Entries Tagged 'politics' ↓

John G. Roberts may not be the worst possible nomineee Bush could put forward for the Supreme Court. But he’s living in their neighborhood. The Democrats called him a “Friend to Big Business, the Mining Industry and Ken Starr.” The Family Research Council like him. He’s argued for prayer at public school graduations, against the Endangered Species Act, and given lots of money to Bush’s campaigns (his law firm has given over $92K in the 2006 cycle alone). I’m with Bicyclemark on this. Can you buy a seat on the Supreme Court? What a country!

According to Nedstat I had 62 page views last week and one of the last ten visitors was logged in at Halliburton. Surely they have more profitable things to do than read extremely-low-volume blogs with messages about tweaking WordPress Templates and being disappointed by the driving-music-of-choice of animated middle-aged white men.

It’s a strange, strange inkernet, folks. That’s all I’m saying.

1. 16 July 22:27 University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, United States
2. 17 July 11:50 NTL Internet, Luton, United Kingdom
3. 17 July 14:27 University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, United States
4. 17 July 17:02 Road Runner, United States
5. 17 July 18:08 Comcast Communications, United States
6. 18 July 06:04 Philippines (logisticsoftware.ph)
7. 18 July 10:17 Halliburton, United States
8. 18 July 11:40 The J. Hopkins Med. Inst., Baltimore, United States
9. 18 July 11:45 The J. Hopkins Med. Inst., Baltimore, United States
10. 18 July 13:23 Eozaen GmbH, Usingen, Germany

Hmmm… I looked under international jobs for writers (you never know), and the following popped up between Tech Writer gigs in Iowa and Calgary:

INTELLIGENCE POSITIONS

Description & Details
Location:
Iraq, Iraq
(Is that like New York, New York?)

Description:
INTELLIGENCE
Please send resume with salary requirements to ***@***.com. Be sure to indicate the position that you are applying for.

Please refer to the How to Apply section (found below) for more detail.
(Editor’s note: The How to Apply section did not load.)
Job Function:
Political Organization/Lobbying

Applications for this position will be accepted between 6/18/05 and 7/18/05.

I once screened baggage for an airline. Perhaps my screening skills are relevant?
Hotjobs.com indeed.

What are the ten most dangerous books of the 19th and 20th centuries? Oh Dear. Those aren’t all the ones I had in mind. Having said that, Mein Kampf makes sense. But it was not number one.

This, of course, is not surprising. Phyllis Schlafly is scared of The Feminine Mystique and The Communist Manifesto. They’re right up there with Mein Kampf. I mention Phyllis because I am happy to report I have not heard of most of these other distungished judges. Do look at the list of runners up, including such dangeous cats as J. S. Mill and Rachel Carson.

This reminds me of how G. Gordon Liddy is parading around in a little smokescreen talking about how horrible Deep Throat is–how he’s such a traitor and a criminal. Hello! G. Gordon Liddy is a criminal! Are these people mad?

(Don’t worry, that was a rhetorical question.)

And this reminds me of David Horowitz’s cranky “Discover the Network” website
where he profiles the members of “the Left”–everyone, in his mind, from convicted members of Al Qaeda to Louis Farrakhan to the Weathermen to Bill Clinton and John Kerry. Reading it is almost comical.

And Horowitz sets out to expost the left “networks.” You can even look at image maps of how everyone fits together.

Note, this did not work for me on Mozilla, which does not surprise me, since Mozilla is a commie pinko search engine. And it will take up to five minutes to load on IE. And once it loads, it will be well-nigh mind-numingly boring to wait for the “connections” to load, once you move beyond the Ford Foundation and try to find out about a group or individual. Too bad because I was interested in this mystical network.

Um, what do Sheik Omar Adbel Rahman and Roger Ebert have in common? Evangelical Lefty Jim Wallis and Barack Obama? Al Qaeda and Bill Clinton and the Weathermen? Jimmy Carter and Mumia? What Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon has taught us is that it’s easy to link people if you’re trying to. Michael Berube has written a much more detailed and useful critique of the Networks site.

Think what would happen if we played connect-the-dots games with “Right.” As we all know, Bush would be directly linked to Bin Laden via the latter’s family. No hocus pocus or imagination needed. Funny that.

Hello Readers–

I will be writing soon about blogs and education, in a few days when I have time to dig up some relevant links.

In the meantime, The NY Times has a new 4-part series on class. Those without accounts can use Bugmenot to avoid those pesky logins.

Check out the interactive chart which tells you where you stand class-wise in regards to four factors: occupation, education, income, and wealth.

Two very interesting quotes:

1. “One surprising finding about mobility is that it is not higher in the United States than in Britain or France. It is lower here than in Canada and some Scandinavian countries but not as low as in developing countries like Brazil, where escape from poverty is so difficult that the lower class is all but frozen in place.

“Those comparisons may seem hard to believe. Britain and France had hereditary nobilities; Britain still has a queen. The founding document of the United States proclaims all men to be created equal. The American economy has also grown more quickly than Europe’s in recent decades, leaving an impression of boundless opportunity.”

This puts to bed many Americans’ cliched notion of the US as “the country where anyone can be President.” And,

2. “Being born in the elite in the U.S. gives you a constellation of privileges that very few people in the world have ever experienced,” Professor Levine said. “Being born poor in the U.S. gives you disadvantages unlike anything in Western Europe and Japan and Canada.”

I knew my instinct to move to Canada or Sweden was a good one.

Mental-Health Aid Denied to Killer’s School * By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS *

Published: April 22, 2005

WASHINGTON, April 21 (AP) – A missing signature disqualified a
grant proposal for mental health and conflict resolution aid for the
Minnesota school district where a student last month killed seven people,
federal and school officials said Thursday.

Last summer, the Beltrami Area Service Collaborative, which includes the Red
Lake Indian Reservation and three other school districts in the state,
applied for a three-year, $3 million Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant.

The Education Department rejected the application because one of the school
districts had its business manager, rather than its superintendent, sign the
paperwork.

The grant would have paid for services such as mental health, conflict
resolution and substance abuse, said John Pugleasa, the collaborative’s
executive director.

In March, 16-year-old Jeff Weise shot to death a school security guard, five
students and a teacher at Red Lake High School before killing himself.
Earlier, Mr. Weise killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend
at their home.

This from Obsidian Wings, by way of Bitch, PhD: yet another amazing story from the ashes of the Rwandan Genocide.

Did you see Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April? I was very moved by both, but especially impressed by the latter. They are good in concert with one another, in any case.

The NYTimes has an article today about the use of civilian videos in getting charges dismissed for 400 of the people charged during protests during the Republican Convention:

Videos Challenge Accounts of Convention Unrest
By JIM DWYER

Last week, he discovered that there were two versions of the same police tape: the one that was to be used as evidence in his trial had been edited at two spots, removing images that showed Mr. Dunlop behaving peacefully. When a volunteer film archivist found a more complete version of the tape and gave it to Mr. Dunlop’s lawyer, prosecutors immediately dropped the charges and said that a technician had cut the material by mistake.

You can read the rest here. The article also points out cases where video proved activists guilty. What it does not mention is that thousands of people picked up during the RNC were held for up to several days in a moldy disused bus terminal on Pier 57. Most people who were arrested that week have had their charges dropped or cases dismissed. A full 400 of them were let off because of video footage.

The prevalance of surveillance cameras all around us (in buildings, on streets) is a controversial one, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with cameras looking down on us from every building. However, this article reminded me of the power which can be given back to innocent people by the presence of someone else purposefully recording what’s happening. Someone who beats up a cop should be arrested. But someone who was just out to buy some sushi, or who was following police directives and undertaking a peaceful protest, should not.

Prosecutors said “a technician had cut the material by mistake.” Yeah right.

Cheap cameras have the potential to level the playing field a bit. Vive la techno-revolution!

What would your dressed-to-protest suit look like?

This is interesting, and the amplified heartbeat is a nice touch, but perhaps Ralph’s time in NYC as an activist did not fully prepare him for the kinds of brutality cops are capable of meting out. (And no, I don’t entirely blame them, they are following orders.) I would love to display the photo, but hate stealing bandwidth from an artist. Respect. So do click.

I think protestors needs something a little more like the Popemobile, but ambulatory. Just my opinion. I am not a designer.

And why are we not seeing more about this movement?

Sadly, it is just satire. But I love the idea. Almost nothing pisses me off more than homophobes who cry “Leviticus! Leviticus!” and go to all-you-can-eat-Shrimp-festivals at Red Lobster. It’s not right.

When John Paul II came into his Popely position, I was about 8. My uncle came into the room, having presumably just seen a TV news report, and said enthusiastically, “Well, we have a new Pope!” You have a new Pope, I thought. We weren’t Catholic, but my uncle’s family was. That was in the days when nice Protestant boys converted so they could marry nice Catholic girls. I am a Quaker now, but we weren’t then. I didn’t really fully understand the Pope concept.

I don’t agree with a lot of his policies, and I think he has to be held responsible for his treatment of Cardinal Law and his reaction to the priestly child molestation scandals. I think that not developing a more pragmatic approach to condom use has led to a lot of deaths. Nonetheless, I realize I say that as someone who thinks neither gay sex nor condom use are evil. So how can I possibly understand conservative Catholic theology? I am also not sure I get Bono’s assessment of JPII as “The first funky Pope.” However, I can also see that he did a lot of good, and maybe some of the good he was not able to do wasn’t entirely his fault. Is it too much to hope he has a more radical successor? Dare I say it, a Liberation Theologist would do nicely.

Anyway, I hope that does not come across as flip. My sincerest condolences and prayers are with all Catholics right now.

Inside Higher Ed reports that David Horowitz’s campaign to control college classrooms is in full swing in Florida, where the state House of Representatives has approved an Academic Bill of Rights. The legislation has the support of Jeb Bush, after all.

The bill sounds innocuous enough. It is couched in terms of “Academic Freedom,” though, oddly enough, “Academic Freedom” implies a restriction on what professors can say, and perhaps a requirement that they say other things, instead. It seems like what the bill restricts most is academic freedom.

The proponents of such legislation believe that students are being forcibly indoctrinated by liberal professors. All of this begs the question of what conservative students are so worried about, in Florida, a state where it seems like the only time their views might be challenged, even gently, is in college? If the election of 2000 taught us anything, it’s that the powers that be in Florida are looking out for those oppressed conservative minorities. Because, in fact, they run the state.

The problem is that the bill opens the way for people to challenge, left and right, what happens in classrooms–which, of course, they can already do without clogging the courts. From a logistical standpoint, we can expect much extra litigation. And I am not sure there’s evidence that universities aren’t already handling such complaints well enough. But if every student with a grade dispute simply has to call “foul!” and call a lawyer, there are going to be all kinds of nasty results.

I also worry whether requiring professors to be fair to all sides (and I don’t believe that most aren’t fair) is going to mean liberal professors are eventually replaced with replacements who are “fair and balanced” in the Fox News sense of the term.

The article in Inside Higher Ed states, “Rep. Dennis K. Baxley said his own undergraduate education at Florida State University — in the 1970s — illustrated the failings of higher education: The problem was that an anthropology professor “did a tirade” in his course that evolution was correct and that creationism was not. Baxley said that students should not “get blasted” as he did for not believing in evolution.”

Um, maybe students in an anthropology seminar in a public university should hear a “tirade” about evolution. And what kind of lasting trauma did this cause, anyway? If a student believes in creationism, is being exposed to evolution, or even to a strong proponent of it, going to shatter his/her world?
When I read comments like Baxley’s, I wonder about the way Thomas Jefferson is quoted in the preamble to the bill:

94 WHEREAS, the value of the life of the mind was articulated
95 by Thomas Jefferson when he stated, “We are not afraid to follow
96 truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as
97 reason is left free to combat it…”

It seems like a student whose world was so horribly shaken by a discussion of evolution (yes, I said discussion–as “tirades” are in the ears of the beholder) is exhibiting, if nothing else, this fear Jefferson warns us of. And yet the problem lies in the words “truth” and “error.” The anthro professor believes s/he is sharing the “truth,” whereas the student Baxley thought he was being confronted with error. Oh dear. What to do? The answer, I believe, is not to add legislation. (Wow, that is the first libertarian-sounding thing I can remember saying ever.)

Interestingly, the Academic Bill of Rights would apply only to public colleges. According to the bill:

11 WHEREAS, the principles enumerated in this act fully apply
12 only to public postsecondary institutions, and nothing in this
13 act shall be construed as interfering with the right of a
14 private postsecondary institution to restrict academic freedom
15 on the basis of creed or belief…

It’s nice that professors in private universities–including religious institutions where one-sidedness is more often a problem–are allowed to indoctrinate to their hearts’ content. No class at (assuming this were a nationwide bill) Bob Jones or Oral Roberts or Brigham Young would be troubled by hearing a different point of view.

And no, in case anyone is worried, I do not believe professors should ideologically bully students. I know there are professors out there whose grading is swayed by ideology. But I believe it is extremely rare (indeed, rarer even than professors getting threatened physically by students, but that’s another story).

As a teacher, I try very hard to create an environment where respectful dialogue is possible. And the topics covered in class are appropriate: I don’t launch into tirades about George Bush when we’re talking about W. B Yeats. I don’t think the vast majority of teachers do, though I think is the sort of thing Horowitz wants us to think goes on in classrooms everyday. And I do believe that this sort of legislation will just yield court cases and instill fear in the hearts of professors, who will be anything but academically free. And believe it or not, students-of-different-ideologies everywhere, we will all be the losers.

Addendum 1: After writing this, I discovered applecidercheesefudge and Crooked Timber have much more coherent stuff to say about this. Check them out.

Addendum 2: You know, the more I think about it, graduate level study will really be screwed up by a bill like this. Think about a seminar in Marxist Literary Theory: Will the prof have to balance that out with another approach? That’s another course. Oy!

Peter Benenson, who founded Amnesty International, has died at 83. He started the group when he was outraged after two men in Lisbon were arrested and imprisoned for drinking a toast to liberty, in 1961.

‘Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government. The newspaper reader feels a sickening sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust all over the world could be united into common action, something effective could be done.’

‘When I first lit the Amnesty candle, I had in mind the old Chinese proverb: Better light a candle than curse the darkness,‘ Benenson said.

I started volunteering for Amnesty International in high school. The concept seems almost too simple–the idea that people around the world writing letters on behalf of tortured people could make a difference. I believe it does.

In high school, we wrote to express concern for the treatment of an imprisoned Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie. Only a few years later, he’d be running South Africa.

Funny how fast things some things change.

Sad how most things don’t. Or haven’t yet.

Countries and territories which retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes:

AFGHANISTAN, ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, BAHAMAS, BAHRAIN, BANGLADESH, BARBADOS, BELARUS, BELIZE, BOTSWANA, BURUNDI, CAMEROON, CHAD, CHINA, COMOROS, CONGO (Democratic Republic), CUBA, DOMINICA, EGYPT, EQUATORIAL GUINEA, ERITREA, ETHIOPIA, GABON, GHANA, GUATEMALA, GUINEA, GUYANA, INDIA, INDONESIA, IRAN, IRAQ, JAMAICA, JAPAN, JORDAN, KAZAKSTAN, KOREA (North), KOREA (South), KUWAIT, KYRGYZSTAN, LAOS, LEBANON, LESOTHO, LIBERIA, LIBYA, MALAWI, MALAYSIA, MONGOLIA, MOROCCO, MYANMAR, NIGERIA, OMAN, PAKISTAN, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, PHILIPPINES, QATAR, RWANDA, SAINT CHRISTOPHER & NEVIS, SAINT LUCIA, SAINT VINCENT & GRENADINES, SAUDI ARABIA, SIERRA LEONE, SINGAPORE, SOMALIA, SUDAN, SWAZILAND, SYRIA, TAIWAN, TAJIKISTAN, TANZANIA, THAILAND, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, UGANDA, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES,

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

UZBEKISTAN, VIET NAM, YEMEN, ZAMBIA, ZIMBABWE

(I apologize for the capitals, but I wasn’t about to try and re-type that.)

Many countries who we in the US might consider to have less-than-stellar human rights records don’t routinely execute their own citizens. Some of them appear in this list.

Japan and the US are the only “Group of Eight” major industrialized nations to still use the death penalty.

I think I was always instinctively against the Death Penalty, but Amnesty International taught me lots of practical reasons for being against it–the kinds of reasons which help convince people who do not reject it on principle. Like the fact that in the US, it costs more than life imprisonment. Or the fact that there’s no proof the death penalty deters crime more than other punishments do. And, as Amnesty says, “The death penalty is discriminatory and is often used disproportionately against the poor, minorities and members of racial, ethnic and religious communities. It is imposed and carried out arbitrarily.” In the U.S. we see how the racial imbalance–as well as a socio-economic imbalance–plays itself out in this arena.

But for me, it always comes back to, “it’s just wrong.”

One after another, British Prime Ministers of the last 40 years offered Peter Benenson a knighthood. Each time, he’d write back to them, detailing the human rights abuses Amnesty was currently fighting in the UK, and asking them–if they wanted to honor his work–to make things right. He did good work.

As the tribute on the Amnesty home page states,

In an age of self-aggrandisement, his modesty was almost hard to fathom. He never went forward to receive the numerous accolades showered upon Amnesty, known universally by its candle in barbed wire. His mind was always fixed on what had not been accomplished and the countless victims still to be rescued.

“The candle burns not for us,” he declared, “but for all those whom we failed to rescue from prison, who were shot on the way to prison, who were tortured, who were kidnapped, who ‘disappeared’. That is what the candle is for.”

I have heard about this multiple times, including Radiohumper’s site. I have finally gone there and started reading some of the listings for units and what they need. Reading them is compelling–I had not realized before I did so that I’d heard so few stories directly from soldiers, of what it’s like over there.

And the soldiers’ needs are so sobering: they don’t have the basics of food, hygiene, clothing, let alone safety. Bring the Beef is doing a collection for kevlar blankets, which will save lives, by protecting the bottom of a Humvee from explosives and landmines. If you’re broke, write some letters, like Radiohumper is.

Yes, I am a pacifist. (For the confused, yes, that started about eight years after the time I shaved GI Joe in the bathroom.) What does a Quaker say to a soldier serving in Iraq or elsewhere? Well, for starters, I’m sorry you’re there, and I hope you all come home real safe and real soon. Here’s some Ramen, t-shirts, and tampons, which I hope help just a little, ’cause I heard you ladies were roughing it real bad.

And here’s what I probably won’t say: I believe we should not have gone to Iraq. I believe we should not be there now. But supporting the people my government has wrongly sent over, and giving them the most basic necessities for health, sanity, and safety? What kind of pacifist doesn’t believe in that?

In December, Bill Moyers, after receiving the Global Environment Citizen Award from Harvard Medical School, gave an amazing speech, which I’ve somehow not come across until now.

In it, he puts his finger right on the button, to mix an old Cold War metaphor, of what’s wrong with American policy today: the Rapture Index. Basically, the idea is this: an enormous number of Americans (some say 1/3) are living like there’s no tomorrow–because they believe there won’t be. The idea of the Rapture, when they believe Jesus will come and take the devout away with him, is a rationale for not giving a rat’s arse about the environment. Moyers describes the difficulty of working to solve our environmental problems in such a climate:

As difficult as it is, however, for journalists to fashion a readable narrative for complex issues without depressing our readers and viewers, there is an even harder challenge – to pierce the ideology that governs official policy today. One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the oval office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): once Israel has occupied the rest of its ‘biblical lands,’ legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

And from the George Monbiat article published in the Guardian on 20 April 2004:

By clicking on www.raptureready.com, you can discover how close you might be to flying out of your pyjamas. The infidels among us should take note that the Rapture Index currently stands at 144, just one point below the critical threshold, beyond which the sky will be filled with floating nudists. Beast Government, Wild Weather and Israel are all trading at the maximum five points (the EU is debating its constitution, there was a freak hurricane in the South Atlantic, Hamas has sworn to avenge the killing of its leaders), but the second coming is currently being delayed by an unfortunate decline in drug abuse among teenagers and a weak showing by the Antichrist (both of which score only two).

Actually, that was almost a year ago. The Rapture Index today is 154. Anything over 145 is described in the key as “fasten your seat belts.” (Odd, that, since the bumper sticker I refer to in my title implies that the Raptured will float upwards from their cars.)

Sometimes it is easy for us progressive folks to talk about how stupid fundamentalists can be. (Of course, it’s only really PC to diss Christian fundamentalists.) Harder than dismissing them, though, is trying to figure out how they got to their beliefs. And in the same world in which I got to mine, as a lefty Quaker, and you got to yours, as a liberal athiest, and how he got to his, as a progressive Muslim, and so on.

It’s easy to say, “what idiots.” Harder to figure out how to convince them to care about our agenda. Do we say, “Yes, I know you believe the Rapture will come and we (me and my ilk) will all be left behind, and who cares what happens to sinners. But do you mind taking out the garbage so those of us left on the planet to rot after you’re gone can survive a little longer?”

See, it’s hard. I could not think of what to say that wasn’t snotty.

You know, I want to ask how they believe their God would want them to ignore the destruction of earth. And what if the Rapture comes later rather than earlier? Do you want your kids to get asthma and skin cancer and live under global warming and never see a whale?

And then, I also get creeped out how the whole “legions of the anti-Christ will attack Israel…” prediction plays right into both Israel getting the rest of its Biblical lands back, as well as a middle eastern war that destroys the new Israelites. And then the Rapture. So anything we can do to hasten mayhem in the middle east is going to bring the Rapture all that much faster. (And, Hello, Israel, are you listening? Fund-y Republicans only want to help your land increase as they wait for your impending wars, after which you will have to become Jews for Jesus right quick, or be destroyed. Does that really fit in with your prophecies? Doesn’t that piss you off? Aren’t you starting to feel a little used?)

And you know, the more people that are looking forward to Armageddon, the more likely it is to happen. Nothing to do with God; it’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy. But then, I am dealing in cause and effect here. And you know where I learned about cause and effect? In science classes. And you know those ain’t popular with religious fundamentalists.

But there I go again. Fundamentalists are not evil, they’re just like you and me. They’re my cousins, in fact, and some of them are the salt of the friggin’ earth. But in this area, misguided. They’re reading something literally that we’re not. I am not surprised there aren’t more fundamentalist English professors, ’cause you have to be able to see language as figurative, not only literal, in my world.

Those guys in the Old Testament may well have lived, but they didn’t live to be literally hundreds and hundreds of years old. We may have descended from a bloke in a fig leaf, but he may in turn have descended from tadpoles. It doesn’t all have to be mentioned in the text. “And then there was light,” “and on the sixth day he…:” all of it can be figurative. There can be a God, but it probably ain’t an old man with a long beard. And his son did not look like Errol Flynn. You have to have some imagination. (I learned that from PBS, that hotbed of evil, as a kid.)

What’s figurative can be true. And words can be true without being literally true.

I can deal with this; did reading poetry and stories teach me that?

Well, I was raving about this in Bicyclemark’s Comments, so I suppose I should continue it here.

W. was on Barbara Walters the other night, and it was much as you’d expect from him. But the man do surprise me from time to time.

Par example:

When asked whether the Tsunami was the act of an angry god, Bush replied something that it’s wrong for humans to ascribe actions to God, and that it’s wrong for us to say that God wanted certain things to happen on earth. It’s wrong to put words in God’s mouth.

I was caught completely off-guard by these remarks, since I was under the impression that God had chosen Bush to lead America, and, well, I got that idea from W. himself! Okay, maybe it wasn’t Bush directly. Maybe it was the Observer:

. . . in the lead-up to announcing his candidacy for the presidency, Bush told a Texan evangelist that he had had a premonition of some form of national disaster happening.

Bush said to James Robinson: ‘I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can’t explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen… I know it won’t be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.’

Of course, it’s not even the Observer, but the Observer quoting a book. And we all know you can’t rely on those old things.

His supporters were making such statements for sure. See David Frum of the National Review: “For now, let’s say that while the President’s opponents have made much sport of the idea that God called George Bush to the presidency, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to doubt that God wants President Bush re-elected.”

Maybe I never got the impression from Bush but from his zealous supporters. Maybe Bush is being correct and setting the record straight for his disciples. Maybe. How helpful of him to do so after the election.

Obviously Bush realizes that it’s dangerous to associate natural disasters with God’s will:

Ever since 9/11, I’ve been really wary of men telling me God told them to do something, anything.

And why do people think God is telling them to murder people from America, or from Iraq? Why would God tell them to lead the country? Wouldn’t God tell them to get affordable prescriptions and health care for all people, everywhere, to fund public education, to lighten up on the abuse of prisoners, and stop murdering civilians and babies?

Wouldn’t God tell W. to stop lying?

Thank God for the Freedom of Information Act. In this beautiful new century, we can have full knowledge of just how truly idiotic our government officials can be.

The Sunshine Project brings to light many such instances, but I draw your attention to one particular gem, demonstrating that among its grand schemes to harrass the enemy, the US considered producing chemicals which would purportedly cause the enemy to engage in sexual (and preferably homosexual) activities, with the expectation that this would be to the detriment of discipline and morale.

What the planners may not have been taking into account here is that unlike the other chemicals proposed in the report, which attract stinging bugs and bees, for example, an aphrodisiac might improve enemy morale–if troops are turned on, who’s to say they won’t be happier? More disciplined? Well, okay, I guess I see their point, they would probably not be more disciplined. But I bet the enemy would enjoy this much more than storms of stinging wasps.

Harassing, Annoying, and “Bad Guy” Identifying Chemicals (redacted)
US Air Force Wright Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB (OH)
June 1994

Comment: This “non-lethal” chemical weapons proposal from the US Air Force proposes development of a variety of chemical weapons, such as: “One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behaviour”. Other chemicals proposed includes ones that “made personnel very sensitive to sunlight”, and that “attract stinging and biting bugs, rodents, and larger animals” to enemy positions.

Other Sunshine Project non-lethal weapons files are located here.

I could not believe this when a well-read librarian directed me to it, but it appears to be legit.

If the US government can conceive of a gay spray, is a right-wing fundamentalist spray far off?

This is a great little article by Gary Younge from the Guardian which posits the above question. It referenced a panel discussion with young British Muslims, and asked what white people would think if they were asked the same questions that British blacks and Muslims are asked.

“It’s time to flip the script, to lay bare just a hint of the assuming subconscious that infects the most common questions I have either been asked or heard. To ask the kind of questions of white, British people (some are just for Christians) that they often pose to “others” but are never asked themselves. I didn’t make these up because I wouldn’t know where to start. This is my world. For the next 500 words, you’re just living in it.

“Do you think of yourself as white or British or both? Does it worry you that you got your job just because of your race? Where are you from? No, but really? Since this is where you live, don’t you think you should try and integrate with other races more? Is your first loyalty to your God, or to your country? Is it true what they say about white guys? Given the genocide, slavery and colonialism unleashed in the name of Christianity over the last two centuries, do you feel your religion is compatible with democracy? Mr Grant, do you think of yourself as a white actor or an actor who happens to be white? I don’t mind white people, but if they want to live here then why shouldn’t they have to fit in with our traditions? Shouldn’t the police be doing more to tackle white-on-white crime? Given the objectification of women in your culture and the rise in teenage pregnancies, don’t you think it’s time to ban young girls wearing make up? What do you make of the tribal conflict in Ukraine? I thought you asked for flesh-coloured tights? Don’t you feel that this politically correct belief that we have to respect white people’s feelings has stifled honest discussion and debate? Isn’t it a shame that white people cannot pick more responsible leaders? What do you mean, you can’t Morris dance? Don’t you ever worry about being pigeonholed as a white person? Why aren’t you doing more to check the rise in Christian fundamentalism? Who are your community leaders? Why should we balance our belief in human rights with our tolerance for Christians? What do white people think about Jews? How would you define “white” style? Mr Amis, why do you write about white people all the time? Don’t you find that limiting? What are you doing for your people? Have you seen what the Bible says about women? Are you the token white guy? Don’t take this personally, but why are white men so aggressive? Now the Olympics are over, can we finally admit that white people are genetically equipped to excel in archery and rowing? What is it with white people and homophobia? You know what white women are like, don’t you? I understand that as a white person you come at this from a particular place, but can’t you try to look at it objectively for a moment? Why do you people have such a chip on your shoulder? Don’t get offended, I was only asking.”

Guardian Unlimited | No offence, but why are all white men so aggressive?

If there is anything wrong with people being able to start schools and teach whatever they want to, it’s this: a “Christian” school in Cary, NC is teaching students that Southern Slavery wasn’t all that bad: School Defends Slavery Booklet. Among other things, the booklet claims that for slaves, “Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care” (page 25). It also asserts that

“Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence” (page 24).

Nice how they both affirmed patriarchal rule and slavery in one go. Women take note: if a man is telling you what to do, your life will be based on “mutual affection and confidence.” Hmmm.

According to the article,

“Principal Larry Stephenson said the school is only exposing students to different ideas, such as how the South justified slavery. He said the booklet is used because it is hard to find writings that are both sympathetic to the South and explore what the Bible says about slavery.

“You can have two different sides, a Northern perspective and a Southern perspective,” he said.

Editor’s note: Doubtless other titles to come include “Unions Are Bad For Workers,” “The NY State Minimum Wage of $5.15 is a Nice, Palindromic Number,” and “Health Insurance isn’t Necessary for Most People.”

Lightbulb jokes do not usually do it for me, and you probably heard this one anyway, but Friend Carol sent this to me.

How many members of the Bush Administration are needed to replace a light
bulb?

The answer is 10.

1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed.

2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to
be changed.

3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb.

4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either: “For changing
the light bulb or for darkness.”

5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new
light bulb.

6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a
stepladder under the banner “Light Bulb Change Accomplished.”

7. One administration insider to resign and write a book documenting in
detail how Bush was literally “in the dark.”

8. One to viciously smear #7.

9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light bulb-changing policy all along.

10. And, finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between
screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

Editor’s note: shouldn’t we add a third option: “the difference between screwing a lightbulb, screwing an intern, and screwing the country”? Verbalchameleon.

Eschaton reports on a kid in Louisiana who told another kid his mom is gay, and what that means (in the most innocent of terms), and then was punished. From Gay News:

“Marcus McLaurin was waiting in line to go to recess on November 11 at Ernest Gallet Elementary School when a classmate asked him about his mother and father. He responded that he didn’t have a mother and father; instead he has two mothers. When the other child asked why, Marcus told him that it was because his mother is gay. The other child then asked what that meant, and Marcus explained, ‘Gay is when a girl likes another girl.’ ”

And then it gets worse: the teacher who punished the kid is suing the mom.

How is this teacher a victim? Because s/he was accused of discrimination. (It’s a defamation suit.) Well, she did discriminate. And since when did schools have a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy?

And what is with the litigation system in this country? It appears that the teacher is pre-empting the mom’s own discrimination suit aganst the school board, but still.

This is madness.

Well, if you enjoyed Sorry Everybody, then you’ll love the sequel, Apology Accepted. Now that that’s out of the way, what do we do now? Can we skip the global-equivalent-of-makeup-sex and do something?

We need a website called whatthef***dowedonow.com? (Don’t click, it’s just an idea.)

Not that I don’t like thinking about the global-equivalent-of-makeup-sex.