Yay! Here's what McCain had to say about it:
"I'll miss him in this debate . . . . He's a voice for the pro-life movement and community in America."
If by pro-life you mean forcing rape victims to remain pregnant because they don't fall under the category of "innocent . . . ."
This story starts with Bethany Wilkerson, a two-year-old who appeared in a pro-SCHIP ad by True Majority Action. See, Bethany's parents make a combined $34,000 a year. Bethany was diagnosed with a serious heart condition when she was 3 months old. Her parents can't afford health insurance, and SCHIP paid for Bethany's life-saving surgery. Yay for SCHIP, right? Not according to Mark Hemingway of the National Review Online:
"While the debate around the Frost family at least initially centered around their relative wealth, the issue really at hand is one of bad behavior . . . . On the conference call, Dara admitted to me that she and Brian had been talking about having children since before they were married. She further admitted that after they were married she voluntarily left a job at a country club that had good health insurance, because the situation was “unmanageable.” From there she took a job at a restaurant with no health insurance, and the couple went on to have a baby anyway, presuming that others would pay for it and certainly long before they knew their daughter would have a heart defect that probably cost the gross national product of Burkina Faso . . . . I think it’s rude to accept huge amounts of public assistance and then express gratitude by asking taxpayers to extend a Children’s health program to cover college-age kids who come from households making more than $80,000 a year. Which brings us to another salient point — Bethany Wilkerson is healthy. She is covered by existing programs and has already received the much of the medical care she needs."
Did you take that all in? I'm not even going to get into one of the inconsistencies of his argument -- if a life-saving procedure costs the GNP of Burkina Faso, wouldn't it cost more than $80,000? I think it would. Or that Bethany is healthy but only has received much of the medical care she needs (or did she receive the medical care she needs. Looks like Hemingway changed his mind in the middle of typing that sentence but forgot to go back and correct it). Or that Mrs. Wilkerson voluntary left her unmanageable job. The bigger inconsistency is the fact that Hemingway calls the Wilkersons irresponsible for having a baby, while the right-wing fringe uses that exact reasoning for being anti-choice. Which brings me to another reason to love Keith Olbermann. From Tuesday night's show:
Keith Olbermann: Why does a group of people proclaiming themselves to be pro-life see no barrier to preserving the life of fetuses or Terri Schiavo, but when it's actual people who are already up and running, kids like Bethany and Graeme Frost, they literally want them -- in Graeme Frost's case somebody called for a public hanging -- and this little girl's case, the argument was that they didn't have sufficient medial insurance so she should never have been conceived. Is there any straight line in there?
What a great question. That's what I'd like to know. Watch the video if you want the answer given by Paul Krugman of The New York Times (at around the 3:30 mark).
Apparently, journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis hurt Page Six's pride when she said that their writers are emasculated. I wouldn't call a career in celebrity gossip emasculating. Shallow, but no emasculating. This was Page Six's retort:
"As for us being 'emasculated,' Grigoriadis ignores that fact that half the Page Six staff is female. The male half might take her someplace private and disprove her theory, but we don't like a woman with a mustache."
Did the goons at Page Six just openly threat someone with gang rape? I think so. Then it's a good thing she has that mustache.
Above is the trailer for Jamie Babbitt's new film, Itty Bitty Titty Committee. Watch it. This movie is amazing. It's serious and funny and, at times, truly analytical. Plus it's got a killer soundtrack. Yay, Le Tigre!
Anyway, this movie is great. It's about an 18-year-old Latina lesbian (Anna) who works at a plastic surgeon's office. She just got rejected twice, first by her school of choice and then by her girlfriend dumping her. So she meets this one girl, Sadie, who invites her to join her radical feminist group, Clits in Action. And, well, hilarity happens from there.
This movie is great because it doesn't take itself too seriously. It's got a lot of awesome feminist content, a great cast, and a good story. Also, I love the fact that the movie isn't about Anna's coming out as a lesbian as a lot of films are. She finds herself, not her lesbianism. None of the movie is focused on the fact that its main character is a lesbian. It's just treated as a "Yeah, of course, why not?" sort of thing. That was one of the coolest things about it, I thought.
Anyway, check out the trailer and this review for more info.
This was really rich. Bill Cosby and Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint went on Meet the Press this morning to discuss their new book, Come On, People: On the Path from Victims to Victors.
TIM RUSSERT: What happened within the black community that we got to a point, since 1950, where 70 percent of the children are born with single parents? What happened?
DR. POUSSAINT: Well, I think all kinds of things. Some of it has to do with the fact that things changed for women with the women’s liberation movement. In the past, there was a stigma if you had—a big stigma if you had a child out of wedlock. That’s not true anymore for, for white women or black women. So a lot of the black women do not feel compelled to get married. And then the other issue is the availability of black men and whether they’re eligible to be married. You have so many black men incarcerated, so many black men unemployed, underemployed. In colleges now, black women outnumber black men two to one. And so the chances of hooking up in a marital relationship in the way our society works is more difficult. So I think that’s changed as well.
I find this just hilarious. First of all, feminism wasn't always exactly Black-friendly. The women's suffrage movement was more accurately the White women's suffrage movement -- Susan B. Anthony didn't want to go overboard with the equality. And Betty Friedan's discovery of the feminine mystique, a discovery that may very well be one of the greatest achievements of feminism, didn't apply to lower-class women of color who couldn't afford to stay home. Black women were left out of the women's movement, and some still feel that way.
Furthermore, did Dr. Poussaint imply that there's no stigma to having a child out of wedlock anymore? That's news to me! Single motherhood is still a stigma. This especially applies to women of color, since every little socially unacceptable thing that a brown woman does is attributed to her skin color. If a Black woman is strolling a child in the mall, you don't even have to check her left ring finger to see if she's married -- she's just another Black welfare 'ho draining the system. White women might get similar crap, but people usually give them the benefit of the doubt -- maybe she's a divorcee.
He is right about the women's movement letting us know that we don't have to get married. And we certainly don't have to marry the -- how did Dr. Poussaint put it? -- "incacerated, unemployed, and underemployed" dudes. But it seems like he believes this is a bad thing.
But what was that about Black men and women in college? According to him, because there are twice as many Black women as Black men in college, these women just won't be able to find a mate. Maybe, just maybe, women, even Black women, can marry whoever the fuck they want. Maybe Black women can marry, for example, a Hispanic guy. Maybe the Hispanic guy is in BSU. Maybe the Hispanic guy is President of BSU. Now how 'bout that. Perhaps such a phenomenon completely blows Dr. Poussaint's mind.
"I Am Emily X: The True-Life Diary of a Frontline Planned Parenthood Worker and Activist"
A Planned Parenthood worker is blogging for choice during some pro-life thing called "40 Days for Life" (not any woman's life, obviously). She's collecting donations for every anti-choice activist outside her Planned Parenthood clinic. She's already raised over $1,000. You go, girl! Great name, by the way.
This is truly horrifying.
"As Ugandan officials and the Ugandan media intensify attacks on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, the US government should condemn these threats, and clarify that it does not support using its HIV/AIDS funding to promote homophobia, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to US officials.
“'When the US funds abstinence-only programs in Uganda, it tells people that LGBT people’s sexualities are dangerous and must be denied,” said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “Supporting prejudice with cash is an approach with deadly consequences for all.'
"An August 16 press conference by a coalition of LGBT groups in Uganda that launched a campaign called “Let Us Live in Peace,” has led to a month-long backlash in the country. Most recently, on September 9, the tabloid paper Red Pepper published a list of first names, workplaces and other identifying information of 39 alleged homosexuals, all men. Headlined “Homo Terror,” the article promised to “name and shame top gays in the city.”
I don't think the Bush Administration purposely gives abstinence-only funding to poor countries to knowingly discriminate against gays. I think the Bush Administration are ignorant of this phenomenon -- Can George W. Bush locate Uganda on a map? It's pretty clear the homophobia that is in abstinence-only education in this country, but we're free to believe whatever we want despite what we learn in school. I don't think most people, especially middle school students, are stupid enough to believe that homosexuality is wrong because their teachers of all people tell them that. Obviously, that's not the same in Uganda. However bad the social climate is for homosexuals in the United States, it obviously pales in comparison to what's happening in Uganda. But that doesn't mean that homophobia can't get worse in the United States, especially when you create an safe environment for it. And I honestly don't think that the Bush Administration realizes how bad homophobia can get when you let it.
According to a new study by members of the Guttmacher Institute and World Health Organization, abortion rates are the same whether or not the procedure is legal.
"In a study examining abortion trends from 1995 to 2003, experts also found that abortion rates are virtually equal in rich and poor countries, and that half of all abortions worldwide are unsafe."
"Abortion accounts for 13 percent of maternal mortality worldwide. About 70,000 women die every year from unsafe abortions. An additional 5 million women suffer permanent or temporary injury."
"Unsafe abortions" were defined as "those performed either by people lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimum medical standards."
Couldn't find any official pro-life opinion on this study.
Activists from the organization Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) released a preliminary report of the violence they experience by the police.
"The women endured various forms of torture, including beatings with a variety of instruments ... baton sticks, booted feet, wooden planks, being slapped, and falanga (beatings on the bottom of the feet)," Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) said in a report.
"The forced removal of underwear when in custody is recorded separately as it implies threatened sexual violence," said WOZA.
"Other forms of degrading and humiliating treatment the women suffered included being forced to kneel or crouch for prolonged periods and being insulted and threatened by police.
"Some of the women are subjected to cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment together with their children, as the police do not separate the mothers and their children when they suffer this treatment," it said.
WOZA hasn't posted the report on its website. I'll post the link when they do.
I wasn't going to talk about the new advertisement promoting abstinence until marriage by the Bush Administration. I saw the video this morning on Feministing, and it sounded stupid then. But when I heard it on The Rachael Maddow Show this evening on my way home from class, it sounded even stupider. Here's the text:
Dad?
Mom?
We gotta talk.
Talk to me about sex.
'Cuz my friends do.
It's all over the Internet.
Now, it's your turn.
Tell me what you want from me.
An education.
A family.
Happiness.
Tell me you want me to wait --
To have SEX.
I may roll my eyes.
Act all bored.
But I'll hear you.
[voice over] Tell your kids you want them to WAIT TIL THEIR MARRIED to have sex. Tell them early and often, and they're more likely to have success.
Come on, Dad!
Speak up, Mom!
You can do it!
I assume the "tell them early and often" part was only said by a disemobided voice because it's wrong to put lies in the mouths of children -- Abstinence-only education is ineffective. Honestly, this wouldn't be a bad ad if "married" was replaced with "ready." I firmly believe in sex education early and often as much as the next person, but it has to be accurate. But, hey. Accuracy isn't exactly the Bush Administration's specialty.
But my favorite line by far is "It's all over the Internet." How about "It's all up in my pants." Sex is biological. It's natural. It's not something that people learn. It's something that people do. What does the Bush Administration think people did back in cavemen days to procreate? That is, where does Bush think Jenna and Barbara came from? The Internet?
Not just any validation. It's validation from a conservative. I'm sure all of you read my post about the Values Voter debate when I said that everyone is a values voter -- It just might not be your values that I'm voting for. Well, George Will said the following on This Week with George Stephanopoulos yesterday.
"Social conservatives should grow up. If they want to rally around somebody, why don't they try that? Huckabee needs support right now. If the social conservatives are half as important as they think they are, they would rally around one of these people. . . . But there's a vanity in this group right now. They call themselves "the values voters." I have news for them: 100% of the electorate are values voters. They vote [based on] their values. And this kind of semantic imperialism that they have where they say 'We vote values.' Everyone else votes what?"
Now I'm not going to get into who copied whom and whatnot. The only thing that matters is that it was said . . . twice!
Heh heh. Because, you know, what else are moms for but washing your dirty underwear?
I missed the season premiere of The Sarah Silverman Program last night because I thought it was on tonight. Didn't the first season air on Thursday nights? Anyway, it was about Sarah getting caught up in a pro-life organization, Operation Baby Justice, because she took their "killing babies is wrong" rhetoric literally. It begins with Sarah helping with getting ready for a protest outside the clinic. Then, Sarah realizes that Operation Baby Justice is planning to blow up the clinic. It ends with Sarah aborting an arrowhead from her friend's ass. Funny. Stuff.
George W. Bush has vetoed 4 bills in his 6 years in office. The latest is for SCHIP, a bill that would have given healthcare to about 10 million children from families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to get good insurance, because he believes it is "a step towards federalization of healthcare." As you might remember, two of the veotes were to expand stem-cell research, because it "would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others."
But vetoing a bill that would insure millions of American children wouldn't be supporting the taking of an innocent human life, if any of those children were to die because they had no healthcare benefits. Right . . . .
In other news, up is down, left is right, and women have equal pay.
I don't know if it's silly of me to expect a man who's dated Ann Coulter to know anything about women, but I do know that it's standard to treat your guests with respect. On September 28, Bill Maher interviewed Maria Bartiromo from the Wall Street Journal Report. Here's the first thing he said to her:
"May I say, just to begin with, I love watching you. And one of these days I'm going to turn the sound on."
Tee-fuckin'-hee! She's just too pretty to be listened to, even if your livelihood depends on her expertise. Oh, but he's joking, right? He doesn't do this kind of shit on his show all the time, especially not in the same segment.
"To me, the stock market is like a woman. It goes off on the slightest thing. It's very emotional, doesn't seem to be logical. Am I wrong about that?"
Yes and no. The stock market is more like Bill O'Reilly, but for the same reasons Maher suggests.
Still don't think there's a huge element of sexism in homophobia? The Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA, H.R. 2015) was supposed to protect workers from being (not) hired/fired based on sexuality and gender identity. But because House Democrats believe that H.R. 2015 won't get enough votes, they will vote on H.R. 3685, which does not provide protection for the transgendered.
Of course, I believe that the original draft of ENDA should be passed. However, if I were a Representative, I don't know how I'd vote. Actually, I do know how I'd vote, and either way, I would be put on trial. I would not vote Nay simply out of principle. I don't think it's a good idea to hinder great progress because my ideal for a discrimination-free society isn't going as quickly as I'd like. I'd rather vote Yay on the watered-down version and give protection to homosexuals than vote Nay until the more inclusive version was up for a vote, which could be never, and be responsible for not giving protection to anyone. But either way, it would look like I'm discriminating against somebody. During my few minutes on the floor, I would talk about this APA article and hope to convince a few.
If you don't find your Representatives name on the list of co-sponsers for H.R. 2015, give them a call or send them an e-mail telling them to at least support H.R. 3685.
Seems like David didn't realize he had a uterus.
No, what's silly is the fact that you seem to have some sort of burning hatred for the male sex. Every little thing that someone has to say about this subject is automatically incorrect to you because you're too stubborn to take down your walls and accept someone else's opinion for once.That was in response to this statement by me:
Saying "Hey, don't take credit for what I'm going through that you're not" isn't dismissing him. It's just saying "Hey, don't take credit for what I'm going through that you're not. I mean, you did a good job with that ejaculation thing and all, but you're not pregnant now."
Sperm makes a zygote. A woman makes the kid. Getting her pickles and ice cream at 3 in the morning doesn't mean he's pregnant. Sorry. He's doing just that: Sticking around. You don't have to attribute something that he's not going through to him just because of that. That's silly.
A new study shows that drinking any type of alcohol increases a woman's chances of developing breast cancer.
Researchers found no difference in the risk of developing breast cancer among women who drank wine, beer, or liquor. Compared with light drinkers - those who had less than one drink a day - women who had one or two drinks a day increased their risk of developing breast cancer by 10 percent. Women who had more than three drinks a day raised their risk by 30 percent.
While military women in Mexico are still not allowed in combat, they will now be trained to become piolts, engineers, and other careers. I'm anti-war, but I'm more anti-sexism, so I'm glad that women in Mexico's military are getting more opportunities to support their country. At the same time, it's unfortunate that women in the military who are not in combat aren't recognized for their contributions to the military as nurses and doctors.
Women first joined Mexico's armed forces in 1938 as nurses. By 1973, they could become military doctors, and three years later, dentists. Today, women have access to 17 of the military's 39 career schools. And with access has come increased interest: 3,326 women applied for military schooling in 2007-2008, up 61 percent from the year before.
The article fails to mention if the new influx of female recruits will result in more health services for military women and extra protection from sexual harrassment and assault. I'm not even sure if that's as big of an issue in Mexico as it is in the United States. But after reading the following quote, extra protection for women seems needed:
[Agustin Radilla, who oversees military education] said that, so far, the male cadets have welcomed the women into the new schools, and he credits the changes for a "healthy competition" between the sexes.
Should there be any competition between fellow soldiers? After all, they're fighting on the same damn side.
Megan's post yesterday was the 100th of the year and 200th on FTTR. Woo!
Back to business. You might have heard about Verizon not allowing NARAL Pro-Choice America to send text message alerts to activists because their messages are "controversial or unsavory." Well, after over 20,000 complaints to Verizon (including mine) in less than 2 hours, they reversed their policy! See? Taking action does work.
Want more good news? The Senate passed the Matthew Shepard Act (60-39), which extends hate crime laws to include bias crimes based on gender, sexuality, and gender identity. Bush has threatened to veto this legislation calling it "unneccessary." One in 6 hate crimes are motivated by the victim's sexual orientation. What's unneccessary now?
I guess we could call this the Hound Bush Edition of TAF.
Support UN peace-keeping missions to Myanmar and Sudan (especially now).
Tell Bush that children's healthcare is more important than a cigarette tax increase.
