Today's Deep Thought

From who else but Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: No, but you're not going to lose credibility if you smear people. People like to read smear stuff.

From his January 14 program on the made-up lefty-bloggers-on-the-take scandal. He was referring to the blogosphere but as is common in our utterances he said a lot more about himself than the apparent objects of his rant.

Maureen Dowd and the Death of Feminism

I'm doing some research on Maureen Dowd, an op-ed columnist at the New York Times, and her opinions on feminism. I have so far waded through several pages of Google and I have failed to find one single instance where she doesn't state that feminism is dead.

In fact, she keenly latches to anything, anything at all, that could be used to prove feminism pointless, a failure, and dead in any case, even if the piece of news she uses is obviously total crap. What is it with Maureen and feminism? What is it with women who insist on denying their only existence? For that's what Maureen's rantings boil down to: that no woman in her position should exist.

Sometimes I think that she might be like Winnie-the-Pooh, you know, a bear with a very small head. But sometimes I think that she knows the smell of money better than many otherwise excellent goddesses.

Why Men Marry Their Secretaries?

I took a hot bath tonight. I always read in the tub and there was nothing else left to read but this magazine The Week which somehow is sent to me though I never subscribed to it. It pretends to be a compilation of all the important news issues from all over the world, but doesn't quite make it. I find the flippant and fluffy style annoying, probably because it reminds me of my own writing at its worst.

Just as I was all ready to melt into the hot water I spotted a piece about men marrying their secretaries. I have an in-built feminist radar; if there is one stupid story on television or one biased article in a newspaper, trust me to glum onto that one. It's a fact, and I have interpreted it as meaning that the Great Snake wants me to talk about all that crap. So here it goes:

Men would rather marry their secretaries than their bosses, new research suggests. Psychologists at the University of Michigan found that men seeking long-term relationship prefer women in subordinate jobs, rather than women above them on the corporate ladder.

How did the psychologists figure out all that? They showed 120 men and 208 women pictures of people of the opposite sex (presumably the subjects were guaranteed heterosexual) who were identified as hypothetical supervisors or underlings. Then the subjects were asked to rate the pictures in attractiveness for the purposes of a one-night stand and a long-term relationship. Women's ratings showed no difference by supervisor status in either of these cases, and neither did men's ratings for the one-night stand case. But men supposedly (I haven't checked the original study statistics)preferred subordinates when the rating was for attractiveness in a long-term relationship.

Ok. Assuming that the study results are correct, how can we explain them? Here comes the silly part, as explained by one of the authors of the study, Dr. Stephanie Brown:

The findings, she says, reflect males' evolutionary need for mates who don't pose the specter of "paternal uncertainty". Men may consider subordinate women less likely to cheat on them, Brown explains, and "female infidelity is a severe reproductive threat to males in long-term relationships."

This was the point at which I slipped underwater and got everything wet in the bathroom. Because I was laughing so hard. Evolutionary psychology is one of the reasons why I'm not fully happy with evolutionary theories. The other evolutionary scientists should make this pack shape up. So much of their research is on this level and much of the rest is outright misogynistic.

What do I mean by this criticism? Well, consider how the explanation completely ignores societal effects. In the United States, the Southern Baptist Church explicitly advocates female submission in marriage and so do the Promise Keepers. Many individuals probably still hold these beliefs, though it's interesting that men appear more likely to do so than women. Also, there are still many more female subordinate jobs out there than female bosses. A female boss may be something that is viewed as an anachronism by the study subjects, so that the occupational category in itself may serve as a signal that the women whose pictures are marked with the boss label are somehow aberrant.

Also consider the explanation within the evolutionary psychology framework: This school has always argued that women will select men based on their power and wealth because powerful and wealthy men are better providers for the children and thus make it more likely that a particular woman passes her genes on to the next generations. But this study appears to find that women didn't rate power any higher than the lack of it! Yet the result we are asked to focus on is not this one, but the one about the men fearing female infidelity. And where is the evidence that women in more powerful positions are more likely to be unfaithful? I have never heard of any such evidence, so the whole conclusion seems extremely far-fetched.

Reading this article ruined my lovely bathtime and I hope that I have taken sufficient revenge here. I didn't even point out how the article "sells itself" by exaggerating the actual meaning of the study in its title.

What Do You Think of This?

By this I mean the latest Dilbert cartoon which can be viewed here. It looks like the joke is on women in this one.
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Thanks to Book Addict for the link.

Masculine is Bad; Feminine is Also Bad

It seems that this is what I think, at least according to the The Leadership Institute which trains future conservatives to be political leaders. The website of the Institute has a handy checklist of the values of the "Ultra Left", and one of those values is that lefties think that masculine and feminine are both bad.

As the terms are not defined it's hard for me to know how to respond. What do these guys mean by "masculine" and "feminine"? They don't say, but a careful reading suggests that they are talking about men bringing the bacon home and women cooking it.

They may also be talking about the possibility that women and men have different sex roles because the conservative god has made us that way (there is a Phyllis Schaffly quote to that effect), or the atheist wingnut's version of this: that we are fixed by evolution so that men are active and horny and women are passive and coy. In any case, the argument boils down to the idea that conservatives like strictly segragated roles for men and women whereas liberals don't.

There is some truth to that, of course, because sex roles set in stone will hurt all those people who don't fit into these roles. They will also make equal opportunity very hard if not impossible. But the Leadership Institute doesn't pay much attention to this; instead, they give us a few extremist feminist quotes (some from demonstrators in protests, for example) to show how crazy feminists are. Well, as you know (if you have read my blog before), extremist quotes tend to show that the extremist quoted is crazy. That's why we use them in political debate. The effect is even stronger if the quote is taken out of context (though I never do this as I have high moral standards). And I should point out that the extremists I quote on my blog are the ones who say that they are 51% of this country which would make them mainstream and their statements nonextremist. Though they still sound crazy.

Studying the wingnuts' views of us can be useful if you can get past the red-hot anger stage. For example, you learn where your ignorant wingnut neighbor gets his talking points and you can prepare for proper responses. You also learn how the real talking points of liberals and progressives and feminists are totally absent on these conservative checklists. There is nothing about domestic violence or equal political participation by sex or labor market discrimination on the Leadership Institute's description of our species. Nothing. Feminists are feminists because they hate masculinity and because they hate femininity, too, and Robin Morgan and Andrea Dworkin are trotted out as the proof. Funnily enough, the countergirls are Phyllis Schaffly and Ann Coulter! Talk about polarization.

I'm not fond of polarization because very few things in this world are truly naturally polarized. But the wingnuts have chosen polarization as their major weapon in the war to annihilate all opposition, and it is so hard to find anything else but opposing polarization to fight them. A non-polarizing response to many of their arguments requires reams and reams of pages about evidence and nuance and all that wimpy stuff, and few will read through it. At least if it's written by me or others who write condensed.

But just to make this very clear: I don't think that masculinity or femininity is bad though I dislike beer can mobiles and furry car dice and pink frills on everything.
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Original link by Biblio.

On Hank and George

The next three posts tell the story of how Hank the Lab met George Bush for the first time and what happened then. It should be made into a movie.

Stage I

What is this? 

Stage II

Yummy! 

Stage III

Slurp 

Today's Action Alert

Today's Action comes from NRDC.

Tell your senators and representative to oppose oil development in the Arctic Refuge!

President Bush and his allies in Congress are planning to use a budget ploy to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to massive oil development in the next 90 days. If they succeed, this extraordinary wildlife nursery will soon be turned into a vast, polluted oil field. Please contact your senators and representative right away and tell them to oppose this sneak attack on the Arctic Refuge.

Here's a sample letter:

Dear [Senator or Representative],

I am deeply opposed to President Bush’s plan for oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. America’s last unspoiled birthing ground for Arctic wildlife should not be sacrificed for the sake of oil company profits and a year’s worth of national energy — especially when we could save even more oil through a modest increase in fuel economy standards.

I am especially outraged that House and Senate leaders are planning to attach Arctic Refuge drilling to the upcoming budget bill. The fate of America’s premiere wildlife refuge should be decided by an open debate and an up or down vote — not by a legislative ploy. Congress does not have a mandate to sacrifice the Arctic Refuge, and I will hold you accountable for your vote and your stewardship of this irreplaceable natural treasure.

Again, I urge you to oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in whatever manner the issue may arise: as part of an energy bill or budget bill, or as a free-standing bill

Sincerely,

[Your Name & Address]



Go to http://www.senate.gov/ to contact your Senators.

Go to http://www.house.gov/writerep/ to contact your Representative.

Thanks for taking today's action!

Our Leader

From here.

From Rush Limbaugh to Ed Schultz

Limbaugh and Schultz are both talkshow hosts, and they both shout and boom, but that's where the similarities stop. Or at least I hope so. For Limbaugh is the arch-wingnut, the man who popularized the hating of liberals and the blaming of feminazis for all the ills of this country, the man who made it politically correct to have such opinions and to express them, loudly. Ed Schultz is a recent convert to liberalism from Wingnuttia. Or at least I hope so. He could be a mercenary rather than a real soldier in the Liberal Front. Well, at least right now he shouts and hollers on our side.

The radio talkshows have been part of the conservative Wingnuttia for at least a decade, and the conventional wisdom has been that liberal talkshows don't sell. Conventional wisdom may be wrong here: Air America Radio, the new liberal radio network, is not doing badly. A Vermont radio station is even getting rid of Rush Limbaugh to fit Air America in:

WKVT-AM 1490 in Brattleboro will replace four of its weekday syndicated conservative talk shows on Jan. 17 with programs from the fledgling liberal radio network Air America, which launched in March.

The station will be the second in Vermont to broadcast Air America programs, which include shows hosted by comedian Al Franken and actress Jeanne Garofalo.

The Brattleboro area is highly liberal in its political beliefs and the Air America shows will be a better fit for the station's listeners than the conservative programs hosted by Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, said WKVT program director Peter Case.

"We're calling this a right-to-left switch," he said. "For many years, our programming leaned to the right, but Brattleboro is a very liberal area and our lineup had to reflect that."

They are also starting to broadcast the Ed Schultz Show.

Talk radio must be an acquired taste because I have a lot of trouble acquiring it; far too much musing without any obvious structure, far too many shouts and bellows and not enough interesting interviewees. But I still listen to Air America whenever I get a chance, and it is nice not to have to curse the radio all the time as I usually do. If only they could get rid of those annoying ads for penis hardeners and herbs which make you smart and slim! I can recite all of them from memory.

If you haven't checked out Air America, you should. Even if your area doesn't have them on radio you can listen over the internet.
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Link to the Vermont story via Media Matters for America.

Always the Bridesmaid....

Not that goddesses have bridesmaids or much marriage, either. But this is a suitable title for a post about my Koufax Award nominations for 2004. These awards are for lefty blogs and named in honor of Sandy Koufax who was a Southpaw baseball player.

I have been nominated in lots of categories, which is wonderful (thank you), but which has also totally stifled my writing style. Life is perverse in that way. Now I have to worry about visitors who might be coming here just to see if I'm any good. I'm very good, of course, but thinking about it is unwholesome.

So what does this have to do with bridesmaids? That's how I feel when I see my name, over and over again, in awe-inspiring company, far too elevated for me. But it also has something to do with the dresses bridesmaids must buy, dresses which will make you look green in the face, which you will never wear again and which will cost you the next month's food budget. And the discomfort of feeling that you are now not only you but also something else, a "bridesmaid", with all the duties going with that role. Like writing excitingly and finding juicy bits of news, even if you have a migraine attack or need to clean the basement.

It also has something to do with the fact that I won't win anything in any of those categories, of course, but not as much as I first feared. Blogging is far too fun for any of this to have more than a short-run impact either way.

Christianity's Foothold in Banda Aceh, Indonesia

Banda Aceh is the center of the earthquake damage, the place where the largest number of victims were found. It is also a very politically sensitive place where fundamentalist Islam is important and where the Indonesian government and the muslim rebels continually clash. Now something new is added to this stew: our very own fundamentalists:

A Virginia-based missionary group said this week that it has airlifted 300 "tsunami orphans" from the Muslim province of Banda Aceh to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, where it plans to raise them in a Christian children's home.

The missionary group, WorldHelp, is one of dozens of Christian, Muslim and Jewish charities providing humanitarian relief to victims of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that devastated countries around the Indian Ocean, taking more than 150,000 lives.

Most of the religious charities do not attach any conditions to their aid, and many of the larger ones -- such as WorldVision, Catholic Relief Services and Church World Service -- have policies against proselytizing. But a few of the smaller groups have been raising money among evangelical Christians by presenting the tsunami emergency effort as a rare opportunity to make converts in hard-to-reach areas.

"Normally, Banda Aceh is closed to foreigners and closed to the gospel. But, because of this catastrophe, our partners there are earning the right to be heard and providing entrance for the gospel," WorldHelp said in an appeal for funds on its Web site this week.

The appeal said WorldHelp was working with native-born Christians in Indonesia who want to "plant Christian principles as early as possible" in the 300 Muslim children, all younger than 12, who lost their parents in the tsunami.

"These children are homeless, destitute, traumatized, orphaned, with nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. If we can place them in a Christian children's home, their faith in Christ could become the foothold to reach the Aceh people," it said.

The website of the group no longer has this message, but it doesn't mean that the group would have changed its mind about it. Individuals who believe that only those who have found Jesus can go to heaven are not going to stop proselytizing just because it would look bad to outside observers.

What are the consequences of trying to plant Christian footholds among devastated people? Maybe Western aid won't be accepted in the future? That would be very sad indeed.
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Thanks to Alishapa in my comments for the link.
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Update: The plan has been dropped because the government of Indonesia refused to allow it. Thanks to Donna in the comments for this link.

The FCC and Armstrong Williams

Armstrong Williams is the journalist who got paid for disseminating government propaganda. Now The Federal Communications Commission has received a few complaints about him:

Jan. 13, 2005 | Washington -- A member of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday the agency should investigate whether conservative commentator Armstrong Williams broke the law by failing to disclose that the Bush administration paid him $240,000 to plug its education policies.

Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, a Democrat, said the agency has received about a dozen complaints against Williams.

"I certainly hope the FCC will take action and fully investigate whether any laws have been broken," Adelstein said at the commission's regular monthly meeting.

None of the other commissioners responded to his statement during the meeting. Afterward, both FCC Chairman Michael Powell, a Republican, and David Solomon, who heads the agency's enforcement bureau, declined to comment.

Note how everything in this government goes by political party lines? The same will soon be true of the judicial system, and as the wingnuts are in power you can rest assured that no case brought by a Democrat will win. It all reminds me of the Soviet Union, probably because a one-party government is a one-party government. I hope that the FCC proves me totally wrong on this one, and that it will vigorously investigate all the journalists who might have taken bribes. But then I also hope that we will all suddenly wake up one morning good and kind.

And the Fight on Evolution in Schools Goes on

A small bump in the road for the creationists:

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the removal of stickers placed in high school biology textbooks that call evolution "a theory, not a fact," saying they were an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

The disclaimers were put in the books by school officials in suburban Cobb County in 2002.

"Adopted by the school board, funded by the money of taxpayers, and inserted by school personnel, the sticker conveys an impermissible message of endorsement and tells some citizens that they are political outsiders while telling others they are political insiders," U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said in his 44-page ruling.

Six parents of students and the American Civil Liberties Union had challenged the stickers in court, arguing they violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

The use of the term "theory" is confusing. There are at least two definitions of this word, one from the scientific community where it is used to describe a connected structure of hypotheses about something, and the other from common parlance where it is used to describe something that might or might not be true. In some ways these are almost the opposites of each other, as a scientific theory, if supported by enough evidence, slowly morphs into what we call facts, whereas the colloquial use of "theory" is almost certainly not going to be validated. The creationists seem to read "theory" in the latter sense, the evolutionist in the former sense.

So that's why it is true that evolution is a theory, but it is untrue that it is "just" a theory.

Wanna Play?

From Alas, a Blog (scroll down; I haven't figured Ampersand's new permalinks yet) I learned about a fun new computer game: Pimp: The Backhanding. You can choose your very own pimp name and then you can slap your hoes! Such fun and so funny. If you're one of those prudish P.C. types, stay away. You'd just spoil the innocent enjoyment of the game.

Some Dog Fun

I've been throwing Hank's chewtoy for her to fetch so that Henrietta the Hound gets a break from being pestered by the Everready Labrador bunny imitation. The chewtoy is a little George Bush doll, and it was wonderful to watch Hank run after it, pick it up by the neck and do the shaking dogs do to break necks of prey animals. Then she retrieved it while all the time making it squeak! The way the Texas boots were dangling from her mouth was priceless. I know that this is not a noble source of enjoyment, but it was very satisfying. I'll put up some pictures on Friday so that you can enjoy it, too.

How to Celebrate January 20th This Year

The following is an e-mail message I received from Katha Pollitt. It has some good ideas for inauguration protests.

Are you wondering how to protest Inauguration Day (January 20)? Here's a
way to make a powerful political point and also help women in need:
"honor" George Bush, the most anti-choice President since
Roe v Wade, by making a donation to the National Network of
Abortion Funds. You know how pro-choice groups sometimes counter
anti-choice demonstrations by asking people to Pledge a Picketer
(give a small sum per demonstrator)? Think of this as Pledge a
President!

NNAF, an umbrella for 102 local abortion funds around the
country, helps poor girls and women with unwanted pregnancies pay for
their abortions. Last year the member funds of NNAF donated $2 million
to help nearly 20,000 poor women across the country-- but the need is
so much greater. By making a contribution to this important work you
not only help women, you send a message to anti-choice Republicans --
and their Democratic friends -- that safe, legal and AFFORDABLE
abortion matters to you and that you are not willing to have women's
wombs turned into a political football to placate religious extremists.


To donate by credit card, go here
and click the “Donate Now” button. Checks made out to NNAF can be
mailed to NNAF, c/o Hampshire College, 893 West Street, Amherst MA
01002-3359. So that we can keep track of special Inaugural donations,
please be sure to write "abortions--Inaugural protest" in the
designation box or memo line. Bonus for on-line donors: If you
dedicate your contribution to George W. Bush, you can send an e-card
from the donation page and let the White House know that you celebrated the inauguration by supporting access to safe abortion.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could raise enough money so that no
woman in our rich country had to continue a crisis pregnancy for lack
of a few hundred dollars? Small donations quickly add up, so whatever
you would like to give, NNAF will be thrilled and grateful to receive
it.


Please forward this e-mail to your friends and post it in your lists!


Katha Pollitt and Jennifer Baumgardner

The Faith-Based Presidency

The Washington Times (owned by the infamous Reverend Moon) has interviewed our Dear Leader on topics as deep as religion and patriotism:

Mr. Bush told editors and reporters of The Washington Times yesterday in an interview in the Oval Office that many in the public misunderstand the role of faith in his life and his view of the proper relationship between religion and the government.
"I think people attack me because they are fearful that I will then say that you're not equally as patriotic if you're not a religious person," Mr. Bush said. "I've never said that. I've never acted like that. I think that's just the way it is.

Is that clear now? Sigh. I can never get this man clear in my head. Even trying to do so gives me a divine-class migraine. Anyway, the interview then tells us what our leader has in store for us in terms of faith-based pork barreling:

Mr. Bush said he has "still got a rigorous agenda" for his faith-based initiative.
The federal government has funneled "about $1.2 billion" to religious groups so far, the president said, and he hopes to improve on that in the next four years.
"What we are going to do in the second term is to make sure that the grant money is available for faith communities to bid on, to make sure these faith-based offices are staffed and open," Mr. Bush said. "But the key thing is, is that we do have the capacity to allow faith programs to access enormous sums of social service money, which I think is important."

The bolding is mine in the above quote, in case you otherwise don't notice the main point of the post. - The whole interview is an interesting one.
We learn that Georgie doesn't believe that an atheist could be a president, though you have to translate to get to this conclusion. In general, Bush's statements remind me of the earnest endeavors of a totally unprepared student in an examination: instead of giving arguments and evidence and examples he just keeps repeating what he feels.