained as Catholic deacons on June 26 at a service on the Danube River in Passau, Germany. The service was a continuation of a series of ordinations that began in 2002 in the same location, at which point seven women were ordained into the priesthood.
For a religious community still in the shadows of the clergy sex abuse scandals, these ordinations are seen as a positive step toward the healing of the Catholic church, according to advocates of female priests.

...

Ida Raming, a German theologian and one of the priests who performed the ordinations of women two years ago, argued that baptism, not gender, determines eligibility for the priesthood. At the 2002 service she said that the opinion of the current church leadership on women priests--as well as the Biblical canons that it is derived from--are "based on a grave lack of respect for the human dignity of women and their Christian existence."

Not that any of this will be accepted by the Catholic church. The most likely outcome is that all those involved in these ordinations will be excommunicated. There is something very sad about a church which must excommunicate those who most desperately want to serve it.

Be Afraid! Be Very Afraid!

Welcome to the post 7/4 world. It's time to be afraid again:

The federal authorities, concerned about a terror attack during this summer's national political conventions, have begun a new effort to identify potential extremists inside the United States, including conducting interviews in communities where terrorists might seek refuge, government officials said.
The fears about an incident during the conventions or later in the year have also led state and local officials to impose extraordinary security precautions. Persistent if indistinct intelligence reports, based on electronic intercepts and live sources, indicate that Al Qaeda is determined to strike in the United States some time this year, the officials said in interviews last week.
Almost half the budgets in each convention city will be spent on security, local officials said. The Democratic National Convention will be held in Boston at the Fleet Center from July 26 to 29. The Republican National Convention will be held in New York at Madison Square Garden from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2.
New York is regarded as a higher risk than Boston by counterterrorism officials because George Bush is a Republican and because of consistent intelligence.

Clearly, the counterterrorism officials have been busy protecting George Bush already from possible terrorists. In his ninth visit to West Virginia since taking office, Bush told Americans that their country is safer because Saddam Hussein is in a prison cell. However, his own security seems to have been seriously endangered by this brave public appearance:

Two Bush opponents, taken out of the crowd in restraints by police, said they were told they couldn't be there because they were wearing shirts that said they opposed the president.

Ok. We've got Saddam in a cell and probably the Bush protesters as well (no, turns out that they were let loose, after all!). How about catching some of Al Qaeida, too? Or is this just not doable given the current budgeted expenditures needed in Iraq? To be honest, I'd much rather pay taxes for Al Qaeida hunting than either the fiasco in Iraq or the fiasco that took place in West Virginia. Though I guess we'll soon have nothing left to protect of the freedoms that Bush argues make the terrorists so mad at us.
----------
Thanks to Tena at Eschaton for the link to the second quote.

Barbara Ehrenreich on the Fourth of July

From the New York Times:

When they first heard the Declaration of Independence in July of 1776, New Yorkers were so electrified that they toppled a statue of King George III and had it melted down to make 42,000 bullets for the war. Two hundred twenty-eight years later, you can still get a rush from those opening paragraphs. "We hold these truths to be self-evident." The audacity!
Read a little further to those parts of the declaration we seldom venture into after ninth-grade civics class, and you may feel something other than admiration: an icy chill of recognition. The bulk of the declaration is devoted to a list of charges against George III, several of which bear an eerie relevance to our own time.
George III is accused, for example, of "depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury." Our own George II has imprisoned two U.S. citizens — Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi — since 2002, without benefit of trials, legal counsel or any opportunity to challenge the evidence against them. Even die-hard Tories Scalia and Rehnquist recently judged such executive hauteur intolerable.
It would be silly, of course, to overstate the parallels between 1776 and 2004. The signers of the declaration were colonial subjects of a man they had come to see as a foreign king. One of their major grievances had to do with the tax burden imposed on them to support the king's wars. In contrast, our taxes have been reduced — especially for those who need the money least — and the huge costs of war sloughed off to our children and grandchildren. Nor would it be tactful to press the analogy between our George II and their George III, of whom the British historian John Richard Green wrote: "He had a smaller mind than any English king before him save James II."

It is all good stuff.

Colin Sings. Colin Dances.

If you want to see and hear Colin Powell dance and sing, click here, then click on the Watch and Listen square on the right.
Don't say I didn't warn you!


Via the Original Amazon.

Some News on U.S. Employment

The United States economy created 112,000 new jobs in June 2004. This is good news, or at least better news than a loss of 112,000 jobs would have been. But given the natural business cycles, recessions tend to be followed by employment upswings in due time. The latest recession appears atypical in many ways, and one of these is it's length: every other recession since 1939 has shown full recovery of the lost jobs within 31 months of the start of the recession. This time, thirty-nine months later, 1.2 million jobs are still missing.

The jobless nature of this recovery has economists scratching their heads. But not the Bush administration: they believe that we are experiencing the beginning of a very vibrant recovery and that the jobs are just lagging behind a little. Perhaps. But the administration has been unable to match its own employment predictions. According to them we should have 2,230,000 more jobs now, at the end of the first year after the highly touted tax cuts took effect. In other words, they promised much more than they are delivering.

Consider the numbers: The unemployment rate has remained steady at 5.6% since January this year, and the rate of underemployed people (those who work part-time involuntarily, those who are so discouraged that they have stopped looking for jobs and those who are only marginally attached to the labor force) is now 9.6%, up from 7.3% at the start of the recession. All this despite the increased number of jobs.

And what are the jobs like that were lost in the recession compared to those that are now being added? It seems that the new jobs are lower paying, less stable, self-employed and part-time jobs (eBay, anybody?), while the lost jobs were what's called high-quality jobs in sectors such as transportation, utilities, natural resources and manufacturing. The numbers of part-time workers and the self-employed have risen by roughly 5% since early 2002. Compare this to the 1.7% growth in regular employees. Since late 2001, jobs in high-paying industries fell by more than 2% and the jobs in low-paying industries rose by 1.2%.

It's fair to summarize these overall changes as a labor market that is paying less for jobs with less stability. We are not getting the good old jobs back; instead we are being offered poorer jobs with less hours of work. To be fair, the most recent statistics indicate that some of the better paying sectors are also beginning to hire, but the overall impact of these factors is to make the quality of the American jobs worse. For those who can find them, that is.

TGIF

I can't force myself to post anything serious. Maybe tomorrow; I do have the materials together for something very long and tedious on labor economics. It's going to cause fireworks on the blog.

Instead of such an erudite treatise on the big questions in life, I want to ask you an even bigger question, one that requires every iota (what is an iota?) of your concentration, intelligence and senses:

If you could come back to life after death, what would you choose to be?

I would like to be very tall if human, and have eyes which send out angry zaps. If I could be an animal I'd probably want to be a turtle, if I could be a vegetable, I'd want to be an ornamental bean (they don't get eaten), if I could be a tree, I'd want to be an oak (and drop acorns on wingnuts). Oaks live a long time and don't cause a lot of raking in the fall, and I would be a very considerate tree.

Insects are not a good idea for reincarnation. Too much work for just a few days' worth of life, and I already have nightmares about being stepped on by a large rubber sole. Though being a disease-carrier could be a nice revenge for something.

Ok. This is what they mean by pure waffle. As I said, it's Friday and this is all that Friday produces in early July.

Happy Fourth of July!

I'm posting this early both because that way more people see it (and my attempt to be nice and culturally sensitive) and also because that leaves me free to go back to being nasty over the weekend.

So if you're an American who celebrates the Fourth of July, have a good time! Beware of hot dogs in excess and political debates in family get-togethers. And wear sunscreen.

Something very patriotic to do: Get registered to vote if you haven't done so already, or get someone else to register. Then consider the candidates for presidency carefully, and decide to vote for Kerry come hell or high water.

Zen Sarcasms

Via heini.


1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me,
for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much
leave me the heck alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a
leaky tire.

3. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your
neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

4. Sex is like air. It's not important unless you aren't getting any.

5. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be
promoted.

6. No one is listening until you fart.

7. Always remember you're unique. Just like everyone else.

8. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

9. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of
car payments.

10. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their
shoes. That way, when you criticize them you're a mile away and you
have their shoes.

11. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

12. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to
fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

13. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was
probably worth it.

14. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

15. Some days you're the bug; some days you're the windshield.

16. Don't worry; it only seems kinky the first time.

17. Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes
from bad judgment.

18. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and
put it back in your pocket.

19. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

20. Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side and a dark side,
and it holds the universe together.

21. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your lips are
moving.

22. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need
it.

23. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

24. We are born naked, wet and hungry, and get slapped on our
butt...Then things get worse.

25. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a
laxative on the same night.

26. There is a fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

27. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too
seriously.

28. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to
make a big deal about your birthday...around age 11.

29. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.


I agree with the last one.

Mantras

Every time I log to my SiteMeter to check on if Aphrodite is still reading my blog I see the advertisements on the top of the page. Most of them are of the type that require being clicked on to tell the whole story. I never click on them, and so I'm only left with the mysterious messages they give at first.

In the spirit of proper liberal recycling, I decided to use these mysterious sayings as my meditation mantras. Here's how it worked:

The first one I chose says: "Colon Polyps. Stop them before they go bad." Translated into a mantra, this is the meditation it created:

Stop the polyps. Stop the polyps. UMMMMMM. How do you stop the polyps before they go bad? Do you squeeze your anus harder? Stop the polyps before they go bad. In the colon. In the Colin. Is this what is wrong with Colin Powell? How do polyps go bad? UMMMMM. Do they stink like sour milk? How do you find out if your polyps stink like sour milk? Do you ask a kind bypasser? UMMMMM

I don't think that I got any nearer to enlightenment with that one. The following week I had a new mantra:"How can you stop a car crash with a few ounces of metal?" This was very unpromising. Car crashes tend to make me uptight, and meditation is meant to do the opposite. But perhaps I was ready for the challenge:

Car crashes. Stop the car crashes. AAAAAA! Don't buy a car. With a few ounces of metal, AAAAA. What metal? Buy a gun and shoot all other drivers on the road? AAAAIIIIIH!

Then I had to go and have a nice liedown. The next one I'm going to work with is:"Yo. I'm Mike Mahi Mahi." It comes with a picture of a very happy fish. Happy to be eaten? I'll never know.

Hillary Bashing

Hillary Rodham Clinton is in a lot of wingnuts' nightmares, it seems, given the amount of negative publicity she attracts. Here is Robert Novak, for example:

On the June 29 edition of CNN's Crossfire, co-host and syndicated columnist Robert Novak again ridiculed Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) by calling her "Madame Defarge" -- a reference to a distasteful character from Charles Dickens's novel A Tale of Two Cities .
According to BookRags.com , a website that provides study guides for classic novels, Madame Defarge is "a cruel, vengeance-seeking agent of the [French] revolution ... [who] spends her days knitting a 'register' of names of people she has marked for death."
Novak went on to say that Senator Clinton's proposal to raise taxes on the wealthy "sound[ed] like communism." Pointing out that Hillary Clinton's title is "senator," Novak's Crossfire co-host Paul Begala defended Clinton against Novak's attacks:
NOVAK: For a while, I thought that Hillary Rodham Clinton was actually trying to be nice. What disappointing behavior that would be for Madame Defarge. But she has been back in form lately. This week, in San Francisco, where else, she vowed to defeat what she called the Republicans' extraordinarily ruthless campaign.
She told Democrats who paid up to $10,000 to attend that event that she was going to raise their taxes -- quote -- "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." Doesn't that sound like communism?
[applause]
NOVAK: But it's probably what the rich San Francisco liberals want, and certainly what they deserve, even if they don't want it.
BEGALA: Well, what Senator Clinton -- and that is her title, Senator Clinton -- deserves is better than being called a communist and better than being compared to Madame Defarge, who the English majors here will know is the woman who sat and knitted while people were beheaded during the French revolution in the book A Tale of Two Cities.
I think, given what's happening in Iraq right now, it's a really unfortunate way to characterize one of the finest people in public life that I know. And I know you'll apologize for that unfortunate...
[applause]
NOVAK: I'll tell you. Certainly, next time I talk about her, I'll call her senator. Will that make you happy?
BEGALA: What about Madame Defarge? That is kind of across the line. I mean, come on.
NOVAK: Well, not my line.

Robert Novak has a habit of calling Senator Clinton Madame Defarge. You'd think that he could find more variation; the literary canon is full of evil and power-hungry female characters. I hope that Robert stays off cheese and wine late at night. Maybe he will then dream something nicer and more creative.

Robert is not alone in his Hillary-obsession. She is hated out of all proportion to both her importance and anything that she has ever done.
She isn't even especially left-wing in her opinions, and she has been a good little senator during her term in office. What makes the wingnuts say things like this?:

In a Washington Times op-ed about former President Bill Clinton's memoir My Life, titled "Harry Potter and Bill Clinton: 'My Life' should be titled 'My Lie,'" Jack Wheeler, identified by The Washington Times as publisher of www.tothepointnews.com, asserted that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is bisexual.
Wheeler wrote of Bill Clinton's memoir:
All of that stuff about Hillary being mad, making him sleep on the couch, going to marriage counselors for a year, yada yada, is all made up. They have had a pact for decades: He gets to fool around with women, and she gets to fool around with women (plus the occasional man like Vince Foster).
Yes, she's bisexual -- I disclosed that in an infamous Strategic Investment column in January 1993, and Dick Morris publicly revealed it a few years ago. You knew that, right?

I know that there is a bizarre connection between being obsessed about sex and wingnuttiness, but it really gets sick when we add it to the stew of Hillary-bashing. Remember Limbaugh and the testicles in a lock-box?

There aren't enough psychiatrists in this country to tend to all those affected by the Hillary hatred. She is not just a communist but a fascist (!), not just a sexual adventurer but a woman who wants to castrate men (!). She is Hitlery, the all-powerful, all-evil woman who is going to get us all if we don't stay alert, fight our nightmares and every morning write them down carefully for publication.

I'm sick and tired of this. Hillary isn't that horrible or that wonderful. She is probably a pretty ordinary politician, but in the minds of so many she is the worst threat to Western civilization since Karl Marx. And the reason isn't that hard to figure out. She stands as a symbol for all the things that men like Novak fear in women: independence, power and refusal to play by his rules. Whether Hillary in fact is a feminist or not doesn't matter. She has become the mythological nightmare for all those who fear equality.

Dawg Bloging

Hiya there!

Hank here. And boy, don't I have a story to tell! Yesterday when I was snoozing real nicely under the table, the goddess dragged me out and bathed me. Now, I don't mind a little bit of water, even when there's nothing interesting swimming in it, but she always has to pour that stuff on me, you know, the perfume stuff that looks like soap. Soap is not bad to snack on, although the dish is kind of hard for your gullets, but that perfume yuck is horrible. Man, it's horrible.

And what really pisses me off is that the only reason I got a bath is because her royal highness Henrietta the Hound (a.k.a the Main-Pain-in-the-Butt) needed one so I had to pretend to be dirty, too. Hypocricy, I cried. Hypocricy. But she don't care.

So I bided my time. Which came this morning. We went out for some running and terrarist hunting and squirrel torturing, and I was so good you could've thought I was a libural poodle! Except at the last minute, right before we went home, I jumped into the river and then quickly swam to the muddy side for a nice long rollaround! The screaming and the hollering! Heh, heh, as my idol Limbaugh would say. That'll learn them. And then I ran back, all affectionate-like and when I got near enough, guess what I did? Yep. I shook.

That's why they call me the Baptist and the Shaker. Get it? Get it?

Yours.

Hank
the Murican Labrador Retriever

Good to Know

George Bush in Turkey:

"Some people in Muslim cultures identify democracy with the worst of Western popular culture and want no part of it. And I assure them, when I speak about the blessings of liberty, coarse videos and crass commercialism are not what I have in mind," Bush said. "There is nothing incompatible between democratic values and high standards of decency."

I'm very relieved by this. For a while there I thought that democracy in Iraq had a lot to do with crass commercialism in the energy field.
And I'm not that convinced about the "coarse videos" either, given that we've recently heard about quite a few the administration refuses to release.

More generally, curmudgeony goddesses like me (love that!) are very suspicious of the word "decency". Far too often it refers to something that women must not do or to something that is done to women whether they wish it or not. But so does the term "indecency".

What Smart Women Wear

In Iran they wear black chadors and scarves in ninety degree (F) weather. This is because the alternative cooler summer outfits cost a little too much in fines, prison and even flogging. The current Iranian conservative government (which wasn't actually elected) has ordered a crackdown on women who alter the required Islamic garb by wearing lighter-colored and/or shorter chadors. These corrupt the social morale (where is the social morale located, by the way?). Never mind that being shrouded in black in boiling heat corrupts the woman inside the outfit.

On Bees

Bees have taken residence in the wall above my porch door. They sting everybody who uses the door except for me. I've told them not to sting other creatures who live in the house, but it seems they are not paying attention. So now I have to deliver them an ultimatum: they have twenty-four hours to mend their ways. After that, apocalypse.

This is not that different from other human politics, sadly. Many of our quarrels and wars have their roots in problems of communication. How do you talk to the bees? To the Republican wingnuts? To terrorists? Or if you are a bee, how do you defend your right to live in the siding of someone's house? Sometimes it seems as if we are all separate species with no idea of how to share something: a thought, some pollen, food.

Some of us have a lot more power than others. I have the upper hand with the bees, and I have also planted the flowers that lured them here in the first place. This makes me twice responsible, at least in my bleeding-heart world: I promised them something better and now I threaten them with death.

At least none of this was based on conscious planning. Can the Bush administration say the same about Iraq? Or are we more similar than I'd like to think, just two bumbling fools in a world where every hole in the siding is someone's home?

I'm going out now to have a serious conversation with the bees, but I doubt that it will do much good.

The Cost of Liberty (Reposted)

Thanks for Dave for locating this erased post. I copied the comments thread as well, so everything is now beautiful!



Halla is a prostitute in Iraq. Before the war she was happily married, with two sons and a job in her mother's beauty salon. Now she is a widow with two sons and several younger brothers to feed, and the $5 per month she could earn at the beauty salon is not enough.
So she has become a prostitute. The money is good, and she can feed her whole family. But there are disadvantages to this job:

But as the U.S. occupation draws to an end, and more conservative Islamic clerics gain power, the fate of prostitutes like Halla is uncertain. In recent months, attacks on people and establishments accused of promoting vices have escalated. Masked gunmen have shot at liquor vendors, according to Iraqi police officials. Religious leaders have run renters of racy videotapes out of town. And anonymous vigilantes have kidnapped, beaten and killed prostitutes in several major cities. Women's rights groups, including the Organization of Women's Freedom, have decried the killings, saying the women are in need of help, not punishment.
Maybe there is an order to kill all the prostitutes," Halla would recall thinking that day. "If the Islamic parties arrive to power maybe even the Americans can't stop them." As she made her way through the rubble, Halla wondered what it would be like to have a real job, of being a receptionist at a hotel, a laundry woman or maybe opening a boutique for used clothes. She was 23 years old, healthy and a hard worker. There was a chance she could start anew. Wasn't there?

The rubble Halla is described as walking through is the rubble that remained after the extremists destroyed the windows of her mother's beauty parlor as a warning to her.

Read the whole thing. It's well worth the time.

Krugman

Paul Krugman is a rare type of economist: he actually knows something outside the narrow "let's pretend that all people have equal incomes and only care about how much beer they get tomorrow" models of neoclassical economics. He even reads novels and stuff, I bet.

Krugman summarizes the economic situation in Iraq in his latest column:

Up to a point, the numbers in the Brookings Institution's invaluable Iraq Index tell the tale. Figures on the electricity supply and oil production show a pattern of fitful recovery and frequent reversals; figures on insurgent attacks and civilian casualties show a security situation that got progressively worse, not better; public opinion polls show an occupation that squandered the initial good will.
What the figures don't describe is the toxic mix of ideological obsession and cronyism that lie behind that dismal performance.
The insurgency took root during the occupation's first few months, when the Coalition Provisional Authority seemed oddly disengaged from the problems of postwar anarchy. But what was Paul Bremer III, the head of the C.P.A., focused on? According to a Washington Post reporter who shared a flight with him last June, "Bremer discussed the need to privatize government-run factories with such fervor that his voice cut through the din of the cargo hold."
Plans for privatization were eventually put on hold. But as he prepared to leave Iraq, Mr. Bremer listed reduced tax rates, reduced tariffs and the liberalization of foreign-investment laws as among his major accomplishments. Insurgents are blowing up pipelines and police stations, geysers of sewage are erupting from the streets, and the electricity is off most of the time — but we've given Iraq the gift of supply-side economics.

And not only have we given Iraq the curse of an unproven economic theory (we did the same to Russia a decade ago and you can see the consequences for yourself in the new Russian maffia and in the old people who are now starving on their fixed pensions) but we have done this with a workforce whose main claim to competence is fervent Republicanism. Never mind if the person has no experience or training; what matters is a stint at the Heritage Foundation:

If the occupiers often seemed oblivious to reality, one reason was that many jobs at the C.P.A. went to people whose qualifications seemed to lie mainly in their personal and political connections — people like Simone Ledeen, whose father, Michael Ledeen, a prominent neoconservative, told a forum that "the level of casualties is secondary" because "we are a warlike people" and "we love war."
Still, given Mr. Bremer's economic focus, you might at least have expected his top aide for private-sector development to be an expert on privatization and liberalization in such countries as Russia or Argentina. But the job initially went to Thomas Foley, a Connecticut businessman and Republican fund-raiser with no obviously relevant expertise. In March, Michael Fleischer, a New Jersey businessman, took over. Yes, he's Ari Fleischer's brother. Mr. Fleischer told The Chicago Tribune that part of his job was educating Iraqi businessmen: "The only paradigm they know is cronyism. We are teaching them that there is an alternative system with built-in checks and built-in review."

More generally, I wonder about the wisdom of focusing so much on the 'free markets' paradigm in a country where so many people are living off what we'd call welfare checks from the country's oil revenues. One can't just skip from one extreme to the other, all the time dodging bullets and scimitars, and one can't have any kind of functioning markets without a functioning infrastructure (roads, bridges, electricty, water), and infrastructure requires government expenditures.

It's also not fun to watch an ahistoric theory being forced upon people who have a very specific history, religion and culture; none of which seems to support the basic assumptions of the theory. I can well imagine a handful of rich Iraqis gaining the fruits of all this theorizing while the rest of the country dodges forgotten land mines and tries not to starve.

Free Iraq?

Of course I wish them luck, and luck is what they need. That the handover came two days before the planned date may be due to some terrorist plot to be foiled, but it is equally likely that this change was made so as to maximize the benefits of the event to the Bush administration. Consider that the Supreme Court gave Bush at least a partial slap on the fingers today. It would be nice to have something else that the media can talk about while pretending not to have time for the Supreme Court decisions. Jeez but I've become cynical in the last four years...

So what is the new free Iraq going to look like? Several possibilities come to mind: a country torn apart by civil war, a country which will put Taliban to shame in its eagerness to enforce extremism, a little U.S. lackey country and so on. The most recent suggestion comes from the new Iraq administration, and that is a country under martial law. Maybe a martial law is needed to give the Iraqis some peace and time to recover, both emotionally and physically, from the operation of having been liberated. But a country under a martial law is not a free country, and let's not pretend that it is.

President Bush likes the idea of a martial law:

"Iraqis know what we know, that the best way to defend yourself is to go on the offensive," he said, speaking at a news conference with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain.

Remember that when you interpret Bush's words in the future. He also likes the new leaders of Iraq. I wonder why:

"They're gutsy, courageous and, as they say in Texas, they're stand-up guys," he said. "They'll lead. They'll lead their people to a better day."

It would be lovely if all that was needed in a leader was gutsiness and courage and being a stand-up guy, so lovely. But brains and some empathy would be nice, too. Maybe I'm just too picky for this world.

The Supremes Say

A very important day for democracy and the rule of law, I'd say. The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that there indeed are limits to what this administration can do to the detainees, whether American citizens or not:

In two crucial decisions today on the scope of presidential wartime powers, the Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration's claim that it can hold suspected terrorists or "enemy combatants" on American soil without giving them a day in court.
The court said detainees, whether American citizens or not, retain their rights, at least to a legal hearing, even if they are held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Guantanamo Bay is under U.S. control and thus appropriately within the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, the high court ruled.
The president's constitutional powers, even when supported by Congress in wartime, do not include the authority to close the doors to an independent review of the legality of locking people up, the justices said.
"We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in Hamdi et al v. Rumsfeld.

The two cases that were decided today are Hamdi et al. vs. Rumsfeld and Rasul et al. vs. Bush (don't you just love those terms?). The Hamdi case concerns the rights of American citizens and the Rasul case those of foreigners who have been detained as enemy combatants and are now held in a location under U.S. control. In both cases the Court argued that the detainees must have at least the right to some kind of legal hearing. As expected, Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas dissented on the decision concerning foreigners' rights to a legal hearing.

These decisions are wonderful, and made me skip and jump from joy. Which is really quite sad, as their contents are what any sane person would expect from a democratic country with an evolved legal system and values. So far have we strayed from such an ideal, I guess, that I fully expected something less from the Supremes. I'm glad I was proved wrong, for once.

I made a Mistake...

And this one I can't hide. I deleted the post about prostitution in Iraq by accident, and I never copied it anywhere. It was mainly just a link to the story in Washington Post, so not that much was lost, but when the post went the comments went with it. I do apologize for that and will try to do better in the future.

Fahrenheit 9/11

I'm going out now to see it. The fuss here in the Snakepit Inc., all of us looking for something that would make me look like your average run-of-the-mill recanting wingnut (I want to use this outing for a good purpose)! We've decided on a very prim look with a flowery dress and white pumps and a handbag, but the look is beginning to unravel at the edges. Some hair coming out of the bun, some smeared lipstick, perhaps, and some very strong-smelling cough drops. And lots of tissues; I plan to weep buckets. Which of course I would do anyway.

More seriously, I'm going to post more once I get back, but if you want to you can use the comments to tell what you thought of the movie if you have seen it or even if you haven't.


-------------
I have seen it now. The theater was sold out, as theaters have been all over the country this weekend, and the audience gave the film a spontaneous applause at the end, as also seems to happen all over the country.

My impressions about Fahrenheit 9/11 are a little bit like my impressions about life: good and bad, all jumbled up in complicated ways. The whole movie looked to me like fireworks, the way the storyline ran around and suddenly erupted into a major joke or something painfully poignant. In fact, there were many storylines: the legitimacy of the administration, the bin Laden connections of the Bush family, the 9/11 massacres and how the president coped with this emergency, oil and its relationship to warfare and the utter inanity of the needless blood-shedding and destruction of lives in so many different ways in Iraq. At times I felt like watching a speeded-up rerun of my own recent memories about the politics of this country, but then something new would be added to the story, something that would make me go "ooh" and "aah" like when I watch fireworks. Yet the underlying plot is really about class in the United States, and its inadmissibility as a concept in public debates. Even Moore sneaks it in without calling it what it is: that the rules for the poor are different than the rules for the rich, that the poor are fighting the wars that the rich got us into.

This is of course one of Moore's major themes, and he deserves kudos for persisting on it. I believe that the public debate in the U.S. would be immeasurable richer and more meaningful if we did take class more seriously. And in his movie he shows us how class interlinks with patriotism, with serving ones country and even with who will die and when.

And of course I cried when watching the movie. It was hard not to, while listening to a woman telling how she heard about her son's death, or while seeing the damage that war does to little children. But I laughed, too, at the silly one-liners and the funny juxtapositions of politicians words against each other. And on the use of spit as a hair spray...

There has been a lot of debate about the meaning of Fahrenheit 9/11, especially whether it really is a documentary, or perhaps just sarcasm or propaganda; whether it is 'fair and balanced'. I don't think that a documentary can ever be objectively neutral, and no really good film would avoid trying to affect the emotions of the viewer. Whether Moore intends his movie to be seen as sarcasm is not clear, but considering that it opens with a 'dream scene', I think that he would agree with me in seeing our whole lives as a kind of sarcastic dream by someone else. All he is really doing with this movie is showing us the other sides: of politics, of politicians, of war, of suffering, of wealth.

So, yes, I'd recommend going to see this film. Still, it didn't affect me as strongly as I expected, given the prior accolades I had read. The most probable reason (other my cold and callous character) is that I have spent the last year reading blogs and other sources of news on the internet, and very little in the information of the movie was new to me. Still, to show something by using living pictures, sound and every single emotional device that filmmakers govern is different than reading about it in a newspaper or blog. It's a more direct way to the brain and heart of the audience, and as we desperately need the American public to hear both sides of the story, and as this side of the story has so long been neglected and misrepresented as "America-hating", I believe that Moore's movie is an important one to see by as many people as possible. And no, it's not an anti-military movie; if anything, it is an ode to the common soldier.

Babble, babble

I can't find anything interesting to say today. Is this the beginning of the end? Or the end of the beginning? Wiser bloggers may know.
My migraine is over, and as usual it left me on a very pleasant endorphin high for a day or so, when I went around hugging the car mechanics and the bakers and now have all sorts of related difficulties.

I feel an incredible amount of guilt about not blogging on the Iraq situation daily. It's a dreadful mess as anyone who reads blogs knows, and it's not going to look much prettier for a long time. People die all the time there as anyone who reads blogs knows also, and the United States is not exactly managing anything very well. To write about it all seems so futile, but not to write about it seems to give it no importance. So I hover somewhere inbetween, all the time burdened by the blogger's guilt. Maybe it would be enough to summarize the situation as dire and getting direr all the time?

Another blogging area that gives me guilt is John Kerry. He is of course the candidate to vote for in the next elections, as he is the only reasonable candidate being presented for our consideration. But I'd love it if he could give me something better to write about than the fact that he is actually quite human and reasonable and intelligent. Do something, John! Though of course he doesn't have to do anything, as in comparison to his rival he looks like someone zooming fast in the right direction.

And then there is sex. Should I write more about the touch of a questing tongue on the loved one's back than about the feeling of chocolate on the same tongue? So many on the internet look for sex, and I feel like a fraud when googling 'old men having sex with snakes' gives them nothing but my words. Just to clarify: the snakes don't want to have sex with old men or any sort of humans. They prefer to eat them.

The final conundrum is the dogs and their eagerness to blog. I keep telling them that there are hardly any other dogs who read, so there is no market for their endeavors, but Henrietta just wants to fume rebellion and Hank, well, who knows what Hank wants the keyboard for.
They both remind me of my words a long time ago (deep in nectar I was then anyway) that the Snakepit Inc. is a democracy, and they should have equal dibs on the blog. Either that or they threaten to go public with my address. I'm going to send them to e-bay one day.

But one thing I do know: Go and buy some strawberries! This is the time of the year for them.

The Laughing Fox

Via the Hamster:

NBC Nightly News aired a package by George Lewis describing this week's L.A. police beating, and aired video from FOX & Friends as the beating happened live:
Lewis: The people on one cable network laugh about it
[Cut to video of FOX News Channel]
E.D. Hill: Well I guest that guy's done for the day
Brian Kilmeade: It's gonna be hard to -- Whoa
Hill: Whoa!
Kilmeade: Takin' a few swings
Lewis: But the activists are not amused...

That's fair and unbiased for you. Who else would have made sure that the American public also gets the point that beating on an unarmed man can be fun to watch? Aren't you glad that we live in a country where the Fox News unearths the real news for us?

Savage Knows Women!

Here is what Michael Savage has to say about women:

From the June 22 broadcast of the nationally syndicated Savage Nation:
SAVAGE: But women in America don't really like anger. They don't even like the news, I don't know if you know that. They just want it to be calm, and safe -- and they want girl talk all the time. So I'll talk in a quiet, soothing voice today so that women don't get scared and run away. I'll make it friendly for women.
[...]
SAVAGE: Then again I just scared the women away from the show -- the women aren't outraged in America. No they want girl talk. They wanna hear about the latest movie -- perhaps BOTOX, like Barbara Boxer ... you know."

Just a reminder for all who think that the world is now full of fair and sane people, that the fights of feminism are all in the past, and that to be a feminist today means you hate men, as what other reason could there possibly be to be a feminist for?

But of course Michael Savage is an utter idiot, and we should ignore what he says. Then tell me why he has a public arena for spouting off like that while I, a real, brand-marked goddess have nothing but a crappy free blog? Oh no, I get the answer. It's because I don't like anger and news and prefer talking about BOTOX. What a good idea! Maybe inject some around the droopy lips of Michael Savage? Or if that doesn't work, we could always go for Superglue.

M.I.G.R.A.I.N.E.

At first you fear you will die. Then you fear you won't.

Something Puzzling

Why do we say: "Go fuck yourself!", when we are angry at someone? (Interpret the 'we' here as a general, most of us, kind of 'we'.) And why is giving good head a very bad insult on most blog comment lines?
And why is someone a fucking idiot?

I mean, after all we are telling the person to do something very enjoyable in most of these cases. What is it about sexuality that makes us use one of the few things that is also called 'heaven on earth' as the worst insult we can hurl at somebody? I have never really understood this.

The reason may lie deep in the Calvinistic underbelly of America, but not everybody has roots in Calvinism. Or is the reason something to do with a combination of yearning and loathing in sex? A desire to be free of the need for the 'other', which seems to have inordinate powers of attraction? Or perhaps simple misogyny, combined with the assumed hierarchy of power in sex, with the man on top?

Why not wish someone a long and loveless life instead? Wouldn't that be an insult we could all wholeheartedly support?

The Transmale Nation

An article with the same name in a recent issue of the Village Voice discusses the new generation of female-to-male transgendered individuals, now with much more variation in their gender identity labels:

" masculine-identified dykes, bois, and trans guys"

It seems that the transmen are now seeking wider recognition and publicity. Which is all good. Or is it? A very old message seems to be lodged within this new revolution:

Whatever their sexual orientation, most transmales remain in queer women's spaces because they feel safe there. Acceptance is growing in this community, but there still are dykes who gripe that all butch women are turning into boys, and feminists who label transmen misogynists out to gain male privilege. It's true that some transmen ridicule women, but no more than "real" men do—and there are feminists and lesbians who ridicule femininity. So what's the difference?

What's the difference indeed? Well, for one thing ridiculing women and ridiculing femininity are not exactly the same thing. For another, it's not that clear to me that just because we already have many misogynistic men we should not care about adding to their numbers. And perhaps most importantly, I get this eerie feeling from the article that it is now fine to look down on women because any woman who doesn't like it can go and get a sex change. Sort of joining the enemy you can't beat?

Not that this article necessarily reflects the true sentiments of transmales in general or even the sentiments of those interviewed for it. But they surely reflect the sentiments of somebody, most probably the author. And these particular sentiments are not wholesome. Just saying.


------
Thanks to Mrs. Jones for the link.

Ron Reagan on Larry King Live, June 23, 2004

A very interesting interview with the son of the late president. Here's a short excerpt from it for the benefits of those who were doing something more interesting last night:

KING: You said, dad was also a deeply unabashedly religious man, but he never made the mistake of wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage. Were you referring to the president?

REAGAN: You know, it's interesting.

KING: Everyone thought that.

REAGAN: I know. I wasn't watching TV much after I delivered the eulogy for a few days. But after a couple of days I started getting calls from people saying, boy you really stirred something up, didn't you? I thought, well, what? Well, you know, the stuff you said about Bush. I said, I didn't say anything about Bush, why would I mention George W. Bush in my father's eulogy?

No, no, no, no, the stuff about the religion. I thought, ha, funny, you then everybody thought I was talking about George W. Bush. And then I heard -- everybody thought I was talking about George -- but people connected with George W. Bush thought I was talking about George W. Bush. And then I began to think, maybe I was, I just didn't know it.

KING: Do you think he wears his religion on his sleeve? He certainly refers to it more than your father ever did.

REAGAN: Well, you know, there was that answer he gave to the question about, did you talk to your father about going into Iraq? No, I talked to a higher father, you know, the almighty. When you hear somebody justifying a war by citing the almighty, God, I get a little worried, frankly. The other guys do that a lot. Osama bin Laden's always talking about Allah, what Allah wants, that he's on his side. I think that's uncomfortable.

KING: Do you have thoughts on the war?

REAGAN: Sure, I have thoughts on the war.

KING: And what do you think?

REAGAN: And I think we lied our way into the war.

KING: You think it's a mistake?

REAGAN: Absolutely, a terrible mistake. Terrible foreign policy error. We didn't have to do it. It was optional. And we were lied to. The American public was lied to about WMD, the connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam, which is virtually nonexistent except for fleeting contacts. But they're still trying to pull that one off now, Cheney and all are out there flogging that.

KING: Can I gather from that, that you will not support this president?

REAGAN: No, I won't.

KING: Will you support his opponent?

REAGAN: I will vote for whoever the viable candidate is who can defeat George W. Bush, yes.

Is this So?

That a smug self-centeredness is the most important requirement in a media political commentator? It does seem to survive most testing I've done in my mind. Think of Christopher Hitchens, for example.

This theory may explain why there are so many right-winger pundits, for one thing. And why they seem so unbearable to me. Maybe I have been wrong all these years, and never just got the point of this all media stuff? Now all we lefties need is a training academy in pompousness and self-puffing.

Some Good Quotes

From the most recent issue of the Utne magazine:

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.
Penny Bright, anti-GMO activist

O the of it all.
Edward Gorey, artist and writer.

I've modelled my characters after women like my mother, who was strong. I am happily married to a strong woman. I love it when my wife holds her ground and says:"You're out of line." One must be able to say that to ones parents, ones spouse, the president of ones country. For me that is democracy.
Nuruddin Farah, Somali novelist

Wal-Mart and Women

Judge Martin J. Jenkins of Federal District Court in San Francisco has decided that a class action sex discrimination suit against Wal-Mart can go ahead. The suit, which could cover as many as 1.6 million women who have worked for Wal-Mart, is unprecedented in its scale and could create important precedents.

What is it that Wal-Mart will be sued for? According to the six women who filed the case in June of 2001, the retailer discriminates against women in pay and promotion and retaliates against those who complain. The New York Times tells the tale of one Betty Duke, a 54-year old African-American woman who has worked for Wal-Mart for nearly a decade. During this time she kept asking to be promoted, but she said that when jobs became available they were often filled without being posted. Ms. Duke also stated that she was disciplined for returning late from breaks, whereas male employees were not. A year ago her salary was finally raised from less than $9 to $12.53 an hour by a new manager.

The more general statistical evidence argues similar things. According to a study by a statistician hired by the plaintiffs it took women an average of 4.38 years from date of hire to be promoted to assistant manager, when it took men only 2.86 years. To reach a store manager level, women took on average 10.12 years and men 8.64 years. The average salaries of female managers were lower ($89,280 per annum, compared to $105,682 per annum). Hourly workers who were women were also paid 6.7 percent less than those who were men. In a study that compared Wal-Mart to other retailers in the same field the research found that the percentages of in-store managers who were female were 56.5% for Wal-Mart's competitors and only 34.5% for Wal-Mart.

The court case will try to explain the cause of these discrepancies, and perhaps also to account for comments like this from one Wal-Mart manager:

"Men are here to make a career and women aren't. Retail is for housewives who just need to earn extra money."

Of course, the explanation Wal-Mart has will differ from that the plaintiffs support. From the plaintiffs' point of view the explanation is sex discrimination which is still illegal in the United States (though for how long remains unclear if we get another four years of Bush). Wal-Mart will probably argue for societywide explanations that rely on women's lesser interest in being promoted and/or paid more. In other words, Wal-Mart will try to show that the adverse outcomes for women were based on either the women's own choices or societal inculcation of different values in men and women. Anything but Wal-Mart's own actions.

The crucial question in deciding on the most likely explanation in court is the amount of evidence the plaintiffs can gather on actual cases where women were either turned down for promotion when less qualified men were promoted or where women were clearly paid less for the same work. Evidence on retaliation is also important to obtain for the plaintiffs.

Lack of this type of evidence was the reason a similar case against Sears ended in the plaintiffs' loss in the 1980s. The promotion and pay statistics in that case were very similar to those mentioned above, but Sears won the case, largely because the plaintiffs had not gathered enough detailed evidence on actual women who had been denied promotion. Thus, statistical numbers which show that women do worse than men are in themselves not adequate proof of discriminatory behavior on the behalf of the employees. (Sears also had a little help from the judge that was presiding over the case, then a recent Reagan appointee to the bench, as well as from a feminist expert witness on Sears's side whose testimony argued that women are culturally less interested in promotions and higher paying but nonfeminine jobs).

The Wal-Mart case is unlikely to come to court for another year at least, but it's interesting to speculate about its likely outcome. I would argue that the study showing much higher female manager numbers in competitors' stores is pretty bad for Wal-Mart, as this piece of evidence can be used to refute any argument Wal-Mart might make which is based on women's characteristic differences from men in the culture. If other stores had a different experience, then Wal-Mart differences in pay and promotion can't be cultural. Of course, if Wal-Mart judges the likelihood of winning the case as too small, it will probably go for an out-of-court settlement.

Poor Wal-Mart. It is having employee trouble on several fronts at the same time. It is "facing allegations that management bullied staff into overtime without pay and regularly breached child labor laws." It is also examined for the possible use of illegal immigrant contractors, and unions have long been complaining that Wal-Mart is not allowing them to organize its workers.
Well, one reaps as one sows, they say.

Dear Diary

Today I woke up and had breakfast. It was cheese on toast if you're interested. I had my usual morning thoughts, about the meaning of life and if I really needed to buy more toothpaste.

Then I got dressed, and had the usual dressing thoughts, about why there is never anything to wear that is a) clean b) won't attract comments on the streets and c) won't strangle or chafe me somewhere.
I also hadn't finished the meaning of life thought.

Then I spent ten minutes looking for socks. What happens to socks? Who loves to divorce socks? Where do the ex-socks go when they die? Does it matter if I wear one black and one red sock?

Then I turned on the news and had the usual news-thoughts about why death isn't that bad really, and why they never advertize razor blades with the news shows. As usual, I quickly shed such disgustingly emotional ideas as very unpatriotic.

And then I sat down to write the Diary of a Boring Goddess in a Boring World. This is how far I've gotten.

Polio in Africa

The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning about a possible polio epidemic in Africa. Polio is a water-born disease that hits children especially hard. It can cause paralysis, deformation, muscular atrophy and even death. The new polio numbers are almost double last year's numbers:

The number of polio cases globally has reached 333 so far this year, almost double the number for the same period last year. Total cases last year reached 783.
In Nigeria, where Muslim leaders have refused to participate in immunization program, 257 cases have been reported this year.
"There is no question that the virus is spreading at an alarming pace," said Dr. David Heymann, who is overseeing the U.N. health agency's effort to eradicate the disease.

Polio is preventable through immunization. A major reason for the recent increase is the Muslim leaders' refusal to support this. Some of them believe that the vaccines contain substances which will make Muslim women infertile, and that such doctored vaccines are a Western plot against Islam. It seems like a good idea to have some Muslim researchers subject the vaccine to laboratory analysis to falsify this claim. Or would this not work? Sometimes I really think that grandmothers should be put in charge of this world for a generation or so.

Nosiness

I can't sleep. If your name wasn't what it is, what would you like to be called and why?

Tonight I'd like to be called Daniel. Something to do with the lion's den. But there is this silly convention about sex-specific names, and Daniel is one of those, so I could also go for Alma, after alma mater.
If I have to stay within goddess names, then Istar would be my pick of the day, though I don't want to have twenty breasts like she has in one sculpture I saw. Imagine the cost in bras!

John Kerry Is Rich and on Vacation!

A 32-foot Contender, the gentleman's fishing vessel, $150,000.
Yuzu-dusted day boat sea scallops at the restaurant Pearl, $36.
Two tubes for a Serotta road bike, $8
A house with a ketchup heiress, $9 million.
Basic equipment for kite-surfing, $2,500.
A writeup of all this by Jody Wilgoren in the NYT, priceless.

Yes, that's how the venerably old lady of liberal journalism lets an article on the Democratic presidential candidate be treated. This is liberalism, I guess, if liberalism is smearing everything with a sizable dose of snakeoil and selling it to the lowest bidder in taste and intelligence.

The gist of the article is that John Kerry is rich. He is rich because he has a wealthy wife. This is very bad, and should make all potential voters shy away from voting for him. Instead, they should vote for George Bush who is also rich. He is rich because he has wealthy parents. This is not bad at all, because he is a Republican and perfectly happy with the idea that only those who are rich matter. But Kerry shouldn't be rich because he is not perfectly happy with the idea that only those who are rich should matter. Got it?

Summer Posting Starts

Which doesn't make any difference to me, unless I have to travel to perform some weird snake rites in isolated areas. But it's nice to take note of the change in seasons, to stay in touch with the real events that are happening in nature. For example, now is the time to eat strawberries in northern climates, because now is when they actually want to ripen. Mmmm, fresh strawberries! One of the few things that I can name which is both wickedly delicious, non-fattening and very good for you. Especially wonderful dipped in melted chocolate.

After all that sinful talk, I'd like to give this list of opinions by the so-called Founding Fathers of the United States on the role of religion in the country they were creating:

"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian Doctrine."
~George Washington

"I do not find in orthodox christianity one redeeming feature."
~Thomas Jefferson

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My mind is my own church."
~Thomas Paine

"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give the assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
~Abraham Lincoln

(I got these from a commenter on a thread at Atrios, but I failed to copy the signature line, and now I can't locate the comment.)

My Apologies

for posting my short story so near to Fathers' Day. This was not intentional, and I was thinking of deleting the story, but it seems a bit late for that now. The posting was triggered by something in my private life, and I wasn't paying attention to the holiday schedules. In any case, my story is not about fathers especially but one particular type of family abuse.

Fathers in general are like mothers in general, people doing a difficult job with very little help. And for that they get one shopping day a year from the wider society. Though of course parenting has its own innate rewards. I heard a story today from a father who had to get up this morning at 6:30 a.m., because that's when his daughter's pancakes were ready to be eaten...

About Monsters

This is a short story. It might not be good to read for anyone who has suffered from childhood abuse. Come to think of it, it might not be that great a read for anybody (it's pretty horrible), but this is my blog and I want to publish it.

Pollyanna is a monster. She doesn't know it yet; she thinks that she is a little girl, but her father is a monster and her mother too weak to offset him. So Pollyanna is a monster, or at least will be one when she grows up. It is in her blood. It is written.

Right now she is playing, pretending. She pretends that she is Jesus. She stands on a rock, gauging the distance to the ground (it isn't very much), wondering if jumping down would kill her, wondering if anyone would miss her. This makes her pleased in a sickly sweet way, like finding the hidden places in her body which she is not to touch or she'll get beaten. These are the slender roots of monsterhood tentatively exploring Pollyanna. It isn't too late to uproot them yet, but it will be.

She will have a choice, of course. She could avoid completed monsterhood by becoming a mother of monsters instead; an empty receptacle. Most people would prefer that she choose this; most people are uncomfortable with fully fledged female monsters. Monsterhood seems to belong to men. But Pollyanna will choose differently; she will walk the path less trodden and perfect her own monsterhood.

She is quite a pretty little girl and very intelligent. She knows that her father is disappointed in her. But she is too young to understand that he would be disappointed in anything , that disappointment is what monsters feel, except when they inflict pain. Pollyanna searches herself for blame and finds plenty to work with. The pain will come later. Now it is enough that she has learned to strangle her doll, that she has learned to identify with the evil queen rather than with Snow White. Things are moving according to plan.

--------

Her father is restless. The monster inside him is hungry and wants to tear at something. Its eyes fall on Pollyanna, playing quietly on the floor. Her father thinks of things that might hurt her. He is not a smart or well-read man and his imagination is feeble. All he notes is her sex, but that is sufficient for the monster's needs. Pollyanna's father calls Pollyanna a whore, a whore's pup, a bitch. She doesn't know what most of these words mean but she knows about puppies. They are nice. So why is daddy so angry?

He tells her that she is useless, a burden, that all women are useless burdens. He kicks her. When she cries, he yells at her for being a shivering heap of jelly. Pollyanna doesn't know what to do, how to behave. She hides in a dark closet; her insides all locking up like so many dark closets, each containing a word or two, an expression of hatred on a man's face, saliva shooting from an angry mouth. She hides, waiting, growing thick shells everywhere. She thinks of something else: how the spider feeds herself, how the wind blows through her web. She hides like a small animal, waiting patiently for the predator to leave.

The predator doesn't leave, of course. The predator in this case owns the prey, it even owns the prey's love. Pollyanna's father is not a bad man, truly, only obsessed by his own monster. He even feels slightly nauseous after his outburst, but comforts himself by thinking how much he had benefited from a harsh upbringing. One day, he thinks, she'll thank me for this.

--------

None of this is credible. Monsters can't be explained, can't be made credible. They are human. Maybe it matters that Pollyanna's father was sent to wage war at sixteen, that a grenade falling next to him turned his best and only friend into spaghetti sauce all over him, that he couldn't wash it off for hours. Maybe it matters that his mother had a child every year and rejected this one in her exhaustion, that his father was also a monster. Then again, maybe none of this matters. All this is human.

--------

Pollyanna dreams that night. She dreams of killing her father with an axe; splitting him into two identical halves. She dreams that each of these halves splits again and again until the world is full of monster fathers. She wakes up and vomits. She knows about murderers going to hell and about the necessity to love the father. She now knows that she is wholly evil. The baby monster inside her sighs contentedly, sucking its thumb. A potentially perilous moment has been successfully turned into another step on the road to full monsterhood.



--------

Creating monsters takes delicate handling. It is important not to go too far too soon; this kills the victim. It is important to give her lulls from torture, time to gather hope and other interests, because these, at the right moment, are the substance from which the next layer of the monster will be built through careful destruction. One opens the door to the victim's cage, one turns away, whistling with apparent unconcern, one waits. When the victim finally believes her eyes and gathers enough courage to try to step outside, one slams the door on some fragile bone in her body. Simple.

But Pollyanna's father is not inhabited by a great strategist. Sometimes they forget about her for weeks, even months, while enjoying other escapades. This means that her monster is growing slowly; it might end up a puny puff of evil air. And her mother, weak as she is, still offers some resistance to the plan. So do her few friends, her books, and, later, some teachers. There is cause for some discomfort.

Still, most people won't stand in the way of the father's rights to his daughter. What helps even more is the nature of the barbs Pollyanna's father and his monster are inserting in her center: they are dipped in misogyny and Pollyanna doesn't have enough closets or shells for all of them. They will fester nicely, and once she is beyond her father's control there will be enough others who take over the task of feeding her monster. It will, after all, grow up healthy and powerful.


--------

What will they become, Pollyanna and her monster, when they are grown up? The possibilities are fascinating. Sometimes the shells the victim has built are so strong that the monster can't get out. It will then corrode the victim from the inside, slowly eating her up, tidbit by tidbit, until all that remains is an empty husk, like the ones bumblebees leave in the fall. These husks act quite normally, and have many good uses. But they are not perfected monsters, and we know that Pollyanna will reach perfection.

She could become a walking weapon, with breasts like hand grenades, a toothed vagina, a forked tongue. She could lure men into her bed and their deaths, or into madness, castration, womanliness. This would be too easy. Pollyanna's talents and promise are far greater.

Perhaps she'll take her poisoned barbs and use them against other little girls. Perhaps she'll wear austere, expensive suits and give measured speeches defending the sanctity of family, the primacy of parental rights. Perhaps she'll do research that proves little girls everywhere to be temptresses, seductresses, sirens; that proves they lack human worth. She'll tell us, in a bracing voice, that misogyny is but part of a healthy sexual instinct. She and her monster will take CEOs and politicians to their cold bed, choked in platinum chains, and orgasm, together, when the pain is almost unbearable.

She might reach even higher, for the stars. Think of our little Pollyanna leading her own army, her own country, with weapons we can only imagine today. Think of queen Pollyanna, with lips the color of dried blood, with long, raking nails, with garlands of human bones around her brow. Think of this. Why not? Many monsters end up on top. Pollyanna is smart and she will be well trained. Her father might, one day, indeed look at her with pride, hardly believing that he helped to create this exquisite creature.

--------

All this is still in the future. Right now Pollyanna is under her bed, not breathing very much, not moving at all, sucking the ear of her worn-out stuffed rabbit. She strains her ears to listen for his steps, falling heavily in the room, to listen for his breath getting angrier and angrier. She tries to be elsewhere, by the brook, watching yellow leaves floating on the water's surface, seeing them as boats with white sails, sailing somewhere far away. She tries, but it is so hard. Will he find her? Are the footsteps getting closer? She hurts all over, the doors of her inner closets bang open and shut in the wind, the boats sink, each in a little whirlpool. Are the footsteps getting closer?

They are.