WPS: Interesting Reactions to Actions and Non-actions...

The WPS disciplinary committee huddled and--one two three break!--handed out two suspensions in the wake of Sunday's St. Louis-Washington match. One went to Washington's Abby Wambach for the tackle on Daniela that landed the Brazilian a broken leg and Wambach a yellow card; the other went to Athletica defender Kia McNeill for repeatedly introducing Wambach to the turf via body checks that would have put an NHL player in the box for charging but did not draw any cards on the pitch.

It's an interesting precedent for the league to set, what, four weeks into the inaugural season, and I say "interesting" rather than "troubling" pending the ripple effects it proves to have league-wide. Both suspensions are clearly intended to send the message that chippiness is not the way to go, particularly when an infant league is relying on big-money international stars to pique fan interest and put butts in the seats, but I hope the suspensions have been accompanied by a stern talking-to directed at the center referee who allowed the overly physical play to go on unchecked. One of McNeill's tackles on Wambach was card-worthy on its own, and certainly by the time that one happened--the third such foul on Wambach in the first half, two by McNeill--a yellow should have been shown for persistent infringement. Retroactively showing two yellows, which the committee has effectively done in meting out the suspension to McNeill, is a huge nonconfidence vote from the league for that referee. And I still maintain that while Wambach deserved yellow for the careless tackle on Daniela, it was not straight-red-worthy, contrary to the implicit message being delivered by the league's suspension of her.

Let's hope for more consistency this weekend. I will be very interested to see how this ref handles his next assignment, should he be given one. Should he be given one? Based on last week, that's a great big no.

Huh.

While I was busy with other stuff, somebody else built the career I thought I might have. This distresses me. I landed a book contract with the University of Utah Press, and midway through the rough draft the other guy published essentially the same book. I couldn't bring myself to read it, but I hear it's good. He's since cranked out another book or two and papers in journals that cheerfully reject my submissions. I don't read those either. The other half of my department is braver and tells me that we are essentially clones, soulmates, sharing a single stone tool-based brain and writing the same stuff in the same style.

I guess I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks about our subject matter the way I do, and that the ideas are getting out there to a wide audience. I'm just bothered that it's under his name rather than mine.

It's my fault, not his, of course. I never wanted to go back and polish up the hoop-jumping and ass-kissing skills that are necessary tools for navigating a PhD, nor did I want to sit through another introductory physical anthro class with a bunch of 20-ish baby grad students, nor have I ever had any interest in an academic career that would require teaching. So I toil in obscurity and wonder if I really have any idea what I'm doing after all after the drawing's done.
















My only reliable skill set. Shh, don't tell the boss.

Just Because.

Sigh. Shamelessly ripped from Dorothy Snarker.

A Note on Maine and New Hampshire

As noted earlier, Maine's legislature comfortably passed a bill mandating equality in civil marriage, a bill quickly signed into law by the governor. And later this afternoon New Hampshire's legislature followed suit; their bill now awaits the governor's signature.

Commence the anti-gay screaming. Comments on the Bangor paper's story ran about half-and-half, which is standard fare for the intertubes, and a recurrent theme among the anti-equality set was the contention that the legislature was not doing its job properly, and a "People's Veto"--Mainese for "referendum," as far as I can tell--is going to be mustered.

First they howled when the Massachusetts and Iowa state supreme courts mandated equality, because they were prima facie examples of activist judges legislating from the bench. Why, they sputtered, laws should come from the legislature, not a bunch of black-robed social anarchists! Who may or may not have been appointed by a Republican! And now that the legislatures have enacted equality laws in Vermont and Maine (and are almost there in New Hampshire), they're sputtering that duly elected representatives of the people aren't actually representative enough, and that this particular question of this particular civil right should be decided only by the people themselves, the more foam at the mouth the better.

What happens if the people actually fail to overturn the enacted law? The NOMmers will run to that same supreme court full of activist social anarchists and demand that the will of the people be overturned. And there will be more signature-gathering and more out-of-state money flowing in and more busloads of retirees from Provo overloading the Denny's at the state line, round and round and round.

Their opposition has to end somewhere. How awesome if it would simply end here in the face of the amazing tide rolling across the Northeast over the past week.

Gayin' Rain Falls Squarely in Maine!

Maine hopped on the train whose tracks bend inexorably toward justice this morning when Governor John Baldacci signed a civil marriage equality bill that was passed with strong majorities by the state Senate and House. In a belt-and-suspenders approach to church-state separation, LD1020 contained a sop to religious conservatives reminding them that civil marriage equality doesn't mean churches will be forced to perform weddings or canonically recognize marriages their dogma disapproves, just like Catholic churches are not currently required by law to marry one man and one woman if they're not Catholic, or if one or both got divorced without an annulment, or if the couple doesn't promise to have truckloads of kids and raise them Catholic. In other words, churches will experience no change from previously existing marriage law. So knock that shit right off before it starts.

"In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions," Governor Baldacci said. "I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage."

"Article I in the Maine Constitution states that 'no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor be denied the equal protection of the laws, nor be denied the enjoyment of that person's civil rights or be discriminated against.'"

Good on you, Maine. Much of the testimony given yesterday in the Senate was eloquent and moving. I haven't found transcripts yet, but several on-the-fly excerpts can be found on the liveblog here and here.

The Wonders of The Google

"abby wambach girlfriend" has surpassed the cupcake picture as the number one search bringing new readers to the Boltiverse, so I feel compelled to issue a mini manifesto:

(1) Recent sporadic speculation on Datalounge is that the Wombat is no longer with the former girlfriend, since said former girlfriend is on the roster of a different WPS team. Since at least three snuggly signings are evident around the league (LA, Bay area, and Boston, I'm looking at you), you'd think Abby would have had enough pull to bring Megan Rapinoe to Washington rather than seeing her go to Chicago.
(2) I am not complaining about that a bit. Come on you Stars.
(3) The shine fell clean off the Wombat for me after l'affaire Solo in the World Cup.
(4) Did you think that one was over? It just got fresh batteries on Sunday. Pissed Solo + microphone = Katie bar the door!

In other soccer news, Daniela indeed had her knee thoroughly shredded on Wambach's tackle Sunday after scoring two beautiful goals and is most likely done for the season. What a shame, and what a sad ending to what had been an entertaining match. The league is considering disciplinary action against the Wombat for the reckless tackle--eh. As a referee I feel the yellow card was warranted, but I didn't see it as a two-footed studs-up straight red, nor do I particularly believe that Wambach was intentionally attempting to injure Daniela as retribution for St. Louis defenders repeatedly smashing Wambach to the turf throughout the game. The Abbster can be a controlling freakshow on the psychological side and a bruising presence on the physical side, but I have not seen her deliberately hack an opponent. My call is that it there was some carelessness in the tackle brought on by a combination of the wet field, end-of-match fatigue, and a touch of frustration. Yellow, yes. League sanctions, no.

Soccer Interlude

WPS teams had something like five weeks to prepare for the season, with some teams losing significant players from their rosters during that time to international tournaments (say, the Algarve) and friendlies, so it's no shock that some of the early games were shaky at best. The girlfriend and I have seen a marked improvement in play over the past couple of weeks, though, including an absolute gem of a match last week between Washington and Bay Area that FSC has already replayed a couple of times, and then today's damp but sparkly Washington-St. Louis match.

Washington's passing game was superb, with through ball after through ball delivered with such precision that we howled oh my god did you see that ball? And this one was another goalfest with plenty of last-ten-minutes drama, although only one of Athletica's three goals was really a quality strike rather than a biff by the second placeholder keeper who's trying to keep the box warm until MacLeod's visa problems get resolved (visa problems? for a Canadian who's not even half Muslin, as far as we know?).

The only downside was the officiating, which was generally crap. I'm a ref, so I'm allowed to say that. Athletica decided to play the Brazil defense against Wambach, meaning she got hammered hard four times with only two whistles and one card resulting. The most egregious was a full-on fucking body check in the box delivered by Kia McNeill, who should have received a second yellow rather than seeing a goal kick awarded. I went into the game kinda pulling for St. Louis since they hadn't even scored yet this season and I kinda like their uniforms, but I quit on that once it became apparent that they decided to take the hacking route.

Anyway. Come on you Stars!

Shaking Down Some Thunder

Seriously, guys?

This week, Bishop Thomas Wenski of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orlando, Fla., will take the unusual step of celebrating a Mass of Reparation, to make amends for sins against God.

The motivation: to provide an outlet for Catholics upset with what Wenski calls the University of Notre Dame's "clueless" decision to invite President Obama to speak at its commencement and receive an honorary doctorate May 17.

Gotta hand it to Notre Dame--love the place or loathe the place, it usually manages to bring out passions on both sides. As the university reels toward graduation with giant abortion posters sailing overhead and bloodied dolls in strollers being trundled around South Quad by Randall Terry, lesser-light bishops are coming out of the woodwork across the country to get their 15 minutes in before the diplomas get handed out. John D'Arcy of Ft. Wayne-South Bend-via-Boston said his piece a couple of months ago, and about 55 others have chimed in since then to ensure their place in the storied history this little kerfuffle has blossomed into, riling up the faithful and deeply annoying undergraduates who would really like to be able to study for finals in peace, thanks.

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform keeps it klassy.

Randall Terry keeps it klassier.

My simple question remains the same. Where were all of you strident defenders of Catholic social teaching when George W. Bush spoke at the 2001 commencement and got his honorary degree? Granted, this was a couple of years before he violated the doctrine condemning unjust war, but why did we not see the Knights of Columbus marching down Juniper Road carrying posters of Karla Faye Tucker and denouncing Bush as a murderer, inspired to a holy rage by the Church's teaching against the death penalty?

The simple answer, of course, is that abortion is the ultimate litmus test, the issue that establishes righteous indignation hellfire cred like no other, the trump card that renders the million shades of gray on your moral resume to stark black and white. As a gay woman who has had her identity helpfully reduced to a single sex act to be summarily denounced by perfect strangers, I guess I should sympathize with the university to some degree. Oh Notre Dame, you really are about so much more than whether a ten-week blob of cells should be removable or should be accorded a status greater than the woman in which it resides, but people don't want to let you be complex. They'd rather use you as a flashpoint to denounce, to pontificate, to assert their own righteousness and ratchet up their own personal power over others a couple of notches. Half the students think Obama's going to roast in hell. Half are thrilled to have him speaking at commencement. All of them are probably ready for some peace and quiet.

Thomas Wenski, please go to a bar with your fellow bandwagon-jumping bishops and shut the fuck up. Clean up your own houses and demand transparency in sexual abuse investigations, work for justice for the poor, demand justice on behalf of those who have been tortured in your name, and just shut. the. fuck. up.

New Hampshire: Halfway There

The New Hampshire senate voted 13-11 today to approve a bill that creates marriage equality by conceptually separating it into its de facto civil and religious components, a move many national equality proponents have been suggesting for a while.

"This bill recognizes the sanctity of religious marriage and the diversity of religious beliefs about marriage while still providing equal access to civil marriage to all New Hampshire citizens," said Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from Exeter.

The bill allows churches to decide whether they will conduct religious marriages for same-sex couples. Civil marriages would be available to both heterosexual and same-sex couples.

The bill scores high in the well, duh department by explicitly pointing out that the government won't be forcing churches to perform ceremonies they don't want to, but it never hurts to short-circuit a common anti-equality argument before it even gets uttered for roughly the kawhillionth time. Now it heads to the NH House, which can approve it as is, request modifications, or kill it outright. I don't know which way they're leaning, but I refuse to take the Senate action as anything but good.

By the way, this keeps Nate Silver's marriage map right on schedule--with help from a surprisingly positive endorsement from a Maine legislative committee, crap-ass testimony by certain segments of the Maine public notwithstanding--so I suppose this means I have two years left to go shopping for that perfect wedding outfit here in Arizona. Look out, Savers and Goodwill! Sporty dyke brides are heading for your door, and goddamn but we have muscular shoulders.

A good day for the Northeast. Keep it rolling!

*boggle*

Wow.





Does this mean Kathleen Sebelius will finally get confirmed?

Holy Shit.

Jonathan Mann was on Maddow a couple nights back, singing about Paul Krugman. Where that was delightful, this is horrifying. This is a song actually "written" by the Bush lawyers who decided to twist both language and law to the point that up is down and black is white and waterboarding is an afternoon at the beach, a song whose lyrics were taken without modification from the memoradum explaining how detainees could be tortured without having to call it that. This is where the pick-your-own-adventure moral constructs of the Bush administration have brought us. If Obama does nothing else in his adminstration, it's his absolute moral duty to bring us back.



(Homer found this first)

Governor Notices Arizona Only Ranks 5th in Nation on Teen Birthrates, Acts Accordingly

Arizona's teens are currently getting their collective birth-giving asses handed to them by the kids in Mississippi, New Mexico, Texas, and Arkansas, so Governor Jan Brewer is springing into action by opening the floodgates to the federal abstinence-only funding that her rational predecessor, Janet Napolitano, said uh, no to.

"This governor believes that abstinence education is the right path to take," said gubernatorial spokesman Paul Senseman. He said the fact the program won't cost the state anything only bolsters Brewer's belief that it makes sense.

See? It's free! What's not to like? Oh.

Napolitano, in refusing to take more federal funding last year, cited a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It found that teens in abstinence-only programs "were no more likely than youth who were assigned to the 'services as usual' control group to have abstained from sex."

Acting state health director Will Humble (no relation to state environmental quality "commissioner" Benjamin Grumbles) likes the abstinence-only curriculum because it promotes self-esteem and decision-making for teenagers, at least when that decision is to not have sex. Interestingly, while Humble thinks pairing those inarguably important skills with actual information about contraceptive would be a good idea, he's not even inching out onto that limb when it comes to his official job of, I don't know, safeguarding kids' health.

Humble also said he personally believes that birth control "probably should" be part of a high school curriculum. None of these funds, however, can be used to tell those teens who are going to be sexually active how to prevent pregnancy or avoid sexually transmitted diseases.

Yeah, "probably." But with contraception off the table, what kinds of things, then, will the federal dollars allow teachers to tell Arizona children?

Federal regulations say the dollars can be used only for programs teaching that abstinence from sex outside of marriage is the "expected standard for all school-age children." Programs also must teach that sex outside of marriage "is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects..."

In other words, the federal funding cannot be used to provide factual information about preventing pregnancy and life-threatening diseases, but it can be used to tell kids lies. Because nothing prepares kids for healthy adult sexual relationships like instilling the belief that a gold ring will magically protect them from whatever viruses their spouses might have picked up before the second or third time they renewed their virginity by making yet another purity vow, or will miraculously transform an abusive or exploitative relationship into the stuff dreamed by rainbow unicorns who breathe whipped cream with sprinkles. And, honestly, the greatest part of that funding by necessity will have to go toward busy-work modules that can be stretched to cover an entire semester's worth of classtime, since abstinence education can be boiled down to "no sex before marriage because it will make you insane and then kill you; the end," which can be communicated in just about as much time as it took you to read the sixteen words between the quotation marks there. Even allowing an extra second's dramatic pause there to accomodate the semicolon, it leaves an awful lot of instructional time to fill. And when you can't talk about things like biology or contraception, well, worksheets all around! Don't color outside the lines, kids!

The state of Illinois is re-evaluating abstinence programs this week too, with, not surprisingly, the same sets of arguments and data at loggerheads there as well, with the difference that sex-ed curricula are determined by local school districts rather than being standardized by the state education department. Roughly 40 percent of Illinois students get the abstinence-only classes, and the patchwork of lessons taught in middle schools makes high school health teachers pull their hair out.

Joliet Central High School teacher Susan Cailteux is reminded of how varied the sex education curriculum is at the elementary and middle school level every time she begins a unit with a 25-point quiz on the reproductive system.

"I'll get kids with a 5. They don't even get the uterus right," said Cailteux, who teaches high school sophomores about both abstinence and contraception. "It's very frustrating at times because you expect them to know the basics, but the basics have not been taught."

Sophomore Tim Nemec, 16, of Joliet acknowledged that he never learned much about reproduction or the risk of infections until he took the health course required of all sophomores at Joliet Central. After that, he noticed a shift in some classmates' attitudes.

"There were some kids who went in like, 'I don't care. I'll do what I want,' " Nemec said. "But after a while, they were sort of like, 'Wow, I don't know if this person is clean or not,' or, 'I could actually get someone pregnant.' "

In a country where two-thirds of high school seniors report being sexually active, with one in five of those reporting more than three partners, the need for universally taught, accurate information would seem to be self-evident, but too many people favor the fingers-tightly-in-ears, eyes-closed, la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you approach to their kids' *shudder* sexuality.

Abstinence-only advocates contend that, just as adults drill teens not to drink and drive, educators should teach them to avoid risk by maintaining celibacy until marriage.

They have their metaphors slightly out of focus. Providing accurate data about biology and contraceptives is not. the. same. as tossing your 16-year-old the car keys and a fifth of Jack. No, we don't want kids driving drunk. So we tell them not to drink, but we also tell them that if they do drink, or if the person they're riding with drinks, that they can call us for a ride home with no questions asked. We put a cab company's number in their cell phones and give them a twenty to keep in their wallets so they'll have a safe way out if they get into that situation. That in no way equates to saying well, I know you're going to drink anyway, so go ahead and take the Mustang! Driving drunk does not equate to having sex, but it does equate to having unprotected, stupid sex you're not mature enough to handle. So we do tell our kids that the only surefire way to avoid pregnancy is to keep penises far, far away from vaginas, and the only surefire way to avoid every STD is to not touch anyone ever, but then we also equip them with knowledge and the means to protect themselves when reality asserts itself. Because to do otherwise is to willfully punish them for their humanity by letting their lives get really fucked up by unwanted pregnancies and unwanted viruses, whether they're married at the time or not. And no amount of federal freebies--or the prospect of Arizona being NUMBER ONE!--can ever make that a good bargain.

More Storms

The migraine fairy came again--gonna shoot that fucking asshole one of these days, I swear--so for now, I leave you with more on the scary gay marriage storm.

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

Just Because I LOVE This Graphic

Shamelessly nicked from FUCK YEAH RACHEL MADDOW.

Trumpets and Angel Choirs

They're blaring in my head, anyway, because I finally finished the freelance illustrating job that has been plaguing me for weeks. I am very grateful for the opportunity to earn some sorely needed cash, but all that crouching over the light table has left me with a sore back and bleary eyes.



It's a lovely flake of breccia.




A fragmentary stemmed projectile point.






















Oh what a beautiful hammerstone.

So yeah, that's been my life. I am looking forward to spending some quality time tonight with the Chicago Red Stars (thank you, DVR gods) and Martha Stewart.

Oh. Guess That's Settled, Then.

Last week I wondered if Obama's troubling decision to let bygones be bygones and not prosecute order-followin' CIA torturers was simply a token olive branch to the pro-torture camp, a gesture that would free him up to go after the White House legal flunkies who wrote the memos stating that torture was fine and dandy in the first place.

Apparently not.

Asked Sunday on ABC's "This Week" about the fate of those officials, Emanuel said Obama believes they "should not be prosecuted either, and that's not the place that we go."

O_o. Is there anyone we can prosecute, or do we just leave all-expense-paid tickets to Madrid lying around in strategic locations and sit back and hope the Spaniards follow through? This is getting more disillusioning by the day.

Maybe It Was the Gay Teabagging He Didn't Like?

Updated twice now, with all brilliant references to potential tea terrorists left intact because, frankly, without them this posting fizzles to little more than "oops." Lord knows I'm all about historical context, anyway. Anyway! Debbie informs me in the comments that this was indeed a separate protest not connected or adjacent to any idiotic Fox-ophile teabagging. I feel much better about the whole deal now, and will try to find time over the weekend to take a friendly look at CARE, the group behind the large-flag protest. Hat tip to Debbie, half of the "old straight couple" that turned out to support their LGBT friends.

Updated: It was indeed a protest against taxation without equal rights, according to azcentral.com, and the confrontation was spurred by a 911 call complaining that the gay protesters' flag was blocking the view of traffic at an intersection. The cop told the protesters they had to ditch the flag, they asked where they could move without the flag size being an issue, and the cop replied that they could not fly their flag anywhere within Casa Grande without being arrested; ergo, the kerfuffle and entry of the ACLU. The CGPD is investigating whether their officer acted inappropriately, and the chief will meet with the group staging the protest. The comments on azcentral, as always, are an entertaining ride.

And now, the original and now most irrelevant post:

Have you ever been to Casa Grande? The town, not the excellent ruins in nearby Coolidge? I have not, except to stop at the Wendy's at the outlet mall that one time coming home from Phoenix, so I don't know anything about the place. In any event, four gay people got busted for waving a rainbow flag in Casa Grande yesterday.

The incident happened Wednesday when four members of a gay rights group began waving the large flag as part of a tax protest.

Organizer Christopher Hall says he checked first with a city official who said as long as they stayed at least five feet from the sidewalk they would be fine.

But a police officer soon approached and told Hall his group would be arrested if they didn’t stop waving the flag.

This fails to compute on so many levels. Gay teabaggers? I mean, like Fox News-variety teabaggers? Waving their flag as part of the tax protest, or in protest of the protest, or adjacent to the protest? The fact that the group had an organizer who checked beforehand on city regs makes it sound like more of a counter-protest, considering the failure of genuine tea baggers in Washington to realize that dumping tea in a public park requires a permit they didn't have and throwing teabags over the fence onto the White House lawn gets you roughed up by the Secret Service and possibly charged with terrorism. Were they protesting taxation without equal civil rights? Does Casa Grande has a no-rainbows ordinance? I hope more details are forthcoming, because I am fascinated. Casa Grande suddenly became interesting!

Obama: Let Bygones be Bygones

Hmm. Ah...

President Obama absolved CIA officers from prosecution for harsh, painful interrogation of terror suspects Thursday, even as his administration released Bush-era memos graphically detailing — and authorizing — such grim tactics as slamming detainees against walls, waterboarding them and keeping them naked and cold for long periods.

Obama said he wanted to move beyond "a dark and painful chapter in our history."

So the people who conducted activities best described--especially by one-time candidate Obama--as torture are getting a free pass. Because... well, apparently because Bush administration lawyers wrote memos saying the techniques were A-OK, that, say, subjecting a person to controlled drowning right up to but not crossing the line into actual death is not torture because it does not result in "severe pain or suffering." Apparently it tickles so much that people decide to talk just to stop the laughter, and that's why the CIA was so desperate to keep it on the list of approved extreme interrogation measures.

Jesus. Well, okay, so now we have a bunch of torturers exonerated because "I was just following orders" is now back in vogue as a bulletproof excuse. Is this simply the opening gambit in a larger gameplan to go after the people who wrote the memos? Or the people who asked other people to write the memos and then signed off on them? Or possibly their boss, or their boss' boss? Because after making so much noise on the campaign trail about Bush ceding the moral high ground with his torturefest, issuing get-out-of-jail-free cards is kind of a bad idea, isn't it?

Obama disagreed, saying in a statement, "Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."

Really? Really, Barack? Please tell me that was just a very unfortunate choice of words and not an accurate representation of your--or, more saliently, your Justice Department's--viewpoint on the last administration's war crimes. Nothing will be gained? Nothing will be regained. Like our standing in the world and the trust of our allies. Or our national integrity. We have already laid blame for the past, so in that sense you're right in not seeing the need for more resources to be spent in that direction. Making amends for the past and bringing to justice the people who led us down that path? Lots and lots will be gained by spending time and energy in that arena. Some stuff you can let slide. Other stuff you need to exact retribution for. Please don't think for a moment that you can pass off the torture doctrine as belonging to the former category.

In Which George Will Shills for the Seersucker Industry

George Will does not like my blue jeans. He does not like yours, either, nor the single pair he owns after--quelle horreur--being forced to purchase said dungarees in order to attend a senator's themed birthday party. Jeans are kiddie clothing, George says, and their adoption as our official national uniform has condemned our country to a hopeless, perpetual infantilism. Because we're all dressing up like tough male gold miners while going to our effete jobs as opinion columnists, or something. This is what George thinks we need to do instead:

For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don't wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly.

I take it, then, that I am also to wear heels at all times and walk backwards. Neat! Thanks, George! You are wearing your spats and straw boater today, are you not?

Easter Blah, Easter Hooray

It started out as a fairly blah Easter, due to (1) lack of belief in Jesus, at least the resurrection end of things, (2) lack of kids in the house to either color or search for eggs, and (3) backlog of freelance work (me) and work work (girlfriend) that put the kibosh on our vague plans for a hike on what would have been the first free weekend day we've had in ages.

So we spent the day sitting at the kitchen table, me drawing and her editing but me mostly scowling and (mostly) silently cursing a crap Easter day, until mid-afternoon, when we returned a movie to Casa (success!) and looked for a new kitchen table at World Market (fail!) and, what the hell, took the leftover gift cards from Christmas on a field trip to Barnes & Noble.

And lo, there did I an Easter miracle witness.

First off, I'm pathological when it comes to bookstore gift cards. I'll take a chance on something at Bookman's, since it's essentially free and it probably going back to be traded in eventually anyway. But a new book? A nice new shiny book that's sat on no one else's shelf? God, the pressure. So I'd been saving the cards for something special, something that I might want in hardback, something I wouldn't flinch at dropping 25 or 50 bucks on because it's just that awesome, and had settled on The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel, and anything by Daniel Martin Diaz, a Tucson artist who paints and renders in graphite freaky Latino-Catholic-derived stuff that's just totally trippy. And today at Barnes & Noble, there they were, one copy of each, hardcover and spotless, and covered by what was left on the gift cards.


The newest acquisitions.

The girlfriend made me sloppy joes for dinner to make me feel better about the lack of eggs, bunnies, and a ham. She makes the finest sloppy joes in North America and possibly the entire hemisphere, so I felt much much better indeed. It was the perfect capper to the book coup. Hope your day had its own pleasant surprises.

Shameless Saturday Morning

As in shamelessly repackaging from Americablog, but it's only to streamline your viewing experience. I was laughing too hard yesterday to find these videos myself.

The Republicans are protesting bailouts, taxes, and Obama in general with tiny little remixes of the Boston Tea Party, but rather than dressing up like Native Americans, stealing onto ships at anchor in the dead of night, wrenching open large wooden crates of tea, and dumping the contents overboard in protest of taxation by the Crown without representation, they're... well, I'm not sure what they're doing, but I think it involves slitting Lipton's bags open and sprinkling the contents lightly on the ground. Or setting them on fire. Or something. That would be worthy of only a shrug and a meh if not for the really unfortunate name they decided to adopt for their neo-Boston Harbor antics.

With a completely Tobias Funke level of cluelessness, the Republican opposition is protesting in a park near you. And they decided to call it teabagging.

Rachel went to town on this Thursday night, and the impressive thing is that she only lost it once, while Ana Marie Cox kept a straight face throughout.

My right-wing brother has yet to invite me to one of these events. I cannot wait.

Reason, *sputter*, Logic, *choke*

Thom Hartmann FTW!

Quick HIt

Spare time, I no haz it. A rush freelance illustrating job is sucking up the after-hours clock these days, the kind of work I can't turn down even though the artifacts are, for the most part, either dubious or dullsville, because the contracting person is from a distinguished American family that shreds money over their cornflakes for breakfast and I'm in dire straits.

Giant chunks of quartz. Yay!

Anyway, when I'm not slaving over the drawing board I'm moderately intrigued by happenings in Iowa, Vermont, and DC. I fear I can't fling myself wholeheartedly into Nate Silver's lovely wishful-thinking map--seriously, Arizona voting for marriage equality by 2011 and Utah by 2012? Do the LDS have secret plans to forbid their members from voting for anything ever again that the rest of us don't know about?--but I do have a glimmer of hope that the timing and the tides and the hearts and minds are starting to flow in a different direction. Also, Sully waxes more eloquent that usual for the Daily Dish here.

Yes, we toasted Vermont Tuesday night with Ben & Jerry's, and I added corn to my breakfast potatoes and onions in honor of Iowa. Now North Carolina and Tennessee need to get on board, cuz I could use some BBQ just about now.

Also, CUBS IN FIRST PLACE. The magic number is 160. More from my ink-stained fingers when I have time to think.

One More Reason to Like Vermont

Joining Ben & Jerry's and lovely autumn foliage on the "pro" list for Vermont is a little thing called The First State Legislature to Approve Gay Marriage. And they did it by overriding a governor's veto.

note:I did not realize the embedded video of the roll call vote would automatically launch, so I've taken it down--follow the link to the Burlington Free Press if you'd like to watch.

A major anti-equality argument against Massachusetts', Connecticut's, Iowa's, and--while it was in force--California's marriage laws has been that they were all the results of judicial action rather than the state legislatures. Since no demon-possessed judicial activists were involved in the Vermont action, I wonder if these same detractors--who frequently push for legislation insulating anti-marriage amendments from judicial review--will be clamoring for the Vermont Supreme Court to overturn a law that came to life the way they claim it had to in other states in order to be valid.

For now, however, it's a happy day, and I may just have to raise a pint of Phish Food to the northeast in a toast to equality under the law.

Another Unsolicited Note to Tucson's City Planners

On Saturday, the Daily Star reported that Congress Street--the main artery through Downtown, and home to business anchors Hotel Congress, the Rialto Theater, Grill, Chicago Store, Hydra, and the Fox Theater--will close for six months for sidewalk improvements and the installation of tracks for the hoped-to-be-iconic streetcar. Fine, the business owners said, we get that it's gotta be done, but could it please be done over the summer when business is slow anyway? Sure, said the City of Tucson, and then, without explanation, announced that the project's been put on hold. Indefinitely.

City Manager Mike Hein and others were vague about why they put the brakes on and said there is no timetable for getting the project restarted.

Hein said funding, other street work in progress and the timeline for recruiting new businesses Downtown ... are why it's impossible to predict when the project will go forward.

Let me see if I got this. The city was poised to get cranking on the final piece of the Downtown/4th Avenue underpass renovations that were supposed to bring people Downtown and make the place more appealing to established winners like Janos Wilder, Tucson's certified rock star of a chef, and then suddenly decided it isn't quite ready after all and can't really say when it might be ready? Meanwhile, Janos is planning on opening by the end of the year, which may or may not put his ribbon-cutting ceremony smack dab in the middle of a closed street populated mainly by backhoes.

*headdesk*

On Wednesday I took my visiting family members to Barrio Brewing Co. for drinks. Barrio is a local brewery/bar situated in an old warehouse next to the train tracks southwest of Downtown proper, and by all appearances it's hanging on pretty well even in this crappy economy. We sat on the shady porch, sucked down a few quality beers, hoped a train would go by, and decided it's too bad for Downtown that this awesome little place is stuck in the middle of an industrial zone next to 17th Street Market instead of in some funky space closer to Congress Street. It would be a perfect nugget to build a public space around. People like historic buildings connected to their city's past, as long as the plumbing works and the ceiling's not likely to fall in. They like comfortable, shaded outdoor places to sit with drinks and food. And they like it when those drinks and food are very very tasty, and are probably put in the mood to stick around a while and shop once their bellies are full and their livers start to fall asleep. Why haven't you brought us here before? they asked. We want to come back next time we're in town.

That should be music to any city planner's ears. Jim Counts (of Nimbus Brewery) tried to play that angle up, but probably went too far in trying to tie a condo development to his proposed downtown brewpub, both of which fizzled back in '06 when the city said go for it but you gotta show us the cash in 90 days.

Can everybody listen up now? The city and Counts are locked in another pissing contest, with the city holding up the liquor license Counts wants for the Sam Hughes neighborhoodcorner taproom he opened a couple months ago that is currently nearing its death throes due to being limited to subs and soft drinks, neither of which are putting a significant dent in the traffic heading to Bob Dobbs' across the street. Everybody just stop already and give Counts his license for a place downtown somewhere on Congress--lord knows there are plenty of empty storefronts with adjacent vacant lots left by the demolition of one historic structure after another that would be perfect for a brewpub and roomy outdoor beer garden--and let the beer start flowing and the food start marching out of the kitchen and people might start coming. My out-of-town relatives are willing to give it a shot. Just imagine what might have been if the spring training stadium had been built down there too rather than next to juvie on Ajo Way.

Recovery Package

Recovering? Yes I am. The family was here in various permutations for a week, and now that they've gone back home I have taken the deep breath I've been needing... and find myself wishing they were still here, or at least coming back sooner than they actually will. We did far less hiking this time around than in previous years, so I don't have many general-interest photos to share.

We did make it down to the Nature Conservancy's Patagonia-Sonoita Preserve on a horridly windy Friday to search for birds that, like us, weren't smart enough to stay hunkered down someplace sheltered. Sonoita Creek, fed by groundwater, flows perennially and is so clear and surrounded by greenery that it looks fake.






















Sonoita Creek burbling along.

Whimsy! Snakey decoration on handrail on Creek Trail.

The preserve has a few miles of interconnected trails, about half of which follow the creek before looping around through a partially burned mesquite bosque. The birdwatching was probably hampered by the wind, but we managed to spot a thick-billed kingbird (rare in Arizona), a Cassin's kingbird, several vermillion flycatchers or possibly a single, very energetic flycatcher, finches by the bucketload, a black phoebe, and a pair of gray hawks that we heard whistling for an hour and a half before we finally saw them wheeling in the updrafts.

The preserve is notable not only for the year-round stream and numerous bird species, but also for its stands of old-growth cottonwoods, some of which top out at 130 years old and about a million feet tall. These are the oldest and largest cottonwoods on the planet.

Giant cottonwood.

After a day well-spent, we retired to my back yard and watched my aunt grill up slabs and slabs of ribs, and then we worked off dinner in the best possible way.

The family gathers 'round the TV machine to watch Rachel.

Tonight I'm watching basketball and thinking I'm pretty damn lucky to have been born into this family. Good times, people!

A Sighting of the Rare and Elusive Boltgirl

It's the annual family confab in Tucson, which has left my calendar a bloody mess when viewed from a distance--gotta switch from red ink to a more soothing blue--and my blog neglected in the corner, sniffling. What can I fling at you as I sprint by the computer between rounds of cards, grilling, and backyard birdwatching fueled by high-quality merlot and shiraz?

Meat! Meaty meaty meat meat. I have been a vegetarian off and on for the past twenty years or so, but right now am definitely peaking in the meat quadrant of the graph. Costco sells lovely slabs of top round that grill to tender perfection, which you might not expect from something with "round" in the title, but damn. Damn. I like to cover one slab with a rub of equal parts brown sugar, black pepper, hot ground roasted red chili, and garlic powder, with a half part of kosher salt and let it think about it for a few hours before hitting the grill, and then do the other with simple salt and pepper. And then some lovely thick rounds of onion around the edges until they caramelize. Nom. The grill is getting a workout this week.

Economy! I'm sorry, but at this point I am utterly confused. US auto execs are getting fired by the White House on the same day banking execs are invited over for tea? Meanwhile, my friends and I are coordinating those Costco runs for days when Tucson is not being invaded by family members who gleefully pick up the tab. Recommended bargain of the week: giant clamshell pack of Cherubs grape tomatoes, $4.49. That gives you a week's worth of salads, pastas, omelettes, and lovely snacks. A little olive oil, some basil, salt, and pepper, and bam smacky, you're eating like the king of your very own tomato patch.

Gardening! I suck at it. I know people who very successfully grow tomatoes and peppers and thus avoid that portion of Costco, but I am not one of them. High and subsequently dashed hopes in the past have included tomatoes, jalapenos, anaheim chiles, squash, red bell peppers, lettuce, and snow peas. This season I stuck to herbs and have managed to keep sage and mint alive; the cilantro, to my great chagrin, collapsed and died within three days. Oh, wait--I have had marginal success with potatoes, and am currently sitting on a harvest store of four yukon golds ranging in size from small grape to golf ball with a thyroid problem.

Basketball! My brackets are dead in both men's and women's, although I still have the Heels alive for the men's championship and UConn for the well, duh category in the women's. And the Irish rolled over and died in the NIT semis. That is all.

Arizona! Our esteemed Governor Jan Brewer (R-Harpytown) appointed the illustrious and beloved-by-Shakesville Mr. Benjamin H. Grumbles as head of the state Department of Environmental Quality, which is something akin to appointing a hyena as head of kitten welfare. Grumbles is a Bush EPA hack whose major accomplishment at the EPA was being concerned about pharmaceuticals in groundwater. Well, he was actually only concerned about nitroglycerin, and then only because it's an explosive. Anti-depressants and anti-inflammatories are apparently okay because--let's be honest here--they're making you feel better, aren't they?

Baseball! Pima County wants to build another stadium in hopes that maybe they can lure like three teams back from Glendale to Save Spring Training in Tucson, which will only cost about $137 million in a state that is shuttering state parks and firing teachers as fast as it can in order to fill exactly two sandbags that can be stacked up in front of the 75-foot tsunami that is the current $3 BILLION budget deficit. But it is important to soak people with an increased sales tax so that they can build a stadium that may or may not be used for an entire month every year if the teams decide to relocate to the cotton fields of Marana before bolting to the next sweet deal being offered by a municipality someplace else. Arizona: 49th in education, 2nd in teen pregancy rates, numero uno in short-sighted stupidity.

More to come! Later!

Go Irish

Now that John D'Arcy has weighed in on Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama to give the commencement address, old home week is complete here in Boltland. First, the bishop's statement explaining what has his ecclesiastical shorts in a knot when he contemplates Obama striding beneath the shadow of the Golden Dome:

While claiming to separate politics from science, he has in fact separated science from ethics and has brought the American government, for the first time in history, into supporting direct destruction of innocent human life.

For the first time! In history! D'Arcy seems to have forgotten about prior little government-sponsored dustups like the Sioux extermination program and, oh, maybe Hiroshima--lord knows I can barely remember those myself given my busy schedule these days--as well as about the fact that Notre Dame has previously hosted both Condi Rice and W himself. Maybe casual capital punishment and wanton warmongering don't count as life-extermination any more?

My personal brushes with D'Arcy came shortly after he landed in South Bend as the new bishop in the spring of 1985, imported from Boston to replace an oldster whose name completely escapes me at the moment and likely to ensure the primacy of some old-school conservatism in the diocese. One of his first churchly duties there was to preside over my confirmation ceremony, where he proceeded to warn us that our friends are really evil, awful people who will persuade us to do bad things, so we should ignore them and remember that our trust should really belong to the church. 25 years later I still have the friends but have quite happily shed the church. And D'Arcy's still in South Bend spouting twisted half-truths to whatever audience he has left.

Enjoy your boycott, John!

PSA

Life has been annoyingly busy in too many consecutive little blocks of time. Please check back soon.

Final Tweet

What could be more self-important than tweeting on Twitter? Probably announcing that you're leaving Twitter. So! I am done with Twitter, and of course it wasn't for truly egregious violations of decorum like members of Congress tweeting during Obama's address to the joint session. It is because the WPS (We Pimp Skorts?) announced they are considering having players tweet from the sidelines during games. And with this insult to the integrity of the game--hot on the heels of the skort--I can no longer be party to the nefarious technology behind it, no matter how inept I was at the Twitter to begin with.

If you must have hourly updates on my very important life, you'll have to find me on Facebook, which is rapidly devolving into an even more vapid, content-free forum than it already was. Sort of a Twitter-plus. Bye, Twitter!

Madness

It's my second-favorite holiday, the opening day of the NCAA men's/women's basketball tournament season, which on the BoltLiturgicalCalendar falls in importance right after Thanksgiving and right before Christmas and the Super Bowl, which are tied. I intend to gorge on hoops--thank you CBS and NCAA, for your NCAA^® March Madness^® on Demand player--even if I'm too old to gorge on beer and snackies the entire time. If I were still 24 it would be nachos and Labatt's all damn day.

My Final Four is UNC, Pitt, Louisville, Memphis. Heels win the championship over Louiville, 73-70.

Footnote to the Abortion-Restriction Discussion

I just came across this over at Shakesville, and while I fully understand that "anecdote" does not equal "data," the story is an important perspective for anyone who has ever argued that a woman faced with an unwanted pregnancy should carry it to term and give the baby up for adoption rather than aborting the embryo. As much as anti-choicers harp on the inevitable psychological damage to women who choose to abort, and as willing as they are to trot out women who've aborted and regretted it, the voices of women who have chosen adoption do seem to be curiously lacking.

I have given a baby up for adoption, and I have had an abortion, and while anecdotes are not evidence, I can assert that abortions may or may not cause depression - it certainly did not in me, apart from briefly mourning the path not taken - but adoption? That is an entirely different matter. I don't doubt that there are women who were fine after adoption, and there is emphatically nothing wrong with that or with them; but I want to point out that if we're going to have a seemingly neverending discussion about the sorrow and remorse caused by abortion, then it is about goddamn time that we hear from birth mothers too.

Believe me when I say that of the two choices, it was adoption that nearly destroyed me - and it never ends.

This is just one woman's story, but it's compelling and worth a read.

More on the Arizona Abortion Bill: Tiny Conversations with Steve Farley

Steve Farley (D-28th) is the representative for my Arizona state congressional district. I e-mailed him after the Frank Antenori kerfuffle for his side of the Arizona Health & Human Services Committee hearing on HB 2564, which was introduced to further place restrictions and impediments in the paths of women seeking not only abortion but also emergency and other contraception in the state. He was kind enough to respond the same day and provided a little more information than I'd had before.

Steve doesn't sit on the HHS committee, so he wasn't present at the hearing the Democrats and their healthcare-providing allies decided to walk out of last month, nor did he discuss the strategy with them prior to the meeting. He suspects the intention was to prevent giving the Republicans a bigger platform than they were already going to have for what by many accounts was a predetermined outcome. He also provided a link to the debate over the bill and the amendment he offered when it came to a floor vote so that, as he said, I would be able to form my own opinion of it rather than simply getting his, and would be able to quote participants directly. The Farley amendment would have exempted women who are the victims of sexual assault (of both the incestual and non-incestual varieties) from the waiting period and doctor's script-reading requirement, and would have eliminated the pharmacist conscience clause for emergency and conventional contraception.

Dr. Matt Heinz's (D-27th) testimony in favor of the Farley amendment focused on the language in the bill defining pregnancy as beginning with conception, as well as on the conscience clause. It served up a simply stated bit of scientific information for people who believe that pregnancy starts at conception. Unfortunately, it's not clear that anyone who believes otherwise and had already decided to vote for the bill was listening.

As a medical professional myself, I'm very concerned, first of all that we're discussing this at all. But as the bill is written at this time it appears to actually redefine some accepted medical terminology, which is something I believe we should try to avoid as the Legislature. What I’m referring to in particular, which I’ll begin with, is a viable, clinically diagnosable pregnancy. Now, I understand that the bill defines this as the union of a sperm and ovum. However, fertilization, as I hope everyone knows, occurs at the ends of the fallopian tubes, which are attached to the uterus—forgive me for not bringing my uterus model—and that’s not where a pregnancy occurs or even could be defined necessarily as a viable intrauterine pregnancy. That [pregnancy] is where the ovum, the conceptus, that has been fertilized travels through the fallopian tubes, which takes seven to twelve days, and then there’s implantation in the endometrium, in the wall and lining of the uterus, and blood vessels supply the developing embryo in that situation, and that—that is what a pregnancy is, a clinically diagnosable, viable pregnancy. So I’m a little bit unclear as to what we’re trying to do with that language.

Next, I’m very concerned about how, um, about how this bill is going to affect the provision of healthcare, especially to women… Pharmacists being allowed to refuse any sort of medication ordered by a licensed physician is very disturbing to me, especially in regards to emergency contraception, where there’s not exactly a lot of time available for the patient to go to another place. There’s also no requirement that I see in the bill that says that the pharmacist who is refusing for moral reasons or for a conscience has to refer the women to somewhere where they can obtain this urgently needed medical attention or device or prescription. So I don’t like that at all.

And I do believe this is beyond the pharmacist’s scope of practice because then, again in this bill, the way things are defined even with the Barto amendment, it is unclear to me if this could also possibly prohibit certain other types of hormonal therapy which may not be used for birth control at all, to control excessive uterine or vaginal bleeding. A pharmacist should not be authorized to refuse these medications when prescribed by an appropriate licensed physician.

Nancy Barto--one of the original sponsors of the bill--came up with a rebuttal on the conscience issue that is a work of art, if by "art" we mean "flinging every can of paint I can find at the canvas in hopes something will stick."

The fact of the matter is that emergency contraception is not hard to get these days. In fact, it’s available over the counter. And it’s available online, there are websites to deliver it. You can get it through the mail. And so this does not deal with emergency contraception availability. This merely protects the right of conscience. If you have an opportunity to go, to receive emergency contraception, shouldn’t an ab- a pharmacist have an opportunity to keep his job and protect his faith, live by his faith and belief? Both rights are important. This bill makes sure those rights are protected.

Jesus. One more time! If you have the opportunity to go request a legal and necessary medication from the only middleman licensed and authorized to dispense it to you within the timeframe required for the medication to be effective, shouldn't that middleman have the opportunity to refuse to perform his job, at no risk to his continued employment? I'm not sure which is more disturbing to me--that Rep. Barto considers both of those "opportunities" to be "rights"--guess which of the two does not really fit into the "rights" category--or that she can say with a straight face that the bill protects the rights of women to obtain something that is legal.

Because despite her statement that both rights are important, it's only the rights of certain pharmacists that are really being protected here. And while emergency contraception is indeed "available over the counter," which simply means "without a prescription," if it were really as easy to lay hands on EC as on peanut M&Ms, then pharmacists wouldn't be its gatekeepers and their consciences would not be at issue either way. The simple fact that Barto's fighting to give some pharmacists the ability to bar all women from obtaining the medication is the proof that the only way to buy the stuff in a store is through a transaction with a pharmacist. You can't get it from the lady at the cosmetics counter or the guy in the liquor department. Yes, you can have EC delivered through the mail if you order it online, but good luck having it show up on your doorstep within your 72-hour window of opportunity (and remember that the further your timer ticks away from hour one toward hour 72, the chances of it working drop off precipitously, because if you ovulate before you can take the pill, you're screwed again). No computer or internet access? Too bad, so sad--but you can always comfort yourself with the knowledge that you've at least kept your pharmacist's delicate sensibilities from being injured.

As an interesting side note, Steve pointed out in his e-mail that the House Republicans had promised smart-as-a-whip Assistant Minority Leader Kyrsten Sinema (D-15th) that they wouldn't bring the bill to a floor vote until she was back from an overseas trip. And as soon as she was gone they hustled it to the floor because, Steve says, "they did not want her brilliant strategic mind to get in the way of their show." This is the same group that illegally shut off a Democrat's microphone to stop a filibuster that was intended to kill the no-gay-marriage constitutional amendment before it could come to a vote. They later admitted they broke the rules on that one, but hey, it was officially too late to do anything about it. It isn't too late to hammer your state senator now with arguments against this piece of crap bill.

Notes from All Over

I have lost the ability to properly capitalize in title case. Should "all" be capitalized up there? It's a mystery to me.

Too much Guadalajara Grill may actually be a bad thing. I woke up at roughly 2 this morning with a knot in my gut and spent the rest of the night and early morning kept from my rest by a combination of pain induced by far too much hot fresh chips/fresh wonderful salsa customized tableside by Betty/three kinds of enchiladas (chili verde FTW!)/giant mug of Dos XX/the rest of the flan my girlfriend's ex-sister-in-law and niece couldn't finish and the fear that my brain will forever associate this gastric misery with Guadalajara and perhaps all Mexican food, preventing me from ever going back, and the dog being so unsettled by extra people staying in the house and doors that are usually left open being shut and doors that are usually shut being left open that she needed to walk around click-clacking on the Pergo all fucking night long. Pinche Guadalajara and their heaps of delicious food I am apparently no longer accustomed to sucking down in such quantities!

Gym? What gym? My left shoulder no longer wishes to participate in activities involving hefting heavy things over my head, which is going to impact my workout life considerably. Cardio room? What cardio room?

AIG funneled millions and millions of bailout dollars to foreign banks and their own executive bonuses? I have moved beyond each of these revelations being a fresh shock; now they've become a series of ever-dulling thwacks on the same bruise. When the bailees start using the cash to refinance underwater mortgages and cut executive compensation, then I'll be surprised.

Obama's cuddling up to a moderately diverse group of spiritual advisers whose two things in common are (1) Jesus and (2) not liking Teh Gay? Same AIG-style bruise, different leg. At least we got the Ledbetter Act signed and stem cell research back. Sigh.

And finally, I sent off an e-mail to Steve Farley (D-Tucson) over the weekend to ask for his take on the abortion bill hearing. Have not heard back yet, but his office has probably been open for all of 30 minutes so far this morning, so I will wait patiently.

Frank Antenori Speaks

This is a followup to yesterday's post about Arizona's new abortion-restricting bill that passed the state House, and Representative Frank Antenori's (R-not Tucson) memorable contribution to the annals of clueless paternalism.

To his credit, Rep. Antenori did call my co-worker back yesterday afternoon and they ended up talking for about 40 minutes. In a nutshell, our man Frank says he's not opposed to abortion and is simply trying to do the right thing based on the information that is available to him.

First, he discussed the nuts and bolts of HB 2564 and the process leading to Tuesday's vote. The initial House Health and Human Services Committee hearing on the bill in February was boycotted by Democrats, and, according to Rep. Antenori, a contingent of Planned Parenthood reps and other pro-choice allies walked out of the hearing without presenting their testimony. This left all of the testimony to anti-choice activists and pro-conscience-clause doctors and pharmacists, and their positions wound up being strongly reflected in the final language of the bill. House Democrats and, as far as I can tell, Planned Parenthood refused to participate because they view any abortion restrictions as unacceptable.

They (Antenori and my colleague) went back and forth on the proposed waiting period and mandated speech from the doctor. Antenori maintains that he is supporting the bill only because he wants the full range of information on the risks and benefits and availability of abortion, adoption, and social services to be available. As for the waiting period, he pointed out to my colleague that the state of Arizona gives car buyers a 72-hour period to change their minds and return the car, and requires a 72-hour waiting period before a woman who has chosen to give up her newborn for adoption can finalize it (safe haven dropoffs excluded, I suppose).

Antenori countered with an anecdote related at the HHS hearing about a woman who got pregnant and decided on an abortion when her boyfriend told her he did not want either the baby or a continued relationship with her and offered to pay. Because there was no waiting period, she had the abortion right away (she apparently lives in the mythical Republican land where women see the blue line on the stick, get the bad news from the boyfriend, and sprint to a drive-thru clinic for the abortion all in one eight-hour-day), and of course the next day the boyfriend said he'd changed his mind and wanted the baby and wanted to marry her and live happily ever after, so for want of a 24-hour-waiting period, a potential happy family was destroyed.

Some responses from me, after discussing the conversation with my friend... I am torn on Democrats and Planned Parenthood boycotting the HHS hearing. While I fully share their position that none of the proposed restrictions are acceptable (and in fact will only serve as stepping stones to a full ban), the refusal to take any part in the process, even if only to formally lodge our myriad detractions and rebuttals in the record, feels counterproductive to me and certainly felt that way to Rep. Antenori. Would it ultimately have made a difference in the final bill that came out of committee? I can't answer that. Antenori says he was open to and eager for all testimony in order to make informed decisions about the bill's provisions and language. Whether he is lying through his teeth about this is somewhat immaterial--our side can't claim we are being ignored and marginalized on this one if our chosen and self-appointed representatives never offered up anything to be ignored in the first place.

As far as his access to information argument goes, the full range of information is indeed out there and provided by places like Planned Parenthood. If Antenori is truly concerned with full disclosure, he should write a provision into the bill shutting down "crisis pregnancy centers" that pump women with patently false and slanted statements like abortion being riskier than full-term pregnancy and delivery, or abortion causing cancer, or abortion guaranteeing sterility and possibly suicide.

In response to Antenori's protests that Arizona gives you three days to change your mind on giving your baby up for adoption--or on keeping that new Hummer--my friend pointed out that there is a very real difference between a baby you've carried to term, given birth to, and then looked at and probably held in your arms and an 8-week embryo you have no intention of keeping in your body. She let him know that it's pretty disingenuous for a party that decries the nanny state to laud the government for trying to insulate people from the consequences of making decisions, which, as far as she can tell, is a big part of being a grownup in this country.

The best angle on the waiting period is perfectly illustrated by the story of the regretted abortion when the boyfriend changed his mind after the fact. Although it was intended to show why waiting periods are justified, it really demonstrates that waiting period proponents still place the agency for the decision outside the woman and make it contingent on the man's actions. The crux of the matter wasn't that the woman changed her mind--it was that the boyfriend did. And it was his attitude and promise of action/inaction that conditioned the woman's choice.

Finally, when we come to the main reason for my friend's call in the first place, the tidbit that's raised so much ire toward Antenori personally--his statement that the legislature has the duty to protect their wives and daughters from making decisions they may come to regret--he really didn't get it at first. He stated that he does support abortion rights, and in fact would support his wife or his daughter if they felt they needed to end a pregnancy. He just wants to be involved in the decision-making process. He doesn't understand the vitriol directed at his "duty to protect" because...

He thought he was being chivalrous.

His words.

And "I thought I was being chivalrous" perfectly encapsulates one of the fundamental misunderstandings--or at least inadvertent barriers to cooperation--we have with one segment of the voting bloc that would enact restrictions on a procedure that they don't even really disagree with in the first place. Claiming chivalry acknowledges an implicit imbalance of power, a structure in which members of the superior class occasionally deign to be champions of the powerless. Unfortunately, those champions tend to fight those battles on their own terms and toward their own ends, for what they define as their wards' benefit rather than for the ends those wards might have chosen for themselves if they had any say in the matter. Women do not need chivalry and its attendant self-appointed male guardians of female virtue. Simply put, we need equal agency to men and the ability to make decisions without anyone's input unless we request it.

So while I'm not convinced that Antenori actually gets it now, he's clearly open to conversation and possibly even an evolving opinion. If he's your representative, it's time to flood his office not with snark but reasoned arguments, because I think he'll at least think about them. It's also time to ask Planned Parenthood and the Democrats to stick around for the debate next time instead of assuming the opposition is monolithic and choosing theatre over the legislative process. Let's lean on the state senators, since they're our last chance at upending the bill in its current shitty state.

Arizona House Decides Women Don't Have Brains in Those Pretty Little Heads, Approves Abortion Restrictions

Hoo boy. The Arizona legislature happily slapped reproductive rights further back toward the 1950s yesterday with a 36-18 vote approving HB 2564. If you're a female with functioning ovaries and uterus in Arizona, this is the world you woke up to this morning:

HB 2564 would require a 24-hour waiting period before a woman could terminate a pregnancy. During that time, the woman would have to be told "the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics" of the unborn child at that point.

The bill also requires that the woman be told, in person, that:

• The father of the child is liable for support, even if he agreed to pay for the abortion.

• Medical assistance benefits may be available for prenatal care, childbirth and postnatal care if they decided against an abortion.

• Public and private agencies can assist the woman before and after the birth, whether she chooses to keep the child or put it up for adoption.

Your baby has fingernails! The father will pay child support for 18 years, and if you're lucky he'll even do it voluntarily from day one instead of the state having to chase him to Louisiana to garnish his wages! Medical assistance benefits may be available if you don't have insurance! Public agencies can assist you, even though the state is working overtime to cut every bit of health & human services spending out of the budget that we can! Did we mention your baby has fingernails and can silently sing the ABC song along with you inside your womb?

Democrats in the house were left to state the obvious things the rest of us were screaming as we read the article.

"The requirement of a mandated lecture and a 24-hour reflective period is not only insulting but assumes that women do not adequately think through their abortion decisions, and that the state must do their thinking for them," said Rep. Olivia Cajero Bedford, D-Tucson.

Rep. Ed Ableser, D-Tempe, said the help promised by the law doesn't exist because lawmakers have cut funding for many of these programs."We're passing a bill demanding health-care professionals to lie to these women and say that there are services available," he said.

Rep. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, complained no other medical procedure requires a 24-hour waiting period, including vasectomies and tubal ligations, which end a person's ability to have children.

Silly Democrats, with your assumptions of female agency and your... your... logic! House Republicans rebutted in the expected way, with Nancy "people in rural areas are accustomed to traveling long distances for services" Barto serving as the warmup act.

But Rep. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, said the waiting period and the information are necessary. "Women need to know the nature and purpose of a proposed treatment or procedure; the risks and benefits, alternatives, regardless of their cost or health-insurance coverage; the risks and benefits of the alternative treatment or procedure; and the risks and benefits of not receiving a treatment or procedure," she said.

As if women seeking an abortion have not already thought about it long and hard for exactly as many days or weeks as their periods have been late. As if they are unaware it's an embryo lurking in there rather than an orange or possibly a lemur. Leave it to Frank "don't call me a Tucsonan; they're all hippies there" Antenori (R-Tucson), though, to lay bare exactly what this is all about:

Rep. Frank Antenori, R-Tucson, said there is "a duty to protect either our wives or our daughters from making decisions that may come back to haunt them further down the road in their lives."

Aaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnd we have a winner! It's breathtaking. Republican men must protect their wives and daughters--and everyone else's too while they're at it--from making decisions that may come back to haunt them. Where was Frank Antenori 24 years ago when I was trying to decide between Northwestern and Notre Dame? I still kinda wonder if I made the right choice there, so that probably counts as haunting. And when I chose to major in anthropology? Jesus, talk about a life-altering decision! If only Frank Antenori had been there to point out I was guaranteeing myself the ability to be present throughout my son's childhood but would be left really scraping for money to send him to college, maybe I wouldn't be haunted by all this debt today.

The bottom line, Frank, whether you're in Phoenix (or Tucson, actually) or Chicago or Saxapahaw or Morgantown is that facing difficult decisions and then living with the consequences are part and parcel of adulthood. Even if you happen to be female. You can echo Anthony Kennedy's paternalistic concern trolling about delicate female sensibilities and down-the-road regrets all you want, but it does nothing to change the fact that we all make choices that we wish we could change 10 year, 20 years, 50 years later. Some women have an abortion and regret it. Some don't. Some decide to keep the baby and wish they hadn't. Some do and rejoice in it. It's called the human experience, Frank, and I suspect you know that very well but think dressing up your desire to control women in old "think of the children!" clothes that have been gussied up with a few bows that wail "think of the ladies!" will somehow make your policies more palatable. News flash: half of us have been blinded with rage at your paternalism, and the rest of us who've managed to keep one eye clear can still see right through you.

The bill also contains provisions that allow pharmacists and healthcare workers not only to refuse emergency contraception to rape victims, but also to refuse to tell said victims where they might find "healthcare" providers whose heads are not up their asses. It also mandates that all abortions be performed by MDs rather than NPs and PAs with specialized training, further reducing the number of abortion providers in the state and disproportionately impacting rural areas where docs are scarce and NPs/PAs provide the bulk of the care.

It ain't law yet, but it's heading to a state senate in which 12 of the 30 senators have already signed on as sponsors, and a governor's pen wielded by a woman who is no longer Janet Napolitano (epic vetoer of abortion restrictions) but instead is Jan Brewer (epic supporter of making all abortions illegal all the time). Life in the Republican Duchy of Arizona. It's a dry heat, but it burns just the same.

Note: Are you an Arizona female facing a difficult decision you might regret later? Frank Antenori is here to help! Since he clearly wants to protect you from the burden of regret and possibly even simple buyer's remorse, I'm sure he won't mind consulting on any choices you have to make, whether it's about abortion, college choice, career moves, who to pick for the Final Four, or what to have on the pizza tonight! Just don't remind him he lives in Tucson!

Frank Antenori, R-not Tucson: (602)926-5683 (phone) | (602)417-3147 (fax) | fantenori@azleg.gov