One of the worst aspects of being a rape victim is the way it leaves you feeling like you have no ability to be in control of your own life. The sense of powerlessness it leaves is staggering. In my own experience as the victim of a date rape, even though I spent years trying to deny to myself what had happened before I started dealing with it, the loss of control over with whom, where and when I would share that part of myself had a devastating effect. I'd always had issues with control, but they became significantly worse following the rape. I can only imagine how much worse it would be for someone who is the victim of a "stranger" rape, where there's no way to try and rationalize that maybe you were sending mixed signals or any the other excuses we come up with to try and blame ourselves for what someone else has done to us.
Even worse, I imagine, would be the fear that such an attack might have left you pregnant. While some women are able to carry a child conceived in such a way to term and even lovingly raise the child, may women simply can't. Even if she were to plan on giving the child up for adoption, each day she's pregnant is yet another reminder of what was done TO her.
That's why this next story infuriates me so much. A woman in Texas was raped, and her doctor gave her a prescription for "morning-after" pills that can be taken to prevent a pregnancy. She's already been through a harrowing ordeal and is trying to do what she feels is necessary to start regaining some feeling of control over her life, when she goes into a pharmacy to get her prescription filled and is told by the pharmacist that because HE morally objects to the use of the morning-after pills, he's not going to fill the prescription for her. True, she was able to go elsewhere to get the pills, but the point is, she shouldn't have to. Fortunately, it appears that the pharmacy's corporate parent agrees.
According to CNN, there were protesters outside the pharmacy today, and Eckerd's spokesman has said that the pharmacists actions were in violation of their corporate policy, and that the pharmacist will be disciplined for his actions:
"Apparently there was a request for a prescription to be filled and the prescription was denied based on a moral or ethical decision made by the pharmacist, and that's not in accordance with our corporate policy," said Joan Gallagher, vice president of communications for Largo, Florida-based Eckerd Corp.If the pharmacist feels he cannot fill any legally-prescribed medication then he should be in another line of business, or, perhaps, get together with other, like-minded pharmacists and start their own special "pro-life" pharmacy where it's clear from the get-go that no form of contraception or "morning after" protection will be offered. He should not be in a position where he can, essentially, compound a rape victims feeling of powerlessness by trying to prevent her from taking control over this aspect of her life as well.
Billmon has a great take on the news today that CBS has caved in to conservative concerns and is shifting the unwatched-yet-controversial biographical miniseries about President Ronald Reagan. Hopefully his obvious writing skill is significantly better than his prognostication abilities.
As to my thoughts on the decision, well, I think CBS is being a real weenie about it. This is the same series that earlier this year broadcast a docudrama about Hitler's early years, even though some concern was expressed about whether or not it might make him look too sympathetic. (Since I didn't see the show, I can't comment on whether the concerns were valid or not.) But CBS isn't exactly known for being timid. Their flagship franchise, the Crime Scene Investigations shows, feature some incredibly graphic images - I'm married to a horror movie freak, so believe me, I've seen more than my share of R-rated gore, and I still quite often find myself shielding my eyes during CSI and trying to avoid looking at the screen until I can tell a scene has ended. Yet they backed down, almost without a fight, when the Republicans complained that their portrayal of Saint Ronnie might be less than stellar.
I suppose in principle, their decision to pull the show can be justified. TV networks are businesses that have to decide what to show based on what they think will let them make the most money. That's what ends up determining content - and, really, that is as it should be.
Just because I agree with the principle of the market determining what the product should be, however, it doesn't follow that I like what the Republicans have done or that I don't think they're full of it in expressing concern for "historical accuracy". As I noted the other day, they sure didn't have any problem with the historical inaccuracy of Showtime's recent docudrama about Bush's activities on 9/11.
So, while it may well be infuriating when the Republicans can pull something like this and get what they want - and it certainly shows that they're not being silenced by the "liberal media" - it's the same mechanism that other groups can use to try and prevent racist, homophobic, or other objectionable material from being shown. It's not perfect, but it's what we've got.
I'd mentioned earlier that Neal Pollak is organizing a "Donald Luskin is a Stalker" day for next Tuesday, but it turns out that Jessie at Pandragon is sponsoring his own Donald Luskin day today. His announcement is as follows:
Friday, October 31st, is going to be Donald Luskin day. Speak as the man. Love as the man. Stalk as the man. Any Luskin satire, bromides, or novelty cakes should be posted far and wide on the Internet.Well, Jesse, you can count me in:On Halloween, celebrate the creepiest of all monsters - Donald Luskin.
Who's with me?
Donald Luskin is a Stalker*!
*Now, before he sends Jeffrey after me to threaten me with a suit, too, let me note - When I say Luskin is a stalker, I mean it in the colloquial sense of the term - you know, a guy who seems to be creepily obsessed with someone, pays attention to every little thing he or she does, makes note of it, slams the object of his affection every chance he gets and just, in general, seems - to the casual observer - to be just a bit more than a little unhinged.See, I don't want anyone to think I'm accusing Luskin of any kind of a crime. I don't know if he has or not. But in the "conventional wisdom" sense of the term, Luskin certainly is a stalker. Remember, we know this mainly because he, himself, told us!
Luskin, like Fox News before him (and, sadly, those who will most likely follow in his footsteps) needs to learn that there are a lot of us out here who won't stand for being bullied. We're not going to just bend over and then say "thanks" when he's done. If you read much of Luskin's work, you'll find that the things Atrios' visitors said about him are right in line with the kinds of things he says about his own targets.
If, like me, you think Luskin's threat to sue Atrios over the content of his comments section and his choice of a headline, is not only idiotic, but little more than an attempt at scaring people into a fear-induced inability to express disagreement with someone, even when they deserve it, please carry this message to your own blog, journal, website, or other forum where you can speak as you see fit.
Tom Tomorrow reports that Neal Pollak is planning to declare Tuesday as "Donald Luskin is a stalker day" in response to Luskin's threat of a suit against Atrios. Check either Neal or Tom's blogs for more details when they are available. Tom also notes that Neal will be on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" tonight, so be sure to watch for him there.
Mark A. R. Kleiman has a great post giving some background information on the dispute between Donald Luskin and Atrios, suggestions on what should be done, and his own thoughts on the matter. It's a good place to start if you want to get a better understanding of what's going on.
A few weeks ago, Atrios at Eschaton posted an entry called "Diary of a Stalker", consists entirely of the following, and the comments made by Atrios' visitors:
Diary of a Stalker(As is often the case, the Haloscan count of the number of comments - which indicates there were only 3 comments - is off. There were actually about 115 - and roughly 10 of those were added in the last two days)By Donald Luskin.
-Atrios 12:45 PM
Comment (3)
The line "By Donald Luskin." is linked to Luskin's blog, "The Conspiracy to Keep you Poor and Stupid", but I'm choosing not to link to it because, honestly, I don't want to give him any hits. Atrios' post was in response to an entry at Luskin's blog called "Face to Face with Evil", in which Luskin detailed his first face-to-face meeting with Krugman. While the question of whether or not Luskin is legally a "stalker", these excerpts from the entry in question certainly show an ... unusual ... mindset toward Krugman on Luskin's part. I mean, everyone who's read this blog knows how little I care for President Bush, but I can't even begin to imagine feeling as "icky" - should I have the opportunty to meet him - as Luskin apparently felt after meeting the object of his obsession:
I thought it would be fun. I thought I could throw a tough question at him, or get him to autograph a copy of The Great Unraveling for me before he realized who I was. But there was nothing fun about this experience. I have looked evil in the face. I've been in the same room with it. I don't know how else to describe my feelings now except to say that I feel unclean, and I'm having to fight being afraid.The vast majority of the entries deal with Paul Krugman in some form or another - and every entry I skimmed could only be called "bashing."[...] I had planned to get Krugman to sign a book to me -- and I overcame my sense of dread and revulsion, and did it. I waited in line for a few minutes while he banged out scrawled signatures by the dozen, and when he was done with mine, I asked, "Would you inscribe it to me personally?" He said, "Yeah, alright, what's your name?" I said "Don..." and he wrote Don. Then I said "Luskin: L-U-S-K-I-N..." and by the time he got halfway through... he realized. He started up with the ferret-like shifty-eyed thing like when he's on TV. I said "Now you keep up the good work, Paul." He muttered, "Yeah... yeah... fine..."
And I walked away, with my skin crawling, worried that I'd gotten too close to something infectious. I flashed on the scene from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead when Peter Keating hears a speech by Ellsworth Toohey -- the diminutive newspaper columnist and professor to whom I've likened Krugman before -- and is gripped by fear and horror at Toohey's ability to feed off the energy of a partisan crowd. And I flashed on the movie Alien, in which contact with an extraterrestrial monster infects people trapped with it on a spaceship, and monsters just like it start to grow inside them.
At any rate, Atrios' post apparently upset Luskin, as did some of the comments left by visitors to Atrios' site. Luskin contacted Atrios, who told Luskin that he would remove any of the comments that had upset him, if Luskin would tell him which comments those were. He got no response, until he received a letter from Luskin's attorney threatening to sue him if he did not remove the offending post and all comments to it within 72 hours. The letter also says that they will subpoena Blogspot to force them to reveal Atrios' identity in order to file the suit. Atrios has mentioned that he considers the potential suit a 'nuisance', with the "not veiled threat to "out" me as the real goal."
The irony is that Luskin's main objection, according to his lawyer, is that Atrios - and several the visitors who left comments - called Luskin a "stalker."
You chose the unfortunate caption “Diary of a Stalker” for your link. More importantly, your readers, in responding to your invitation to comment, have posted numerous libelous statements regarding Mr. Luskin. Picking up on the theme you introduced, several have made false assertions that Mr. Luskin has committed the crime of stalking.Yet Atrios isn't the only blogger to have done so. Glenn Reynolds wrote that Luskin was stalking Paul Krugman - and linked to an article in which Luskin himself has used the term in reference to his own actions, titling one of his "Krugman Truth Squad" colums "We Stalked. He Balked."
Billmon at The Whisky Bar notes that he, too, has been threatened with legal action by Luskin, though, as he put it "apparently I didn't rate a lawyer letter."
As Atrios noted, this kind of action can have a very chilling effect on the blogosphere. Luskin is going after Atrios not just for what Atrios posted, but also for what his readers posted in his comments section. There are a number of bloggers who already choose not to allow comments to be offered, usually in an attempt to avoid having to deal with trolls and flamers, but also because some people just don't want to hear anyone disagree wtih them. If this suit goes through, I suspect there will be other's who will now remove their commenting scripts to avoid problems such as this.
This is an issue all bloggers should keep an eye on. Several notable blogs have already written on the subject (Atrios has a list here), and I'm sure there will be some kind of a defense fund set up, and probably an organized protest of Luskin's actions. I plan to join in (unless there's some compelling reason not to, which I seriously doubt will be the case). I'll also provide updates as much as possible.
Atrios posted a link today about Congressman Steve LaTourette (R-OH), who called his wife on Friday saying he wanted a divorce. He had recently told her he'd been having an affair, and she'd asked that he consider counseling, but he decided against it.
Personally, I have very little tolerance for people who engage in adultry - but I also realize that it very much takes the participation of both spouses to make a marriage work. While I feel a great deal of sympathy for his wife, Susan, I have to wonder why on earth a woman who wants to keep her marriage intact would allow this kind of a situation to develop:
Susan LaTourette, who said she doesn't know where her husband lives when Congress is in session, blamed the Washington culture for the breakup.I'm quite sure the "Washington culture" didn't help much, but this is a man who's been in Congress for 10 years - and his wife didn't know where he lived while in Washington? If my husband had to live away from me for part of the year, you'd better believe that not only would I know where he lived, but I'd have a map with the route from the airpoint drawn on it, and I'd make a few unannounced visits each term, too! (And not just to keep an eye on him, either. I just can't stand being apart from him that long....)
Of course, this LaTourette guy is no prize - he obviously has a problem with keeping his promises - and just just his marital ones, either:
He is a member of the Financial Services, Government Reform, Transportation and Infrastructure and Standards of Official Conduct Committees. When first elected, he said he would stay for four terms at most.I must say, though, I loved Mrs. LaTourette's response when asked about why she was going public with her marital problems:He recently told GOP leaders that he would serve no more than 10 years, but he has announced that he will run for a sixth two-year term in 2004.
“Because I want to get him back. It’s very painful but I just wanted people to be aware of this. Most women who get treated like this can’t do anything about it, but I can.”That's the spirit :)
Sounds like Someone is trying to send a message to the set of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ". The film's assistant director, Jim Michelini and the actor playing Jesus, Jim Cavezliel were struck by lightning while working on the set. It's the second time Michelini has been struck.
Michelini had previously been struck during filming in Matera, Italy, when he suffered light burns to his fingers after lightning hit his umbrella.Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, so it's safe to giggle about. (And, of course, being a Thorian, gives me another reason to giggle - and feel almost jealous - the key word there being ALMOST.)
Describing the second lightning strike, McEveety told VLife, a supplement of the trade paper Variety: "I'm about a hundred feet away from them when I glance over and see smoke coming out of Caviezel's ears."
Link via Secular Blasphemy
I first read about this at Eschaton, and couldn't believe that Robertson would actually voice the opinion that we need to blow up the State Department. Why I couldn't believe it, I'm not sure - the man's made it clear more than a few times that he's a hate-filled idiot, but, yes, I was actually taken aback by his comments. I looked up the article that Atrios references, and then tracked down the actual interview transcript at CBN just to make sure that nothing was being taken out of context.
It's not.
This is right at the beginning of an interview with Joel Mowbray, who's promoting his new book Dangerous Diplomacy, which, apparently, is all about how evil the State Department is. Here's the exchange in question:
PAT ROBERTSON: I read your book. When you get through, you say, "If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that's the answer." I mean, you get through this, and you say, "We've got to blow that thing up." I mean, is it as bad as you say?It's really a shame that Robertson own his own TV show, because that means that it's pretty hard for anyone to fire him - but that's what's been needed for a long time. I'm simply appalled that he has as many followers as he does, and that he passes this crap on to others under the guise of being a minister of God. I may not be a Christian myself, but I have a lot of respect for Christians in general (at least the non-"you must live by my rules or die"-fundamentalist types), and damn it all, they deserve a lot better than Robertson and his ilk!Joel Mowbray: It is. Everything I wrote in the book sadly is true. I wish it weren't, and I wish that it could have been more fiction in the book. But the nonfiction is truly scarier than the dreamed up possibilities.
Agence France-Presse reported on this story (though I can only find the "SpaceWar" published version of the story), and reaction from Washington hasn't been exactly on the happy side:
[State Department] Spokesman Richard Boucher called the remarks -- which Robertson made last week on his nationally televised "700 Club" program -- "despicable" and a senior department official said a protest had been made "at the highest level."Despicable and outrageous. I'd say so."I lack sufficient capabilities to express my disdain," Boucher told reporters when asked about Robertson's comments. "I think the very idea, though, is despicable."
The senior official said Robertson had been made aware of Secretary of State Colin Powell's extreme outrage at the tone and content of the remarks.
"That's not the way one expresses an opinion in Washington," the official said, adding that Robertson's conduct had been "outrageous."
The Supreme Court today rejected an appeal by Alabama's Cheif Justice Roy Moore, refusing to put a hold on a federal court's order that Moore remove the monument from the state capital's rotunda.
The high court was Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's last hope to avoid a federal judge's midnight deadline to remove the display. It was unclear if Moore would comply. Other state officials have said the monument would be moved.Ironically, part of Moore's argument has been that a federal judge shouldn't have the authority to rule on his monument - that it should be a state issue - but he's indicated that if he "has to", he will fight all the way to the Supreme Court.Moore's lawyers told justices in a filing that Moore should be allowed to "establish justice by acknowledging the guidance and favor of Almighty God, placed upon him by his oath of office and the Constitution of Alabama."
Moore installed the 5,300-pound stone monument in the rotunda of the judicial building two years ago after being elected chief justice amid publicity of his support of the Ten Commandments.
The Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of such indoor and outdoor government displays. In 1980, the court barred Ten Commandments from classroom walls in public schools.
The justices' refusal to intervene was not a surprise. An appeals court had twice refused to give Moore a stay.
Today's decision has no bearing on whether the Supreme Court will ever hear the case or not. Moore had just filed an appeal with them seeking to keep federal appeals court judge Myron Thompson's order that the monument be removed from being enforced while Moore continues his fight to keep the momument. The Supreme Court, at this point, did not see a need to intervene.
Moore has anounced that he intends to block the removal, but given that Thompson is threatening to fine the *state* $5,000 per day until it is removed, Moore may find he doesn't necessarily have that option.
Rob Salkowitz of Emphasis Added had posted a comment to an earlier entry I'd made on the Ten Commandments, and I think it bears repeating here:
I think this story is even worse than it appears on the surface - e.g., someone's sincere but misguided religious views in opposition to church-state separation. This appears to be a deliberate attempt by the Right to stage a "worst-case scenario" of National Guard troops fighting through good, churchgoing folks to tear down the Ten Commandments by force. They hope that the power of this image will discredit the whole idea of the secular state and consolidate public support for encroaching theocracy. It's not a matter of rights - it's a matter of power and propaganda: right out of the Goebbels playbook. The ACLU and its allies (myself included, BTW), need to play this very carefully.I think Rob's dead on with this - and if it does come to people having to go into the building and removing it in the midst of a protesting crowd, they need to do so without any imagry suggesting violance (in other words, if they can leave the guns behind, that would be best), and they need to do whatever they can to avoid letting Moore look like some kind of a martyr.
It's ridiculous that the situation has gotten this far. It should never have been up to Moore to put a monument in the rotunda, and the governor should have had it removed immediately when it went up. But now that it has gotten this far, any attempt at rectifying the situation needs to be handle with care.
Over at The Hamster there's an entry about how some conservatives are crowing that Al Franken is a hypocrite because he allegedly sued the author of a parody of one of his earlier books. The LA Times, however, has a bit of light to shed on the subject.
Franken may indeed know something about satire; in 1996, his book "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot" was itself parodied by J.P. Mauro (actually two Mauro brothers) in the book "Al Franken Is a Buck-Toothed Moron," which features a doctored Franken photo on the cover. The introduction to the book consists of letters purporting to be from Franken's lawyers, attempting to deny the authors the use of Franken's picture. Later in the book, the letters are described as fictitious.In other words, Franken never actually filed a suit against the authors of the parody, nor, apparently, did he threaten to. Dr. Squid notes in the comments section at The Hamster that Franken's book "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot" starts out with fictitious letters allegedly from Jeanne Kirkpatrick, so the fictitious letters from Franken at the beginning of "Al Franken is a Buck-Toothed Moron" are, essentially, a parody of Franken's own satire in the book. (I can only note this as reported by Dr. Squid, however, as I've not read the book myself.)
At any rate, the conservatives who are prattling on about Franken's hypocrisy need to make themselves a bit more aware of the facts. Franken didn't sue, and there's no indication he planned to. Just a bit more BS to shovel through....
(There's just GOT to be a pony in here SOMEWHERE!)
As a disabled person, I all for disability access to public places. I'm also for common sense.
The Appalachian Mountain Club's recently built Galehead Hut, accessible only by a rugged five-mile hike over the jagged granite of New Hampshire's Twin Mountains, was required to have a wheelchair ramp to its front door under the Americans with Disabilities Act.... and if you get your wheelchair over that five-mile trail, I'm sure you'll want to have that ramp to get the rest of the way in the door.....
To quote Jan: Uffda!
This one just about killed me.
In order to promote a festival occuring next spring, the mayor of Cedar City, UT, decided to create an entertaining backstory about why the festival was occuring. The story he came up with was preposterous - a Viking-settled island broke free from it's moorings and was carried by a tsunami to America, where it landed in the middle of Utah, where the people living on the island were tricked into handing the land over to the United States. He then suggested that recently a treasure had been found, and that to avoid having to pay the decendents of the Vikings a lot of money for the land and treasure, the government was instead going to give them ownership of the town for 10 days each year, so they could celebrate their kingdom.
I don't even want to start to try and count all the implausibilities in that story (and if you go to the article and read the full thing, you'll find even more) - but, you guessed it, some people actually fell for it. Worse, they claimed to be decendents of the original Vikings and should thus be entitled to a share of the fortune that was "found".
How did they react when they were told the whole thing was a joke - a publicity stunt to get some attention for the upcoming festival? Well, they're Americans - how you YOU think they'd react? Yep, yep... they claimed it was a cover-up. Near as I can tell so far, they haven't gone so far as to actually file a suit in the matter, but if they don't correct the collective rectal-cranial inversion they seem to be suffering from, I'll be rather surprised if they don't.
Apparently, some of my fellow Kansans are a bit worried. It seems that ABC is planning a sitcom this fall called "Back to Kansas" and they're afraid the movie may make fun of the state.
Officials in Kansas are expressing concern that the planned ABC sitcom Back to Kansas will make the state and its citizens the "butt of some jokes" and otherwise bring them into disrepute.Of cource, they don't seem to take into consideration that Kansas officials have already managed to that all on their own, with such things as the brilliant decision a few years ago to take any questions about evolution off the state school exams (thus making it unlikely that teachers would bother teaching evolution, since they generally "teach to the test"), and laws that do thing like reduce the penalty for statuatory rape cases between teens who are fairly close in age - but only if they are of different genders. Homosexual teenage couples still face the full penalty for statuatory rape, even if they are only a year apart in age (with only one being over the legal age of consent).
Luckily, we seem to have one official in Kansas who might have a clue.
Kansas Travel and Tourism director Scott Allegrucci told today's (Friday) Kansas City Star that he has advised would-be protesters to hold off. "I suggest that any protest on the part of any entity in Kansas will simply confirm the stereotypes that some fear the show will focus on," he said. Moreover, he indicated, just having a TV show on the air with Kansas in its title could be valuable publicity. "This can only be good for Kansas -- even if the show is a dog."
This may or may not say much about Senator Santorum, but it is a bit amusing (though not without it's maddening points, also).
Senator in Heated Exchange With Parents of Gay ChildrenFour parents of gay children had a fiery private exchange tonight with Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. The meeting did not go well, and Mr. Santorum, who has infuriated gays by likening homosexuality to incest and bigamy, left in a hurry, tripping over a chair, the parents said.
"What we tried to do in this meeting was reach him on a human level, and we found no humanity there," said Melina Waldo, a former constituent of Mr. Santorum who lives in Haddonfield, N.J. She said he was "condescending, belligerent, argumentative and arrogant."
[...]
Mrs. Kirschner said she spent much of last week telephoning Mr. Santorum's office to request a meeting and was told today that the senator would see them for 10 minutes.
The meeting, with a heated exchange, ran 30 minutes, the parents said. The parents, Mrs. Kirschner said, insisted that the comments were hurtful to their children. Mr. Santorum, they said, wanted to talk about legal terms, insisting that he was just arguing against a right to privacy and that his remarks had been taken out of context.
Finally, an aide interrupted the session and told Mr. Santorum that he would have to leave.
"He couldn't get out of there fast enough," Mr. Kirschner said.
This entry started as a tangent to the previous one about Ari Fleischer's comment on behalf of the President in regards to Rick Santorum's statement, and touches on issues I've raised before - but I felt it deserved an entry all it's own.
While the gay-rights's issue raised by the court case Santorum was commenting on (which challenges a Texas law that makes gay sodomy illegal, while leaving heterosexual sodomy legal - a law apparently passed during the same year the state rescinded a law that had made private beastiality illegal - meaning that it's ok for someone to have sex with an animal in private, but not ok for two men or two women to do so) are important, the substance of Santorum's comments went beyond even that.
In the interview, Santorum blamed the problem of priests molesting children on the growing tolerance for homosexuality. It is hard for me to express just how offensive this idea is. Priests do not molest boys because Americans find homosexuality less objectionable than before. Many of the molestations that are being reported now occured many years ago, before homosexuality was nearly as well "tolerated" as it is today (if it's status today can even be called "tolerated").
Sexual molestations - be it a man molesting a boy or a girl, or a woman doing the molesting - has little to do with sex in and of itself. It's an issue of power, just as any rape is. The desire for power may manifest itself in a sexual way, but the issue is still power.
For our President - though whatever method - to be sending a message of support for a man who believes that priests (or anyone else, for that matter) molesting teens are engaged in a "normal homosexual relationship" is inexcusable. Would either Senator Santorum or President Bush consider an adult molesting a teenaged girl a "normal heterosexual relationship"? If so, shouldn't we then just do away with statuatory rape laws? Somehow, I doubt either man would be in support of that.
I have never understood how people can get the idea that somehow kids - even teens - who are molested are in any way consenting to the abuse. Adults, and, in particular, adults who hold any kind of a position of authoritiy, such as teachers, parents, clergy, coaches and law-enforcement personnel, are also people who kids want to please - and they will often to go any lengths in order to ensure that they are pleased, even if it means doing things they don't want to do or feel that they should be doing. In no way does their "giving in" imply actual consent. The adult has the power in the relationship, and has the reponsiblity to be looking out for the child's best interest. Any harm that comes to that child through the adult's actions is the sole responsiblity of that adult.
While Santorum's comments about homosexuality in general are offensive enough, it is this assertion about priestly molestations that needs to become the focus of the outrage. Blogs may not yet have a huge amount of influence on what gets covered in the mainstream media, but as the situation with Trent Lott showed, if some enough of a hubbub can be raised in the blogosphere, and if some of those higher up in the blogging food chain would start covering that aspect of the story more, it very well might break out into the mainstream media, and questions can be raised about why the President would give his support to a man who says that priests molesting teens are just engaging in a "normal homosexual relationship". There's nothing normal about it - its quite simply a crime.
Busy, Busy, Busy raises some interesting questions regarding the widely circulated statement of support that Ari Fleischer reportedly passed on to the press regarding Senator Rick Santorum:
"The president believes the senator is an inclusive man. And that's what he believes," Fleischer said.Busy, Busy, Busy notes:
So just how did Ari Fleischer issue these widely quoted remarks? According to the White House web site, Fleischer published one statement Friday, and it made no mention of Santorum. His only interactive session with the press that day was a briefing, the transcript of which does not include the quotes at issue either, but does contain this exchange:No clear answers are forthcoming at the moment, but it is an question worth asking. Atrios at Eschaton has reported that the GOP has essentially issued a gag order, telling even those who support Santorum's statements to let him speak for himself. And what a job he's doing of that.Q: Ari, both Senator Frist and Senator Specter have publicly supported Senator Santorum. And my question: Does the President believe they were wrong to do so, because while governor of Texas he ever tried to get that state's sodomy law repealed?
MR. FLEISCHER: As I said this morning, Lester, the President has confidence in Senator Santorum, both as a senator, as a member of the Senate leadership.
Wil Wheaton is furious - and understandably so.
Earlier today Reuters published a story about how George Bush is a "fan" of the "Iraqi Information Minister". In his interview with Tom Brokaw, Bush said: "He's my man, he was great," and "I did watch some of his clips. I get a lot of things secondhand, but in the case of the statue or Sahaf, somebody would say, he's getting ready to speak and I'd pop out of a meeting or turn and watch the TV."
When I first read the story, it struck me as odd, but not something to be upset about - but after reading Wil Wheaton's entry on the subject, I have to agree - this is simply unacceptable behaviour on the part of our President.
What?Wheaton also comment on Bush's comment that he'd "pop out of a meeting" when told that the Iraqi Information Minister was going to be on TV.He's my man?
HE'S MY MAN?!
HE IS THE ENEMY, MR. BUSH!
You know who Bush's MAN should have been? Every American soldier who was in Iraq fighting his immoral, illegal, and totally unnecessary war. Every child who is without a father or mother, every husband or wife, son or daughter who isn't ever coming home . . . they are "your man," Mr. Bush.
I'm glad the President of the United States, during a war, is jumping out of meetings to watch his "man" on TV. I'm glad Mr. Bush didn't let a silly thing like running the country interfere with his watching his man on TV.Re-reading Bush's statement, I'm reminded of when I was in college and would find a way to arrange my class schedule so I could watch my soap operas or would occasionally leave a class half-way through so I could go on an afternoon shopping trip with my friends. Its the kind of thing a kid, newly freed from the restraints of his or her parents does - not something an adult - even if he is the leader of the free world - should be doing.
I'm sure some will think that this is nothing to be upset about - but it's the kind of thing that just goes to show how petty, indulgent and juvinile our President is. It's like the stereotypical "adult child" we seen in Hollywood movies - the easily distracted executive who would rather play with his train set than pay attention to reports on how his business is doing, and who's employees indulge him (and cover up for his incompetence) because, well, he IS the boss after all.
Oh. my. Gods. The country is being run by Arthur Carlson. (And you never thought he'd get out of WKRP, did you?)
Atrios at Eschaton is doing a great job following up on Sen. Rick Santorum's statements regarding his belief that we have no right to privacy and that the government should be able to regulate private sex acts in our own homes, along with the reactions to his statement.
One statement Santorum made that, so far, isn't getting quite as much attention as the initial quote likening consensual sex between adults to bigamy, incest, adultery and polygamy is his contention that teens who were molested by priests were just engaging in a consensual, adult relationship.
In this case, what we're talking about, basically, is priests who were having sexual relations with post-pubescent men. We're not talking about priests with 3-year-olds, or 5-year-olds. We're talking about a basic homosexual relationship.This is truly an outrageous statement, and is no different than claiming a rape victim "asked for it" or otherwise brought the attack on herself.
As for Santorum's contention that the victims of these priests were engaged in just a "basic homosexual relationship", Atrios provides several quotes regarding former priest John Geoghan, including this:
I felt a little funny about it," McSorley recalled in an interview. "I was 12 years old and he was an old man."I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound like any kind of a "basic relationship" - hetero- or homosexual - to me.Riding home after getting ice cream, McSorley says, Geoghan consoled him. But then he patted his upper leg and slid his hand up toward his crotch. "I froze up," McSorley said. "I didn't know what to think. Then he put his hand on my genitals and started masturbating me. I was petrified." McSorely added that Geoghan then began masturbating himself.
Atrios also notes that Ari Fleischer claimed today that the President didn't have any comments on Santorum's statement because "typically" the President doesn't comment on Supreme Court cases, rulings or findings. That quote is accompanied by a quote from the President's remarks on the affirmative action case involving the University of Michigan that was recently argued before the Supreme Court.
Blogspot has been having some problems lately with permalinks to specific entries in blogs maintained there, so it's best just to go to Eschaton to check out his posts. I'm sure we've not yet heard the last of it, either.
Lots going on today in blogland - and the general media - about Senator Rick Santorum's comment that allowing "consensual (gay) sex" in the privacy of the home would allow anything in the privacy of the home, including adultery, bigamy, incest and polygamy.
In a Salon article yesterday, Andrew Sullivan noted that the actual quote from Sen. Santorum was actually a much broader comparison.
First off a simple question: What did Santorum actually say? The reason I ask this is that I don't know anyone who speaks in parentheses. Did the AP reporter add the "(gay)" part to provide context for the quote? But such context could easily be provided by a simple sentence beforehand, while leaving the actual quote intact. From the story, it seems as if reporter Lara Jakes Jordan added the "(gay)" in order to get around her poor sentence construction. If so, she ruined a huge and damaging Freudian slip. Because it's clear from the quote that simply consensual sex -- gay or straight -- is precisely what Santorum wants to police.Atrios notes that, in another quote from the same interview, Santorm claims that post-pubescent men (i.e. teenagers) who had sex with Catholic priests were engaged in a "basic homosexual relationship" that was "consensual" - ignoring, of course, that the victim is still a minor (and would be considered the victim of molestation under almost any law). Just as sexual relationships between patients of any age and their doctors or therapists are considered unethical, and, in some cases, illegal, because these professionals hold a position of authority in the patient's life, so does a Priest hold a position of authority in a parishoner's life, and thus is able to exert a stronger influence on their victim, in effect coercing them through abuse of their perceived power.
SANTORUM: In this case, what we're talking about, basically, is priests who were having sexual relations with post-pubescent men. We're not talking about priests with 3-year-olds, or 5-year-olds. We're talking about a basic homosexual relationship. Which, again, according to the world view sense is a a perfectly fine relationship as long as it's consensual between people. If you view the world that way, and you say that's fine, you would assume that you would see more of it.DailyKOS points out that, while condeming the gay "lifestyle" and how allowing consentual sex be unregulated in the privacy of the home, Santorum makes sure to clarify that he doesn't have any problem with the gays themselves.
But being a good Christian, Santorum doesn't condemn the homosexual. No siree.And how does Santorum justify his desire for the government to be able to regulate all private sex acts? He says that the regulation of sexual activites - the regulation of an individuals passions and wants - is necessary because society must support the family.I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts. [...] I have nothing, absolutely nothing against anyone who's homosexual. If that's their orientation, then I accept that. and I have no problem with someone who has other orientations. The question is, do you act upon those orientations? So it's not the person, it's the person's actions.
You say, well, it's my individual freedom. Yes, but it destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that's antithetical to strong, healthy families. Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.And, of course, the reason we must protect "the family" is because of children.[..] And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society.
Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children.So, Santorum wants the government to have the right to regulate individual sexuality because "deviant" practices undermine the "family", and the family is important because that's what produces children.
I would absolutely love it if some reporter could sit Santorum down again and ask him a few more questions. For example, if certain kinds of sexuality are harmful to "the family", and the family is important because it produces children, should all non-reproductive sex acts be banned? What do you do with infertile people, who physiologically cannot have children? And what about couples like my husband and I, who, knowing that we would make rotten parents, have taken steps to ensure that we don't have children? Should we all be told that it's ok for us to have sexual desires (just as he thinks its ok for gays to have sexual desires for people of the same sex), but that we shouldn't act on those desires (just as Santorum believes gays should refrain from acting on their desires)? Where does the line get drawn? Should the government be involved in regulating things such as what sexual positions are allowable - for example, making the "missionary" position the only legal position since that is the one believed to be best for encouraging conception?
Bizzarely, Santorum seems to think that such decisions should be left up to the individual states - so that people who live in one state could outlaw all sex except procreative sex, and another state could allow pretty much anything anyone could want.
SANTORUM: I've been very clear about that. The right to privacy is a right that was created in a law that set forth a (ban on) rights to limit individual passions. And I don't agree with that. So I would make the argument that with President, or Senator or Congressman or whoever Santorum, I would put it back to where it is, the democratic process. If New York doesn't want sodomy laws, if the people of New York want abortion, fine. I mean, I wouldn't agree with it, but that's their right. But I don't agree with the Supreme Court coming in.I find it outrageous that this is a conversation that we should even need to have. Our sexual lives should be precisely that - ours! Santorum believes that there should be no right to privacy in this country, and that without this right, the government could then step in and regulate sexuality. But there may even be a way around that. Now, this is just my own personal "pet" theory, and maybe it wouldn't work at all, but it seems to me that there have been many actions that have been held to be forms of expression or "speech" - things such as flag burning, various forms of art - including performance art - and so on. What is more "expressive" than a sexual act? Now, granted, one Senator speaking out does not a crisis make, so "emergency" tactics are not needed now, nor is widespread panic - but it can't hurt to at least consider what kinds of tactics might be useful for when future cases arise.
On the whole, this will likely turn out to be a tempest in a teacup, but ideas like this cannot be ignored. If they are not shouted down immediately, people who feel the same way will think that these ideas are acceptable, and they're not. Yes, Sen. Santorum and others who agree with him have their right to their beliefs and they have the right to express them. I am in no way suggesting that the government should do anything to shut them up. But the protest against these ideas must be loud and strong so that they cannot find places to flourish. I'm not willing to let the government into my bedroom. I hope you're not, either.
Howard Dean, a Democratic candidate for president and the Vermont governor who signed that state's "Civil Unions" law, allowing gay couples to form legal relationships similar to marriage, has posted a statement to his official blog about Rick Santorums comparison of consensual gay sex to adultery, bigamy, incest and polygamy:
In an interview published yesterday with the Associated Press, Rick Santorum, the third highest ranking Republican in the Senate, compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. I am outraged by Senator Santorum's remarks.As I noted yesterday, Santorum's comments equate consensual gay sex with acts that are either deceptive or exploitave in nature, neither of which is a inheirent part of gay sex between consenting adults.That a leader of the Republican Party would make such insensitive and divisive comments --comments that are derogatory and meant to harm an entire group of Americans, their friends and their familie -- is not only outrageous, but deeply offensive.
The silence with which President Bush and the Republican Party leadership have greeted Sen. Santorum's remarks is deafening. It is the same silence that greeted Senator Lott's offensive remarks in December. It is a silence that implicitly condones a policy of domestic divisiveness, a policy that seeks to divide Americans again and again on the basis of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation.
I hope that more will also speak out against Sentorum's comments and make it clear that consenting gay adults have the same right to love whomever they choose as any other couple of consenting adults, and that making public statements otherwise is as bad and as shameful as making other bigoted comments.
Link via Atrios
In a statement sure to shock lawmakers everywhere, Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania reminded America that if the Supreme Court decides that citizens have the right to consensual gay sex in their own home, it could lead to people thinking that it is perfectly acceptable to engage in adultery in your own home as well.
No, seriously, that's not too far off from what he raelly said. Here's his quote from an Associated Press interview published on Monday:
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."Sen. Santorum seems to be missing a few points in making his statement, not the least of which is that places where adultery is illegal in America are few and far between (indeed, if any even still exist).
Personally, I consider adultery to be one of the more grevious actions one can commit. I do not approve of it, I would not tolerate it from my husband, nor would I engage in it personally, and I tend to be a bit judgemental of people who do. But as morally wrong as I may think adultery is, I also recognize that, except in the case of my own marriage, my opinion on adultery counts for exactly squat.
In comparing homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery, Santorum seems to be missing the point that these things are not always truly comparable.
In most cases of bigamy, for example, only the bigamist knows what's going on. As with adultery, it's most common that each of adulterer or bigamist's additional partners are completely in the dark about the existence of the others, and the adulterer/bigamist stays busy trying to keep juggling without dropping any of the balls. The main feature that adultery and bigamy have in common which makes both of them objectionable to many people is that they are based on deception.
With incest and polygamy, what you are typically looking at is exploitation. Incest involves one family member taking advantage of the trust given to them by another - usually younger - family member and abusing that trust to gain sexual gratification. Polygamy, as it is most often thought of, generally features a man who gathers to himself many wives, frequently several years younger than himself, and, in some cases, the younger sisters or daughters of earlier wives. As with incest, the perpetrator takes advantage of the naivete and trust that the younger girls have and turns it to his own goal of gathering multiple sex partners that he can have a fair amount of control over.*
Consensual gay sex, however, is neither decitful nor exploitave. In fact, aside from the gender of the partners, it's very much like heterosexual sex. Sure, you can have gay relationships that involve deceit or exploitation, just as you can have strait relationships that have those same qualities - but those qualities are not what defines the nature of a gay relationship. And just as my opinions on adultery don't count for anything outside my own relationship, people's opinions on homosexuality shouldn't carry any weight outside of their own relationship, either.
It's one thing to speak out about situations in which people are being exploited or manipulated without their knowledge or against their will - but if everyone involved in the relationship is aware of exactly what is going on, is capable of giving their consent and has voluntarily and freely done so, then why should it be any of my business how or what they do -- and why should it be any of Senator Santorum's business, either?
*(Note: There are other, non-exploitive, forms of polygamy that are seen from time to time, which I may write more about later. These relationship groups are significantly different, however, in that they are made of consenting adults who are well aware of what they are getting into, and generally do not involve one dominant person manipulating younger or more vulnerable partners for their own gain.)
I would like to thank a visitor to this site, Deb Conrad, for posting a copy of a letter she had received from the Office of the Cheif of Chaplains into the comment section of the blog (It's attached to the first story on this matter that I posted several days ago). Since I have posted several times on the issue of Josh Llano and the report of his using baths as a bribe for giving baptisms, I wanted to go ahead and post the test of that message to the main blog, so that it can be more easily found. Ms. Conrad also has several other points in the comment she left, and I do suggest reading it in its entirety.
Here is the letter she received:
Based on your earlier inquiry about the report of CH Llano, a US Army Chaplain, I wanted to offer you the following information. Thank you for your concern and interest. I hope this reassures you about the expectations of the Army and work of Army chaplains.
The free exercise of religion is a foundational issue to us in the chaplaincy. In fact, we first became aware of this at about 9:30 pm last Thursday, and by 10:00 pm that night, the Chief of Chaplains requested additional information. The Army respects and actively accommodates the religious practices of all soldiers. In accordance with the practices of many Baptist traditions, the Army provides water for full-body immersion baptisms when it is available.
Based on news reports and questions from members of the media, the Office of the Chief of Chaplains requested additional details on the accuracy of the quotations and the nature of the actions performed by an Army chaplain while in Iraq. There are some factual problems with the article. There have been tens of thousands of water produced each day at the Corps Support Base and readily available to soldiers for all personal hygiene, drinking water, and enough to allot water for a baptismal pool during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Army does not condone religious coercion. The chain-of-command, supported by the Chaplain Corps, ensures that soldiers are free to exercise their religious beliefs. The local commander has direct knowledge of the chaplain's action and has very high regard for the work of the chaplain.
Access to water was never used in any way as a bribe for baptism. Chaplain Llano states he did not offer any quotes or statements in response to questions by the reporter. He indicates she overheard conversations he had with another officer and these were presented as quotations. The supervisory chaplain has direct knowledge of the chaplain's actions and indicates the religious activities described by the reporter are attended by the choice of the soldiers. The Joint Force Land Component Commander in Kuwait has received no complaints of religious coercion from soldiers in the field.
The threshold for concern about protecting the free exercise is extremely low. Chaplains have performed their religious rites, sacraments and ordinances representing the faith group which sends them and provide for the religious support of all soldiers. The Chief of Chaplains affirms and commends the chaplains, chaplain assistants and directors of religious education deployed with US soldiers providing religious support at the risk of their lives.
Chaplain (Lt Col) Eric Webster
Office of the Chief of Chaplains
While I must say I'm not happy that the author of the original article (Meg Laughlin at the Miami Herald) apparently used overheard comments and presented them as if they were quotes from an interview, I must say I'm glad to hear that Lt. Llano was not behaving in the manner the article portrayed. I am also quite glad that the Office of the Chief of Chaplains looked into it and was able to provide a response. I never have gotten a response to my own message about the situation, but it's good that one has been made.
I know that information about the original article, and, in fact, copies of my own post about it, were passed around the net. I hope that people will also be willing to pass around copies of this response, so that it can be out there as well - especially given that it appear the intial article did not paint a true picture of what was happening.
Thanks again, Deb, for sharing your thoughts and the response you got!
Rightly or wrongly, California is known as a pretty goofy place. (Ok, so it's mostly rightly...). The latest evidence? The city of Palo Alto wants to outlaw the use of body language during political debates.
"Do not use body language or other nonverbal methods of expression disagreement or disgust," a new list of proposed conduct rules reads.
I can, of course, understand the point. I think most of us tend to find it very annoying when we're watching a debate and the person who doesn't have the floor is calling attention to themselves with exaggerated eye-rolling, sighs, gestures and other general body language to try and "express" how they feel about the other person's comments. I remember that kind of behaviour even became a bit of an issue in the Bush-Gore debates during the 2000 election.
Personally, I think it would be best if debaters refrained from engaging in such theatrics, as they not only distract from the other person's point (and the whole purpose of a debate is to allows both sides a chance to present their views to the public in a format designed to allow the audience to compare and contrast the arguments that are made), but they also tend to make the person making the gestures look rather immature - as if they're concerned their arguments can't hold up against their opponant, and they have to distract the audience instead, if they have any hope of winning.
But making a rule against such demonstrations of disagreement? That just seems to go a bit too far - and runs the risk of becoming even more of a distraction in and of itself. Face it, politicians are petty. They kind of have to be. And you know that if such a rule is made, there will be people who will then spend more of their time and energy scanning to see who is making faces than they will spend actually listening to what's being said - and who can't just see the arguments over whether someone made a expression of disgust or was trying to suppress a belch?
Link via Blogcritics
This quote from an ABC interview of Barbara Bush, printed in Newsday, has been getting a lot of play on some of the left-leaning blogs:
"But why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's going to happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Oh, I mean, it's, not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer."
It certainly makes the former First Lady sound rather callous and more than a bit shallow - and she may well be. But when reading her entire comment, and not just this portion of it, it gives a bit of a different perspective to it:
"He sits and listens and I read books because I know perfectly well that - don't take offense - that 90 percent of what I hear on television is supposition, when we're talking about the news. And he's not, not as understanding of my pettiness about that. But why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's going to happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Oh, I mean, it's, not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer."
Reading the full quote, it seem apparent to me that she's not saying that body bags and deaths are irrelevent, but rather than TV news that's irrelevant because the vast majority of it these days is supposition instead of fact.
The "beautiful mind" part, though... that's just a little weird.
Found this over as Eschaton. I sincerely hope that the families of these soldiers never read this article. Somehow I don't think that they'd appreciate his belief that their sons were injured - and, from the description of the rest of the article, nearly killed - so that he wouldn't be shot. The arrogance of his comments is mind-numbing. An excerpt:
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The soldiers were there for a reason.
The logical, rational explanation is that they were there because their tank caught fire and had to be destroyed. So, without a ride, they jumped onto the armored personnel carrier with me.
I prefer to believe it was the hand of God that put them there, one behind me, one to my left. They were there to protect me.
Had they not been there, I most likely would not be now typing this.
Less than 30 minutes after the two soldiers joined me, both were wounded by bullets that could have hit me.
The soldier behind me was hit in the left wrist and the left eye by a bullet that struck the side of the armored personnel carrier and shattered.
A bullet hit the soldier to my immediate left in the right arm, just a few inches from my left arm. The bullet broke his arm, entered his body just below his armpit and came out his back.
I know their names, but their families may not have been notified yet.
Well, there are now at least two sites suggesting that the Statue of Liberty should be returned to France. Thankfully, they both appear to be satire rather than serious, and one even offers a cute list of suggested replacement for French words.
It's good to see that humour is still alive and well, no?
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia banned broadcast media from an appearance Wednesday where he will receive an award for supporting free speech.
While I agree that teachers should have a great deal of latitude in what kind of assignments they give their students, or what they consider appropriate material for extra credit, this teacher clearly crossed the line.
Louis Zellers says adjunct speech professor Rosalyn Kahn offered her students extra credit for sending letters to Bush expressing anti-war views but said they would receive no extra credit if they wrote letters supporting a war with Iraq.
Zellers says his letter to Bush also will request that all letters received from Citrus College students be retracted.
The college place placed Kahn on administrative leave with pay starting this week, pending a review of her actions.
The class in question, oddly, was a speech class - not any kind of a writing or political science class - and is a required class for people who are wanting to transfer to California's state schools.
As you may have noticed, I am against the war in Iraq. I also think that it's good for Bush to receive a lot of letters and calls from people expressing that viewpoint. I even think that giving students extra credt for writing to him to express their views would be appropriate for certain kinds of classes - but only if the credit is given regardless of what view the student expresses.
One student summarized his experience this way:
"It seemed more like a political science class," Stevens said. "There was no room for dissenting remarks. You just had to follow her beliefs and that's what you worked with. I told her "this isn't fair, we can't compromise our beliefs,' but that I did the assignment according to her instructions. When she said the letter had to be mailed if I wanted credit, I said, "No, that's not OK,' and I took the letter back."
Apparently, that wasn't the only subject about which she tried to use her students to push her views - she also had them write to a state senator about the state's education budget.
Specifically, students were told to write that part-time instructors are vital to the college and that they shouldn't lose their jobs, said Christopher Stevens, 20, a first-year student at Citrus College.
For both assignments, students were told they would only receive credit if they expressed certain political viewpoints, Stevens said.
Encouraging political activism is good. But this teacher wasn't as interested in doing that as she was in getting more support for her own views, to make them appear more popular than they really are.
The situation was resolved with the teacher being suspended, and ordered to revoke her initial assignment and redo the project giving students the extra credit if they write the letters without regard to the position the student takes on the matter, and with out requiring the students send the letters to get credit.
ReadMe.blog has a note about an article on CNN that includes a quote from a woman who is protesting the war because her son is in the Marines. Seems he joined the Marines because he needed money for his education, and his mother doesn't him dying, and is against his killing innocent people because that's not how she raised him.
As ReadMe notes:
Does this woman realize that you don't join The Marines to get a free meal ticket? Killing and dying for our country is kind of the whole point of the armed services. Unbelievable.
Sadly, I think too many parents - and kids - have had this same kind of mentality about the military. They see it as a way to earn money and get an education, but dismiss the very real risk that we will go to war if the leadership decides that we have a reason to (or because he just seems to feel like it, as the case may be). Part of that may well be because the military recruitment advertisements focus on the monetary and educational benefits of service (since advertising that you might get to go to exotic places, kill people and maybe even die yourself isn't going to be the kind of marketing pitch that's going to attract the type of recruits the military wants), but the level of ignorance this mother is showing is inexcusable.
Update: While checking out PatriotWatch (an interesting blog I just discovered), I noticed a section called "Remixed Propaganda Posters", which links to their CafePress shop and offers a variety of hilarious WWII-stype propaganda posted, updated for today's world. One in particular seems appropriate for this story... take a moment to check it out.
Oklahoma State Senator Ben Robinson is a man of his word. Fifteen years ago, when he was first running for office, a supporter made a substantial donation, and requested that he introduce a bill that would require cloth napkins be provided when being served barbecue. It's taken a while, but Senator Robinson has now introduced just such a bill.
While I'm sure his supporter is pleased that he has honoured the request, somehow I think the Oklahoma Senate has more important things to do than worry about whether barbecue patrons have napkins - cloth or otherwise.
Note from Kriselda: Many of you may have seen an e-mail being fowarded around featuring outrageous lawsuits called the "Stella Awards". (Stella is the name of the woman who sued McDonald's for having excessively hot coffee after she was burned while holding a cup between her legs as she was driving). The cases cited are quite outlandish, but they're also fake. None of the suits cited in the e-mail exist, and in most cases, there's no record to indicate that the incident cited as being the causitive event happened, either.
Randy Cassingham, author of THIS IS TRUE, a widely syndicated newspaper column featuring hilarious - but true - stories, tied up by a clever tagline. Recently, he also began publishing the True Stella Awards, inspired by the e-mail, but featuring real, verified court cases. The True Stella Awards newsletter is available free of charge, and in addition to his summaries of the cases, he also frequently includes thought-provoking comments from his readers, and responses from other readers to previously published comments, as well as his own responses.
Below are his choices for the 2002 True Stella Awards - cases that have really been filed and which demonstrate the lengths some people will go to in order to try and get "free" money via lawsuits.
If you wish to forward this message to anyone else, please be aware that you may do so, provided that all of the information located below the horizontal lines is included, and is unaltered (including the copyright notice). This introductory material by me [Kriselda] is NOT a part of the message and MUST NOT be fowarded with the actual message itself.
Unlike the FAKE cases that have been highly circulated online for the last several years (see http://www.StellaAwards.com/bogus.html for details), the following cases have been researched from public sources and are confirmed TRUE by the ONLY legitimate source for the Stella Awards: www.StellaAwards.com. To confirm this copy is legitimate, see http://www.StellaAwards.com/2002.html
-v-
#7: Attorney Philip Shafer of Ashland, Ohio, flew on Delta Airlines from New Orleans to Cincinnati and was given a seat, he says, next to a fat man. "He was a huge man," Shafer says. "He and I [were] literally and figuratively married from the right kneecap to the shoulder for two hours." He therefore "suffered embarrassment, severe discomfort, mental anguish and severe emotional distress," he claims in a lawsuit against the airline. Shafer figures this embarrassment, discomfort, mental anguish and emotional distress could be cured by a $9,500 payment from Delta. If Shafer isn't careful, that might be dwarfed by the divorce settlement his "huge" (seat)mate might demand.
#6: "The Godfather of Soul" James Brown has a "grudge" against his daughters Deanna Brown Thomas and Yamma Brown Lumar, they allege. They say Brown "vowed to the media that his daughters will never get a dime from him" and "James Brown has kept his word." So they have done what any kid would do when cut off from their rich daddy's bank account: they sued him for more than $1 million, claiming that they are owed royalties on 25 of his songs which, they say, they helped him write even though, at the time, they were children. For instance, when Brown's 1976 hit "Get Up Offa That Thing" was a chart-topper, the girls were aged 3 and 6. It's enough to make Brown switch to the Blues.
#5: Utah prison inmate Robert Paul Rice, serving 1-15 years on multiple felonies, sued the Utah Department of Corrections claiming the prison was not letting him practice his religion: "Druidic Vampire". Rice claimed that to do that, he must be allowed sexual access to a "vampress". In addition, the prison isn't supplying his specific "vampiric dietary needs" (yes: blood). Records show that Rice registered as a Catholic when he was imprisoned in 2000. "Without any question we do not have conjugal visits in Utah," said a prison spokesman when the suit was thrown out. Which just goes to prove prison life sucks.
#4: Every time you visit your doctor, you're told the same old things: eat less, exercise more, stop smoking. Do you listen? Neither did Kathleen Ann McCormick. The obese, cigarette-smoking woman from Wilkes-Barre, Penn., had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and a family history of coronary artery disease. Yet doctors at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center "did not do enough" to convince her to work to improve her own health. Unsurprisingly, she had a heart attack which, she says in a federal lawsuit, left her a "cardiac invalid". In addition to eight doctors, she's suing their employer -- the U.S. government -- demanding a minimum of $1 million in compensation.
#3: In 1997 Bob Craft, then 39, of Hot Springs, Montana, changed his name to Jack Ass. Now, he says that MTV's TV show and movie "Jackass" was "plagiarized" from him, infringes his trademarks and copyrights, and that this has demeaned, denigrated and damaged his public image. No attorney would take the case, so he has filed suit on his own against MTV's corporate parent, demanding $50 million in damages. If nothing else, Jack Ass has proved he chose his name well.
#2: Hazel Norton of Rolling Fork, Miss., read there was a class action suit against the drug Propulsid, which her doctor had prescribed to her for a digestive disorder. Despite admitting that "I didn't get hurt by Propulsid," Norton thought "I might get a couple of thousand dollars" by joining the lawsuit. When her doctor was named in the suit, he quit his Mississippi practice -- where he was serving the poor. He left with his wife, a pediatrician and internist. That left only two doctors practicing at the local hospital. So while Norton wasn't harmed by the drug, all her neighbors now get to suffer from drastically reduced access to medical care because of her greed.
AND THE WINNER of the 2002 True Stella Awards:
Sisters Janice Bird, Dayle Bird Edgmon and Kim Bird Moran sued their mother's doctors and a hospital after Janice accompanied her mother, Nita Bird, to a minor medical procedure. When something went wrong, Janice and Dayle witnessed doctors rushing their mother to emergency surgery. Rather that suing for malpractice, the lawsuit claimed "negligent infliction of emotional distress" -- not for causing distress to their mother, but for causing distress to THEM for having to SEE the doctors rushing to help their mother. The case was fought all the way to the California Supreme Court, which finally ruled against the women. Which is a good thing, since if they had prevailed doctors and hospitals would have had no choice but to keep YOU from being anywhere near your family members during medical procedures just in case something goes wrong. In their greed, the Bird sisters risked everyone's right to have family members with them in emergencies.
TO CONFIRM THE VALIDITY OF THESE CASES, get more information on the True Stella Awards, or sign up for a free e-mail subscription to new cases as they are issued, see http://www.StellaAwards.com/2002.html
Copyright 2003 www.StellaAwards.com. This message may be forwarded as long as it remains complete and unaltered.
From the Washington Post:
Our friends at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have outdone themselves this time, sending a deferential letter to Yasser Arafat about a Jan. 26 Jerusalem bombing in which a donkey -- but no human beings -- died after being strapped with explosives and detonated.
Yesterday we asked [PETA President Ingrid] Newkirk if she considered asking Arafat to persuade those who listen to him to stop blowing up people as well. "It's not my business to inject myself into human wars," she replied.
Earlier this week, Howard Coble (R-NC), the chairman of the House committee on Homeland Security claimed that he supported FDR's decision to put the Japanese-Americans into internment camps during World War II, because they were being put there - at least in part - for their own protection.
Now, I wasn't alive back then, and I'm not much of a student of history - but even I know that we weren't locking up the Japanese-Americans for their own good. (And, yes, it worries me that we have someone that ignorant chairing a committee on Homeland Security.) We were doing it because we were afraid that they would have more loyalty to the Japan than America and were therefore a threat to national security.
The internment of the Japanese-Americans during the war is one of the sadder chapters in American history. We were afraid, and we let our fear get the better of us as a nation. We took away the civil rights of thousands of people - most of whom had done nothing except be born with the wrong ancestry (well, wrong for that time -- the 'wrong' ancestry seems to keep changing depending on who we're most afraid of at the moment) - and then took decades to acknowledge that what we'd done was wrong.
I suppose the good news is that Rep. Coble says that he would not support the internment of Arab-Americans today, though his rationale for doing so seems a bit odd. His spokeswoman, Missy Branson, explains it this way:
Seeking to clarify the comments, Branson said Coble would not endorse the internment policy today, but he thought it was an appropriate decision at the time because American society was much less integrated and multicultural.
"We were much less tolerant and understanding of other cultures," Branson said.
"The emotion that surrounded the bombing of Pearl Harbor was so intense, the possibility of harm coming to Japanese Americans was very strong as a result."
Maybe it's just me, but from what I can see, the emotion surrounding the destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon is pretty intense - intense enough that the President is using it to convince Americans we need to attack Iraq - a country we have no evidence to indicate it was even involved in the WTC/Pentagon attack. It's intense enough that most Americans are turning a blind eye to the new rules requiring most men from Middle Eastern countries (and North Korea) to submit a special registration to the INS and check in with them periodically. It's intense enough that we're letting the government take away our supposedly cherished rights and freedoms through the USA PATRIOT act (and it's propsed sequal), creeping power-grabs by the Justice Department, the development of the Total Information Awareness project and other erosions and intrusions being developed by our government. It's intense enough that we let our government keep secrets from us, lie to us, manipulate us and scare us.
We've been fortunate that, thus far, there hasn't been a wholesale outbreak of hate crimes against Arab-Americans - but that doesn't mean that there haven't been any; and Arab-Americans are still at risk from harm other than physical attacks. The FBI has been given leeway to begin spying in mosques, and FBI offices have been told that as part of their threat assessments for their local areas, they need to include a count of how many mosques there are, a step the ACLU has likened to an ethnic survey done during WWII, and which helped serve as part of the beginnings of the Japanese-American internment.
Arab-Americans are being more closely watched by the government and by the general public, and there's a greater chance that innocuous actions or comments by Arab-Americans will be viewed as potentially threatening, which can result in police intervention where none is needed (as was the case a few months back for 3 medical students whose comments, which they claim were about how to get a car from one state to another, were taken by a waitress as being a discussion about blowing up either a plane or a building - and who were then pulled over by the police, searched and interrogated.)
One of Coble's colleagues, Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) gave a wonderful example of the kind of mentality that our current fear of what Arabic people might do can lead to. When speaking about the state of American readiness said:
"You know, and this can be misconstrued, but honest to goodness (husband) Ed and I for years, for 20 years, have been saying, `You know, look at who runs all the convenience stores across the country.' Every little town you go into, you know?"
Given that we, as a nation, have finally progressed to the point where we at least seem to recognize that our treatment of Japanese-Americans during WWII was shameful, I suspect that it would be difficult for the government to get away with rounding up all Arabs and Arab-Americans and put them in internment camps - though my fellow citizens have been known to surprise me lately with what they let the government get away with. But even if we don't construct barbed-wire fences and barracks to house Arabs and Arab-Americans away from the rest of the population, there are other ways to isolate and, in a sense, segregate "them" from the rest of "us" - the infiltration of mosques by the FBI, closer surveillance by law enforcement, various forms of racial profiling and suspicious eyes and ears of friends and neighbors can segregate Arabs and Arab-Americans socially, politically and economically - without a single camp being constructed.
I was reading an article on how the disintegration of the Shuttle Columbia, like many other tragedies of the last few decades, played out in full view of the public - but rather than being on TV, this time, the public was mainly tuned into the Internet. As an example of how the disaster unfolded online, the article provides a link to a thread at the Free Republic message forum that was started by a Freeper wanting to give a heads up reminder to anyone on the west coast who might be interested in seeing the Shuttle pass overhead.
The posts started well before there was any thought something might be amiss, and follow through as the forum participants realize that the Shuttle is out of communication, that the cameras should have switched to show the Shuttle coming in for it's landing, that it is long past the time when some kind of news should have broadcast, and finally that the worst has apparently happened.
The thread, to that point, was haunting - people posting what they had seen as the Shuttle flew over their heads, one commenting on the time he saw one of the moon capsules coming in for splashdown, and the sad realizations of what it was they were truly witnessing. Then comes post number 79, posted by "1John2 3and4", no more than 2 hours after the first signs that the Shuttle was in danger:
ok, im so sad....but i just thought it would be good for someone in saudi arabia to get footage of crowd reaction....you know what i mean here....would serve as a good reminder
Initially, the point the poster was trying to make went right over my head. Maybe I'm just as blood-thirsty in my outlook or as mercenary in my tactics, but as I read on, I wondered what this enigmatic message was supposed to mean.
In post 88, "1John2 3and4" comments on how he's tried to pass the above sentiment on to local radio stations:
AND i just phoned the local talk radios, KLIF 570AM, and WBAP 820AM....the call screener at KLIF chided me for thinking such a thing, saying we didnt need to see such a thing, to which i (gently) replied; "what about going under the heading of: 'the public's RIGHT TO KNOW'?" the WBAP screener thought it was a good idea....
Finally, in number 91, "1John2 3and4" states more clearly what it is he's referring to:
you know, im not sure about the appropriateness(?) of getting such footage and broadcasting it right away, but it sure would be viscerally powerful (to see the muslim crowd(s) celebrating) at SOME point....
In today's climate, there's no way that the Shuttle disaster won't be used to score political points, most likely by politicians on both sides of the aisle. It's distasteful and it's unseemly, but it's the American way. Somehow, though, I find it nearly unimaginable that people were already thinking of ways to exploit the tragedy (and, in this case, the reaction some Muslims had to the news) no more than 2 hours after it occured? Unbelievable.
As most of us who pay attention to the news have already read, the British dossier [available in HTML and downloadable in both PDF and Word formats] that Colin Powell praised so highly during his presentation on Wednesday was largely plagiarized from three sources, including a graduate paper published in the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA).
It's bad enough for a governmental paper that is supposed to help solidify the case for going to war to be shown to have been fraudulently presented (by, at the very least, giving the impression that it was the original work of the British Intelligence community), but this paper appears to have been, in some ways, almost mindlessly plagiarized. Britian's Channel 4, which broke the story, has an article today demonstrating the similarities between the apparent source material and the plagiarized finished product. They also point out that, in at least some places, the complilers of the British dossier didn't even bother to correct typographical errors. An example:
Even typographic mistakes in the original articles are repeated.
Of military intelligence, al-Marashi writes in his original paper:
"The head of military intelligence generally did not have to be a relative of Saddam's immediate family, nor a Tikriti. Saddam appointed, Sabir Abd Al-Aziz Al-Duri as head..." Note the comma after appointed.
Downing Street paraphrases the first sentence: "Saddam appointed, Sabir 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Duri as head during the 1991 Gulf War."
This second line is cut and pasted, complete with the same grammatical error.
On a somewhat ironic note, when Condaleeza Rice wrote her essay on "Why We Know Iraq Is Lying", one of the reasons she cites is that Iraq had allegedly plagiarized part of their declaration.
Iraq's declaration even resorted to unabashed plagiarism, with lengthy passages of United Nations reports copied word-for-word (or edited to remove any criticism of Iraq) and presented as original text. Far from informing, the declaration is intended to cloud and confuse the true picture of Iraq's arsenal. It is a reflection of the regime's well-earned reputation for dishonesty and constitutes a material breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, which set up the current inspections program.
I have read several articles on this controversy, and one question that keeps coming up is "what does it matter if the material was plagiarized if it is accurate?". In my opinion, it makes a difference on several levels. First, the very act of plagiarizing calls into question the integrity of those who put the report together. Beyond that, it is academic laziness at it's worst, and when decision-makers are using this material to help determine of war is necessary or to justify their decision to go to war, it is crucial that the information - and the information gatherers - be unquestionably trustworthy. The fact that the compliers apparently didn't even check the source material or the final dossier closely enough to catch simple typographical errors calls into question how well they checked the information provided by the source material.
For me, though, the most troubling aspect is that it very clearly shows that those who are in support of this war will goto great lengths to push their agenda through - even if it means presenting information through fraudulent means. Reports have indicated that much of the material in the British dossier is based on information that is roughly a decade old - and may or may not have much relevance in regards to the current situation. In stealing old material and presenting it as current intelligence, the British dossier serves only to muddy the waters, not make anything clearer. The whole situation raises the question of "why?" - why would the British decide to plagiarize these documents? Is there no current intelligence to present? Do we know if they bothered to check out any of the sources for the original source material (and if so, did they at least check them out more thoroughly than they proofread their final dossier?)
Had the British, rather than stealing the material outright, chosen to make use of the paper to support the intelligence data they wished to present or the conclusions they are drawing from that intelligence, providing proper credit to the author, it would have been a very different situation. Readers of the dossier would have known that the British were relying on information from an outside source (the MERIA article), and could have thus chosen to review the MERIA article, see who originally wrote that and do additional research on its author, if they wanted. They could even have gone through the MERIA article's footnotes, references and biblography, and looked into the validity of those sources. The ability to do this is crucial in decisions of this magnitude, and in the course of public debate on the issue.
In the long run, the British have done more to hurt their case for war than anything. Even if it turns out that the information in the dossier is valid, by showing themselves to be untrustworthy and willing to steal and lie to make a point, the credibility of the British and their intelligence community has just sunk a great deal in my opinion.
NOTE: Credit for catching the plagiarism goes to Dr. Glen Rangwala, a Cambridge lecturer who was familiar with the original paper published in MERIA, and maintains a detailed reference file looking at the claims and evaluations of Iraq's proscribed weapons. This reference file appears to be updated regularly, and was most recently updated on February 6, 2003, to include comments on Powell's presentation.
Angered over discussion with boss, store employee quits
By Pauline Lupercio
Staff Writer
Heather Pebbles believed she was doing the right thing when she called police on Jan. 8 after discovering a two-month old baby left alone in a vehicle in the Northville township Babies “R” Us parking lot.
But even though she was right in her action, Pebbles was told her response caused an unpleasant experience for the customer involved.
There are some things I don't think I'll ever really understand. One is parents who seem to think that caring for their children should somehow always be a matter of convenience, another is businessmen (and women) who put profits above basic human decency.
According to a report published in the Detroit Free Press, the mother says she left the child in the car because the 10-week-old infant was "too heavy" to carry while shopping. If that's the case, then wouldn't it be wiser to have a family member or baby sitter watch the child while the mother is out shopping than bring the kid along and leave it in the car (regardless of the weather) while the mother goes about her business?
If there isn't another family member who can watch the child, or she doesn't want to pay a babysitter, then she pretty much has to take the kid with her. But a bit part of being a parent is to make sure your child is watched and cared for, and if the child is heavier than you want to be toting around, but isn't yet old enough to walk, that's really just your tough luck. Stollers are one viable way around that, and there are plenty of harnesses, slings, front and/or back packs and other devices designed to help make toting a small child around easier, but easy or not, there's no excuse for just leaving a child in the car.
In this particular case, the most immediate danger to the child in the car was the cold weather - it was 9 degrees out at the time. But there are always other dangers as well. Children have been snatched out of cars, and in a parking lot there's always the risk of one car running into another. Then there's also the fact that the child is, in all likelihood well aware of the fact that it is all alone, and that is something that can be extremely frightening for a young baby who has yet to understand much of anything.
As for the reaction of the store, the assistant manager's concern is obviously misplaced. Sure, the mother may have had a "negative shopping experience", but I can't imagine too many people, upon hearing why she felt the experience was negative, would consider the store to have been out-of-line in calling the police to help make sure that the child was taken care of.
Unfortunately, there are many managers who feel that profits are all that matters, and that the best way to increase profits is to retain current customers while attracting new ones. With the economy in as bad of shape as it currently is, sometimes the drive to retain customers and to avoid turning off potential new customers is given a higher priority than it should ever warrant. Placing profitabiltiy above human safety is never appropriate, and managers that are that myopic should probably look for a new line of work.
One bit of good news in this mess is that, at the corporate level, at least, the employee's actions were considered to be appropriate:
Susan McGlaughlin, director of public relations for Toys “R” Us, Inc., the parent company of Babies “R” Us, said that Pebbles’ decision to contact police was supported.
“We firmly believe that calling the police was the right thing to do.” said McGlaughlin, who would not elaborate on the exchange between Pebbles and the assistant manager.
It is unknown at this time what, if anything, will be said or done in regards to the assistant manager who repremanded Ms. Pebbles, or if Ms. Pebbles will get her job back, but it's good to see that the company, as a whole, actually has their priorities straight.
From Jurist:
McDonald's obesity dismissal
US District Judge Robert Sweet's Wednesday dismissal of a precedent-setting obesity lawsuit against McDonald's Corporation is now online [PDF] from the Southern District of New York. The suit was brought on behalf of overweight children in the Bronx and claimed that McDonald's products posed a danger to consumers of which they were unaware.
I'm glad to see that the Judge in this case had the common sense to dismiss this suit before it could waste more of the courts time or bring more attention to the attorney who filed it. Somehow I doubt this will do much to convince the parents of the kids that the suit was brought "on behalf of" that maybe they need to accept responsiblity for their children's welfare, but maybe it'll at least shake a clue into the heads of a few of them.
More, from AP:
Federal judge throws out lawsuit against McDonald's
The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) -- Saying the law is not intended to protect people from their own excesses, a federal judge threw out a class-action lawsuit Wednesday that blamed McDonald's food for obesity, diabetes and other health problems in children.
U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet said the plaintiffs failed to show that the fast-food chain's products "involve a danger that is not within the common knowledge of consumers."
"If a person knows or should know that eating copious orders of supersized McDonald's products is unhealthy and may result in weight gain ... it is not the place of the law to protect them from their own excesses," the judge said. "Nobody is forced to eat at McDonald's."
Chilean porn politician promises to flash breasts
A Chilean porn star has promised to flash her fellow MPs if her election campaign is successful.
[...] Reichel said she believed voters would elect her to stop infighting in parliament.
"When the politicians fight in Congress, I'll show them my breasts," she said.
"This will be my way of protesting and it will make them reach agreement. I'm going to get some nice implants so I'll be happy to show them."
Maybe Chilean men are different from American men, but wouldn't a sexy woman promising to flash her breasts every time people started fighting in parliament guarantee an increase in fights, not a decrease?
I can just hear the MP's now "C'mon guys! We gotta be able to think of something to argue about today! I know! I'll propose an increase on the tax of tomato soup, and one of you can come up with a bunch of objections to it. That should get her shirt off, right?"
Lara Flynn Boyle for her, well, uh, not sure what this is supposed to be, at the Golden Globes last night.
(Yes,we're taking a brief break from the normal sturm und drang of political news today. Don't worry. I'll get back to being my usual cranky self soon...)
Bible college shuns beastly 666 phone number. A Kentucky Bible college wants to change its telephone number because the 666 prefix is disturbing to Christians who recognise it as the biblical mark of the beast. [Ananova: Quirkies]
Cockfighting Rooster Kills Handler. A rooster about to be set loose for a bout in a crowded cockfighting arena attacked its handler with the razor-sharp steel spikes strapped to its legs, killing the stunned man, police said Tuesday. [Yahoo! News: Strange News - AP]
Random: What Every Phelps Baby Needs. Shocked parents discover that one of their baby's toys says repeatedly, "I hate you!" [Morons Dot Org]
A family got a small play aquarium as a present for their 6-month old son this Christmas, which is intended to play soothing ocean wave sounds to help the child go to sleep. Recently, they noticed that in between the ocean waves, ever now and then, the toy will start saying "I hate you" instead.
The toy is one of Wal*Mart's store brands, so the parents took it back to the store, and observed that identical toys on the shelf were also saying "I hate you". One of the store clerks even verified that he'd heard the toy saying that (though why he hadn't brought it to management's attention isn't addressed).
To me, though, the best part of this story is the parent's reaction. They're not threatening to find a lawsuit alleging irrepairable harm to their infant, nor are they angry at Wal*Mart. They just wanted to let the store know about it, and have even declined the store's offer of a refund - they want to keep the toy for the novelty value of it. Good to see someone still has a halfway decent sense of humour.
Sunday, 12 January, 2003, 09:15 GMT
Clonaid ordered to reveal 'clone'
The company which claims it has produced the world's first cloned human has been ordered by a US court to reveal the whereabouts of the baby girl and her mother.
An executive with the company, Clonaid, was also summoned to appear in court in Florida, after lawyers demanded that the state authorities appoint a guardian for the child.
[...] The witness subpoena and summons were approved at the request of attorney Bernard Siegel, who has filed a lawsuit demanding a guardian for baby Eve.
While it can't be argued that the whole story of the "first clone baby" is just a bit on the weird side, I have to say that I have a serious problem with Bernard Siegel, an attorney who, as a private individual and of his own accord, decided to file suit asking the court to appoint itself the child's legal guardian, because he thinks that the child may be being exploited and could have suffered genetic defects. Of course, so far he's not provided any information to indicate that these concerns have any grounding in reality and are not just pure speculative concern on his part, but that doesn't really seem to matter.
Now, I'm a fairly non-scientific person, but based on what I know about the process of cloning, I would be very surprised if this, in fact, turned out to be a genuine human clone. In watching the overall situation, however, I've not seen any indication that the child is being exploited. So far, the child hasn't even been seen in public. No photographs have been circulated, no reporters trying to get interviews with the parents, no side-show carnivals offering a chance to see the "real live clone baby" for $5 a pop. Nothing that indicates that anyone is putting this child - if it exists - into a dangerous or exploitative situation.
Yes, Clonaid is using this child to put their name on the scientific map, but they're doing it by talking about the child, not by putting her on display or trying to interfere with her home and family. The lawyer, on the other hand, is not only trying to get his own name on the legal map, but he is trying to interfere with the child's home life, by having the child put under the court's guardianship, based on his personal speculation alone.
It certainly is convenient for Clonaid that this attorney decided to stir this partuclar pot just in the nick of time, so that they could use it as an excuse to back out of the DNA testing, but under the circumstances, I can't say that I necessarily blame the parents for not wanting to take the risk of exposure and the possiblity that their daughter will be taken away from them because she is a scientific curiosity.
Clonaid is claiming that a second clone-baby has been born and that three more are "on the way". I hope that they will be able to provide the public with some kind of proof of their claims or admit to it being a hoax and go crawl back under their rock. Somehow, I don't think I'm going to get either one, though. I also hope that, wherever these other "clones" may be, their families are not also threatened by an ambitious lawyer who expects them to give the courts jurisdiction over their child. Regardless of the circumstances of conception, these babies are, first and foremost, people - children - who need their families, who need to develop the attachment bonds that a healthy child has with his or her parents and who doesn't need a life filled with court apperances, custody battles and other such power plays, unless there is solid evidence that she is, somehow, being seriously mistreated.
Fiona wrote a few comments about an article published in the current New York Times. After reading the article, I had a few comments of my own. First, an excerpt from the article:
Leaders Promise Repeal of Provisions Hidden in Bill
By DAVID FIRESTONE
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 — Congress will eliminate three special-interest provisions that caused a furor after they were anonymously inserted into the domestic security law last year, Republican leaders of the House and Senate announced today.
[...] The new language, which won the approval of many of the senators who were most angered by last year's maneuver, will remove a section that limited the liability of vaccine manufacturers in lawsuits. The provision, which no one would claim responsibility for, would have prevented lawsuits by families who say a mercury-based vaccine preservative led to their children's autism.
Dr. Frist, who wrote a similar provision in an unrelated vaccine bill, said he still supported the idea as a way to strengthen manufacturers as the first line of defense against biological terror. He said he would bring his bill up again, but it would go through the regular process of committee hearings and amendments.
It's good to hear that Congress at least as some sense of shame these days. I have to wonder, though, that if these provisions are being removed or revised as a result of an agreement made at the time the Homeland Security bill was passed, why did they not just remove them prior to passing the Homeland Security bill? It would have prevented much of the furor that occured as a result of these provisions (the one sheilding Eli Lily in particular), and would have avoided the necessity of Congress taking the time and effort to work out an agreement to remove the provisions.
Unfortunately, whatever sense of shame Congress may have, it doesn't yet extend to actually admitting who sponsored or inserted these amendments into the Homeland Security bill in the first place. As noted a few days ago, Helen Thomas has stated that the Eli Lily/vaccine protection amendment was inserted by Bill Frist, but as of this most recent article, he is still denying any responsiblity for it.
Members of Congress are supposed to be our representatives. They have a responsiblity to work for the best interest of their constituents, and we have a responsiblity to pay attention to what they're doing and decide if we want them to continue representing us or not. The problem is, if they're going to hide what they're doing from us, how are we supposed to determine if they're truly the best person to represent us in the Federal government? I find it quite bothersome that amendments can be added to a bill without anyone having to acknowledge and accept responsiblity for its inclusion.
There is far too little accountability in the government as it is, and the Bush administration has already made it clear that they think what little there is is unnecessary. The government, however, is supposed to be of the people, by the people and for the people, making us "people" a rather important part of the equation. As such, we deserve to have a lot more information made available to us so that we can better guide our representatives or decide that we need different ones.
Suits against cell phone users also target employers
December 29, 2002
By Laura Parker
Gannett News Service
[...] On March 8, 2000, during a nighttime call, [Jane Wagner] hit and killed a 15-year-old girl, Naeun Yoon, on a busy highway in Fairfax County, Va., just outside Washington.
Now Yoon's parents have filed a civil suit against Wagner. But in seeking $30 million in damages, Yoon's father, Young Ki Yoon, also is suing Wagner's former employer, the law firm Cooley Godward, based in San Francisco.
At the heart of the claim against the law firm are the cell phone calls Wagner made when she was working. The suit alleges that the firm is partly liable for the accident because Wagner's job involved doing business by cell phone. Such calls, the suit says, were done ''with the expectation and acquiescence of Cooley Godward and served as a direct benefit to ... the law firm.'' [...]
Several reports have shown that talking on a cell phone while driving is every bit as dangerous as driving while drunk. The amount of attention being paid to the road is considerably less than what is typically required for safe driving, and its easy to get so wrapped up in the conversation that everything else - including objects, people, other cars, turns, traffic signs or lights, and the rest - becomes secondary. Some reports even suggest that this problem isn't limited just to cell phone users, but also to people who are just engaged in conversation with their passengers or are using the "hands-free" devices that are supposed to help you be less distracted by the phone. (While I can see how they are VERY handy, and help ensure that you can have both hands available for running and steering the car, I fail to see how making it "hands free" would automatically make it safer -- I would think that only a "brain free" setup would do that).
Given the above, I have little difficulty with the family of the victim suing Ms. Wagner for killing thier daughter. There's been enough publicity over the last several months about the hazards of driving while talking on a cell phone, and in several localities, laws are being passed to make talking on the phone while driving illegal, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect someone to know that. I do, however, have some problems with them suing the law firm Ms. Wagner works for.
While I'm no expert on the law, were I on a jury considering this matter, there are a few things I'd want to know:
In my opinion, if the comany didn't require her to have a phone, or if they were willing to allow the use of pagers and give their employees a window of 15-20 minutes in which to respond to any given call, or if they wanted her to have a cell phone, but were willing to allow employees to find a place to pull over in order to handle client calls, then the company should not be held liable for the poor choices made by their employee. On the other hand, however, if they did require that she use a phone, be available immediately, and expected her to talk while on the road, the plaintiffs might have a somewhat better case.
Along with our nations growing addiction to lawsuits over any matter, we also seem to be growing addicted to the idea that if something happens to us, we're entitled to a huge windfall - so large, in many cases, that it is unlike those seen even by all but the luckiest of lottery winners. This, of course, stems from the idea that we deserve to be compensated for any suffering we must endure, especially if we can find someone else to blame for it. Yet if we look at this country, let alone the world, we can see examples on an hourly basis of people who have suffered greatly but have no hopes for compensation of any kind. Not all of these people are in such dire straights because of there own actions. Some suffer due to the accident of birth - who they were born to and where they live. Others suffer from injuries sustained in an accident. Still more suffer from diseases and disorders that rob their lives of what joy is available to them. Yet these people have no one to sue - no one to give them that same windfalls that the middle to upper classes enjoy.
As time goes forward, it becomes apparent that, at some point - and hopefully sooner rather than later -- there will need to be built into the system a better way of screening out bogus, frivolous and harassing lawsuits, and penalize those who repeatedly make filings for such messages. Any such code, however, should be designed in such a way that it does not deter people who have legitimate grievences, but helps make it harder for people to use lawsuits as a means of extortion, rather than a means of justice.
Girl to sue over detention. Girl to sue over detention "The family, who want compensation, will argue that the detentions were unlawful because they took place in Freya's free time. " If you can't give kids detention, how else are they going to be punished for breaking school rules? [MetaFilter]
I suppose there's some comfort to be found in the fact that this is a story taking place in Britian, not America - meaning that it's not just us who come up with outrageous reasons to go to court and have parents who seem to think that their children shouldn't have to play by the rules.
Now, it's been a while since I was last in school, but if I recall correctly, the point of detention was to take up your free time - as punishment for having broken the school's rules. There are many things that occur in schools that require students to stay after class. Most extra-cirricular activities, such as sports, cheerleading, drama productions, marching band and so on, hold their meetings and practices outside of normal school hours, during a student's free time. While some might argue that there's a difference, because students can choose whether or not to participate in such activities, it can also be argued that a student can choose whether or not to participate in detention. If you don't want to have to stay after school for breaking the rules, then you can choose not to break them.
I find this story to be a troubling part of a larger trend, however. This last year, I recall stories about parents suing or threatening to sue if their child were subjected to some of the normal consequences of their actions. In one case, the parents threatened to sue when a teacher noted that their child was going to fail a class, even though there had been plenty of warning given that the student's grades were unacceptable and the teacher took time to try and help the student improve them. In one town in Kansas, several students were given failing grades for a class because the teacher had evidence that they'd plagerized assigned reports. Many parent were upset about this, and in the ensuing controversy, the school board chose to allow the students to pass the class and the teacher ended up quitting.
When parents threaten to litigate because their child has been penalized for misbehaviour - whether it is through a detenition or lowered grades - the parents are only teaching their children that they don't have to accept responsiblity for their actions. The children get the message that they can do whatever they want, and as long as they have a lawyer, they won't have to suffer any consequences. This does not bode well for the future of the country, as it indicates that frivilous lawsuits and "excuse" defenses will only increase as these next generations come into their own and become the leaders of the nation.
In most of the cases of parental interference that have occured in the US, the school boards have caved in to their demands before the suit could go to trial. While I realize that defending a lawsuit costs a great deal of money, it seems to me that it would be much better if the cases could go to trial. Perhaps it is naive, but I suspect that a judge or jury would be much less likey to buy into the parents apparently belief that their child is entitled to live consequence-free, and perhaps it would cut down on the number of parents willing to try bullying their schools.
Plain clothes patrols after complaints of sex on nudist beach. Plain clothes police are patrolling a New Zealand nudist beach after residents complained people were having sex in public. [Ananova: Quirkies]
... if they're wearing "plain clothes", won't they still stand out just a bit?
'Miracle' escape from plane crash. Four people are said to have survived a "Christmas miracle" after a small airliner crashed into a car near Aberdeen Airport. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition]
Since I'd written about the Two Towers protest earlier today, I just had to share this comic from PVPonline.com.
BTW: If you enjoy online gaming or even just get a kick out of poking fun at gaming-geeks (lovingly, of course), be sure to check out PVPonline regularly.
I truly hope that the Two Towers Protest Organization website is intended to be a parody of people who are overly sensitive to all kinds of imagined slights, but it's actually kind of hard to tell. If it IS a parody, then it's a very sad commentary on American socieity that many people assume it is serious - because it really is possible for someone to be this completely idotic; we see it every day.
Here's an example of a question and their response from their FAQ:
The creators of the movie have free speech, so what makes you think they should have to change the name of the movie?
We believe that Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema's actions are in fact hate speech. The movie is intentionally being named The Two Towers in order to capitalize on the tragedy of September 11. Clearly, you cannot deny the fact that this falls under hate speech. We believe that if they will not willingly change the name, the government should step in to stop the movie's production or to force a name change.
Now, for a definite parody or the TTPO site, be sure to stop by the Return of the King Protest Organization website and have a good chuckle.
Wal-Mart sued for calling police
By DAVID CLOUSTON
The Salina Journal
Tamie Dragone was on a routine shopping trip at Salina's Wal-Mart Supercenter when, without a second thought, she dropped off a roll of family snapshots for 1-hour film developing.
Now she's suing the store she says humiliated her and invaded her family's privacy after some photographs of her 3-year-old daughter caught the eye of photo clerks and were turned over to Salina police.
Dragone is asking in excess of $75,000 in actual damages, plus an unspecified amount of punitive damages.
According to Dragone and a petition filed in Saline County District Court, the pictures showed her 3-year-old daughter topless playing in the family's back-yard kiddie pool with her father, and one showing their daughter's naked bottom as she lay on the living room floor.
It is, for the most part, a good thing when photo clerks pay attention to the photos being developed and can alert the police if they run across something that could indicate child abuse, child pornography or other criminal activity. Unfortunately, erring on the side of caution can easily become zero tolerance, even when it should be evident that no criminal activity was taking place.
In the case of Tamie Dragone, the photos, as described, are the kind of thing that should clearly be innocuous. While child pornography can certainly run the gamut of subject matters, photos of topless three-year-old girls are not uncommon. Photos of that nature show up on shows like A&E's Biography, showing celebrities in a similar state of undress at a very early age. Most family photo collections will contain similar shots, which may be embarassing to the subject once they're older, but are, by and large, otherwise harmless.
Wal-Mart says that they have a policy of not processing any nude photos and contacting the police if they see anything that is questionable. The clerk's reaction, therefore, may be somewhat understandable. He or she may have been unsure if the images were something to be concerned about or otherwise in violation of the store's policy, but rather than calling the police immediately, the clerk would have been wiser to show the images to the manager for their opinion, first. Once the police were called, however, it is mind-boggling that they would proceed to interrogate the woman and confiscate the photos. One look at the images should have told them that nothing untoward was happening an leave it at that.
Just as the child abuse hysteria of the 1980's led to rumours of Satanic Ritual Abuse (most, if not all, of which have since been discredited), what started out as legitimate concerns about child pornography has led to situations where innocent people are being harrangued by the police over pictures that may contain some nudity, but are neither exploitative nor sexualized in any way.
Florida teacher tells students there's no Santa; parents angry
Coral Springs, Florida-AP -- No, there really isn't a Santa Claus.
That's what a substitute teacher in Florida told kindergarten kiddies at Forest Hills Elementary School -- and their parents are not happy about it.
Maybe I'm a mutant, but I've never really understood why parents get so upset when their children are told that there is no Santa. Last year, it was a minister who was in trouble for having spilled the beans, this year its a substitute teacher.
When I was young, I'm sure I enjoyed the Santa story as much as the next kid, but for the most part, I recall just going along with everyone making a big deal out of Santa Clause becuase it seemed so important to all these adults that I believe in him. In the long run, though, the best Christmas memories I had were of the years when my mother and I would join my dad down at the nursing home he worked at and help serve a special Christmas dinner to the residents who has no where else to go.
I've often wondered about the wisdom of teaching young children about Santa Clause, and the idea that parents are essentially insisting that teachers and preachers go along with it, or risk enough of a public outcry to garner national news attention, is disturbing. I mean, when you get right down to it, Santa Clause is a lie. There is no Santa - at least not in any kind of a corporeal, tangible sense (since one can technically argue that Santa is "there" in every act of Christmas "goodwill") - so when children are taught to believe in him, they're being taught to believe a lie. However much fun it may be, it's hard to see that its a good thing, especially with how the image of Santa and the demand for gifts seems to have increased over the last few years.
Children are supposed to trust that their parents, teachers and religious leaders will teach them the truth, and if parents learn that they are teaching their children things that aren't true, parents are often justifiably upset. In this case, however, the parents are upset because the teacher told the children the truth. Sure, kids are going to be disappointed when they learn Santa isn't real, but what sense is there in trying to prevent that from happening? Eventually, it will - it can't be prevented forever. I remember on one mailing list I'm a member of, one of the women did not feel it woudl be right to teach her child about Santa (which should be her choice), but she was genuinely concerned that, if she did teach her children that Santa wasn't real, and they said anything to their friends, she would be exoricated by her neighbors.
What I've always found the most ironic, though, about the whole tradition of teaching children about Santa, is that it seems to be to be a self-defeating propisition. Most families want to raise their children to be good Christians, and so they start teaching their children about Jesus and God early on - at about the same time they also start teaching about Santa. From there, you end up with a situation where a parent teaches a child that there is a man who is able to watch them at all times - but can't readily be detected; knows if they're behaving themselves or no; loves them; wants to give them special gifts and lives eternally.
Yes, the description is a bit vague and, as it is above, could be used to describe either Jesus or Santa Clause. That's the point. To a small child, its hard to make a significant distinction between the two, and yet eventually they WILL learn that Santa doesn't exist. What, then, is going to help them retain any faith in Christ? Is a question I think parents need ask themseles, and decide whether they think their child will benefit from believing in Santa (aside from just haing fun with it), or if it will only teach that their parents, teachers and religious leaders will lie to them and give them reason to question the concept of God their parents want them to learn.
Fast Food and the Obesity Problem. Health advocates are increasingly trying to blame food companies for the country's growing obesity problem. By Nat Ives. [Headlines From The NY Times]
I was reading this article that talks about how some of these suits being filed against fast food restaurants may actually need to be taken seriously by the industry. As the article notes:
"It is very possible that tighter advertising restrictions will eventually follow from the gathering pace of concern surrounding the spread of the obesity epidemic," a report from UBS Warburg, the investment bank, said last week . "There will probably be more lawsuits and pressure from consumer groups to change practices."
To head off any repercussions, many brand experts are urging the food industry to act before it is permanently tagged "Big Food" in the public eye. The suggested actions include posting more nutrition information more prominently, offering smaller portions, developing healthier menus and generally expressing more concern over obesity.
Most of the fast food restaurants - and in particular the ones who are currently facing lawsuits - have done a good job of making nutritional information available. They already offer a variety of portion sizes, and most have, in recent years, have added salads or other healthier options to their menus. Obviously, these tactics have not protected them from becoming the target of these kinds of suits, so it's natural to wonder what more they can do, while still providing the kind of fare their customers want.
When they start talking about unspecified "practice changes" the vague sentiment of "expressing more concern" about obesity, I find myself wondering if we're not heading to a point where one day fast food restaurants may feel it's necessary to refuse service to fat people. Initially, that may sound a bit far-fetched, but bars are required to refuse service to people who are too drunk, and airlines are starting to charge fat people for 2 seats, so I'm not sure just how far-fetched of an idea it really is.
Ok -- there is just something fundamentally wrong about a company advertising a Pop-up Ad Blocker by using a.... (you can see this coming, right)
Pop-up ad.
Oi!
Livingstone says Miss World is not welcome
Simon Jeffery
Tuesday November 26, 2002
Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, today urged the London venue hosting the Miss World contest to "reconsider its decision" to stage the beauty pageant. [...]
Announcing the change of venue, Miss World's organiser, Julia Morley, this morning said the contest bore no blame for the troubles.
"Miss World cannot be held responsible for the riots. They were down to one journalist who wrote something which inflamed the local people. [...]
Whether the Miss World pagent "caused" the riots or not, I have to agree that going ahead and holding the pagent would be in very bad taste right now.
The issue here is not one of blame. Following the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there were several movies, albums and other entertainment pieces that were withdrawn, cancelled, or delayed because it was felt that they might provide too much of a reminder of what had happened and would be inappropriate to have out in the marketplace at that time. During the recent sniper attacks in the Washington DC area, a movie about a sniper attack that was slated to be released soon was also delayed and for the same reason.
No one tried to imply that the movies, etc., were somehow to blame for the attacks. That wasn't the point. It was the idea that the images or concepts being presented might be disturbing for people who had lost their lives, loved ones or sense of security during the attacks, and the recognition that sometimes it is important to allow there to be some distance between a tragic event and things that could be reminiscent of them.
With the riots connected to the Miss World pagent, over 200 people have died, 1,200 have been injured and as many as 12,000 may have lost their homes. The pagent, itself, did not cause the riots. But the riots are still connected to the pagent, and the pagent stands as a reminder to the losses suffered during the riots. It would seem to be a matter of principle that the pagent be cancelled for this year out of consideration for those losses.
US Funds Artificial Life Project
Genetic scientist Craig Venter has conceived of the idea of an artificial life-form synthesized in a lab, and has just been inseminated with $3 million in funding from the US Department of Energy, according to a story in today's Independent. What the gestation period for this "man-made microorganism" will be is unclear, but ethicists are already concerned about the implications of creating life and the potential use of synthesized cells in horrifying new biological weapons.
Isn't it great to know that while the Bush administration has grave concerns over the ethics of stem-cell research, which holds promise in treating a number of medical conditions from paralysis to Parkinson's Disease, it nevertheless has no problem dumping taxpayer money on Dr. Frankenstein? [Emphasis Added]
I have never been able to understand the objection to using embryos that are scheduled for destruction to create new stem cell lines. It seems completely illogical to me that it is preferrable to dispose of these embryos rather than using them for potentially life-saving research.
I do understand, to a certain extent, the concern that some may have about the possiblity of people attempting to create embryos with specific characteristics to harvest the cells from. While the idea of someone deliberately becoming pregnant just to abort the fetus and harvest the stem cells seems incomprehensible, a recent episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" featured a storyline showing one possible manifestation of that kind of a situation. In the show, a doctor who had been unable to make satisfactory progress under the guidelines estabished by the government for the use of federal funds, had turned, instead, to a private benefactor who suffered from Parkinson's Disease. The doctor believed that a more closely, genetically matched source of stem cells might prove more effective, so he had artifically inseminated a comatose woman to create a pregnancy with the intention of aborting it and harvesting the cells. (He was caught before being able to perform the abortion).
Granted, this scenario is rather far-fetched, and I'm not aware of anything indicating that using genetically-matched stem cells would make anything more likely to succeed. It does, however, serve as a reminder that desparate people will do desparate things. And with the limitations placed on researchers by the government's decision to only allow federally-funded programs to work on the existing cell lines, it's fairly likely that there will be some who are desparate and who will try things that - to us - seem far too "out there" to even consider.
In the meantime, the embryos of children who ended up being unwanted or unneeded will continue to be destroyed to, well, to what, exactly? To protect them from exploitation? To prove we consider life sacred? It seems that it would be a greater consideration of life to allow the embryos to be used for the greater good.
Overweight children sue McDonald's
Overweight children are taking McDonald's to court in New York.
Actually, its not the kids who are taking McDonald's to court, and I seriously doubt that their parents went out looking for a lawyer to file this suit for them. No, this appears to be an attorney-generated lawsuit - one where the attorney seems to have decided he could make a name for himself, and possibly a good deal of money, by finding people to file suit against the fast-food industry for their children's weight problems.
Regardless of who initiated the suit, however, there are more than a few problems with it - not the least of which is the fact that it's just another example of people trying to blame someone else for their own stupidity or lack of judgement.
There is no one, single cause for obesity. Overeating and eating the wrong foods is certainly one of them, but it can also involve hormonal malfunctions, poor metabolism, or any of a number of other possiblities. There's some evidence that obesity may even be caused by a virus, and conditions such as Willi-Prader syndrome or PCOS are known to cause significant weight gain. Even some medications - including most anti-depressants - can cause weight gain (and since most obese people are also depressed, and taking medication for it, the problem is only compounded).
Given the number of possiblities, then, it's pretty hard to pick a single product or even a single class of products, and say "That is what made me (or my kid) fat". Quite frankly, it's preposterous.
Then there's this idea that eating a diet made up primarily of fast food is almost a guarantee of obesity and bad health. Most people know at least one person, if not several, who can eat 2 or 3 meals of fast food every day for months, and never gain an ounce. Obviously, there's something in addition to the fast food (be it a metabolic or other physiological condition, a lack of exercise, or other, unknown, factors) that contributes to the effect. In that case, it's not fair to blame the fast-food industry for the entirety of the problem.
Lastly, there's the issue of responsiblity - something no one in America seems to want to admit to having. Parents are responsible to feed their children. If they cannot be bothered to find out what is healthy, they only have themselves to blame. The information about fast food has been out there for ages - there's no secret code word required or special access needed. Nutritional guides are available through the restaurants themselves, or in books that can be found in any bookstore or most libraries. Doctors should even have that kind of information available. As one of the lawyers for the fast food chains said, "People don't go to sleep thin and wake up obese. The understanding and comprehension of what hamburgers and french fries do has been with us for a long, long time."
It's true - people don't "balloon" up overnight. It takes time, and parents need to be paying enough attention to their children's health to notice if the child is gaining significant amounts of weight. If the parent chooses not to be concerned about the weight gain, and chooses not to consult with the doctor about ways to control it, then that parent has no right to sue anyone else for "making" their child fat.
Rather than looking for people or industries to blame or ways to make money off of people's problems, the time and energy going into this suit would be much better used to help gain a greater understanding of what can cause obseity, and - even moreso - what can really be done to help prevent it. Suing the fast food industry certainly isn't going to do that.
I'm not sure I WANT to know what the designer of this logo was thinking when he created it - all I can figure is either he has a truly perverted sense of humour or he's completely unaware of the conspiracy theories that are circulating about various governments around the world.
A large number of conspiracy theories center on a group called the Illuminati, who are believed to be the secret force that rules the world, or, at least, is trying to - depending on who you ask. The image of the eye in in the pyramid (also known as the "All Seeing Eye") is said to represent their ability to observe everything that happens in the world.
The logo for the Information Awareness Office, which will be running the "Total Information Awareness" program (which is the program intended to collect as much information on each person as possible from commercial databases that currently cannot be accessed without a subpeona), features the "Illuminati"'s "All Seeing Eye", and shows it shining it's light of observation over the entire world. Somehow, I don't see conspiracy theorists being mollified upon hearing the goals and programs of the IAO.
Ventura Appoints an Independent as Interim Senator
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 - Gov. Jesse Ventura of Minnesota named a fellow Independence Party member, Dean Barkley, as interim senator today, in a move that could affect the balance of power on Capitol Hill, at least for the near future.
Mr. Barkley told a hastily called news conference in St. Paul that he would go to Washington "to do the people's business . . . whether it's two weeks or two months." He fills the vacancy created by the death of Senator Paul Wellstone in an airplane crash on Oct. 25."
While I realize that it is the Governor's discretion to appoint whomever he so chooses to fill a Senate seat in situations such as the sad death of Sen. Paul Wellstone, it would seem to me that it should be a basic prinicple that the appointee should be from the same party that the original Congressman had been a part of.
When voters choose who they want to have as their representatives, they are, in a sense, choosing both the person and the party. While it's not unheard of for a politician to change parties sometime following their election, the voters in those cases are still being represented by the person that they chose. In the case of Sen. Wellstone, however, not only have the voters now lost the person that they sent to Washington, but they are now no longer even being represented by his party - and something about that just seems wrong. While Mr. Barkley may be a wonderful legislature, the voters themselves have had no real input into his selection, making it hard to understand how he will be able to adequately represent them.
As the Senate stands now, there are 49 Republicans, 49 Democrats and 2 Independents. It's unknown how long this kind of gridlock will list - the lawyers are still trying to figure out whether Mr. Barkley will be serving. He may only hold Sen. Wellstone's seat until the results of tomorrow's election are certified in mid-November, when the newly elected Senator will take over; or he may hold it until new Senators are sworn-in in mid-January. The gridlock will also be affected by who wins the Senatorial election in Missouri. If Sen. Jean Carnahan retains her seat, things will stay as they are, but if Jim Talent wins it, the Repubicans will have 50 seats until the new Senate takes over in January. Either way, they also have Vice President Cheney to cast tie-breaking votes if needed.
I do have to give mr. Berkley credit, however, for at least having a decent sense of humour about things. When asked how he'll handle voting in the Senate, he replied:
"whether I caucus with myself in a bathroom or caucus with Senator Jeffords — I don't really know."
He did say he would confer with Mr. Jeffords. "He was a moderate Republican spurned by his own party," said Mr. Barkley, a Democrat before joining the Independence Party. "I can get along with moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans."
'Why did you steal 40,000 hotel coat hangers, knowing that hotel coat hangers are designed to be useless outside hotel wardrobes?'
Miles Kington
15 October 2002
A most extraordinary trial is going on in the High Court at the moment in which a man named Chrysler is accused of stealing more than 40,000 coat hangers from hotels round the world. He admits his guilt, but in his defence he claims that – well, perhaps it would be simpler just to bring you a brief extract from the trial. We join the case at the point where Chrysler has just taken the stand.
Normally, I'd post a story like this over at BitchQueen, my collection of "stupid human tricks", but this is far to hilarious not to share with everyone. Just go read it, ok? :)
In another transcript from the same trial, you can read the further adventures of Arnold Chrysler and the joys of hotel-style home decor.
'White community should help pay off debt’
Web Posted - Thu Oct 10 2002
THE sponsoring organisation for the recently concluded racism conference will be turning to the local white community to pay off its $200 000 debt. [...]
[...] “We have employed staff of CARB, but have not been able to pay them. We have contracted some people to do work for us, but we have not been able to pay them and we have to find that money to honour our contract and to make sure that no one is left wanting based on their giving up their time...for some of them, their jobs have been at risk to support us,” he said yesterday. [...]
[...] “The white-owned businesses in Barbados need the support of black people. They depend on us for their businesses and I’m saying this conference (was) to help the black people of Barbados out of their ignorance and poverty and if white people don’t see it fit to contribute towards that, then I will be asking black people to look very carefully at how they spend their money with white people... [...]
Last week, over at Bitchqueen (where I write about human stupidities in all their wonder), I wrote an article about an anti-racism conference were all non-black attendees were kicked out, because the organizers felt that it was too traumatic to discuss issues of slavery in front of them. I found the idea of a racist anti-racism conference to be absurd. This latest news, however, pushes it beyond even those bounds.
One theme you will probably see me visit more than a few times is that racism is racism, no matter what the colour of the person commiting it is. Society seems to have a great deal more tolerance for all-black or all-hispanic groups (or any other minority, for that matter, including women, minority religionists and more), but it's considered racist if whites or, worse, white men, want to have a group of their own. As far as I'm concerned, if they're not being supported by or benefiting from public tax dollars - if they're a truly privately organized and funded group - then go for it! Have your exclusive group! If you want someone else (who isn't a memeber or a customer) to pay for it, though - and especially if you want the goverment to pay for part of it - then you'd better be willling to welcome everyone.
This conference that was held in Barbados was organize and run by a group and focused solely on the concerns of blacks in regards to what kind of reparations should be made to compensate for their ancestors having been enslaved. The organizers admit that they hired or contracted with people, and that some of them apparently took time away from their jobs to work on the conference; but now they're not getting paid because the conference doesn't have enough money to honour it's obligations. Rather than calling upon their members, however, or attendees to help raise funds to help cover these costs (which, maybe, they should have budgeted for before they hired people, but that's a somewhat different matter), they're now saying that they believe the white community should help pay for it.
Remember, these are the same people who felt it was too traumatic to have non-blacks participate in their conference. It's not traumatic, however, to expect them to pay for it. There's just something fundamentally wrong with that mentality. Yes, it's true, whites have not always treated blacks well, but at some point, if minorities truly want to be equal with the majority, then they need to start accepting some responsiblity for themselves.
I'm not saying that they're the only ones to blame for the problems that exist - by far, they are not. But in this situation, I have a hard time seeing where their inability to pay is, in any way, caused by their being victims of racism. They knew what they had to work with and they knew what they were going to need to spend. No one came in and made them spend more money than they had available, and I'm not aware of any accusations that they were overcharged or otherwise pushed or tricked into paying more for things because it was a black conference. They simply spent more than they had to work with. By saying that they expect the white community to help cover their costs because the whites "owe" it to them, they are effectively shirking their own responsiblity and attempting to coast by on the coattails of victimhood in a situation where is simply not warranted (unless there are other factors I'm unaware of).
This is where the issue of taking responsiblity comes in. In situations where a problem exists and it is clearly related to issues of subtle or blatant racism, I don't have a problem with expecting those who are practicing the racism to help resolve the issue. That is basic fairness. Expecting non-minorities to step in and take care of situations where racism was not a factor in creating the problem, however, is wrong-headed and does little but impede progress. Whites see that kind of behaviour and begin to wonder when it stops being "their" fault, or if the minorities are simply planning to maintain an air of perpetual victimhood in order to obtain ongoing benefits from the sympathy that generates. After a while it stops sounding like a legitimate grievance and more like an opportunity to take advantage of.
And just to be clear, let me reiterate - there are legitimate issues in regards to racism and there are situations currently that do have their roots in slavery and for which it may be reasonble to expect some assistance from the majority - but those situations have to be clearly identified and handled on a situation-by-situation basis. All minorities deserve - and have the right to expect - equal opportunities. No one, however, has the right to expect that they can just whip out their victim card and have everything handed to them, whether its related to the wrong that has been done to them or not.
Sopranos march into New York row. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he will not march in the Columbus Day parade because organisers have refused to let him bring actors from the hit television show "The Sopranos".
[Yahoo! News: Oddly Enough Reuters UK]
The first thing to understand is that Mayor Bloomberg did not ask the performers to march with him because they are on "The Sopranos". Dominic Chianese was invited because of his participation in the post-9/11 public service announcements that were produced to help encourage people to keep coming to New York City as tourists (since tourism is an important part of New York City's economy). Lorraine Bracco was invited in recognition of her work as a spokeswoman for environmental issues.
Unfortunately, the Columbus Citizens Foundation, and Italian-American group which has run the Columbus Day Parade for over half-a-century, is offended by the portrayal of Italian-Americans on the show, and refuses to allow Bracco and Chianese to participate. Personally, I think that's a bit on the silly side, but apparently it's their parade, so they can be silly if they want to.
Mayor Bloomberg responded to the CCF's decision by saying:
"I'm sorry if anybody is annoyed but if my friends can't march, or people that I think have done things for the city, then I'll find some other way to celebrate the Italian heritage."
Personally, I think that's a bit on the silly side, too. As Mayor, he has many ways of honouring whomever he so chooses. If he wants to thank Bracco and Chianese for their work on behalf of the city, I'm sure he can find another way. He doesn't need to push the CCF to accept his guests in their parade. They may be being a bit silly in choosing to be offended by the roles they play as opposed to wanting to recognize the contributions they have made, but the Mayor is being just as silly in basically saying he's going to take his ball and go home.
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 5, 2002
Remarks by the President at John Sununu for Senate Reception
Expo Center of New Hampshire
Manchester, New Hampshire
12:15 P.M. EDT
[...] I was proud the other day when both Republicans and Democrats stood with me in the Rose Garden to announce their support for a clear statement of purpose: you disarm, or we will. We owe it to our children to think about this issue, we owe it to the future. My belief is, is that the enemy hit us, and out of the evil can come some incredible good. And one of the good that can come is peace. [...]
Yes, I know... he's an easy target, our President, but this is one promise I bet Saddam wishes Bush would keep.
The Raven posts about a call he got recently that appears to have been part of a potential scam.
Another excellent reminder of why it is important never to give out personal or financial information unless you're positively sure of whom you are speaking with....
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