Do As We Say...

Iraq stands up against U.S.

Is this what W keeps talking about as the magic moment in which we get to stand down?

I am bewildered that this news is causing barely a blip, let alone the outrage it should. On the same day that dire predictions were being made about the Iraqi security forces likely needing another 40 years or so to be independently operational due to infiltration by insurgents, the day after reports that US-supplied weapons are quickly ending up in those insurgents' hands and used against our personnel, al-Maliki sets a deadline for us to effectively end the search for a missing soldier in Muqtada al-Sadr Land. And we comply. And all the newshounds can bay about is John Kerry's lame joke at a speech in California.

So let me see if I understand this. Setting a hard deadline for withdrawal from Iraq would leave the job unfinished and would dishonor the thousands of deaths and maimings our forces have suffered, but acquiescing to al-Maliki's deadline for us to withdraw from the search for a soldier who might still be alive doesn't leave anything unfinished? It doesn't dishonor the Army's dictum that no man be left behind? It doesn't appease one very specific extremist and his Mahdi Army?

Oh, right. The missing soldier is of Iraqi descent, and is married to an Iraqi woman. He must not count, then.

Things That Make You Go...

Hmmm. So we don't enforce timetables when it comes to Iraq, because that somehow signals defeat, but we comply with timetables set by the Iraqi government.

U.S. forces ended a five-day-old military blockade of Baghdad's impoverished Sadr City section Tuesday, meeting a deadline set by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki amid tensions between U.S. and Iraqi officials and pressure from the anti-American cleric whose militia controls the sprawling Shiite slum.

Precisely at 5 p.m. local time (9 a.m. EST), the deadline set by Maliki, U.S. armored personnel carriers pulled away from the roadblocks. Young men in pickup trucks drove through the streets waving banners of the Mahdi Army, and drivers of other vehicles honked their horns in celebration.

Good to see Iraqization trundling right along.

Testing, Testing

Google is evil, right? And Blogger is even more screwed up since the Google buyout? Is this an accurate understanding? It locked up on me a couple of times while posting this morning, so now I'm trying out the nifty new Performancing utility that came with Firefox 2.0...

powered by performancing firefox

Dammit, Janet!

Headline in the national news section of the Daily Star this morning: N. J. Ruling for Gay Marriage Energizes GOP Base. It is time to stop using the term "base" and start calling them what they are. The revised headline, of course, should read "N. J. Ruling for Gay Marriage Energizes GOP Bigots." Or perhaps "N. J. Ruling for Gay Marriage Gets Fundie Knickers in a Twist."

Proposition 107, the ballot measure in Arizona seeking to amend the constitution to outlaw gay marriage and civil unions, is polling increasingly poorly. This is good. Governor Janet Napolitano is opposed to it. This also is good. Curiously, though, Napolitano is also opposed to gay marriage:

Napolitano has said on several occasions, including this week, that she does not support gay marriage despite opposing Prop. 107. The governor said Wednesday she believes marriage should be between a man and a woman.

This is fascinating, given that I've always assumed she was a big ol' dyke herself. Other people seem to have assumed the same thing.

A reporter from the liberal New Times newspaper questioned Napolitano on Prop. 107 and her gay marriage stance at a Wednesday press conference. The questions quickly turned more aggressive, including bringing up rumors the governor is gay.

Napolitano has said on several occasions that she is not gay and said she was offended by the New Times question.

Whatever, Janet. Napolitano has been vital to moderate and liberal interests in Arizona since she's been in office, vetoing haybales of inane legislation delivered by the Republican legislature. She's stood up for gay rights in the workplace and supported domestic partner registries. Hearing the "one man, one woman" line coming out of her mouth is disheartening, unless she meant it as a veiled threat to the child-raping polygamists in Colorado City.

Not likely. Please, woman, do not put me in the position of having to vote against you for being a hypocrite. There are no other champions of reason bobbing anywhere in sight in the gubernatorial pool.

Equally puzzling ("puzzling" here meaning "spurring me to bang my head on the table") was the Daily Star's Prop 107 summary, published Saturday:

● Real-World Impact: The amendment would block "activist judges" or the Legislature from changing the law to redefine marriage, which backers say must be preserved as a traditional institution. Critics say same-sex marriage already is illegal in Arizona, and the move mostly punishes straight couples by denying them domestic-partner benefits. Gay and lesbian activists also say it would be a blow to them.

Just love it that gay folk--you know, the people the measure was written specifically to hurt--are mentioned as an afterthought, as a footnote. Granted, if demographics are the sole basis of the argument, then the move does indeed "mostly punish straight couples," simply because unmarried straight couples outnumber gay couples by about 10 to 1 in Arizona (taken with the obligatory grain of salt required by self-reported census numbers). This argument is mitigated, however, by the fact that unmarried straight couples truly are in a voluntary situation. I recognize that some of those couples are senior citizens attempting to preserve Social Security and pension benefits from deceased spouses, or non-seniors attempting to shield their new partner's income and assets from a vindictive alimony-seeking ex-spouse, but these exceptional circumstances certainly do not apply to all 115,700 straight couples in the state.

And--regardless of the reasons these people have for not marrying--if a civil union ban is passed and the unmarried couple relies on domestic partner benefits for health coverage, they do still have the option of traipsing to the courthouse, plunking down fifty bucks, and bingo, having their relationship recognized by the state, no questions asked. In that regard, the bulk of the punishment falls squarely as intended: on the backs of gay and lesbian couples who will have no recourse when their partner benefits are taken away.

Given that, the recent No on 107 flyer that landed in my mailbox last week was more than a little disingenuous. Pictures of two straight couples, one 30-ish, one 80-ish, were prominently featured. No pictures of same-sex couples, no mention of us at all save for the statement that gay marriage is already prohibited by statute. The focus was on straight couples.

I wish the people fighting for us were actually fighting for us on principle, not just because they had the potential to be hurt themselves. You know, that old thing about injustice anywhere meaning injustice everywhere, or whatsoever you do to the least of these? That thing? Yeah, it would be nice.

Ouch

Oh, the pain of parenthood. The Boy played in an essentially meaningless tournament this weekend, one his team entered mainly as an end-of-season exercise to stay sharp for the high school tryouts that start tonight. They cruised through the first two rounds, and then went to championship match against a team they'd dismantled 6-0 the night before. Naturally, that game went through regulation and two overtimes as a tie and came down to the dreaded Kicks From The Mark. The first four kicks put The Boy's team up 4-3. The fifth opponent scored, tying it. The fifth kicker from The Boy's team missed, meaning the remaining kicks would be sudden death. The opponent's sixth shot scored, meaning The Boy's team's sixth kicker had to score or they lost. The Boy was the sixth kicker... and the keeper saved his shot, sending The Boy to the ground in tears and The Boy's mom holding her head and thinking, oh no, what the hell do I do now?

None of the usual platitudes (if the entire team had played better it never would have come to penalties, if your fifth man had scored you would have won, it's not your fault) matter when you're the one who stepped up as your team's last hope and put the ball into the keeper's hands instead of into the back of the net.

He is 14, tall and hairy. The moments reminding me that he's still a little boy in some ways get more and more poignant the older he gets.

Sigh. Where's that magic wand or whatever it was I had years ago that could make bad things disappear in a poof of giggles?

Mawwiage

The high court of New Jersey ruled today that same-sex couples must be treated equally under the law as married hets, although it's up to the state legislature whether to call such arrangements marriages, civil unions, or, perhaps, mulligatawny. I mean, it's just a word, right? If the underlying rights are equal I'm willing to cede "marriage" to the straights on their fifth husbands--all in the interest of preserving the sanctity of the institution, of course--and accept whatever term legislatures want to attach to our unions.

In my perfect world, everyone who officially couples up would get a civil union. Then if you wish to have your civil contract solemnized in the religious tradition of your choice, you're free to do so and appropriate the word "married" as your own.

Thinking about the Christian right's arguments against gay marriage, their protestations about the eternal sanctity of marriage as one man, one woman, world without end, I don't see that my suggestion would be that objectionable. If they truly see marriage as a God-ordained institution intended to both carry out God's plan for humanity AND reflect Jesus' relationship to the church, they should be happy to get all the heathen and atheistic riffraff swept out the door.

I have some good friends who have been happily married for nearly ten years, the original marriage for both of them. They are also atheists and have no intention of reproducing; in fact, the guy got a vasectomy in his 20s because he knew he never wanted kids. They're involved with their nieces and nephews and have a couple of dogs, but their marriage neither perpetuates the species nor glorifies God in any manifestation. So the only criterion of Marriage they fulfill is having different genders. A long-term lesbian couple I know, in contrast, attend church regularly, sing in the choir, and raised their daughter in their faith. They are a much closer match to the model of Marriage put forth by the fundies except, of course, for the niggling little detail of sharing four X chromosomes between them. Yet another couple I know is stridently evangelical Christian and conservative... and between them they've racked up a jaw-dropping nine marriages, demonstrating either boundless optimism or being hopelessly jaded.

Which one of those is the real marriage by fundamentalist Christian standards? Any of them? Which comes closest to that model of perfection they hold up, that precious institution that is so fragile as to likely implode if two guys exchange rings? Letting gay couples in the door for civil unions with everyone else, while letting individual religious congregations decide what they're going to bless as a marriage (infertile couples? second or third marriages? biracial couples? mixed faith marriages? pagans?) should satisfy the logical needs of most of us while simultaneously massaging the egos of those who need to feel exclusionary. Let them be True Scotsmen and define "marriage" however they want, so long as the legal rights and responsibilities are conferred on everyone.

Another Press Conference

Ay, it's way too early in the morning for this. But it's press conference time on the east coast, so here we go.

The focus was Iraq. Interestingly, Iraq's oil resources finally merited being mentioned more than once as a key factor to the conflict:

If we do not defeat the terrorists and extremists in Iraq, they will gain control over vast oil reserves and use them to overthrow moderate governments across the Middle East. They will launch new attacks toward their goal of a vast Islamic extremist empire stretching from Spain to Indonesia.

What Iraq could look like is what Afghanistan used to look like. Imagine the safe haven for the enemy with the resources Iraq has.

I don't recall any prior statements explicitly listing "keeping Iraq's oil from falling into al-Qaida hands" as a primary goal, nor do I recall other references to a vast Islamic empire. The latter feels particularly ominous (not the spectre of such an empire, but rather of a government that is certain it is fighting against the possibility) in light of these somewhat apocalyptic statements (bolded neocon code words my own conjecture):

Defeating the extremists and terrorists will define the course of this new century. The outcome of this war will determine the destiny of millions of people across the world. It is the calling of this generation.

Maybe it's just me, but I get nervous when W starts talking about destiny. Particularly when he casts himself as a major player in determining its course.

Buzzword watch: References to adapting/shifting tactics/being flexible: 1, 2, 3, 4 in fewer than 45 seconds. 5, 6. 7. 8, 9, 10. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Oops, earlier expectations to the contrary, "a way forward" is gaining ground. Parties looking for a way forward now include the US government, the Iraqi government, the American people, the Iraqi people, and Kim Jong Il.

Definition time: Victory in Iraq is now apparently defined as helping the Iraqi government get control over more of their country. Victory is a government that can sustain itself and defend yourself and protect itself and govern its country and be an ally in the war on terror. Fixed timetable for withdrawal means defeat.

Question and answer time. Well, "answer" is a bit generous in this case; it would be far more accurate to say "rolling the word dice and stringing together sentences that only obliquely address the questions that were posed." The word dice include these helpful phrases: a way forward, shifting tactics, benchmarks, security, protect, terrorists and extremists, adapting, situation on the ground, generals on the ground, leave before the job is done, defend and govern and sustain itself, timetables, changing tactics.

David Gregory: When you reject timetables but set benchmarks for the Iraqi government that must be met, why shouldn't the American people conclude that this is just semantics and, two weeks before the elections, just politics?

W: There is a significant difference between benchmarks and a timetable for withdrawal. This is a sovereign government. We're showing them a way forward for their people. We're asking them, when do you think you're gonna get this done? That is substantially different from saying we want a time certain for getting out of Iraq. Benchmarks are a way to win. A timetable for withdrawal means we lose.

Saying "a way forward" means never having to actually answer a question.


Another reporter, sorry, didn't catch the name: You say the definition of failure is leaving before job is done, but you don't want to see our troops standing in the crossfire of sectarian violence or all-out civil war, so how do you reconcile those two statements?

W: Our job is to prevent wholesale fullscale civil war from happening in the first place. That there's a political way forward. Government defend itself, sustain itself. We will work to prevent that from happening. This is a struggle between radicals and extremists who are trying to prevent there being a democracy. If we were to withdraw before the job is done it would embolden extremists. You're asking me hypotheticals. Our job is to make sure there is not one.

So glad to hear that the 80+ people being killed by sectarian death squads in Baghdad every day are not the victims of a civil war. Because that would just be, you know, wrong.


Uh, another reporter: How do you plan to measure Maliki's success in meeting the banchmarks, and what will you do if he doesn't meet them?

W: The first step is to work with the Maliki government to develop benchmarks to achieve different goals, to assure the Iraqi people that the government is going to make the difficult decisions to move forward and achieve their goals. We have to work with this sovereign government to come up with a way to move forward.

Saying "a way forward" means never having to actually answer a question.


Finally, W boils down the upcoming elections to the basics: Which party has the plan that will enable our ecomony to continue to grow, and which party has the plan that will protect this country? The Democrats voted against giving us the tools to protect the American people. I don't question their patriotism, I question whether they understand how dangerous this world is. If the tax cuts aren't made permanent, it raises the taxes on the American people. Who can protect this country, and who can keep taxes low?

Ah, so the Democrats aren't traitors after all. They're just stupid. Unlike the American people, who understand that revoking habeas corpus is the best tool for fighting terrorism, and that cutting taxes on the top-earning 1% of the population translates into economic bliss for the working class.


Telling Quote #1: "This war has multiple affronts."

Reason, logic, and humanity foremost among them.


Telling Quote #2: "I like campaigning. It's what guys like me do... From what I see out there, people are ready to vote to put us back into power. "

What Diebold hath wrought, let no man put asunder.

Rain

The sprinkles that ten minutes ago set me scurrying to get the tools, sandpaper, and half-finished bookshelf stuffed back into the shed have bloomed into a steady rain. The drops and attending glorious sunset come this evening courtesy of the remnants of Hurricane Paul, currently spinning itself out over the Sea of Cortez. By the time hurricanes meander this far inland, they've lost their oomph and give us a pleasant fall shower. The cool wind and the rain take me back home, back to Chicago.

Autumn rain transforms reality. It makes things more immediate and real, stripped down to the true nature of what they are. All pretenses and hedged bets and promises or speculations of what they once were and might yet become are washed away, and the world is as itself.

Naked and wet it's hard to be pretentious.

The rain is at once isolating and liberating, cutting down the universe of possible choices. The world turns inward and all is dark and damp, the water dripping from trees and scaffolding and buildings and people in equal measure.

Places never seem so much like themselves and home never feels so much like home as on a rainy day in the fall. Summer's bright allure of cloudless skies and glinting windows and all the brightly touted distractions have been put away for another year, and the city goes about its business, and it rains. The sidewalks are puddled and the L platforms are glistening and the street sounds are muffled and the people carry on, ducking under umbrellas and newspapers, hurrying into vestibules and onto the train, and the trains still roll and the water beads on the windows like sweat and the city strides on and it rains.

The cop directing traffic and the trader with his stock exchange badge and the homeless guy in the doorway and the bicycle messenger and the advertising executive and the guy in for the day from the 'burbs all get equally wet. And the stanchions on the Adams Street bridge and the girders under the Quincy L stop and the lions at the Art Institute and the flickering bulbs on the sign for Maxwell Street Red Hots and the expired parking meters all drip at the same rate. The water creeps up the limestone of the Trib Tower and Soldier Field and the county lockup all the same, equivalent histograms of wet and November in Chicago.

Eighteen hundred miles and twelve years removed, a cool rainy day still puts me there.

The desert rain is different. It is something not to be wasted, because when it stops it might not come back for months. I wonder but that lifetime desert dwellers must find something else to cleanse their souls, some different environmental occurrence that makes them long to curl up with a good book and a cup of tea. When else do they get to eat soup, but when it rains? And do they know to take a good look then, so that they may see things as they are?

All Souls

One of Tucson's niftier traditions is the All Souls Procession, a sort of free-form parade and cathartic spectacle held each year round about All Souls' Day, a community event for people to celebrate the lives of loved ones who have passed on. This year it's happening on November 5. The evening before is the Personal Altar Vigil, in which people can build small altars in the library plaza downtown and stroll amongst them all night long. I am making one in honor of my old teacher. Look for it; it will be the one built out of books.

I am also contemplating a small side altar commemorating the death of habeas corpus, although I suppose that would make for a nice float in the parade the next night. The Constitution, wrapped in a shroud, perhaps set on fire with the torch shanghaied from the Statue of Liberty.

Mourning Routine

Routines, generally, do not settle well with my system. Some routines are okay, say, for example, the morning routine of lying in bed half-comatose, wondering how long I can put off getting up, slowly warming up the synapses by trying to decide what to wear today.

It's a very good thing that my work wardrobe consists entirely of shorts and t-shirts.

Eating the same thing for breakfast every morning simply will not do. Meeting the same friend for breakfast every morning, however, is a lovely routine. I had a friend like that, once, back when we were both single and life was weird but, somehow, simpler. Every morning I pulled into her driveway and pounded on her bedroom window, hoping she'd be not quite startled or sleep-addled enough to grab the .38 she kept under her pillow, hoping the dog would nose her awake so I wouldn't have to. By the time I walked around to the back door and let myself in, she'd usually be up and in her robe, yawning and asking what a girl had to do to get a cup of coffee around here.

Some mornings we had fried-scrambled eggs, as we called them, a dish not really appreciated by anyone else we socialized with, eggs cracked into the skillet and fried until the whites were almost set, then scrambled a little with the spatula before being thunderously salted and peppered and draped with cheese and served over toast with salsa. Sometimes instead of eggs I baked biscuits at home and brought them over wrapped in a towel, or sometimes she baked a coffee cake or made pancakes. Sometimes we just had ice cream sundaes in waffle bowls. And coffee, always coffee we bought when the old Coffee Etc. on Campbell put their half-pound bags on sale, eyeballing the grounds into the metal filter basket of the Krups machine she'd bought as an indulgent whim.

We carried our plates out to the back and sat in the big porch swing I'd rescued from someone's brush-n-bulky pile, watched her dog snuffle in the yard, watched the flowers sway in the breeze, talked about the next great landscaping project or camping adventure we'd undertake. Talked about how we were sure we'd be eighty someday and still be meeting for breakfast every morning, having our eggs and toast and coffee out on the back porch. Then we'd carry the dishes back inside, simultaneously shrug and say, "Time to make the donuts," and after a quick hug I'd head off to work and she'd set about getting ready to go in to her office.

We'd talk on the phone later in the afternoon or evening, just to check in and say hi. I alwyas knew, somehow, when it was her on the other end when the phone rang, even without caller ID. And we'd know we'd see each other the next morning for breakfast. Everyone should have a friend like that at some time in their lives. I had a friend like that once. I miss her more than I can convey.

Want Pride? Got Yer Pride Right Here

I did not participate in any Pride activities this year, keeping my streak of forgetting to go to Pride alive and well. I forgot about the Saturday picnic until it was already late Saturday afternoon, and was unable to hit the Sunday parade due to a full slate of soccer games played and refereed. I failed to see any coverage in the paper this year, which was a little odd. They usually stick in a token picture of a drag queen or two, but if they did it this time around I missed it. Homer's coverage was pretty good. Gotta love the Gaysha.

However, I love this. Coming on the heels of David Kuo's published assertions that the White House is, in fact, only paying lip service to the religious right's face while calling them nutjobs behind their backs, the American Family Association has its modest knickers in a twist because Condi Rice not only swore in an avowed homo as the new AIDS czar, but was nice to his partner and called his partner's mother the new czar's mother-in-law.

You can feel the apoplexy coming off the screen in waves.

An Associated Press photo of the ceremony also shows a smiling First Lady Laura Bush and Dybul's homosexual "partner," Jason Claire. During her comments, Rice referred to the presence of Claire's mother and called her Dybul's "mother-in-law," a term normally reserved for the heterosexuals who have been legally married.

I love the scare quotes, not just around mother-in-law, but around partner as well. Actually, scare quotes isn't the most apt descriptor, but it's less unwieldy than "eye-roll-and-disgusted-head-toss-teamed-with-that-little-chuh!-sound." Calling the avowed homosexual's sodomite co-sexual-sinner a partner, as if the relationship were on the same hallowed level as Donny and Marie, or Tinker to Evers to Chance. Now there were some partners, people! But there's more:

"We have to face the fact that putting a homosexual in charge of AIDS policy is a bit like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse," says Sprigg. "But even beyond that, the deferential treatment that was given not only to him but his partner and his partner's family by the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is very distressing."

What the hell was Condi thinking when she treated those people respectfully, and at an official ceremony, no less? Doesn't she know that do-unto-others bit is only for people who deserve it, and that she should've snatched that Bible right out of the sodomite's hands and smacked him upside the head with it? But the capper was this:

He also notes that Rice's comments defy an existing law on the books protecting traditional marriage. "So, for her to treat his partner like a spouse and treat the partner's mother as a mother-in-law, which implies a marriage between the two partners, is a violation of the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act," the FRC spokesman states.

Time to call in the FBI or, better yet, appoint a special prosecutor to investigate a sitting Secretary of State who not only treats sinners politely but blatantly violates federal laws forbidding speech implying that the mother of an avowed homosexual's sodomite plaything is anything but, well, let's face it, the mother of the spawn of Satan.

Cartoon Cartoon

The Daily Star ran this interesting cartoon, reprinted from the Rome (GA) News-Tribune on the Op-Ed page this morning.

The message appears to be that Democrats are insisting on spending precious government resources wiretapping gays to purge DC of the Lavender Menace, while Republicans, weary but resolute, insist on maintaining their razor-sharp focus on the terrorists. The donkey, who's probably ditching work if he has a job at all, wears typical liberal protest attire, a t-shirt with a slogan, and holds a giant sign with another slogan. The elephant, in contrast, is in office attire, his loosened tie, five-o-clock shadow, and cup of coffee signifying yet another late night spent at the office in pursuit of the terrorists (hopefully this elephant is among the one percent of FBI agents who have the ability--maybe--to order a cup of coffee in Arabic).

Oh, and the elephant makes a funny. A ribald funny that manages simultaneously to reference both blowjobs and the heterosexual male fear of Teh Gay coming on to him. How clever!

This is fascinating stuff coming from the party that focused obsessively on a consensual blowjob between two adults not that long ago, to the exclusion of nearly everything else, spending over a year and millions of dollars to prove that Bill Clinton is a Very Bad Man. A blowjob that was inappropriate, immoral, and ill-advised, to be sure, but one that was not illegal, a blowjob that was used to indict not just a president but his entire party. Now we have a Republican embroiled in a much more disturbing scandal, one involving predation on underage pages, and the rest of the Republicans and their media mouthpieces--when they're not scrambling to make excuses for the guy--are falling over themselves to tut-tut that the Democrats are making this an issue right before midterms, insisting that it's really not that big a deal, that if it's a big deal at all, it's because it distracts from the party message of all terror, all the time.

Meanwhile, the implication that the Democrats are blaming the page scandal on "the gays" and demanding special surveillance (special rights, anyone? okay, how about special blame, then?) is bullshit. It goes beyond that, actually; it's intellectually lazy and intentionally dishonest bullshit. The Democrats are not demanding that anyone "wiretap the gays." In fact, the Dems have specifically not engaged in the sort of gay scapegoating and demonizing that the right wing apologists delved into within 24 hours of the scandal breaking. The sole demand is that the House Republican leadership own their responsibility for covering up Foley's actions for the past six years, during which time they consistently chose political expediency over the well-being of the teenage kids entrusted to their care in the page program.

But that wouldn't have been nearly so amusing a cartoon.

Vocabulary With George

Chimpy had a press conference this morning. Actually, it's still going on. Between comments on reporters' suits--my, how playful and clever our leader is, balancing gravitas and Jove so deftly--W helpfully defined terms.

The president's most solemn duty is to "protect the American people." No mention of the actual oath he took, which involved protecting the Constitution.

"Firm date for withdrawal" means "cut and run."

"Stay the course" means "we keep doing what we're doing." It also means "not leaving until the job is done."

No word on what "job is done" entails. But--BUT--he did explain that we're staying in Iraq because if we leave Iraq "they will come fight us here." He still doesn't understand what we're fighting over there. The insurgents are fighting to get us out of their country so they can get on with the business of killing each other until somebody grabs control. The Mehdi Army is not going to come to the US in droves to fight us here. Al Qaida is going to try to come after us regardless of when we leave Iraq, and under what circumstances. As far as AQ's presence in Iraq in the first place, he's still confusing correlation and causality. I'd love to hear what he thinks those two words mean.

As to our actions in Iraq creating more terrorists: Well, of course our actions "cause other actions... kinetic actions." Uh.

As for North Korea, we have this one-side conversation: "I believe the commander in chief must try all diplomatic measures before military action." Ha. He finally gets it, as he immediately asked his own followup, on why he went with the military option in Iraq (saints be praised, he apparently does listen sometimes). Apparently diplomacy didn't work in Iraq. Apparently the possession of nukyooler weapons makes W much more patient with the diplomatic process.

Snark, snark, snark.

You said you wouldn't tolerate a nuclear North Korea, and now they're nuclear. So what are you going to do? Uh, well, "when I talk to other world leaders on the phone, we strategize." And now we're not the only country saying North Korea is bad! "That should give diplomacy a full opportunity to succeed."

Does he wish he'd done anything different about Iraq? There are some things he wishes had gone differently. "I believe Abu Ghraib really hurt us and eased us off the moral high ground." Okay, true dat. But that's the only thing he cites, falling back on "the decision to remove Saddam from power was the right one." We'll change tactics if we need to change tactics to help this young democracy succeed. We don't want to cede this area of the world to people who would glorify a victory over the US. I wonder if he remembers the results of the democratic elections in Palestine and Iran, you know, the ones that put Islamic hardliners in office. I wonder how content he will be when the same damn thing eventually happens in Iraq.

Fantasy Football and Congressional Fantasies, Both Gag-worthy

Sometimes your fantasy NFL team tanking yet again takes on the same significance as the Foley-Kolbe phantasm. Not often. Actually, I'm so used to it that today is probably the last day it will register. Oh, swell. The Broncos just picked off yet another pass. Good thing I'm not in this for cash.

When this happens (not the demise of my team, so much, although it's an apt metaphor for the rest of the world at the moment), I like to pop open a bottle of Red Truck and go through the last month's worth of Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke.

I confess to not paying inordinate attention today to the newest Foley developments. Apparently Jim Kolbe (recently retired representative from Arizona), another inexplicably Republican gay man, knew as far back as 2000 that Foley was behaving inappropriately with the pages. Nothing that's come to light so far suggests that Kolbe himself did anything wrong with the boys (reports indicate he was friendly and generous, but no hints of smoking guns yet), but his minimal actions to rectify the situation (notifying the House clerk) are damning.

Note to the remaining gay Republicans in Congress: knock it off, already. If you get so much as a whiff of impropriety involving one of your gay colleagues and an underage kid, you are obligated to go all Avenging Angel on the guy's ass. Doing the bare minimum that you think will stand up to clear you in court or preserve your committee chairmanship only makes the rest of us--who, by the by, are overwhelmingly interested in getting laid by People Our Own Age--look really, really bad. The Focus on the Family people have the stereotype of the gay sexual predator up there in stark relief. Look in the mirror and see if your actions are perpetuating that stereotype or protecting someone else's efforts to perpetuate it in any way. If so, knock it the hell off.

There.

Sunday Escape

Running score: Fish 90, me 0.

The Boy and I hightailed it for Patagonia this afternoon and spent a lovely few hours hunkered under cottonwood trees, enjoying the breeze, drowning worms that came all the way from the White Mountains to die an ignominious death in Patagonia Lake, unmolested by any fish lips.












Nary a bite.

Well, one possible bite after we moved from the rocks to the handicapped fishing dock (insert comment here; we have long accepted our fishing impairment).














These vultures pegged us as an easy dinner, unaware that we had planned ahead and bought food against the distinct possibility that no fish would be caught for eating.

We're still waiting for that fresh-caught, pan-fried bluegill supper. Thankfully, Omar's Highway Chef is still serving up heaping plates of goodness at the Triple T Truckstop on the way back into town. My huge platter of huevos rancheros swimming in an ocean of beans and cheese was more than consolation enough.

Rainy Friday; Rally Posthash, Finished with a Dollop of Stereotyping Cream!

I woke up this morning about ten seconds before the downpour started, a rain that has lasted about an hour an a half and socked in the basin with so many clouds the mountains are mere afterthoughts on the horizon. It's a cool, wonderfully gloomy morning that feels like winter more than the dregs of summer--what passes for fall here--it really is.

The rally last night was rather disjointed and was on the move by the time I got down there, the anti-Bush faction marching in clumps to take the long way around the pro-war group on the opposite sidewalk. My first impression was that our side needs to bulk up in the flag department. The fact that I could instantly identify which group was the pro-war side, based on the large number of flags they were carrying, should give us all pause. Failing to carry flags ourselves reinforces the pro-war people's message that they are the true Americans, that their message is the one the flag truly stands for. We can't help them perpetuate that.

Anti-Bush signs seen: "Impeach;" "Give Bush a Fair Trial;" good old "ITMFA." One boy stood crucifix-style, a noose wound along his arms.

Pro-war signs seen: "Give War a Chance;" "Nuke Iran, Nuke Syria, Let God Sort 'em Out;" and my perennial favorite, "Osama Loves Lefties." I truly wanted to engage the latter woman in conversation. I wanted to point out to her that of all Americans, Osama probably finds "lefties" the most repugnant. After all, we tend away from orthodox religion, we don't usually adhere to religious prohibitions against things like rock music and sex for fun, and, ah, we're the ones who seem to think Osama needs to be caught right now rather than ignored and trotted out as a convenient boogeyman when the polls dip.

As I drove away, I saw an older guy holding a Marine flag engaged in a heated conversation with a young kid, punctuating his points by thwacking the kid's shins with his flagpole. I wonder why turning the other cheek comes so naturally to us, when it's the other side that's so thick with Bible thumpers.

Freedom on the March!

In lieu of actual content, a linkfest.

Freedom is still on the march! That is, if, of course, by "freedom" you mean "continued power grabs by a megalomaniacal dictator."

Dennis Hastert is taking responsibility for the page scandal and its coverup. That is, if, of course, by "taking responsibility" you mean "blaming the media and Bill Clinton."

I really, really meant to go to the World Can't Wait rally downtown this evening. Of course, I managed to get derailed by drama involving my hiking boots and now there's some weird post-monsoonal thunderstorm action and, okay, I'm just too goddamn tired and lazy to get off my ass and do something proactive. There. I said it. At least I persuaded my officemate and her boyfriend to go. Luckily for all of us, Olbermann is energized.

Ah, shite, the power of guilt. I'm toddling off to the rally now.

Requisite Mark Foley Post

In other news, Mark Foley is going for the fundie right-wing gay stereotype trifecta: (1) molested as a kid, (2) substance abuser; (3) sexual predator. Thanks a ton for jumping on that bandwagon, asshole. I'm not even going to address your contorted attempts at justifying or rationalizing or explaining his behavior. You are not the victim here. The kids are.

I will, however, repost a comment I wrote over at Daily Kos earlier in the week, now that more and more rightish commentators are coming out from under their rocks to discuss the technicalities of the boys' ages and, even worse, to suggest that the pages themselves were somehow at fault for Foley's actions. Forthwith:

Attention from an older guy in a position of relative power is a heady, heady thing for a 16-year-old (or, as in my case, 17). It's flattering, it's exciting--wow, he actually wants to talk to me! He wants to take me to dinner! He wants to talk to me about my future career interests! It's exhilarating.

Then he pulls you down on top of him on the couch in his office and jams his tongue down your throat and, wham, it's not fun any more. It's terrifying. Even if you manage to stop things in their tracks, the creepiness and guilt take a long damn time to subside. You don't tell your parents because you don't want them to be angry--whether with you or with your attacker, you're not quite sure--and you don't want them to think (know?) you're stupid enough to have gotten into this situation in the first place. You don't even tell your friends because you don't want them to look at you differently. You look back at everything that led to that awful moment and kick yourself for not putting the brakes on sooner, for not recognizing what was happening until it was too late.

I feel for the kid or kids who are sure to be identified sooner or later as the other parties in the IMs and e-mails. I'm certain my own experience shaded the way I read them, but I sensed the discomfort coming through the kid's side of the messaging. You don't want to go along with where you're being led, but at the same time you don't want to not go along because you think maybe you're misinterpreting and don't want him to cut you off. You don't want him to think you're the one reacting inappropriately.

All the debate about whether Foley is technically really a pedophile or an ephebophile or pederast or just garden-variety sleazebag misses the reality that teenagers are not equipped to deal with sexual situations involving older, more experienced, much more powerful adults. Arguments about terminology and semantics obscure the point: I don't give a rat's ass what the age of consent is in DC, or what that means for the 18-year-old boyfriends of 16-year-old girls. Foley exploited kids who were not experienced enough to know how to handle him. And that's a crime.

Given the developments out of the Foley camp over the past couple of days, I'll add that it's also reprehensible that he's now playing to the fears and stereotypes held by homophobes in an attempt to abnegate his personal responsibility for his actions. That's the funny thing about the anti-homo camp's view of gay people: they think we have the power to choose our orientation, but simultaneously are somehow unable to choose appropriate people to express it with. The reality is that we're just like straight people: you either do the right thing or you don't, and individual orientation has exactly zero to do with that.

Surprise! You're a Supervisor!

Hum. The National Labor Relations Board announced early today (or perhaps late yesterday) that it's changing union eligibility rules for charge nurses. Charge nurses are the more experienced nurses within each unit/on each floor who delegate tasks among the rest of the staff, but still they work the floor themselves and get shit on by management along with everyone else. Starting today, they're classified as supervisors and are no longer allowed to unionize, so if they were already in, they've just lost their union protections. Hospital management loves this ruling, of course, because it depresses organizing efforts nationwide by cutting the pool of eligible staff and has a damping effect on young nurses who are already intimidated about joining a union.

The larger concern is the repercussions for quasi-supervisory workers in other fields.

In their dissents, two NLRB members said millions of professionals who have some supervisory duties could be hurt by the ruling.

The decision "threatens to create a new class of workers under federal labor law: workers who have neither the genuine prerogatives of management, nor the statutory rights of ordinary employees," they wrote.

If my occasional NLRB reader stops by, I'd love your take. In the meantime, there's always Colbert.

Iraq-Afghanistan Disconnect, Part XXXVIII

Explain this to me. Explain why Afghanistan has now officially been forgotten and written off.

The Taliban have been the acknowledged enemy since day one (that being September 11). Joined at the hip with al Qaida, supporters of Osama, bastards who managed to make "pathological repression" the understatement of the century... Bill Frist yesterday said the Taliban need to be brought into the government of Afghanistan as full partners.

The Tennessee Republican said he learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated on the battlefield.

"You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," Frist said during a brief visit to a U.S. and Romanian military base in the southern Taliban stronghold of Qalat. "And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful."

The Afghan government prior to the invasion was plenty transparent. You looked at it and you saw the Taliban. You looked at the country and saw people trying to live under one of the most repressive regimes in recent memory. A place where women were confined to the home and allowed out only when draped head to toe and accompanied by a male relative. A place where men weren't allowed to shave. A place where nobody could listen to music or fly a kite. A place where females were not allowed education. That's the kind of existence Bill Frist is ready to consign to Afghanistan.

This is an issue quite distinct from the situation in Iraq, where our unprovoked intervention has fomented chaos and a very different form of sectarian hell than the people there were accustomed to. We are supposed to "stay the course" on the disaster of our own making in Iraq because to do otherwise somehow dishonors the thousands who died there, as if their senseless deaths could be further cheapened by pulling out and preventing thousands more.

But in Afghanistan, the home territory of the group that pulled off the attack that "changed everything," we're supposed to cede power back to the Taliban because our woefully underfunded, undermanned forces there--thank you, Dick and Rummy and Wolfie, for going all in on Iraq before Afghanistan was even close to being finished--have been unable to establish control over the countryside after early successes. We're supposed to return to the status quo there, after a couple hundred paratroopers and Rangers have died, giving control of the country back to the very people that have been determined to wreak havoc with us from the beginning.

Oh, My Head

Our Lady of Perpetual Migraines.

Is it due to the Senate selling out yesterday? Maybe. Thank [insert deity of choice] for Relpax, is all I got to say.

Another Day, Another Little Death of America

Sigh. I listened to too much of the debate over the Detainee Act today and went home with a splitting headache. Far too much went on to dissect in detail here, particularly without a transcript, but a couple things stand out in my mind.

During the waning half hour or so of the debate, before the proposed amendments to the bill were brought to a vote, Lindsay Graham argued that Geneva has never applied in this war because the enemy doesn't wear a uniform or fight in conventional ways. So the enemy isn't entitled to any protections at all. Not even the most basic tenets of human decency apply, apparently; by his arguments an SS officer caught machine-gunning a roomful of civilians would be absolutely protected from torture and entitled to humane treatment by virtue of that natty black uniform with shiny insignia, while a guy in jeans plucked off the street on a tip in Baghdad or Kandahar is fair game.

The moment that made my brain utterly fold in on itself in protest came during John Warner's response to Ted Kennedy's impassioned speech in favor of the Kennedy Amendment, which would have required the US State Department to notify all the other countries in the world of exactly what interrogation methods/torture tactics would be considered war crimes if perpetrated against a captured American soldier. Warner scoffed at this because (1) we can't predict in advance precisely what methods someone's going to come up with in the future, and so shouldn't limit ourselves to a finite set of war crimes (despite having, just ten minutes before, voted against the Byrd Amendment that would have required a reassessment of the interrogation protocols after five years) and (2) congressional oversight will prevent the CIA from doing anything we wouldn't want done to our own guys anyway (despite having, just ten minutes before the Byrd Amendment, voted against the Spector Amendment that would have mandated full congressional oversight of CIA interrogation programs).

Warner assured us that aggessive interrogation tactics are not really torture but, instead, are consistent with American values. Bush has been handed the power to decide who's an enemy combatant, and to hold such people indefinitely with an explicit provision preventing them from appealing their detention to a higher court. Bush gets to decide what's torture and what's simply "aggressive interrogation," and anyone who has inflicted what the civilized world would label "torture" on detainees--even those found later to not be terrorists or insurgents--has blanket immunity. Pandora's Box has been reopened, and this time it's the license for inhumane behavior that's gotten out.

John McCain voted against the Spector Amendment (congressional oversight). John McCain voted against the Byrd Amendment (reassess the program in five years). John McCain voted against the Kennedy Amendment (define interrogation tactics and detainee treatment that the US will consider war crimes if perpetrated against US servicemembers). John McCain voted to approve the Detainee Treatment Act. John McCain, ex-POW, voted to condone torture.

I don't know the America John Warner was talking about, or the set of values torture is supposed to be consistent with. Neither one is mine.

Anti-contraception Movement... the Groundwork

On Monday I posted about the Christian Right’s coming battle against contraception (shorter version: none for anyone ever) and mentioned my grudging admiration for the morality brigades’ perseverance and dedication to to their mission, abhorrent as I personally find it. Part of the strategy has been to crank out the kids like bunnies, homeschool them, send them to evangelical colleges, and groom them to enter public life so as to influence legislation at every level, toward the ultimate goal of crafting laws reflecting conservative Christian values (or Biblical literalism, depending on how pessimistic you’re feeling at any given moment).

The articles in the Chicago Tribune and LA Times mentioned the intent to chip away at the availability of contraceptives, following the manner in which abortion access has been steadily constricted, in large part by enacting state laws giving pharmacists the right to refuse to dispense medications that violate their own personal consciences.

Four States (Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Dakota) have passed laws allowing a pharmacist to refuse to dispense emergency contraception drugs. Illinois passed an emergency rule that requires a pharmacist to dispense FDA approved contraception. Colorado, Florida, Maine and Tennesee have broad refusal clauses that do not specifically mention pharmacists.

California pharmacists have a duty to dispense prescriptions and can only refuse to dispense a prescription, including contraceptives, when their employer approves the refusal and the woman can still access her prescription in a timely manner.

Given the increasing presence of evangelicals in legislatures of all levels over the past decade or so, I wondered if they might be stacking the pharmaceutical deck as well. So it came as little surprise that the Christian Pharmacists Fellowship International has established student chapters in 30 pharmacy schools out of the 89 or so institutions granting at least a B.S. in pharmacy across the country, including at major players such as Purdue, North Carolina, and Florida.

The CPFI position on the “conscience clause” is as follows (emphases mine):

Pharmacists have the moral and legal responsibility to refuse to dispense a prescription that, in the pharmacist's judgment might be harmful to the patient, either directly or indirectly. Therefore, the Board of Directors of CPFI supports the right of all pharmacists to refuse to dispense a prescription that goes against their moral conscience.

No regulatory authority should be allowed to force a pharmacist to dispense a prescription against his/her best judgment or refer a patient to another healthcare provider. Likewise, a pharmacist should not engage in any activity that impairs a patient from seeking care from another provider.

Furthermore, the Board acknowledges the responsibility of Christian pharmacists to follow Biblical principles including the sanctity of life and life begins at the time of conception. Therefore, CPFI supports the right of Christian pharmacists, based upon Biblical principles and their moral convictions, to exercise their conscience within the realm of professional practice.

The “either directly or indirectly” phrase is quite vague, and it’s difficult to think that was unintentional. Indirect harm to a patient covers a troublingly wide expanse of territory, including that nebulous realm of the patient’s eternal soul—presumably the target of the conscience clause refusals. The insistence that pharmacists shall not be compelled to refer the patient to the other, non-evangelical pharmacist at Walgreen’s or to the CVS down the street is troubling. And the “responsibility” of Christian pharmacists to insist that life begins at conception is the grand finale, the big cake topper.

To be fair, CPFI maintains chapters at only slightly more than a third of the major pharmacy schools in the US (I did not consider associate-degree-only colleges and technical schools in this compilation), and most of these schools support a variety of student organizations. The faculty advisors don’t mention CPFI prominently in their online profiles, if at all, and there is no evidence that the organization is exerting undue influence within the respective colleges of pharmacy. Nor are hard membership numbers readily available.

In that sense, this posting may reflect more paranoia than imminent threat to freely accessible contraception in the US. However, given the numbers of students in the programs where CPFI is present*, it is an unavoidable fact that pharmacists who are very likely to invoke a conscience clause (or push for such legislation in states where it has not yet been enacted) are being churned out at a steady rate. Additionally, ample anedotal evidence exists documenting instances in which individuals have encountered absurd, near-Atwoodian barriers to acquiring emergency contraception. It is imperative that we remain vigilant as one segment of this society seeks to impose its own version of morality on all people, regardless of their personal belief systems. Find out where the candidates in your local races stand on conscience clauses and keep their asses out of office if they are even remotely conciliatory to the idea.

* sample numbers of students:

University of Arizona: 77-81 admitted annually

University of Florida (Gainesville): 450 pharmacy students plus 100 graduate/postdocs enrolled annually

University of Iowa: 108 students admitted annually to six-year program

University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill): 500 professional students and 100 graduate students, postdocs, residents, and fellows enrolled annually.

Nationwide, 7,488 professional degrees were reported awarded in 2003.

One Day, Two Hearings, Little New

Two separate congressional confabs today, although only one officially reached the level of "hearing." Naturally, that's the one I'm finding zero coverage of tonight on my first sweep through the online editions of the major papers. You know, the judiciary committee's hearings on whether it's okay to dispense with habeas corpus when dealing with suspected terrorists, unlawful combatants, shifty-lookin' Arabs acquired through dubious means... okay, after some digging I found a few stories. Interestingly, Specter's setting himself up as the anti-White House maverick on this one. It was certainly contentious.

Several witnesses told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the protections should be afforded all detainees.

Retired Adm. John Hutson says habeas corpus protects the innocent.

He says it would give "no comfort" to any terrorists who have fought the US.

But Texas Senator John Cornyn says "enemies of the US captured on the battlefield" shouldn't be afforded protections that are in the Constitution.

Never mind that an open-ended war on a noun makes the entire world a battlefield, to say nothing of the fact that I find it extremely curious that a man who has argued so vociferously that detainees should have no protections because they (1) don't wear a uniform or (2) fight out in the open in conventional ways should be so fixated on the no-rights detentions being okay because they were captured "on the battlefield" as if both sides were lining up in ranks and marching broadside into each other. As if they all actually had been captured with guns in their hands rather than being sold out by a rival warlord holding a grudge or maybe, just maybe, being grabbed under false pretenses on a layover in the States on their way home to Canada. Admiral Hutson summed it up best:

Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, a former judge advocate general of the Navy who is now the president of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H., told the senators they would be winning a “military victory’’ if they managed to preserve habeas corpus rights for detainees.

Terrorists “want to bring us down to their level,’’ he said. “Military doctrine says you have to hold the high ground.’’

The other event today was a Democrat-sponsored forum on the state of the war. This received considerable airplay and bandwidth, and featured three retired generals--all of whom served in Iraq--blasting the administration and Rumsfeld in particular.

"I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq," retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste told a forum conducted by Senate Democrats.

A second military leader, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, assessed Rumsfeld as "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically."

Predictably, the Republican leadership (which was not in attendance; they were too busy whinging about the considerable costs involved in giving detainees basic judicial rights) called it a pre-election stunt (with straight faces!):

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Armed Services Committee, dismissed the Democratic-sponsored event as "an election-year smoke screen aimed at obscuring the Democrats' dismal record on national security."

"Today's stunt may rile up the liberal base, but it won't kill a single terrorist or prevent a single attack," Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement. He called Rumsfeld an "excellent secretary of defense."

No comments were forthcoming from Sen. McConnell about the recent National Intelligence Estimate that concluded the war in Iraq has actually created more terrorists and increased the likelihood of future attacks. Nor about the news today that we have, at present, no more than three combat brigades available for emergency deployment. That's 10,000 guys, tops.

Think about the billions of dollars that have been squandered in Iraq, the thousands of lives wasted for Bush's, Rumsfeld's, Cheney's lies. Think about the couple hundred who have died in Afghanistan as their troop numbers and equipment have been inexorably drawn down, down, to the point of such ineffectiveness that the Taliban are resurgent and Osama's boys have found new digs in Pakistan. These fuckwits abandoned their first war before it was over to start a new one we can never honorably end, and in the process have left this country more vulnerable and less ready to respond to a disaster than it has ever been. And still they have the gall to stand up there and defend themselves and chide those of us who are screaming that enough is enough.

Tap Tap Tap... Straight Folks? You're Next.

The evangelical wing will never be content demonizing only us urine-drinking, rectum-intromissing sodomites and the wicked, hedonistic liberals who get abortions at every opportunity. Now they're coming after anyone who uses contraception--yep, even the 91 percent of people who believe married folks should be able to decide when or if they're going to have a baby.

The new strategy, as summarized in the Chicago Tribune, was unveiled at an anti-abortion meeting in sunny Rosemont yesterday:

Experts at the gathering assailed contraception on the grounds that it devalues children, harms relationships between men and women, promotes sexual promiscuity and leads to falling birth rates, among social ills.

Oh, but this takes me back to what passed for freshman theology in high school, particularly the semester-long "Reverence for Life" curriculum that left me alternately snoring and indignant. The ability of a man and woman to have sex without fearing an unwanted pregnancy--even if they're married--somehow means they're not selflessly sharing themselves with each other. Sex for pleasure rather than brusque, businesslike reproduction means you're selfishly closing yourselves off from God's gift of life (conveniently left out of this line of reasoning is why God's additional gifts in the nether region department included the clitoris, glans penis, and G-spot).

It's the let-them-eat-cake mentality, the same one we've seen endlessly applied to the poor (you can't afford health insurance? why, go out and get a second--or third--job!), to the hurricane-smacked (you didn't have a car to evacuate with? why, you should have just walked to Texas!), to HIV-infected women in Africa (you didn't want to get sick? why, you should have stopped having sex with your husband!). Now it's being applied to people who want rational family planning (you can't afford a[nother] child? why, just don't fuck!).

Commenters in the Trib article speculate that the no-BC'ers will push not for across-the-board contraception bans, but rather another creepy war of attrition similar to that waged against abortion rights over the past decade:

What's more likely, experts suggest, is an ongoing "chipping away" at access to contraceptive services. This could entail cuts to federal programs that pay for birth control. Likely it also would involve a state-by-state push to allow pharmacists to refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions for reasons of "conscience."

You gotta hand it to these folks. They have been very patient, taking years to groom candidates for entry in local-level public office with designs on hopping up the legislative ladder one level at a time. Now that the groundwork has been laid, with various states enacting the pharmacists' right of refusal laws, how many bible colleges will start adding pharmacy programs? Nothing like a little point-of-sale control to get the practitioners of your ideology firmly entrenched in the front lines.

And if you do not personally subscribe to this particular strain of Christian thinking that teaches birth control is unacceptable under any circumstances because it befouls the couple's relationship with each other and with God? If you perhaps think you should not be subject to religiously derived moral rules about a highly personal matter that do not proceed from your own beliefs? Well, tough shit, pal.

Success!

The UA-Portland game was okay, not as energetic as I might have hoped, but okay. The quest for photos of Boxxy was mostly successful.



























I snapped maybe ten before The Boy said, "You're obsessed." Oh. I put the camera away.

Ode to the Heartbroken Mosquito

Your sweet talk in my ear came off as so much high-pitched whining
You tried and tried but never managed to get under my skin
O Anistopheles
I never liked needles
You and me, we never stood a chance.

Seriously. This entire summer and post-monsoon mosquito season, I got two, maybe three bites total. The rest of my household is red, bumpy, itchy, and wondering if it has West Nile yet. Maybe my hide is tougher than I thought; they swarm around my ankles when I work in the yard, but if they manage to get their snoots in for a sip I don't notice. I was oddly immune to poison ivy as a kid too.

What Do You Want? Candy?

Humph. Two moderately well-researched, long posts in three days and nobody cares. Nobody sticks around to read. Fine. Breaking out a pointless list ostentatiously written in the royal we-person.

Our favorite late-night snack while reading in bed: was Pringle's until last night, when we noticed Pringle's are considerably thinner and more fragile than they used to be. Look at the damn chip cross-eyed and it crumbles. The lids also are much looser-fitting on the cans than they used to be. Question: how do people with large hands get them out of the can surreptitiously? They must have to pour them out. And then, given the obvious recent lapse in quality control, they'll have the very handful of pieces those painfully bad, then-cutting-edge hip-hop-derived commercials of 15 or so years ago constantly decried.

Personal Pringle's note: The worst cut we ever had on the bottom of our foot came from the old razor-edged, metal pop-top Pringle's used before public health standards forced them into paper. Naturally, this was incurred at the age of three while we were walking around in the back of our parents' Jeep whilst barrelling down the highway. Seat belts? It's a wonder any of us survived.

Our hopes for the early evening: We are going to watch the U of A women's soccer team (young, up-and-coming) play the U of Portland (veteran-heavy, and, oh yeah, defending national champs). Shannon Boxx will be doing color commentary for Fox Sports; we are taking our camera and hope to get close enough to wave. We were shameless enough to send our son to school with a note promising the play-by-play guy's daughter to be her Best! Friend! Forever! if she could get her dad to score us Boxxy's autograph.

Our hopes for the later evening: Heh. Yeah. Well, okay, our realistic hopes involve the backyard mosquito population suffering a quick die-off, and perhaps a run to Dairy Queen. Livin' large.

Tomorrow shall be devoted to: Power tools and beer.

107, contra

Today, a brief look at the opposition to Arizona Proposition 107...

No on Prop 107 is big on graphics, while I might question the choice of hellfire red as a background. The best contribution is a series of links explaining the deletrious effects of the proposal on all Arizonans, both gay and straight. I suppose I understand why they’ve chosen to frame their arguments in terms of straight people in unmarried relationships, senior citizens, and single parents, but I find it rather sad that people might vote this crap down only if they think it’s unfair to straight people--not simply because they might want to address civil inequalities that don't actually apply to them. GLBTQ issues finally come front and center in the fourth bullet point on the list, “Faith Communities,” but I wonder why they don’t simply make this point the centerpiece of their campaign, because it distills the issue perfectly:

What this amendment WILL do, if it passes, is take one group's definition of sin and force it on others through civil laws. The so-called "marriage protection" amendment is backed by the ultra-conservative Christian group the Center for Arizona Policy. Even within Christianity there is not agreement about the sinfulness of same-sex relationships, and yet this group seeks to define for everyone else in the state of Arizona a narrow and exclusive view of love and the will of God. Efforts and attitudes such as those behind this proposed amendment misrepresent and misuse the Christian faith in particular, and faith traditions overall.

Oddly, “LGBTQ Community” is the last on the list of potential impacts. Again, I’m thrilled for the support, but chafing mightily at the apparent attempt to underplay 107 as a gay issue. It’s completely a gay issue. Its proponents would not be attempting to force the state to disavow any recognition of unmarried couples if not for the threat of gay folks marching down the aisle; I never heard any grumblings about, for example, Arizona being forced to recognize common-law marriages (essentially, the state caving in the face of long-term unofficial heterosexual cohabitation, which I think the Bible calls “fornication, ” also, last I checked, a grievous sin) from other states. That it needs to be painted as an equal-opportunity offender in order to drum up opposition among the majority of voters is a sad irony.

Grumble. Arizona Prop 107 is a decent satire site. I wonder how many clicks it will take the True Believers to notice the SS officer’s hat in the logo, or to ask if Fred Phelps really has been booked for the victory party.

And that’s about it for dedicated websites. Arizona Stonewall Democrats are sponsoring a forum in Phoenix on September 26... the Daily Star printed a good op-ed piece on September 6 ... Arizona Together (the group sponsoring the No on Prop 107 website) is briefly profiled in the Echo, again playing up the unmarried hets angle.

Anyway. Get out the vote. Tracking the rhetoric between now and November 7 should be interesting. Hopefully it will not also be an exercise in despair.

Prop 107, round one

Here we go. Arizona is one of several states that will either put a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on their ballots for the first time in November, or will subject an amendment approved by their legislatures before the voters for ratification. Arizona's version is Proposition 107, heart-warmingly titled "Protect Marriage Arizona." Although gay marriage is already prohibited by statute here in cactus-and-canyonland, some municipalities have been forward-thinking enough to offer same-sex domestic partner benefits.

The text reads:

TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT MARRIAGE IN THIS STATE, ONLY A UNION BETWEEN ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN SHALL BE VALID OR RECOGNIZED AS A MARRIAGE BY THIS STATE OR ITS POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS AND NO LEGAL STATUS FOR UNMARRIED PERSONS SHALL BE CREATED OR RECOGNIZED BY THIS STATE OR ITS POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS THAT IS SIMILAR TO THAT OF MARRIAGE.

The second part, of course, is the kicker, inserted specifically to roll back those partner benefits and force Pima County, the City of Tucson, the City of Flagstaff, the University of Arizona, and other government agencies to rescind health insurance and family leave for folks like us. It's the mean-spirited final gob of spit to the face. No marriage, no civil unions, no benefits extended to a county worker's partner or their kids.

Lest anyone think marriage or civil unions are no big deal, that we should just cough up a couple thousand bucks, hire a lawyer, and draw up all the legal documents we will ever need, here's a little dose of reality. State-recognized marriage in this country confers 1,138 rights and responsibilities upon the couple. All the legal documents in the world won't mean shit if you find yourself in a state whose constitution explicitly forbids the recognition of same-sex relationships intended to approximate marriage. There are already hundreds of anecdotes out there about what happens when a gay couple's best intentions run afoul of some asshat who's more interested in validating his own narrow worldview by going by the book than in being a decent human being during someone's time of need. Read these for the barest glimmer of our worst nightmares come true.

Now let us run down some of the organizations supporting the Arizona legislation. The Center for Arizona Policy has supported a full roster of marriage-related legislation in Arizona, including the original gay marriage ban in 1996. They cite the support of Daddy Dobson, Crisis Pregnancy Centers, and Arizona Families for Home Education. Not surprisingly, they do battle with Planned Parenthood and the ACLU on a regular basis. Their front-page support for 107 is limited to calls for help with circulating petitions and joining in the 40-day-prayer cycle for the November elections, but links are provided to "issue briefs." Several of these are devoted to homosexuality; the "Civil Unions and Gay Marriage" brief focus on activist judges, "marriage counterfeits" (civil unions are actually intended to undermine authentic marriages), and the fact that state recognition of civil unions is nothing more than ammunition for lawsuits designed to redefine and destroy marriage once and for all.

The Protect Marriage Arizona website is decorated with photos of happy young heterosexual couples (see, they even threw in one of a white woman and a Latino man, to show how progressive they are!). Their talking points recycle--surprise!--the same tired rhetoric about activist judges and the necessity of both a mother and a father if kids are to have any chance of turning out normal, along with a giddy dose of what-will-they-allow-next hysteria, although, perhaps to their credit, they stop at polygamy and don't trot out the usual references to bestiality. These points have been refuted a thousand times over, and doing so again here would take me into the wee hours of the morning.

The argument against these people, for me, quite simply crystallizes around the notion that when perfect (and perfectly drunk) strangers can get married on a whim in Vegas, automatically accruing all 1,138 of those federal rights and responsibilities for the price of a xeroxed license and a cab ride, only to nullify the whole thing the next morning after the hangover subsides to a dull roar, rinse, repeat, as often as desired, there is little left of the institution of marriage to "protect." Believe in the sanctity of marriage? Then don't screw around, don't get divorced. Don't believe in gay marriage? Then don't marry someone of your same gender.

We are still going to find each other and fall in love (and even become a "couple," as scare-quoted by the PMA people; see the first question in the FAQ). We're going to buy houses together, raise kids together, go through everyday crises together. We will pay taxes into a Social Security system that refuses to recognize us when we are bereaved. We will raise children despite the state refusing to acknowledge our parental rights. We'll get up in the morning, go to work, come home, make dinner, and go to sleep, in order to get up in the morning and do it all over again.

In short, we're just like everybody else. Except that everybody else can go about their business without having to cart medical power of attorney papers around on vacation and then wonder if the emergency room in the middle of Kansas will pay attention to them. Everybody else can buy a house with the spouse without worrying that it will go into probate if one of them dies. Everybody else with a good pension can be confident that their spouses will inherit it tax-free. And everybody else can sleep well at night without having to worry that a hateful in-law will have sole legal claim to the child they've raised from birth, should their spouse die.

Read the posts from Republic of T listed above, and then come up with a coherent argument supporting the idea that any of those relationships somehow threaten the social fabric of our country. That they're somehow abominations not entitled to the same dignity and protections as the marriages of our straight neighbors and friends. That the extra dollop of agony those people suffered is somehow justified in the name of Jesus.

Tomorrow, links to the opposition.

All Hail Edition

I am gearing up for some Prop 107 posts--yup, it's anti-gay-marriage season again here in Arizona, in the run-up to the November elections--so before I veer off into that howling, here are some people speaking on other subjects I actually agree with.

All Hail Colin Powell:

"If you just look at how we are perceived in the world and the kind of criticism we have taken over Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and renditions," Powell said in an interview, "whether we believe it or not, people are now starting to question whether we're following our own high standards." ... "Suppose North Korea or somebody else wants to redefine or 'clarify' " Geneva Conventions provisions prohibiting "outrages against personal dignity" and "humiliating and degrading treatment" of prisoners, he said.

All Hail Anne Applebaum:

The day when the White House and Greenpeace can issue a joint statement is surely distant indeed. But if stray comments by Western leaders -- not to mention Western films, books, cartoons, traditions and values -- are going to inspire regular violence, I don't feel that it's asking too much for the West to quit saying sorry and unite, occasionally, in its own defense.

Note the crucial difference between the two lines of reasoning cited here; Powell rightly argues that action begets action, while Applebaum argues that words should beget only words--not actions that intrinsically negate the very words they're standing in for.

Excuse me, but which Afghanistan is W talking about now? Is there one with a free, democratic government that will never again be a safe haven for terrorists? One where we eliminated the Taliban? It must be different from the Afghanistan I keep reading about.

Speaking of King George, All Hail Tristero on Digby, commenting on John Yoo's imperialist sycophancy:

I remember the '70's very well thank you very much, and while the USSR was a threat, and so was the Middle East - I well remember the gas lines - the most serious threat of all to the security of the United States was the imperial presidency of Richard M. Nixon. Many of us who do recall how dangerous he was, including Krugman himself, now agree that Nixon was a piker compared to Bush. ... And these monarchy-loving assholes, these total losers who are literally smirking at the presumed ignorance of the people they dare to lead, these are populists?

Enough for today, unless, of course, W does happen to run into Ahmedinijad in the men's room at the UN and gives him a swirly.

My Arm Is Getting Tired From All This Ironing

Moaning about your Irony Meter exploding was a clever comment once or twice, maybe five years ago, but these days it's flying fast and thick enough to give even Magneto a serious headache. Let's content ourselves with only two examples from the past week...

Item the first: Steve Irwin preached the gospel of conservation and valuing even the uglier, weirder, less-cuddly members of the animal kingdom. He dies as a result of a one-in-a-million stingray spine to the heart, and a week later some of his devotees start... mutilating stingrays in retaliation.

Item the second: the pope gives a speech exploring the historical context of Islamic-Christian relations, apparently intended to argue against religious extremism of any kind. Unfortunately, a quote he included from a 14th-century Byzantine emperor instantly found legs as this irresistible soundbite: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Some Muslims, in retaliation for the pope portraying Islam as violent, firebombed five churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip yesterday.

Irony Meter? Off the rails. Conclusion? People are stupid.

W Meets the Press

Ah shite. I tuned into the Bush presser toward the end and lasted a full five seconds before I screamed. In response to a question about why we aren't pursuing Osama more aggessively in Pakistan, in his best irritated, condescending, "you dumbass" voice:

Pakistan is a sovereign nation. And to send hundreds of thousands of troops into a sovereign nation, we have to be invited.

FUUUUUUUUUUCK! We have to be invited unless that sovereign nation (1) starts with "I" and (2) doesn't have nukes, that is.

Ah shite. He's starting the Third Awakening thing again. He's noticed that people he encounters along the ropes are praying for him more now than in '94. He thinks "smart people" are seeing parallels between Lincoln's presidency (the "Second Awakening") and his own. I understand why he's desperate to keep flogging the parallels; it allows him to continue to lift passages from the Gettysburg Address and waggle them around free of context ("that they shall not have died in vain" has been the big favorite for years). And somehow Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus during a civil war fought on American soil means W gets to ignore all the other parts of the Constitution he finds inconvenient during the war-of-choice-foreign-civil-war incubator he set up in Iraq.

After taking a breath, another cup of coffee, and a gander at the transcripts as they become available, I see that he wants Geneva clarified. Well, again, trying to cut through the code, "clarified" here likely means "reinterpreted to allow 'harsh interrogations'" of terra suspects. What else... ah yes, apparently Colin Powell and John McCain are clueless about the nature of this conflict, the issues surrounding prisoners of war/enemy combatants, and likely all other things military.

Okay, that's all I can stomach for now. It's much funner watching with the sound off as he becomes increasinly agitated.

Fitz Schmitz

The Arizona Daily Star's editorial cartoonist annoys the crap out of me sometimes. Unless today's effort is intended to be satire, he apparently doesn't recognize the difference between the Gettysburg Address (honoring the dead from America's Civil War) and Bush's September 11 speech (drumming up support for the Iraq war). The Gettysburg Address was anything but political.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Contrast Lincoln's words with W's.

We face an enemy determined to bring death and suffering into our homes. America did not ask for this war, and every American wishes it were over. So do I. But the war is not over - and it will not be over until either we or the extremists emerge victorious.

First sentence: death and suffering, check. Second sentence: little outright lie; America (more accurately, the American administration) very much asked for this war, and in fact wanted it so badly that it perpetrated and perpetuated a series of lies designed to make the average sound-bite citizen believe that Iraq was intimately involved in the September 11 attacks. Note to self: try to find camera footage of Dick "there absolutely was a connection" Cheney's temples threatening to explode when W stated Saddam was not involved. Third sentence: war will never be over, check. Interestingly, his closing paragraph echoed Lincoln's:

Our Nation has endured trials - and we face a difficult road ahead. Winning this war will require the determined efforts of a unified country. So we must put aside our differences, and work together to meet the test that history has given us. We will defeat our enemies ... we will protect our people ... and we will lead the 21st century into a shining age of human liberty.

Sounds lovely, although it's difficult for me not to take the cynical view that "putting aside our differences" is code for "sit down and shaddup."