A Petition! Because why not.

Please take a moment to sign Sen. Bernie Sanders' petition for single-payer health care:

Whereas:

• 46 million Americans are currently without health insurance;
• 60 million Americans, both insured and uninsured, have inadequate access to primary care due to a shortage of physicians and other health service providers in their community;
• 100 million Americans have no insurance to cover dental needs;
• 116 million adults, nearly two-thirds of all non-seniors, struggled to pay medical bills, went without needed care because of cost, were uninsured for a time, or were underinsured in the last year;
• The United States spends $2.3 trillion each year on health care, 16 percent of its Gross Domestic Product;
• Americans spend $7,129 per person on health care, 50 percent more than other industrialized countries, including those with universal care;
• The U.S. does not get what it pays for. We rank among the lowest in the health outcome rankings of developed countries, and on several major indices rank below some third-world nations;
• The number of health insurance industry bureaucrats has grown at 25 times the growth of physicians in the past 30 years;
• In 2006, the six largest insurance companies made $11 billion in profits even after paying for direct health care costs, administrative costs and marketing costs.

And, whereas:

• Medicare has administrative costs far lower than any private health insurance plan;
• The potential savings on health insurance paperwork, more than $350 billion per year, is enough to provide comprehensive coverage to every uninsured American;
• Only a single-payer Medicare-for-all plan can realize these enormous savings and provide comprehensive and affordable health care to every citizen.

Now, therefore:

• We, the undersigned, urge the United States Congress to pass a single-payer Medicare-for-all program which will provide quality, comprehensive health care for all Americans.

Sign, and if you would re-post in your own journal, that would be super.

(via matrexius and jblaque and ms_daisy_cutter)

Iran.

People are asking me why I haven't put something up about Iran yet. I've been concentrating on Twitter (check the #IranElection tag) and Facebook, but I need to get my blog, too.

Dowlat-eh Koodeta, Estefa, Estefa!

Sad to say, I found out about this when it tricked through to my LJ friends page and on the news (which I can now watch on TV). This means I was days behind, because all the news was on Twitter. The Iranian election results--a wide margin of victory for the incumbent, with every geographic region voting in the identical proportions--are shady as fuck.

Iranians are not. Fucking. Happy.

There is a really excellent account over here, for those of you who haven't heard this from the news or Neil Gaiman's Twitter page.

In short: Once people started getting upset, the Iranian government began shutting down communication infrastructure. They blocked cell phone service, they blocked major websites, removed protest videos from Youtube, and lauched DDoS attacks on protesting websites to shut them up. The Iranians are getting around it, and doing their best to make themselves heard.

Yesterday there were proxies being circulated to help Iranians get around government bans, and hackers were launching DDoS attacks of their own on pro-Ahmadinejad sites so that the protesters could control the flow of information. They seem to have done a decent job of keeping Ahmadinejad's propaganda to the outside at a minimum, and Obama has made a statement that while the USA respects Iranian sovereignty and their right to choose their own leaders, he is disturbed by the violence he's seen and supports the right of the Iranian people to have their voices heard.

This is being called a revolution, and it isn't ours; it isn't even about us. Making it about us is the worst thing we can possibly do. The best thing we can do is make it clear that these people are heard, that efforts at silencing them are not going to work. It's far too late.

It's a little thing to do, and I don't know if it helps. But it makes me feel good, so I'll be doing it. People are wearing green as a show of solidarity with the revolutionaries, as a simple acknowledgment that we heard them and we know they're there. I don't get out much, so I don't think anyone will even see me. But someone might see you.

And in case there was any confusion, How to Tell Who the Good Guys Are.

Anger

What can I say? rake_blackguard is right.

Obama defends DOMA in court, says banning gay marriage is good for the federal budget, invokes incest and pedophilia.

First he, a black man just one goddamned generation removed from Brown v. The Board of Education daring to use the phrase "separate but equal" in reference to gay marriage, then his pussying out on clapping Bush in irons and pillorying him in front of the White House, and now this.

And I have to turn to DICK FUCKING CHENEY for some governmental recognition, as unofficial and possibly coerced as it was, that the love I practice isn't a great sin against The United States of Jesus. Dick Cheney makes Richard Nixon look like Rob Blagojevich in comparison and I hear more affirming things out of him, the goddamned devil himself, perpetually snarling like the Beast that Revelation's Whore rides, war profiteer and waster of men's lives, than a goddamned black president.

Is the warranty on this black president still good? At this point I think I'd suffer that paranoid little gnome Ron Paul better than this one.

Hey, Obama, how about a compromise? How about we just say that gay marriage is worth 3/5s of what a straight marriage is worth!

When this happened, I actually ended up in a conversation with my mother about it. My mother is one of those people who's had so many bad marriages that she doesn't think marriage is important. It didn't mean anything but more mess in her relationship, so not only are gay people wrong for fighting for full contractual rights... they should be.... protected from their own desire for equality? Or something?

I can't help but think that if I'd been in a relationship with a woman for nearly five years she would agree with me. Note that I am careful not to say "she would understand." My mother isn't big on understanding things. She hates and mistrusts anyone who uses bigger words than she does, assuming that because they could talk circles around her that they are and that therefore anybody with an IQ over 85 is not to be trusted (because apparently it's far easier to exercise restraint and responsibly use a firearm than one's own intellect).

She still wouldn't get it. But she's one of those monstrous people who is quite comfortable declaring as irrelevant anything that does not impact them in some obvious and immediate way. "If it doesn't affect me, I don't worry about it." I'm sure she loved that logic from other people when her husband was beating the shit out of her.

But she lacks the self-awareness and critical thinking ability to even check for hypocrisy like that. It doesn't occur to her. She believes whatever her husband and his Fox-News-inundated military buddies say she should, and has told me explicitly that she always votes but hates thinking about politics. That's right. My mother is one of those people who thinks it's important to vote, but not to think before doing so.

If I were with a woman and I explained all of the things that were important to me that'd be denied me, she'd begin to care because it would affect her. No, not because it would affect me. That only matters incidentally. It would impact her vision of herself as a woman who protects her kids. In order to protect that flattering view of herself, she'd believe whatever she thought she should. It just goes to show that it's possible to change people's unfounded and unexamined opinions without actually changing the terrible and stupid means by which they are arrived at.

I'm still considering telling her I'm bi. It's as true as it is not (though since I prefer men, I still consider my sexual preference to be hetersexual), and maybe then she'd understand what I mean when I say that I'm not marrying a man in a state where I couldn't marry a woman. She'll understand that I mean, "I'm not signing a contract in a state where my right to do so is contingent on the genital arrangement of the other signatory to the thing."

She actually said to me, "Well, you have to respect the people who hold something as very important, and don't want something they think is wrong held up as an equal to what they believe is right."

"...Actually, I don't have to respect anybody who thinks their rights lose meaning if other people have them, too. I don't need to respect that at all."

She and my stepfather are the kinds of people who have "lots of gay friends." I was actually under some pressure growing up to be with women, hilariously enough. She seemed certain I was moving that direction and she wanted me to know that it was not only okay but that she'd understand. She's also a huge proponent of gay adoption, because "a loving home is a loving home."

So she clearly doesn't mind the idea that gay people are people like everyone else. And she has "lots of gay friends." Thing is... if it hurts me to hear her talk this way, I can only imagine how they feel. No wonder all her friendships halt at the most superficial possible level. Any deeper than that and she starts telling people they're subhuman because she doesn't care enough to think of a way not to.

This memo from the DoJ? This is a case of them not caring enough to think about how badly it damages American citizens to compare those who are fighting for equal contractual rights to child rapists. I mean, it doesn't really take a lot of thought. But they didn't do it.

Competition "Hurts Insurers"

What are some of the objections being handed around to a public insurance option?

"The president feels that having a 'public option' side by side -- same playing field, same rules -- will give Americans choice and will help lower costs for everybody. And that's a good thing," Sebelius told CNN.

"The president does not want to dismantle privately owned plans. He doesn't want the 180 million people who have employer coverage to lose that coverage. He wants to strengthen the marketplace," Sebelius added.

Healthcare costs undermine the competitiveness of U.S. companies, drive many families into bankruptcy and eat up a growing portion of state and federal spending.

Versions of healthcare legislation unveiled by senior Democrats in the House and Senate include a new government insurance program. But Republicans are adamantly opposed to the idea, saying it could harm private insurers, and some of Obama's fellow Democrats are against it, too.

Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said there is not enough support in Congress for the "public option" even though proponents offer "very good arguments" for it.

"You've got to attract some Republicans as well as holding virtually all of the Democrats together. And that, I don't believe, is possible with the pure 'public option.' I don't think the votes are there," Conrad said on CNN.

You heard it here. You won't get Republican votes if you're putting their constituents ahead of the interests of private insurance companies. Who is voting for these people again?

Debunking Canadian Health Care Myths

Link is here, but you know what they say. People who aren't basing their decisions on facts can't be dissuaded with facts.

However, I still thought this was a good article. This is the trope I always hear from people who care less about numbers and facts than they do about adhering with all proper fanaticism to their superstitious devotion to the unregulated market.

Myth: Canada's government decides who gets health care and when they get it.

While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.

There are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever. If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get one. In the U.S., if an insurance administrator says you are not getting an MRI, you don't get one no matter what your doctor thinks - unless, of course, you have the money to cover the cost.

And you know what? Here's why private health insurance companies are scared of what it will mean to be competing with a government health care plan (because you can bet they're not opposing it for your benefit):

Myth: Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.

The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered.

The last thing private insurance companies want is for our health care system to look like Canada's. And do you know why? Because it'll put them out of business. Because they don't love "free market" competition as much as they persuade their prostrate worshipers to love it.

But that seems to be how it goes. That's where blind faith in the "invisible hand" of the "free market" gets you. It gets you working your ass off to help people screw you over, all the while congratulating them on managing to be so much more worthy of your money (or your rights, in many cases) than you are.

About KRXQ 98.5 FM Sacramento. Remember the hosts who joked about child abuse?

They apologized. Details here.

Rob Williams Statement:

UPDATED JUNE 7TH, 2009, 11:50AM

TO OUR LOYAL ROB, ARNIE AND DAWN FOLLOWERS,

WE HAVE FAILED YOU. AS A SHOW, AS PEOPLE, AS BROADCASTERS, WE HAVE SIMPLY FAILED ON ALMOST EVERY LEVEL.

WE PRESENTED OUR OPINIONS ON A VERY SENSITIVE SUBJECT IN A HATEFUL, CHILDISH AND CRUDE FASHION; AND THEN, GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO RETRACT THOSE REMARKS, WE DEFENDED THEM.

SINCE THEN, YOU, OUR LOYAL LISTENERS, HAVE MADE IT CLEAR TO US THAT WE WENT TOO FAR. THE RESPONSE HAS BEEN OVERWHELMING. NONE OF YOU SAID THAT WE COULDN’T HAVE OPINIONS, YET SO MANY OF YOU SAID THAT THE WAY WE GAVE THEM CROSSED THE LINE. FURTHER, YOU SAID THAT OUR ATTEMPT TO MASK OUR COMMENTS AS “JOKES THAT WOULD BE UNDERSTOOD BY OUR AUDIENCE,” WAS UNACCEPTABLE. I WOULD SAY NOW THAT IT WAS WORSE THAN THAT, IT WAS COWARDLY. YOU HAVE MADE THAT CLEAR.

WE HAVE REACHED OUT TO VARIOUS GROUPS AND ASKED FOR A CHANCE TO MAKE THIS RIGHT; TO RESPOND, WITH THEIR PARTICIPATION, TO THE EDUCATION THAT OUR AUDIENCE HAS PROVIDED US. THAT OPPORTUNITY HAS BEEN GRACIOUSLY GRANTED THIS THURSDAY MORNING, JUNE 11TH. AT 7:30 A.M.

THE WORD APOLOGY APPEARS NO WHERE IN THIS LETTER FOR A REASON. WE ALREADY HID FROM DOING THE RIGHT THING ONCE AND WE’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE THAT MISTAKE AGAIN. APOLOGIZING IN A WRITTEN, POSTED STATEMENT IS A FORM OF COWARDICE. WE WILL SAY WHAT NEEDS TO BE SAID THIS THURSDAY.

ON A FINAL, PERSONAL NOTE, AS THE LEADER AND OWNER OF THE SHOW, I HAVE MADE THE DECISION THAT WE NEED TO REFRAIN FROM BROADCASTING NEW EPISODES UNTIL WE CAN ADDRESS THIS ON THURSDAY . WE WILL RETURN TO THE AIR AT 7:30 A.M. JUNE 11TH.

ROB WILLIAMS
ROB, ARNIE AND DAWN

Disturbing news about KRXQ 98.5 FM Sacramento

First off, trigger warning. That said. A California radio station is offering physical violence and verbal abuse as a "cure" for transgendered children. Yeah! That's right! If your little boy wants to wear heels, beat him with a pair until the urge passes. If your little girl isn't feminine enough, berating her about it every day will fix that right quick.

No, I'm not kidding. Evidently it's okay to enable child abusers on air (as if they needed MORE enablers). Details in the article and comment thread here.

Here are the emails for their sponsors. Just send something to all of them to let them know what KRXQ is using their money to say about them.

heidi.barker@us.mcd.com, christi.woodworth@sonicdrivein.com, rmckenney@barkleyus.com, corpcsf@wellsfargo.com, info@lasikworld.com, procity@procitymortgage.com

I left a nasty review on their Yelp page, but I don't think that'll do as much good as contacting their sponsors will. Their sponsors may not have the power to stop KRXQ from endorsing violence against children, but they sure as hell don't need to be paying money for it.

Please send an email. KRXQ is saying terrible things, but people are starting to get angry at the ones who're effectively signing their paychecks. Maybe the sponsors need to be made aware of that, eh?

As another note. Snapple has already emailed me back to let me know that they're pulling their ads on this station. Greg Artkop assures me that they found the segment offensive as well. If you have the time, please also send them an email thanking and supporting them for their decision.

tina.barry@dpsg.com, greg.artkop@dpsg.com

It's not an easy choice to give up an advertising venue, but Snapple is doing it because they know what we're talking about. They deserve some assurance that this speaks far more loudly and positively to their customer base than any ad on KRXQ.

-Ashley

(h/t rm)

Edit: SONIC informs me they've withdrawn their advertising, and I hear Chipotle has done the same. This is working, guys. Keep it up.

CIC Triple Advantage: Part Two

Just a note that I've updated this entry to include a note at the bottom about how all the nasty and deceptive practices they have are officially and legally now Not Cool.

More details are here:

The "free credit report" advertised non-stop on cable television, it bears repeating, isn't free at all. The law calls for the Federal Trade Commission to issue new rules that will force free credit report advertisers to inform consumers that the only place for a free credit report is AnnualCreditReport.com.

Television and radio ads will also be required to include a pretty deflating statement: "This is not the free credit report provided for by Federal law."

Take that, CIC.

Forced Feminization WTFery

Call me crazy, but "forced feminization" roleplaying boards like The D+X Institute strike me as super duper transphobic. I mean, sure, they're effectively fantasizing about being trans. But I don't think that's quite the same as respecting trans people as actual human beings the way cis people are "actual" human beings.

Overall, I'm not totally comfortable with the way transgendered people and gender dysphoria tends to get hypersexualized. The whole "it's all about chicks with dicks and how naughty and forbidden that is," because it wouldn't be naughty or forbidden if--deep down--people weren't still really attached to the transphobic idea that all of this is deliciously threatening. If trans people were just normal people, there would be nothing racy or titillating about becoming one.

There's also the fact that "forced feminization" seems to carry the same overtones as rape fantasies. "I want this, but I'm not allowed to want it because it's naughty and bad. Therefore I think it'd be swell if the choice wasn't mine and I wasn't accountable for it." Lots of women enjoy a good rape fantasy without actually having the conscious opinion that sex is bad, just as I'm sure lots of people on this board get off on forced feminization without having the conscious opinion that trans people are bad. More likely they're actually congratulating themselves on how cosmopolitan they are for creating a scenario where "but for the grace of God," go they themselves.

But y'know... just as there are implications that rape fantasies are reflective of anti-sex pressures on the people who have them (even if the people who have them wouldn't classify themselves as anti-sex), I get a real vibe that this whole thing is reflective of anti-trans pressures on the people playing there.

Maybe I'm prattling on about something totally obvious, but I'm trying to articulate this in a sensible way and I don't know if I'm succeeding.

I understand that the people on this board are--more likely than not--here to get their rocks off and not to explore the sociocultural implications of how the media (including erotica) portrays trans people. The hypersexualization is, whenever it happens, quite dehumanizing in the end.

Considering how rough trans people have it even now... I think they've been dehumanized enough. So this board bothers me.

But again. Fantasy is fantasy. People can fantasize about non-consensual sex without thinking it's right. I'm just not sure people can fantasize about being forced into a trans lifestyle without recycling a lot of old transphobic tropes. I think I'd be too worried about the cultural forces I was strengthening to truly enjoy a board like d-and-x.org.

That's the only drawback to being a progressive social scientist. Certain things become less fun once I start considering who is or might be harmed by them. Because, whatever people may say about me behind my back, I don't actually like people being hurt. The fact that I'd even have to sit and think about whether this is feeding into something nasty kills any potential fun... even if I were to decide in the end that I'm overreacting and being paranoid and nobody cares but me.

How do people feel about this? Trans issues get neglected a lot, and I don't want to do that to them. I don't want to miss a huge chunk of the injustices people perpetrate on each other, but I must admit that I'm not very good at considering these issues (or at least, I don't feel like I'm on steady footing here). Feedback?

Fundamentally Different

"Promising equal treatment to some is fundamentally different from promising equal treatment for all," Moreno said. "Promising treatment that is almost equal is fundamentally different from ensuring truly equal treatment."

Far and away the best commentary I've seen on this has been from rm. Excerpt:

The entire situation, that this is even something we're debating as a nation, is so completely irrational, I kinda can't deal with it. It is only rational if the debate is framed thusly: "are gay people human?" and until people who are anti-equal marriage are willing to make the assertion that gay people are not, in fact, human and as such should not be allowed to enter into any legal contract or business relationship, I have even less than zero patience for their arguments.

Say what you mean and mean what you say. Even if I find your personal "deeply held beliefs" bigoted and offensive, I'm peripherally willing to acknowledge you as a thinking person if you at least have the nerve and the intellect to stand by what you really mean.

Exactly. Exactly that.

Vedanta?

A friend of mine pointed out a website about Vedanta over our listserv, and while I was going to reply to the list itself... it occurred to me that the reply was far more about what I'm comfortable with and what I'm not than about any feedback I might have as far as her choices for herself. So since this has basically nothing to do with her, I'm going to post it here instead in a space that can be as much about me as I ruddy well please.

It's interesting, definitely. Looks like they're trying really hard to have all the foreigner-friendly bits of Hinduism without actually including all the distinctively-Indian bits. They've done a decent job of this, but it includes a lot of the same social structuring (even without caste)--mainly the whole notion of karma and reincarnation. While it's certainly appealing to think that we can make good things happen for ourselves by doing good things, and while it's even more appealing to think that any good which happens to us is deserved, and just, and otherwise Totally Rightfully Ours... I'm not sure how comfortable I am with it because of the other implications.

Obviously, I don't have to be comfortable with a tradition that isn't mine, and I wanted to state clearly that I'm aware of this. I just think that the notion of karma is more or less entirely there to reinforce inequality. Here's what I mean. On this page: http://www.vedanta.org/wiv/philosophy/karma.html they say:

"Nothing happens to us by the whim of some outside agency: we ourselves are responsible for what life brings us; all of us are reaping the results of our own previous actions in this life or in previous lives."

If all they mean by this is that no divine power is affecting human fates--that only humans are doing this to each other--then I can't really argue. However, if they're arguing that it's a natural law that nothing comes to an INDIVIDUAL person undeserved... then I start to take issue. It means that rich people have all that money because they're better than poor people, that sick people are sick because they lack piety or virtue, and there is no injustice anywhere because justice is cosmically assured.

That's where I'm seeing the cultural trappings here that they haven't gotten rid of. In a cosmology like Hinduism where social inequality is quite explicitly ordained by the gods, they introduced karma to explain why certain people have certain places, and why it's just plain silly to try to be any place other than what you were born into (see Krishna's urgings to Arjuna in the Bhagvad-Gita). You're there because you deserve to be, and so your qualities were arranged in such a way that the place you deserve is the best place for you at the time and everybody stays where they "belong," in their proper place.

So while this is certainly a very cool way to try and universalize Hinduism, I thought their claims to making it effectively no longer an Indian thing are sort of disingenuous--except to the extent that privileged people in all cultures like to believe their privilege is some kind of manifestation of divine justice. Of course, the alternative is to take karma as a very good and very personal reason to take an interest in the fates of others (since alleviating even their justly-earned suffering is still a pretty swell thing to try and do). But any time a religion says, "Everybody is, on some level, exactly where and what they deserve to be to the exact extent that they deserve," is going to throw up red flags for me.

But then, I guess that's why I don't identify as Hindu or Vedanta or really anything close. It just doesn't mesh with what I believe is true about the human experience, so it doesn't fit with me personally. If this makes more sense for my friend than it does for me, I'm glad she found it. I'm just uncertain about their claims that this isn't Indian Hinduism anymore... because to a dalit it would probably sure as hell still look like it.

Holy shit. That was long.

Fight or Flight

Odd dilemma. I'm trying to convince some guy on a forum that it's not cool to blame POC when they get--disproportionately, to a white person--angry about being marginalized. Saying, "I would have more sympathy if the guy weren't so angry/hostile/etc." has never really done wonders for civilized discourse.

My problem is that I want to vent about this, and the most socially-conscious people I know (the people who will intuitively know what I'm getting at without me having to explain all over again why victim-blaming is shitty) are POC. And, quite frankly, I don't want them to feel like they have to deal with this guy. A couple of them stepped in on their own to say, "wtf no," but the last thing I want them to feel I'm doing to them is saying "HEY COME HELP ME FIGHT RACISM! *bounce bounce* =D IT'LL BE FUN AND THEN YOU CAN GIVE ME A COOKIE AND I'LL BE ONE OF THE GOOD WHITE PEOPLE." This is a stupid thing to do.

So I'm ranting here. What the fuck, humanity. The fact that it still needs to be explained that, "No, you shouldn't punish a child of color for punching a kid who threw racist insults at him and who hit him first," in any social setting at all... it's just sad. When a relatively-privileged white girl can look at what you're saying and tell you, "Please stop placing further barriers to POC defending the legitimacy of their personhood," then you know it's glaringly obvious.

I'm not an expert at this shit. Quite frankly, as a white person, I think the best that I can do is say that the experience of being that marginalized is so huge and so comprehensively awful that I'm just not gonna get it. And as a result, the fact that I or this other guy or whoever else wouldn't have been upset enough to give a violent racist who attacked him a bloody nose? Doesn't mean shit. We don't know enough to be upset to a realistic degree. The best we can do is know we don't know, and try to have a little fucking empathy if we can.

Again. If a white person is calling you out on the implications of what you're saying, you've probably already gone so far over the line that people who've experienced real discrimination noticed loooong ago, and long ago wrote you off entirely as beyond redemption--at least redemption by them.

I don't want a cookie. Not wanting victims to be shit on for defending themselves doesn't make me awesome. It means I have half a damn conscience. I want people to stop failing so hard that it takes a member of the privileged race to tell them they're out of line. But that's not going to happen. So now I want a nap and a vacation from other people.

What pisses me off most, I think, is knowing that I can walk away from this whenever I want because I'm white. I can choose not to engage in this, and whether I'll even pay attention to it is completely optional. So I don't feel like I deserve to walk away just because I'm tired of it and getting angrier than I want to be right now. What gives me the right?

Reconstruction and Appropriation

Dear Pagan Reconstructionists:

Unless you belong to an isolated enclave of (Norse/Celtic/Hellenic/Roman/Sumerian/etc.)-practicing people who have been sufficiently isolated from the rest of the world that we have not yet found them, the culture you are reconstructing still does not belong to you. You're just grabbing bits and pieces of it that make your life just exotic enough without actually making it unfamiliar or foreign.

This is okay. Eclectic Pagans deal with this problem all the time. "I find this a helpful metaphor," or "this ritual was very powerful for me," but they don't make the mistake of saying, "I am following in the Footsteps of the Ancients and my religion is Their Religion" the same way that recons do.

And they do make it. Discussions between eclectics and recons are notorious for the same kind of endlessly-repeated vitriol that we've come to expect from discussions of Mac vs. PC.


Eclectic: So, I was wondering what kind of altar I should put together for Baal. Opinions?

Recon: You don't deserve to worship Baal. I have a personal connection with him that entitles me to an ownership of his traditions, and you are bastardizing our god.

Eclectic: I didn't realize he was your god.

Recon: Well. I mean, he's Canaanite storm god. But I'm a reconstructionist, and I take their traditions very seriously! That means they're mine!

Eclectic: Except that you're just picking and choosing, too. Unless you have a great big child-incinerating oven in your basement to show that your dedication to him surpasses all other loyalties. Or I guess you could also offer yourself as a prostitute for religious reasons. I assume you've got all that covered?

Recon: ARE YOU MOCKING MY DEVOTION TO MY GOD??!

Christian: You're all wrong, but don't worry about that now. You'll find out someday when my God throws you in a lake of fire.

Eclectic and Recon: SHUT UP!


You see what I did there? PC, Mac, PC, Mac, Linux, RAAAAAAAGE.

Seriously. We have a term for this. It's called "cultural appropriation." It's what we call the practice of pulling a cultural artifact out of its cultural context and deciding it's yours now. Pagans who treat Kali like she's just the Wiccan Crone with a dot on her forehead? They're appropriating her from her native context, either out of ignorance where that context is concerned, or out of disinterest in it altogether. Pagans who treat Artemis like just another face of the Virgin are appropriating her from her "home culture."

The difference is, they don't call that "reconstruction," because they're not rebuilding anything. They're building something new, and they're comfortable with that.

So recons, please. Stop using the phrase "bastardizing our god" at the drop of a hat. I get sick of reading it, because odds are that your claim to that deity is no better than anyone else's who is also not a part of the cultural context from which the deity came.

Best regards, and let's hope we don't have to go over this again.

-Ash

Troy Anthony Davis

I wanted to talk to some of you about Troy Anthony Davis. Today is Troy's Global Day of Action through Amnesty International, and in that spirit I wanted to tell you a bit about what's going on. I wanted to tell you how you can do very small and easy things that could save a man's life, just like it has been saved before by people doing exactly what many of you are about to do.

Many of you received an email, saw a blog post, or read a thread on a forum from me about the then-pending ban on capital punishment in New Mexico. A lot of you helped out, and sent a strong message to New Mexico's Governor. And we made it happen. I need you again. Troy needs you.

Many of you may feel that there is no excuse or appropriate situation in which the state should have the power to kill its citizens. That's fine. I am not one of you. I am one of those people who believes that there are some crimes for which death may be an acceptable response from the justice system. However, people have to have actually committed a crime. I mean, ideally, right?

Among many wrongful convictions is included Troy Anthony Davis. There is no physical evidence against him. The case is based entirely on eyewitness testimony, but seven of the nine witnesses recanted or contradicted their testimony. Some of those who've recanted stated that they originally testified under police coercion, and one of the two people who hasn't... is the prime alternative suspect (and whom nine people have already implicated in signed affidavits).

So Troy Davis is set to be executed because the alternative suspect and one other person are pointing the finger at him. That's it. Seriously.

Multiple times his date of execution has been called off. Georgia has decided--more than once--that there is insufficient evidence to execute Troy, and yet… this isn't sufficient evidence for them to grant him a new trial. Thanks, Georgia. His request for a new trial (that’s right, his appeal for an appeal) has been refused and an execution date is going to be set (again).

For more information about his case, check out the info Amnesty International has pulled together: http://www.amnestyusa.org/uploads/file/TroyDavisfactsandtimeline_2(1).pdf

I got involved in Troy's fight because a friend of mine who worked with me for the House of Representatives at the State House knows Troy personally, and has personally combed through the documentation of his legal battles. It was talking with her that got me interested.

When word came that his life was in danger (again), a lot of people got ready for another round of fighting. I didn't think I'd be involved until I read the letter that Troy sent my friend, dated March 10, 2009:

Hello Ashley,

Thank you so much for your lovely letter. It was nice to hear from you. I pray that you, family and friends are all doing well despite the stress from the Economy.

Personally, I'm holding up okay. They have another execution tonight for Bob Newland. The Parole Board refused to hear his case.

How did your finals turn out? I'm sure you did well. Are you still having bad dreams about being in my situation?

Maybe you're worried too much about my situation. Read Mark 11:22-24. Positive thinking can increase your faith. Don't dwell on the things you pray for, just give them to God and believe He'll take care of them.

Congratulations of getting a perfect grade doing your paper about my case. Say hi to your classmates and Professors for me.

The biggest problem with my case is the Anti-Terrorism/Death Penalty law prevents my new evidence from being heard. I htink the Judges know I'm innocent but decided to hide behind the law instead of helping correct this injustice.

As long as people are willing to stand up and fight, changes will be made to right every wrong. You'll be one of those people who force a change and soon. Keep learning, keep praying, keep believing and never stop fighting for True Justice.

I'm proud of you being a Straight A student. Your parents have done a great job and I know they are proud as well.

Don't let the road blocks of this System slow you down. Just push them out of the way. Fighting for what you believe in isn't easy and some of those close to you may disagree. Stand firm Ashley.

Your friend,

Troy D.

Troy may be about to die, and people like you are the ones on his mind. People like you are the ones he believes need encouragement. So here's your encouragement.

Do something.

Here is a link to Amnesty International.

It'll take half a minute to do what they ask you to do. Just sign your name to tell Governor Perdue that people outside his state are watching. Use Amnesty's words, use your own, sign your name, whatever.

But do something. You think this won't work. But it has worked, and for Troy specifically. He is alive right now because people like you know his name, know his case, and care what happens to him.

Do it again. Do it now.

Yay, science!

Fossil Discovery Is Heralded

In what could prove to be a landmark discovery, a leading paleontologist said scientists have dug up the 47 million-year-old fossil of an ancient primate whose features suggest it could be the common ancestor of all later monkeys, apes and humans.

Anthropologists have long believed that humans evolved from ancient ape-like ancestors. Some 50 million years ago, two ape-like groups walked the Earth. One is known as the tarsidae, a precursor of the tarsier, a tiny, large-eyed creature that lives in Asia. Another group is known as the adapidae, a precursor of today's lemurs in Madagascar.

Based on previously limited fossil evidence, one big debate had been whether the tarsidae or adapidae group gave rise to monkeys, apes and humans. The latest discovery bolsters the less common position that our ancient ape-like ancestor was an adapid, the believed precursor of lemurs.

Holy shit awesome.

Stuff I've Been Reading!

Okay! My Firefox window is full of open tabs, and I'm going to drop a bunch of links here so that I can get rid of them. Yay? Yay!

LGBT

Gay Kentucky Students: "You Can't Pee Here"

Fifteen students protested outside a Frankfort, Ky., high school on Friday after an official allegedly sent a notification to teachers advising them to bar gay students from leaving class to use the restroom.

The reported e-mail was sent by Franklin County High School assistant principal Karen Buzard after two female students were reportedly seen kissing in a bathroom, according to the Kentucky Equality Federation.

RACISM

Letter from a slave freed in the Civil War, responding to his former master's promise to pay him if he'll return. Read this. Now. Two word summary: "Oh, snap."

Womanism and Feminism: The Difference?

When we look at social justice movements across the western world they all have one thing in common, they are led by whiteness. Despite a claim that said movements are about equality, the racial dynamics are positioned in such a way as to reaffirm our dissonance in worth and value. This purposeful erasure, or more specifically absence of power, is a result of the social belief that whiteness is not only naturally fit to lead but ordained to do so.

How many times have blacks and whites worked together in various organizations only to find that our voices are silenced? We continually make suggestions for activism only to have it denied and then later accepted when it is rephrased by a white member of the organization. The racism in this activity is never acknowledged and the white person is given the credit for the idea. When we make a comment as to how race interacts with an issue, we are again silenced and told that we “are imagining racism”, as though whiteness is any position to decide what is and isn’t racist.

Police Brutality and the National Political Agenda Great analysis on the original page, as always from these guys.

Just how systemic the police harassment and brutality is can be seen in polls and in social science research. For example, one 2001 Gallup poll found 83 percent of black respondents had experienced racial profiling in the last year. In addition, in a 2007 Gallup poll a fifth of the black respondents reported that had suffered discrimination at the hands of police officers, a proportion that has increased in recent years.

Lest some think that we are ignoring lots of white victims of police brutality here, we might note that one social science study back in the 1990s analyzed 130 police-brutality accounts in several cities across the country. In that reviews of cases, criminologist Kim Lersch discovered that the targets of this type of police malpractice are almost always black or Latino. The latter made up 97 percent of the victims of police brutality, while the overwhelming majority (93 percent) of officers involved were white. Police brutality overwhelmingly involves white-on-black or other white-on-minority violence.

Remedying Racism: The Supreme Court and Affirmative Action This is an issue I'm still deeply ambivalent about, but the people whose voices and judgment I've come to trust the most are making some very good arguments, and I'm doing my damndest to give them a fair hearing. Check out this article.

What would the reverse of this centuries-old anti-black discrimination and other oppression look like? The reverse of the institutionalized discrimination by whites against blacks would mean reversing the power and resource inequalities for several hundred years. In the past and today, most organizations in major institutional areas such as housing, education, and employment would be run at the top and middle-levels by a disproportionate number of powerful black managers and officials. These powerful black officials would have aimed much racial discrimination at whites, including many years of slavery and legal segregation. Millions of whites would have suffered—and still suffer—trillions in economic losses such as lower wages, as well as high rates of unemployment and political disenfranchisement, widespread housing segregation, inferior school facilities, and violent lynchings. That societal condition would be something one could reasonably call a condition that significantly “reversed the discrimination” against African Americans.

What is usually termed reverse discrimination is something much different from this fictional anti-white scenario. The usual reference is to affirmative action programs that, for a limited time or in certain places, have used racial screening criteria to overcome a small part of past and present discrimination that targets racially oppressed people.

Anti-Latino Racism: SPLC Report on Discrimination

We might note that the principal discriminators are not named as white in any sentence in the 64-page report. Indeed, the world “whites” never appears in the report, and the only place “white” appears is in a few references to “white supremacist” groups. Even in critical research reports like this there seems to be an etiquette of not offending white dsciminators explicitly, but leaving the elite and ordinary white actors as “implicit” in the commentaries, unless they are part of supremacist groups.

MISC

State-by-State Recovery Breakdown. Check the page and hover over your state to see what your area is getting.

California Appeal Court Declares Life Without Parole Sentence Unconstitutional for 14-Year-Old

EJI attorney Bryan Stevenson represents Antonio Nunez and argued his case at the Court of Appeal last October. “We’re very encouraged by the Court’s thoughtful and careful analysis of the issue presented by this case," Stevenson said today. "Young children who commit serious crimes may need punishment but those punishments must be reasonable and thoughtful. Hopelessly condemning 14-year-old children to die in prison is at odds with everything our constitutional norms and values are designed to protect.”

Antonio Nunez spent his childhood in a dangerous South Central Los Angeles neighborhood. Shortly after his 13th birthday, Antonio was riding a bicycle near his home when he was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting. His brother, who was 14 years old, ran to help Antonio and was shot in the head and killed. Antonio was critically injured and underwent emergency surgery to repair his intestines.

In the wake of his brother's murder, Antonio suffered severe trauma and depression. After he was released from the hospital, Antonio left South Central and spent over six months with family in Nevada before he had to return to Los Angeles.

Within weeks of his return to his home in South Central, 14-year-old Antonio got into a car with two older men who picked him up at a party. One of the men later claimed to be a kidnap victim. When their car was chased by the police and shots were fired, Antonio was arrested and charged with, among other offenses, aggravated kidnapping.

No one was injured during the chase, but Antonio was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

Britain's Youngest Female Funeral Director There may be hope for me yet! Also, check out this woman's amazing style. She wins at fashion.

Louise Ryan never wanted to be stuck in any ordinary job - so she figured it was only natural to follow in her father's footsteps and work with the dead.

Miss Ryan, who is already leading funeral processions, has undertaken 12 months of training, and at 20 years old is believed to be Britain's youngest female funeral director.

The teenager admits leading funeral processions and escorting coffins to churchyards is a far cry from her previous two jobs as a hairdresser and call centre worker.

Obligatory Swine Flu Post (Or: Why I don't want to make a big deal of it)

Someone else here must have noticed how it only became something to worry about when there was one American casualty. The 152 Mexicans just didn't seem to have the same impact, but one baby in America and the news goes nuts.

And what good is it to them to go nuts right now, at this particular time? Other than the obvious benefits of sensationalism to news networks, swine flu is being used to stoke the white supremacist anti-immigration crazies, which is my main objection to the hysteria. I was reading about it the other day and the top story on my Google news search starts with the following: "311 Swine Flu Deaths! Close the Mexico Border!"

Because, you see, brown people are filthy and diseased. Contact with them will kill you. Never mind that it was white tourists who brought the disease across the border.

For a further rundown of the highly-racialized discussion on this topic, check my acquaintance's blog over here, where she's made a good compilation of examples.

See also here:

With swine flu now hitting the United States, I figured it was only a matter of time before someone started to blame Mexican people. But this is an impressive turn-around, even for Michael Savage and Neil Boortz. Plus they get the "OMG terrorizm!" aspect in there too:

Neil Boortz claims that Mexico doesn't have a CDC, so from the perspective of someone who wants to commit an act of bioterrorism against U.S. citizens, "What better way to sneak a virus into this country than to give it to Mexicans?"

At least one better way comes immediately to mind.

One would think that if terrorists were going to release a virus with the intent of killing Americans, they would do it on, say, the New York City subway system and not on a Mexican pig farm. But there are no lengths to which these guys won't go in order to convince us that we're constantly on high Terror Alert in the face of threats from any passing brown people.

It's phenomenal how easily these guys can fit anything - including a potential global health pandemic - into a one-size-fits-all racist narrative about Mexicans being dirty and sneaky mules. It's phenomenal that they can get away with it even in a situation like this, where the virus was spread outside of Mexico in large part because of tourists. And it's particularly appalling in its victim-blaming - is it so easy to forget that 150 people have died in Mexico, and thousands more are living in fear?

I'm just trying not to participate in something that is becoming so irrational, y'know? All we can do about this is the same thing we do about any illness, unfortunately. It's just that the consequences are worse if we don't*. That's my critique on the whole thing. If I talk a whole lot on my blog or on my forums about this, I feel like I'm feeding this great nasty racist side of it no matter what I say.

So I haven't been encouraging the alarm for that reason, even though I agree it's troubling that it's going after those with healthy immune systems (with the exception of the infant casualty). With that, I leave you with this important website, relevant to your interests:

http://doihaveswineflu.org/



*The consequences are also notable when you consider that our government's phobic avoidance of regulating businesses has created a situation in which citizens are being urged to stay home if they're sick to avoid the spread of infection, but cannot afford to do so because employers are not actually required to give employees paid sick time.

If you actually want to do something to help prevent the further spread of diseases like this one--though likely change won't come in time to significantly affect this outbreak--please consider using this tool to send your Congressperson an email supporting the Healthy Families Act, which will allow workers to care for their health and the health of their families without having to choose between forgoing needed pay and spreading deadly diseases.

This sucks, so to the Americans reading: Do something. Something besides hate on brown people, okay?

Gail Riecken for the Win

Some of you may have heard me going on and on about Senate Bill 89, which I discussed in more detail here. To pull out the bill specifics from that entry as background info:

SB 89 is a bill that the Republican-controlled Senate handed over to the House that originally stated that physicians performing abortions must have admitting privileges at their local hospital. This is ostensibly to ensure that physicians performing abortions have gone through the extensive background checking and whatnot that hospitals do, which is not a bad idea in itself.

The reason this is a problem is that hospitals are loathe to give admitting privileges to physicians who don't live in the area, and most abortion doctors don't perform abortions where they live, because it'll get your family harassed by anti-choicers. The other reason this is a problem is that it isn't necessary. The only thing admitting privileges really gains the woman is being able to have the same doctor at the hospital in case of a complication that she had performing the abortion. (...)

The real reason for handing this over is, of course, to shut down all but one clinic in Indiana that performs abortions by requiring doctors to jump through a meaningless hoop with no penalties for a hospital that refuses them admitting privileges simply because of why they want them. (...)

The House put language in it which accepted the premise that those performing [invasive] surgical procedures should have local admitting privileges as long as we apply it to all [invasive] surgical procedures. (...)

Senator Patricia Miller (R-Indianapolis) evidently doesn't like the fact that the bill would now cover all surgical procedures, and also disapproves of the amendment giving funding for preventative health care for women. That's right! These amendments strengthen the case of SB 89 being a bill about women's health, rather than an attempt to shut down most of Indiana's abortion clinics.

So the very things that make it viable as anything more than an imposition of an unconstitutional undue burden are the very things that might kill it in conference committee. If they want to say it's not germane to apply this to all surgical procedures, and if they want to say that it's not germane to amend other considerations of women's reproductive health, they're going to have to admit that the bill is attempting to do something else--something unconstitutional.

Well, guess what? I don't think they got a report out from committee last night, and those have to be out for 24 hours before they can be heard for the final vote today and... I don't think it was. So now that the bill has died, it was safe for me to talk to a Rep who really really earned my respect and gratitude through this.

I found the session video archive for April 15th (starts at 4:50), and here's what she said. To my knowledge this is the only transcript, but the damn thing is public record right on the State House website if people thought to look.

Let me say first that I am well aware that this bill is popular and will probably pass this evening. My intention in speaking is to put on record what I think is a major flaw in this bill. A disappointment, a great disappointment, to me in my first year in this House. It is the inclusion of the statement that a fetus might feel pain. The fetal pain requirement is simply medically unsound.

I had the occasion to talk with Representative Tim Brown this evening just before we convened, and he told me that he believes that life begins at conception, and I am not arguing that point. What I am arguing is that pain does not begin at conception. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, it is not physiologically possible that a fetus feels pain before 29 or 30 weeks gestation. Medical experts acknowledge that awareness of pain requires the involvement of the cerebral cortex, which is not yet developed at 20 weeks' gestation. Now understand that I am not a physician. But I believe that we must pay attention to good, sound, scientific and medical advice. According to the Indiana State Department of Health roughly 90% of Indiana Abortion patients have their abortion in the first trimester. That same data reports no abortions past 20 weeks.

My fear in this bill is the thought of what lengths we will go as a House to get a bill passed. I am not advocating the use of abortion as a method to halt or avoid pregnancy. I do believe in a person's right to have an abortion, however, I do not believe in abortion. I have raised my two daughters to make responsible decisions and I do not believe that they believe in abortions. I cannot accept this bill that is, under the surface, a pathway to denying women control over their own bodies.

I have seen, I have lived, and served women in another country where authoritarian control over women and their reproductive health produced only two things: shame and guilt. Finally, I believe in this bill we have climbed the hill to a very slippery slope. A slippery slope that will only result to restrict women and our right to be responsible adults, determined with our husbands and our doctors our reproductive health.

I will not be voting for this hypocrisy.

I felt really really good when she said that, because in Indiana those views often don't get heard. So when she said it... I felt heard. I wanted her to know that, and I think it made her happy to get that feedback. This is particularly true since this is her first term and a lot of people were probably urging her not to say anything because it would endanger her re-election prospects if Right to Life starts fanning the fires of misogyny in her district.

I hope she gets re-elected. There are a few Reps that I truly feel have both the insight and the conviction to actually stand up for my best interests as a voter in Indiana. Gail Riecken is one of them, and quite frankly I trust our legislature a lot more with her in it.

You, ma'am, have been counterfucked!

You remember SB 89 that I was so pissed about? I guess you wouldn't if you only read my blog. To recap for those of you who didn't hear me ranting loudly about this on the third reading deadline night...

SB 89 is a bill that the Republican-controlled Senate handed over to the House that originally stated that physicians performing abortions must have admitting privileges at their local hospital. This is ostensibly to ensure that physicians performing abortions have gone through the extensive background checking and whatnot that hospitals do, which is not a bad idea in itself.

The reason this is a problem is that hospitals are loathe to give admitting privileges to physicians who don't live in the area, and most abortion doctors don't perform abortions where they live, because it'll get your family harassed by anti-choicers. The other reason this is a problem is that it isn't necessary. The only thing admitting privileges really gains the woman is being able to have the same doctor at the hospital in case of a complication that she had performing the abortion. This really doesn't make a difference in standard of care as I've had it explained to me, since hospital doctors are just as qualified to take care of her!

The real reason for handing this over is, of course, to shut down all but one clinic in Indiana that performs abortions by requiring doctors to jump through a meaningless hoop with no penalties for a hospital that refuses them admitting privileges simply because of why they want them.

This should never have gone to the House floor for a vote, in my opinion. It should have been killed in committee so that the Democrats whose constituencies are ignorant and backward won't have to vote on it one way or the other. As it was, a lot of Dems had to vote against their own consciences and the best interests of their constituents just because Right to Life will force them out of office in 2010 if they don't. There's no right vote here. Either vote for an unconstitutional piece of legislation, or lose their seat to a Republican who's not even going to consider the Constitutionality of this kind of bullshit.

So of course it passed. The House put language in it which accepted the premise that those performing surgical procedures should have local admitting privileges as long as we apply it to all surgical procedures. Lots of amendments to it passed, including one requiring the woman seeking an abortion to be informed that a fetus can feel pain--despite the fact that one Rep stood up and gave AMA peer-reviewed evidence that this isn't even true for the developmental stage this legislation addresses.

But it did pass. It passed from the Senate to the House, and lots of Reps who understand the notion of "undue burden" as the Constitutional litmus test had to vote for it anyway. A very small number sacked up and voted Nay nonetheless, and they have my gratitude and respect for that. Then it remained to see if the Senate conferred or dissented with the changes that were made to their bill in the House.

I have an update!

Senator Patricia Miller (R-Indianapolis) evidently doesn't like the fact that the bill would now cover all surgical procedures, and also disapproves of the amendment giving funding for preventative health care for women. That's right! These amendments strengthen the case of SB 89 being a bill about women's health, rather than an attempt to shut down most of Indiana's abortion clinics.

So the very things that make it viable as anything more than an imposition of an unconstitutional undue burden are the very things that might kill it in conference committee. If they want to say it's not germane to apply this to all surgical procedures, and if they want to say that it's not germane to amend other considerations of women's reproductive health, they're going to have to admit that the bill is attempting to do something else--something unconstitutional.

Let's hope committee kills it. That way all the Dems will have pacified their constituents by voting to suppress women, but there won't actually be consequences for those constituents' uneducated single-issue voting.

U.S. will boycott U.N. conference on racism

U.S. will boycott U.N. conference on racism

GENEVA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will boycott a United Nations conference on racism next week, the U.S. State Department said on Saturday, citing objectionable language in the meeting's draft declaration.

The United Nations organized the forum in Geneva to help heal the wounds from the last such meeting, in Durban, South Africa. The United States and Israel walked out of that 2001 conference when Arab states tried to define Zionism as racist. (...)

Juliette de Rivero of Human Rights Watch said the meeting in Geneva would lack needed diplomatic gravitas without Washington's presence.

"For us it's extremely disappointing and it's a missed opportunity, really, for the United States," she said.

A draft declaration prepared for the conference removed all references to Israel, the Middle East conflict and a call to bar "defamation of religion" -- an Arab-backed response to a 2006 controversy over Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that Western states see as a way to quash free expression.

Wood conceded there had been improvements to the document, but he said it was not enough.

"The United States will work with all people and nations to build greater resolve and enduring political will to halt racism and discrimination wherever it occurs," he said.

Diplomats said the high-profile presence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the forum made it probable that touchy subjects would still dominate the proceedings.

*sigh*

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, we obviously can't allow one nation to define all interest in their rival as "racist," because allowing nations to redefine actual jargon from social critique in order to serve their own interests is a huge pain in the ass. (At one point some nations were invoking "cultural relativism" as a shield against criticism instead of the analytical tool that it is, which is why I'm annoyed that "racism" is now also getting co-opted.)

On the other hand, I'm getting kinda sick of allowing so much of our foreign policy decisions be determined by what Israel thinks we ought to do. There are other nations in the world, and maybe we should also be giving them some consideration. Like, oh say... all the nations that would benefit from having us there. Including our own.

So I'm ambivalent. I'll grant that the way Israel was discussed at the earlier meeting does sound out of line. But is this really wise?

I think what pisses me off most is the hesitation to talk to Iran's president lest uncomfortable topics come up. Hello, guys. You've put together a gorramn conference on racism. If somebody isn't uncomfortable by the time you're done, you're fucking doing it wrong. This isn't useful at all if it's just a way for everybody to get together and congratulate each other on how anti-racist they all are. Unless the nasty racialized barriers between members countries aren't brought up and hashed over... then what the hell are they doing all this for?

I realize there would and must be diplomatic consequences to a conversation of racism any deeper than superficial "we don't like racism, give us a cookie for how great we are" crap. However, I feel that until the uncomfortable stuff with diplomatic consequences is brought up, they're not really even talking. Maybe it's more diplomatically sound to waste so much time and money on an anti-racism circle jerk, but it's hard for me to imagine them actually accomplishing much if this is their approach.

But this is why I'm not a diplomat. I just want to drag shit out and get it over with, because as a rule people aren't actually going to examine themselves and their behavior any more deeply than they absolutely have to. This doesn't really work with people who aren't rational, and I suppose if any of those people I talked to had high-powered weapons of war just waiting to be used in a self-righteous temper tantrum, I might be inclined to be a little less honest, too.

It's just frustrating, that's all.

"Don't park your car here. I don't like this neighborhood, it's full of Canadians."

Has anybody ever heard people in food service using "Canadian" as a code-word?

I would appreciate if anybody who has heard this could read this article and tell me what they think of it.

What we have here is an example of a phenomenon that I've noted before, that of "whispering the word 'black.'" In certain situations, some white people use "Canadians" to refer covertly to black people when they think they shouldn't use another word. That other word probably isn't "black people" or "African Americans," but instead, a "worse" word. A more overtly racist word.

So white people apparently use "Canadians" this way because they might be overheard by the black people they're referring to. However, I suspect that in some cases, they use it because they don't want to be seen or heard saying the "worse" words by not just by black people, but by anyone--maybe even themselves.

If white people sometimes resort to this euphemism instead of a more clearly racist term when no black people could actually overhear them, then they're demonstrating something about the common workings of white psychology. Sometimes, when white people have racist thoughts or feelings, and we know we would look bad openly expressing them, we still manage to find other ways to express them. These are ways that we think don't make us look bad, but also ways that nevertheless also allow us to communicate the racist thought or feeling.

I've heard plenty of times of people doing this, but I've never heard it done myself.

The logic I've heard from servers who've mentioned this to me is that waiting tables "makes" a person racist, in the most purely privileged sense of the word. Racism here--like with so many people in so many situations--fails to mean "unfairly shitting on people for being the wrong ethnicity," but gets mutated into something racist people are more comfortable with. "Racism" is their word for all those things that everybody knows really are true, but try not to say because if they're caught speaking these truths (truths like the common laziness of black people, or how poorly POC treat their wait staff) they'll get in trouble with the "PC police." In short, it'll upset other white people, which is somehow more of a problem than participating in a system that actually harms POC.

Here's my personal feeling on certain occupations "making" someone be racist. Waiters become racist because black people make them be racist. Cops become racist because black people make them be racist. It's not their fault, you see, and there's nothing they can do. If black people don't want to be treated like shit by white people, clearly the solution is for them to quit being so... *whisper* ...you know. Black.

Then white people will finally be able to stop going through the pain of believing racist and hurtful things, finally be able to stop inventing codewords to express those racist things without getting caught using nasty words (that can't possibly be off-limits for a reason), and finally... finally... we'll all be able to get along. Once people stop "making" each other be racist. I mean, come on, POC. Personal responsibility, people! If I'm saying racist things, just accept that you are to blame, and we'll finally be able to move toward a solution after you change your behavior.

But y'know. Those fucking "Canadians" never were very good at personal responsibility, am I right? Am I right?

Goddamn it.

Seriously, guys. Victim-blaming. Please stop getting so enthused about it like it solves all social problems, because saying, "If black people weren't so cheap and rude, I wouldn't be racist," is like saying, "If women weren't so vapid and petty, I wouldn't be sexist."

"Take Back Our Country"

So there's this enormous rally outside the statehouse. Angry conservatives who don't know what they want (as evidenced by the "keep the change" sign right next to a "change is coming in 2010" sign), and who seem to have made the terrible mistake of taking Ayn Rand seriously.

The best sign was "Take Back Our Country." From whom? THE VOTERS? Because YOU LOST?

The symbol for the whole protest--in my mind--was a man in a chicken costume. Nobody knows why he's there, what he's up to, or what he wants. Just that he's angry at Democrats.

Seriously. There was no unified message. No organization. Most of the things they were protesting weren't even in the state's jurisdiction. lern2government, dumbasses.

We all laughed (and I don't mean just Democrats). They brought their Galt signs! And people in chicken suits. Come the fuck on, people. What can we do but laugh?

I guess it's better that they get this out of their system here, where they're a rabble of ineffectual kooks who don't know where to direct their anger. Let them mill about yelling at their state legislature to get rid of Obama. Let them rage about taxes that most of them are paying less of now than they were before.

You guys get this out of your system now. The Reps are all in recess anyway. There's no one to hear you scream (except for those inside who are laughing at you, and those outside who will get fired for lobbying).

Why did they pick Pope Sidious again?

This man should have been the pope.

"Can you imagine that there are those who think God is a Christian?" he said to laughter from a mostly appreciative audience. "Can you tell us what God was before he was a Christian?" (...)

"Injustice and oppression isn't just evil, which it is. It's not just painful, which it certainly is for the victim. It's like spitting in the face of God."

He invoked his friendship with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist leader who has been exiled from his homeland for nearly 50 years. Although others would be embittered, the Dalai Lama is filled with "bubbly joyousness," he said.

"You have to be totally, totally insensitive not to know you are in the presence of someone who is holy and good."

He then asked, "Can anyone say to the Dalai Lama, 'You are a good guy. What a shame you are not a Christian'?"

Another great quote from Desmond Tutu, and one that hits close to home as far as my approach to a higher power: "What a tremendous relief it should be ... to discover that we don’t need to prove ourselves to God."

Erosion of privilege is not the same as oppression, kthxbai.

Hilzoy has an excellent essay up here.

Rod Dreher Continues To Puzzle Me

Anonymous Liberal notes this from Rod Dreher, writing about the Iowa decision to legalize gay marriage:

"This morning, I had breakfast with some guys, including a lawyer. We weren't aware of this decision, but we talked about this issue. The lawyer said that as soon as homosexuality receives constitutionally protected status equivalent to race, then "it will be very hard to be a public Christian." By which he meant to voice support, no matter how muted, for traditional Christian teaching on homosexuality and marriage. To do so would be to set yourself up for hostile work environment challenges, including dismissal from your job, and generally all the legal sanctions that now apply to people who openly express racist views."

Anonymous Liberal makes two important points in response. First, if Dreher thinks it's tough being a "public Christian", he should try being openly gay for a change. Second:

"I find it more than a little pathetic that Dreher and his friends feel that they can't be "public Christians" without going out of their way to advertise their disapproval of homosexuality. First, there are millions of Christians in this country who have no problem at all with gay marriage or homosexuality generally (indeed, there are many gay Christians). But more importantly, since when is expressing disapproval of homosexuality a key part of being a "public Christian"? What about going to church or singing Christmas carols or celebrating Easter or (gasp!) volunteering your time to help those less fortunate? Aren't those pretty effective ways of being publicly Christian? Is gay marriage really going to make it any harder to do any of those things? We still do live in a majority Christian country after all, and I have a feeling that will continue to be the case even after we start treating gay people like full citizens."

But there's another problem with what Dreher and his lawyer friend think. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that being Dreher's kind of Christian does in fact require public disapproval of homosexuality. I don't know why one would want to be that kind of Christian, as opposed to the kind who follows Christ in ministering compassionately to Pharisees and (those whom one takes to be) sinners alike, but hey: it's Dreher's life, not mine. And suppose further that allowing gay men and lesbians to enjoy full legal rights, including the right to marry, would in fact produce the (specific) results Dreher's friend fears. Here, again, is how Dreher describes the problems that loom on his horizon:

"To voice support, no matter how muted, for traditional Christian teaching on homosexuality and marriage (...) would be to set yourself up for hostile work environment challenges, including dismissal from your job, and generally all the legal sanctions that now apply to people who openly express racist views."

Notice anything about those legal sanctions? They all apply to people who openly express racist views at work. There are no legal sanctions for expressing openly racist views on the street or on a public beach. Why not? We have this odd thing called "freedom of speech", which precludes them. In a country that let Nazis march through a town full of Holocaust survivors, I find it hard to believe that Rod Dreher and his friends will not find some way to express their views in public.

Apparently, to be the kind of "public Christian" that Dreher thinks he has a right to be, it's not enough to bear Christian witness in public. It's not even enough to express disapproval of homosexuality in public. You have to express disapproval of homosexuality to your co-workers, in your workplace. And you have to do so even if they find your expressions of disapproval so unpleasant that they actually file suit.

The existence of laws against sexual harassment in the workplace does not mean that no one can be a public lecher. The fact that I think it inappropriate to introduce my political views into my classroom does not mean that I do not get to be publicly political. It just means that not all remarks are appropriate in all settings. This should not be news to anyone. It's certainly not a threat to freedom of religion, any more than it's a threat to public political expression.

Only someone whose life had been very, very privileged would assume that he had the right to tell his co-workers how sinful he thought they were, or that if this supposed right were threatened, that meant not that he should bear witness to the gospel in a more appropriate setting, but that his freedom of religion itself was in jeopardy.

Zoe Kentucky posted a great comment to this:

This is exactly what Dreher is talking about, and coming to a workplace, pulpit, public forum, or jurisdiction very near you very soon.

I suppose that is why Fred Phelps is rotting behind bars. Because in America we don't let people say ugly, anti-gay things in public without silencing, fining and punishing them.

Oh, wait, he isn't? In fact, Phelps and his family recently took huge their "God Hates Fags" signs and protested outside of the White House recently. For pete's sake, the Phelps family protests military funerals. They don't get arrested or fined even when they ARE harassing people.

So, as far as free speech rights are concerned, if Fred Phelps can walk around freely and say beyond-the-pale reprehensible anti-gay comments then I think you can still tell people that you don't like gay people or approve of gay marriage.

The fact is that things are changing-- openly anti-gay views are falling out of social favor. The truth is that you can say whatever you want, just don't expect that it will make you popular or be accepted with a agreeable smile. That is the part that these people are upset about, that their prejudicial views are no longer shared by most people.

That's what they're really talking about. "When we try to block equal protection under the law for people who believe differently from us, people talk like we're unreasonable, hateful, and un-Christ-like. OH MAN IT'S SO HARD TO BE CHRISTIAN POOR US THIS IS JUST LIKE BEING FED TO ROMAN LIONS."

Don't get me wrong. I think Christianity is a beautiful religion, and I know people for whom it's done a great deal of good. And it is notable that most Christians nowadays are actually not strongly opposed to treating same-sex couples with the same human dignity that heterosexual couples receive. Yes, yes, really. They're not like Dreher and other similar people, whose lives are so centered around public hatred and derision of other people that being asked to treat others with respect is a life-destroying catastrophe.

Most Christians aren't like this. This is an exceptional case of extraordinary fear-mongering irrational hatred. This is homophobia in its purest sense: the fear that if gays are around and treated like they're people something terrible will happen. Just what that is, and how it'll happen? Well, I guess that needs to be taken on faith.

Families: Legitimate and Illegitimate

Vermont passes gay-marriage bill

BOSTON (Reuters) - Vermont lawmakers on Tuesday overrode a veto from the governor in passing a bill that would allow same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the state to become the fourth in the nation where gay marriage is legal.

The Vermont House of Representatives passed the bill by a 100-49 vote after it cleared the state Senate 23-5 earlier in the day. In Vermont, a bill needs two-thirds support in each chamber to override a veto.

Those of you who know me know that I don't cry often. I really don't. I find the act a distasteful lapse in self-control comparable to urinating on oneself. But I've been on the edge of it for over an hour now, since I heard about this.

Part of it is sadness at how far we've yet to go, but most of it is relief. State by state we're overriding people who think that same-sex marriage threatens their own, even if they can't explain why or how. State by state, victory and setback after victory and setback, we're making progress.

But why cry over it? Why get so emotional about something that doesn't really affect me?

That's what you think.

You see, I know a beautiful family. I've mentioned them before. Two brilliant, insightful, creative, stable, and loving women who are raising a son together. He's an amazing kid, creative and free to a degree that I was never allowed to be. They may not be perfect--no family is--but they're still the kind of family that I always wished I was secretly part of, that would realize someday that I didn't belong in that fearful and angry place, that I didn't belong where intelligence was something to be resentful of, that I didn't belong in a family where people intimidated each other and did violence to each other. I thought--like many kids in my position--that someday my real family would find me.

I didn't care whether that family had one mom or two, one dad or two. I just wanted somebody around who could look at me and know me for who I was, and still somehow love me. I just wanted somebody I could trust to be proud of me when I succeeded, and be there for me when I didn't. I wanted somebody I didn't have to be afraid of, or threatened by. I wanted what every lonely, angry little girl in my position wants. I wanted safety and love, and I didn't care who from, as long as it was real.

Four more states. Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, and Iowa. Four states are finally done telling my friends and their son that kids should grow up like I did and not like their son will, because their son won't have a "real" family (not a good, wholesome American one like mine, at least). Four states are done defining a real, government-sanctioned family as one with the right composition of sexes and not one with the right kind of love and unity.

Shows what the rest know. I may have had a "real" family, but I spent my whole childhood wishing I had anything else, anywhere else, with a group of people like my friends and their son. If they're not a family, what is? If their son isn't part of a family, then what the hell am I?

What's a family to you? Has anyone ever told you that you don't have one? That you shouldn't have one? Can you even imagine what that feels like? I don't know if I can, but the closer I get the more deeply it hurts. I don't want anyone to feel that.

So here's a hat tip to these four states. We're far from done, but a little hope goes a long way.