Nov 24 2007
Before Jane’s Addiction and Cake there was Alice Donut
I think I saw them play with the Butthole Surfers…I know the Butthole Surfers guy was in my kitchen sweating and screaming for a while. It was all a blur.
much much more below
Butthole Surfers
The guitarist was found via a classified ad. That’s the rumour.
at their most extreme
picking up speed
God’s Away on Business
Head Like A Hole
Nov 24 2007
People are constantly effusive about the Japanese education system. What’s so great about it? That students are not encouraged to be curious beyond what is being taught them: Japanese classrooms are case study for controlled chaos. A majority of the students just ignore the teacher. Bullying is a constant. Its not only done by the students the teachers also actively participate. I’m sure you want your child going to school six or seven days a week.
Japan has been ruled by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 1954. As with any single conservative party rule they strive to be the first ones to create a future to past type nation. They dnai any complicity for example of Japanese Imperial Army human rights violations during the Second World War
Japan is so modern that there was a crisis over the secession of who was to become the next emperor. Why was there a crisis? Because in a modern country one cannot allow a female to assented the imperial throne that would smack of being open minded and modern when it comes to women’s rights.
The police here are pretty interesting as they spend most of their day giving directions or solving major crimes: bicycle theft.
Riding the train here can be quite an education as well as helping to perpetuate stereo types. Yes, you do see salary reading those manga that best left under the bed, High school girls who change their clothes, groups of friends who get on the train sit together and then bring out their mobile phones and proceed to ignore each other, sleeping on trains in Japan is an art form and yes you do see the occasional Sumo wrestler.
Shinjuku has the most Love Hotels in Tokyo along with the largest “entertainment” district.
Hello Kitty Love Hotel Room
Sidewalk vending is controlled by the Yakuza.
If you by something to eat at a convenience store here you will be asked if you would like it heated up and you’ll be given the necessary utensil to eat it with.
Train stations have parking garages for bicycles.
Akihabra is where Japanese Geeks hang out
Wait those aren’t Geeks.
For those who thought that vending machines for used panties was an urban legend:
Pedophile nerd gets hard lesson on not stiffing teen hookers
A junior high schoolgirl prostitute in Hokkaido narrowly avoided punishment after her big sister pimp called the cops because a geekish john had run off without paying, according to Shukan Josei (11/27).Instead, the 14-year-old girl’s client, 30-year-old heater repairman Tsutomu Igarashi was arrested after he allegedly paid the girl for sex on 100 occasions from October last year until July this year after they met up through a mobile phone matchmaking service.
Nov 24 2007
Howdy folks! Just got back on line and this is late and thrown together quick….but there is a secret hidden theme in tonight’s Funkalicious Friday! See if you can figure it out and here is a hint: The first video has nothing to do with the secret theme! (hmmmmm, except maybe the year?) I just think it’s cool!
Who ever guesses what the prize for guessing right is gets a prize too!
via videosift.com
Nov 24 2007
Last week, I tried to explain as best I could what I felt could be part of a solid, sound, moral, ethical and spiritual basis to rely upon in fighting for social justice. To be a witness rather than a bystander when confronting man’s inhumanity to man. In that essay, Journey to the Core of the Human Spirit, I tried to be as substantive as I could about an aspect of ourselves that is in so many ways intangible and open to misinterpretation.
This essay will be about an even more seemingly intangible phenomenon.
It’s all well and good to have an ethical and spiritual foundation in order to fight for social justice.
But as in all dangerous and difficult quests, once you set out, obstacles appear.
My latest obstacle is not a huge one, but it is extremely irritating!
When I enter and comment in diaries about immigration (yes, over at the Great Orange Satan, but it could be anywhere among Democrats), I have found a new meme floating around. It goes something like this:
“Yeah, and if you don’t agree 100% with them then they call you a racist or a xenophobe!”
There are hundreds of variations on this tired theme. One of the most annoying (though, in retrospect, funny if it weren’t so sad) new variations I encountered was when someone said that calling a person a racist is using the “biggest beat stick” be it secular or religious and thus implying this was akin to both hate speech and, perhaps, causing someone to lose their life in a fiery explosion from hell.
So I have tried to come up with an answer to that meme, to overcome this obstacle to real dialogue.
Here is my response to this meme:
So you think being called a racist is hatemongering, eh? That it is a kind of torture? A human rights abuse? Hmm.
Let’s see …
BEING ACCUSED OF RACISM OR XENOPHOBIA ON A BLOG:
Your ego is hurt.
You may have to ‘splain a few things to your online friends
You do not lose your job.
You do not lose your home.
You do not lose your liberty.
You are not forced to visit that blog again.
You do not lose your health.
You do not lose any of your rights.EFFECTS OF RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA
Torture – your body is broken and your spirit crushed. This includes lynchings, being separated from your infant children, being beaten in detention centers or having dogs set upon you.
You lose your job.
You lose your home.
You are imprisoned and lose your liberty – you cannot leave the scene of what is harming you.
You lose your health. This includes not being allowed to take medications that you need for your health, not being allowed medical care, depression, PTSD.
You lose your rights. This includes not being allowed to call your lawyer or be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
I think there’s a difference here. One of proportionality. The former is not hatespeech. The latter is the result of hatespeech.
This may sound trivial, it’s such a laughable meme to inject into a dialogue on immigration law and policy in America. But I don’t think it is trivial. I think it is a form of deep denial, the desire, as I quoted from Helen Bamber in my previous essay, to be a bystander:
… the world is divided into two types, bystanders who see only what they want, and proper witnesses who observe and record the truth.
I feel these kinds of defensive statements bespeak a real fear, if not terror, of being a “proper witness.” Our egos seek to deny anything that threatens them, and the notion we may be racist or xenophobic and, most of all, ignorant, is something we reflexively avoid, turn away from. It takes an affirmative act of will to resist doing this, to stand and face the truth, even if it is painful, even if we find we do have prejudices and fear- and ignorance-ridden hatreds towards those unlike ourselves.
And I don’t think this obstacle I’ve tried to describe is limited to arguments on immigration, but on every issue you can think of. In order to really solve problems at the root, we first have to look at those problems without preconceptions, have the courage to see the truth.
Obstacles. Meh.
Nov 24 2007
(The following was first posted on January 7, 2007 at the Daily Kos website. It is being reprinted here as of significant interest to readers of this blog. I have no reason to believe that anything important has changed since this article was originally written. One exception might be the peregrinations undertaken by the American Psychological Association on the question of interrogations, which can be followed in numerous other articles at my blog. Another exception would be revelations that emerged during the year regarding psychologist participation in U.S. government torture, and this additional material is included in the following text in the form of an editorial emendation.)
I recently came across an FBI report on a conference jointly sponsored by the FBI and the American Psychological Association. Given the recent and ongoing controversies over the use of psychologists and other medical personnel in U.S. torture programs abroad, I thought a close examination of the matter of this conference could be interesting. — What you will read may shock you (especially if you are interested in mental health practice). It will certainly enlighten you, and help fill in the gaps that exist in our understanding of U.S. interrogation techniques, the “war on terror”, and the government campaign to curtail our liberties.
Countering Terrorism: Integration of Practice and Theory
An Invitational Conference
FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia
February 28, 2002
Sponsored by: Behavioral Science Unit, FBI Academy Science Directorate,
American Psychological Association
University of Pennsylvania, School of Arts & Sciences
and the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict
Decade of Behavior InitiativeIt was during a meeting of members of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) and members of the American Psychological Association, two large and complex bureaucracies, when the idea of an invitational conference on countering terrorism was born. The excitement of bringing together highly qualified law enforcement officers with various terrorism experts and academics was palpable.
(All quotes from the report are linked here, and found on the FBI’s own servers.)
Susan Brandon: Top Psychologist for the Bush Administration?
The FBI report begins with an introduction by a member of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) and two members of the American Psychological Association (APA). Of the latter, the first listed is Susan Brandon, Ph.D., “Senior Scientist”. The second is Geoffrey K. Mumford, Ph.D., “Director of Science Policy” at APA.
Susan Brandon, it should be noted, is:
…the Behavioral & Social Science Principal at the Mitre Corporation (a company highly linked to U.S. Air Defense). In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Dr. Brandon served as APA’s senior scientist, and later as Assistant Director of Social, Behavioral, and Educational Sciences for the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy…. In December 2005, she was awarded the American Psychological Association (APA) Presidential Citation in “recognition of her visionary efforts to promote the value of the psychological and behavioral sciences as they apply to our counter-terrorism, homeland security, and national security interests”. (LINK)
Brandon went on to become an instrumental member of the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBES) Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council‘s Committees on Science and Homeland and National Security. As Geoffrey Mumford wrote in an article for the APA in 2005, Brandon
… joined the SBES Subcommittee to guide the interagency initiative on behalf of President Bush’s science adviser. At APA, Brandon had helped steer much of the association’s scientific outreach relevant to counter-terrorism after 9/11.
Reflecting on her role and the ongoing work being conducted through NSTC, Brandon noted “the SBES Subcommittee is an opportunity for the social and behavioral sciences to have a voice and a presence at the table that is unique in recent Washington policy processes.”
The result of Brandon’s participation was a report, Combating Terrorism: Research Priorities in the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. Much in this fairly innocuous and insubstantial report came from material discussed at the Quantico conference, which is the subject of this diary.
What was left out, as always, is what is most telling: the concrete policies and roles determined for psychologists in the U.S. Homeland Security apparatus, and the changes that will have to take place in American psychology for this to take place.
What emerges is a portrait of institutional American psychology — and its top leadership — eager to have front seats at the spoils table that is capturing the billions of dollars flowing into national security in the wake of 9/11. (One is reminded of the participation of former APA president and top U.S. psychologist, Martin Seligman, in discussions on psychological debility via learned helplessness at SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape], a military program implicated in a famous New Yorker expose in the development of torture techniques used by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo.)
(Author’s Note: Since this article was originally written, the development of torture techniques by psychologists working for SERE and the CIA was confirmed in a report by the Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The story had earlier been pieced together in large part by journalists Jane Mayer and Michael Otterman. Their work was put into context of the OIG report by psychologist-activst Stephen Soldz in a terrific article last May.)
The Quantico Conference “Scenarios”
On February 28, 2002, more than 70 academic scholars and researchers, and personnel from justice, intelligence and law enforcement agencies, met at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia….
The participants, roughly half academic scholars and researchers and half law enforcement personnel, dispersed into seven small groups to discuss scenarios that had been developed before the conference by the FBI. These scenarios described some of the current problems that the FBI, other law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies are facing as they try to discover cadres of terrorists or those who harbor them, as well as deter support for terrorism by individuals, designated groups, and communities.
What kind of scenarios were discussed?
Scenario 1: A trustworthy local businessman reports suspicious activity by an apparently Middle Eastern neighbor….
Problem: This scenario was viewed as quite typical of the many that have come through local police and FBI offices since 9/11. The problem is how to develop an effective triage system…
Strategies: Make use of data gathering/vetting systems already in use in other situations, such as in the medical and legal professions.
In other words, here the FBI is describing the need to develop better Information Evaluation Systems.
Other scenarios posit other intelligence conundrums and proposes strategies to address the problems involved (on community relations, interrogation, data mining, etc.).
Confidentiality, Ethics Codes, and the Need for Government Informers
Of interest are those scenarios that touch on issues of how mental health professionals conduct their business, especially when it comes to issues of confidentiality.
Scenario 2a: ….A woman contacts her psychologist from whom she has been receiving therapy for the past year for bouts with depression. She reports that she has just learned that a friend of her 19-year-old son appears to be recruiting her son for a martyrdom mission. This friend has voiced some fundamental Islamic beliefs that are very anti-American. The woman has overheard worrisome conversations between her son and his friend but had tried to discount their significance until her son revealed today that he was asked to become a Martyr for an unspecified attack against the United States. He is very concerned that his friend is involved in something that may be planned for the near future. They are afraid to report this to the police because her son has a juvenile record and he is somewhat anti-American himself. They are naturalized citizens of the United States after having moved here from Iran many years ago.
The joint FBI/APA report purports that this situation described in this scenario “is not covered explicitly by the American Psychological Association’s (APA’s) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.” What does that code say?
5.05 Disclosures. (a) Psychologists disclose confidential information without the consent of the individual only as mandated by law, or where permitted by law for a valid purpose, such as (1) to provide needed professional services to the patient or the individual or organizational client, (2) to obtain appropriate professional consultations, (3) to protect the patient or client or others from harm, or (4) to obtain payment for services, in which instance disclosure is limited to the minimum that is necessary to achieve the purpose.
So, what is not clear here? There are no individuals here who are identified as being harmed. But, if the patient or her son are concerned about future developments, they can always go on their own to the police or FBI. Scenarios such as these are routinely discussed in ethics courses. Most state laws mandate a disclosure under Tarasoff rules, which state that “a psychotherapist has a duty to protect or warn a third party only if the therapist actually believed or predicted that the patient posed a serious risk of inflicting serious bodily injury upon a reasonably identifiable victim”.
Quantico and the Recent Judicial Attacks on Confidentiality
In a recent development, in 2004 the California Appeals Court, in Ewing v Goldstein, the court expanded the Tarasoff rules in a way that may affect the discussion here. In this decision, the Appeals Court upheld a case, wherein “The court saw no difference between threats conveyed directly by the patient and those related by an immediate family member of the patient.”
But, in all the years before this decision, the psychologist had no obligation to report the client’s son’s friend to anybody. Indeed, it would have been unethical, if not illegal, to do so! Robert Kinscherff, a forensic psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School wrote to Susan Brandon:
The law that permits or requires a psychologist to break confidentiality in order to protect third parties from potential violence is the closest body of law to the scenario. However, this law contemplates that it is the client/patient who poses the serious threat of harm to a third party; it does not contemplate violation of the confidentiality of the client/patient if the client/patient is not the source of the risk of harm.
There is no specific mention of national-security related issues in the Code, and I am unaware of any APA policy document or guidelines document that refers to national security issues as they might arise in the practice of psychology.
The Code as currently worded would actually permit breaking of confidentiality despite the patient’s/client’s wishes in the “national security risk from a third party” scenario BUT ONLY IF there were applicable state or federal law that MANDATED the breaking of confidentiality or PERMITTED the breaking of confidentiality in order to protect the client/patient or others (see, for example, 5.05(3) which permits disclosure to protect others if mandated or permitted by law).
Gee, too bad there is no such law…. Oops — with the recent ruling, Ewing v Goldstein, now there is! As the Church Lady used to say, Isn’t that precious?
But, seriously, is there any connection between the FBI/APA discussion in 2002 and the decisions made narrowing confidentiality laws for psychotherapists two years later? I don’t know. But in the Quantico conference document, the FBI explicitly lays out its strategies on this:
Seek guidance from the American Psychological Association and state psychological associations to consider:
?? Including statements regarding information related to national security in its code of ethics;
?? Broadening training programs to include instruction on how to deal with such situations, and
?? Teaching clinicians and clinical students how to become familiar with various law enforcement agencies and rules, and how to deal with third parties such as probation officers.
APA: Agents for the Government?
To make matters even more clear, the FBI tells the APA what it should be doing. And not only the APA, but teachers, the clergy, and anyone else who might be a source of solace, confession, and counseling in this country, making the latter into spies for the “war on terror”:
There is a need for the American Psychological Association and state psychological associations to develop an ethical code for practitioners for instances where a client may have information relevant to terrorism (similar to other mandates that already exist, such as those for instances of abuse of children and the elderly and a client’s intention to harm himself or another person). Such instances are peculiar because they involve third-party harm. Psychologists need to be trained for what behaviors to look for, and how to report information to law enforcement while protecting the client and their family and community. This may include some kinds of cross-cultural training. The APA may have to work with legislatures and licensing boards regarding some of these issues. Similar training and issues of confidentiality need to be considered for the training of clergy, teachers, and physicians.
Even more amazing, given the joint FBI/APA nature of the report, is the FBI’s “suggestion” to the APA:
It was suggested that the APA might develop guidelines for such reporting, and offer these to other agencies (school systems, social services), where appropriate.
HIPAA and National Security Disclosures
Then, a year or so after Quantico, the federal government implemented its new rules on privacy and medical information. The new privacy rule of the Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), now effective law since April 2003, states:
Patients have the right to receive an accounting of disclosures of protected health information made by their providers in the six years prior to the date on which the accounting is requested, except for disclosures….
4. for national security or intelligence purposes
5. to correctional institutions or law inforcement officers [emphasis in original]
I don’t know when this language was put in, but it correlates perfectly with the intent of the authors of the Quantico document. In any case, the developments regarding patient confidentiality have eroded the latter significantly in the past ten years, and the leadership of the American Psychological Association, while giving lip service to protecting confidentiality, has been quick to chuck its scruples when anything regarding national security — or big bucks to get in on the hogfeed that is national science funding — is at stake. With this being said, potentially with the use of scanning software, important details of patients shouldn’t be put at risk. Less physical documents mean there will be less of a chance of people having access to this sort of information. Of course, if you are sharing documents online then you need to make sure that you have a secure enough system that will keep your documents safe when you share them online. So it’s important that companies have things like this Legal Software from DPS to help ensure that their documents are safe and secure online.
My Main Point
When the APA published its own article on the conference in November 2003, it never mentioned the changes in confidentiality laws and ethics codes proposed by the FBI, neither opposing or supporting them. You would never know from reading the APA’s account that such tremendous changes in standard ethical practice were being proposed, or that the APA was to take the lead in making these changes throughout the larger medical and social services field.
The silence of the APA on this issue is deafening. The leaders of the APA have fudged the question of use of psychologists in national security interrogations that hold “enemy combatants”, and where torture has taken place. The leaders of the APA would allow use of psychologists in Army interrogations where use of isolation, sleep deprivation, and inducement of fear and debility take place (see my earlier article on the “new” Army field interrogation manual). The leaders of the APA would like to be seen as enthusiastic cheerleaders of the neocon war on terror, as handmaidens to the organization of state security, in the name of providing “knowledge”. In the meantime, they would turn every psychologist, psychiatrist, doctor, counselor, clergyman and teacher into government informants and spies.
I invite members of the APA, especially from its hierarchy, to respond to this diary/article.
Nov 24 2007
I gave myself an assignment on Tuesday. I decided I needed to write about one of those topics I have the hardest time with. I assigned myself the the topic of Hate. I’ve also had difficulty writing about Love.
Go figure.
Once upon a time I appeared in an anti-hate commercial, part of the the Hate Free Zones campaign sponsored by the Arkansas Progressive Network back in the late 90s.
My partner (at the time) and were seen walking along the riverfront in Little Rock, an interracial lesbian couple, one of us transsexual and the other bisexual. The commercial displayed all sorts of human targets of hate, set to the music of INXS’ Mediate. The final video scenes showed the burned out station wagon at the scene of slaying of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.
I was asked to participate on a panel to discuss hatred and how it affected the community. There I was on the dais. There was a pastor from a local church and the head of the Arkansas ACLU at the time and a PFLAG representative. We were each asked to…or was it allowed to…give a brief introduction. I went last. I gave the obvious spontaneous response:
Hi. I’m Robyn Serven…and it appears I am here to represent the targets of hate.
I then read the following prepared piece.
I am a human being.
When I was a child, I was a crybaby. I was very sensitive to personal slights, perhaps overly so, but that depends on one’s point of view. Did I deserve to be punished for that? Because punishment is what happens when adults stand by and let some kids pick on other kids because “it is for their own good,” justifying their inaction by saying, “Boys will be boys.” Some children enjoy the role of bully too much for us to stand by and do nothing. Surely the school-shootings in the past few years have taught us that. But more important, no child deserves to be picked on because they are emotional. The world needs sensitive people. Why do we allow that to be stomped out of children? Being sensitive is a good thing. For that matter, no child deserves to be picked on for any reason, like that they wear glasses or are large or small. Children should be safe from torture at the hands of bullies. The safety of our children should be everyone’s concern. Safety is a basic human right.
I am a human being.
I am a teacher. I have chosen to spend my life trying to improve the minds of young adults. That task is made a lot more difficult when some of them are told that they aren’t worth as much as the others, that their value to society is determined by the color of their skin or their cultural heritage or their gender or their sexual orientation or their size or their social or economic status or anything other than how they can develop their minds and their individual talents and how thoroughly they carry out their obligations. Judging them on any other basis is unfair. And I believe that fairness is a basic human value.
I am a human being.
I am a PFLAG parent. My daughter will be 30 years old later this year. When she was eighteen, she told us she was a lesbian. I can’t for the life of me understand any brand of family value that would result in me discarding children because they are lesbian or gay or bisexual or transgender. I can’t imagine anything that my daughter could do or say that would cause me to cease loving her, especially not that she loves someone. I will always want her to be happy. I will always want what is best for her. My kid was a good kid then and is a terrific person now. I feel very protective toward her. Anyone who has bad things to say about her for any reason needs to back off. Anyone who thinks that she deserves a lesser life than anyone else is going to have a battle on their hands. I stand up for my child. And that’s what I call the true value of family.
I am a human being.
I am a transsexual woman. I call myself a woman because we’re only allowed two choices and I have rejected the other one. Six and a half years ago, I began my own personal odyssey in search of personal fulfilment, which happened to include ceasing to live my life in the role of a man. I did what I thought was best for me. I took control of my life. I can’t imagine trying to tell anyone else how to live their life, but I encountered a whole bunch of people, people who had never met me, who decided that how I lived my life was very much their concern. And without even talking to me to find out who I was or how I viewed life, many of them summarily declassified me as a human being. I became a thing. I was something to be shunned, an evil that needed to be eradicated, a shameful blotch on the face of humanity. I was the subject of vicious lies. People who were nice to me became the subject of rumors. People looked through me or talked about me like I wasn’t even there. I was isolated from any sense of community. Some people thought I should lose my job; it didn’t matter to them how good I was at it. One church thought I could be shamed out of town and so orchestrated a letter-writing campaign to the local newspaper. Fortunately, I’m not ashamed of who I am or what I have done. In a land which proclaims freedom of religion, morality doesn’t come from just one source, and I’ve been very true to my moral and ethical standards (Thank you very much!). I’m proud of who I am and what I have done in this life. Humans need to be proud of who they are. And they deserve the right to change, to improve themselves in any way that they deem right for themselves. All people deserve the right to decide just who they are as individuals. That’s just a basic part of being human.
I am a human being.
I call myself gender-variant. I live on what some people believe is the rigid dividing line between the classes of men and women. From this perspective, sexual orientation becomes rather meaningless. If I were attracted to men, I’d be called a fag. Since I’m attracted to women, I’m called a dyke. The truth of the matter is that I’m just different. If someone wants to claim a gender label, then it’s fine with me, but I don’t see why it is necessary for anyone to claim a gender, let alone have one thrust upon them. My gender is quite a personal matter and should be of concern only to me and my close friends. At base, we are all just human beings. And I think it is good when human beings love and it is bad when they hate, regardless of who is loved or who is hated. Hating people because of whom they love is insanity. Killing people because of whom they love is an offense against humanity.
I am a human being.
We are all just human beings. I’m sure that you have been informed by now that we stand at the dawn of a new millennium. That time division we are approaching is just as arbitrary as any other division we humans have made. But the divisions we make of time and space don’t affect us as seriously as do the ways we carve up humanity. If we wish this looming time division to have some special meaning, let us dedicate ourselves to removing the boundaries we place between us and around us, so that each individual has the opportunity to reach full potential. It is time for us to start pulling together rather than pulling apart. It is time for us all to be human beings…and to start honoring our common humanity.
I’m still stumbling around trying to dredge up words to express thoughts coalescing…if I can get them to do so…around the subject of hate.
At times like this I sometimes turn to art in order to get myself into the mood. But on this subject, I’m rather at a loss.
What are the colors of hate?
I shall still try to grasp it in some way, but I doubt if I will ever understand it. I only have the target’s view. I don’t know that it is sufficient. I don’t know how to hate people. I am pleased with that state of affairs.
Hate lives in the dark places…of the mind, heart and soul…and too often is carved in blood on its targets.
That some folks seem to think hate is a necessary form of expression, to the point where they think it should be so protected by the first amendment that hate crimes laws should be opposed pains me greatly.
In the next breath people defend their rights. But some of us do not have those rights. The problem with always defending is that when it comes time to push back against the barriers of darkness, the defenders usually don’t show up.
I would be more thankful if people could think beyond protecting the rights they have, to capture the thought that there are people who do not have those same rights…and never have had. It’s not sufficient to defend your rights. You must show up when it comes time to push back against the barriers of darkness and grant rights to people who have never been protected before.
Nov 24 2007
From the master of such things as left overs… I give you Martha Stewart’s take on the day after…
Leftovers can serve as the main ingredients for dishes you might not otherwise make. Sliced turkey can become the main ingredient in an open-faced sandwich, a turkey-and-green-chile burrito, or a turkey-salad sandwich. Leftover mashed potatoes can be used to make gnocchi or a potato-chive souffle; sweet potatoes can be turned into sweet-potato biscuits or sweet-potato butter. Even the turkey bones can have a second life: Use them as the basis of a delicious turkey stock, which can be frozen for up to four months and used in any recipe calling for chicken stock.
So, what do you do with your left overs?
Nov 23 2007
And, so it should be. Self-described Democrats are generally better educated than Republicans, and they are more likely to view society as an interrelated system that is as strong as its weakest links. Thus, Democrats are more inclined to care about the health and welfare their fellowman.
According to a recent Heritage Foundation study, Democrats control the majority of the country’s wealthiest congressional jurisdictions. Most of Americas wealthiest households are located in the 18 states where Democrats control both Senate seats. The Heritage Foundation looked at two categories of taxpayers: single filers with income above $100,000 and married filers with income above $200,000.
Are they wealthy because they are Democrats?
Or, are they Democrats because they are wealthy?
An article about this Heritage Foundation Study, written by conservative Michael Franc, was originally published in the Financial Times. Franc, clearly surprised by the findings, starts rationally enough by asking a provocative question:
A legislative proposal that was once on the fast track is suddenly dead. The Senate will not consider a plan to extract billions in extra taxes from megamillionaire hedge fund managers.
The decision by Senate majority leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat, surprised many Washington insiders, who saw the plan as appealing to the spirit of class warfare that infuses the Democratic party. Liberal disappointment in Mr Reid was palpable at media outlets such as USA Today, where an editorial chastised: “The Democrats, who control Congress and claim to represent the middle and lower classes, ought to be embarrassed.”
Far from embarrassing, this episode may reflect a dawning Democratic awareness of whom they really represent.
Now, Franc’s Neocon spew about “a plan to extract billions in extra taxes from hedge fund managers” is the first hint that the guy is becoming unhinged. The issue is — whether fund managers should pay the same rate of income taxes as all other Americans. Currently, billionaire fund managers pay only 15 percent because their highly-paid tax attorneys argue that their “overlords” ordinary income is actually capital gains.)
Still, Franc does bring up a salient point. If the election issue of 2008 is the economy, why would Reid table this? It is directly connected to the subprime debacle that will be destroying so many American lives, come this spring.
From this point on, the article gets quite interesting. Not because of its content, but because of the underlying psychology that it reveals. Here’s where Franc’s cheese begins to slip off his cracker.
And here’s where the true autistic nature of the Republican mindset comes into full view. By “autistic” I mean that Republicans lack the ability to feel true empathy for others — or to understand how someone could have a motive in life that does not serve one’s own self-interest. The closest empathetic sensation an off-the-shelf Republican seems to feel, is to imagine their own non-existance had their mothers had an abortion. Hence, the near-hysterical pro-life forced-pregnancy stance on the Right.
Stage One — The Peevishness
For the demographic reality is that, in America, the Democratic party is the new “party of the rich”. More and more Democrats represent areas with a high concentration of wealthy households.
Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, represents one of America’s wealthiest regions. Her San Francisco district has more than 43,700 high-end households. Fewer than 7,000 households in the western Ohio district of House Republican leader John Boehner enjoy this level of affluence.
The next rung of House leadership shows the same pattern. Democratic majority leader Steny Hoyer’s district is home to the booming suburban communities between Washington, DC, and Annapolis. It boasts almost 19,000 wealthy households and a median income topping $62,000. Mr Hoyer’s counterpart, minority whip Roy Blunt, hails from a rural Missouri district that has only 5,200 wealthy households and whose median income is only $33,000.
Stage Two — The Name Calling
Income disparity – to use the class warrior’s favourite term – is greatest among the districts of lawmakers that lead each party’s campaign arm [the ability to raise money]…. Soon this new political demographic may give traditional purveyors of class warfare the yips.
Democratic politicians prosper in areas of concentrated wealth even in staunchly Republican states such as Georgia, Kansas and Utah. Liberal congressman John Lewis represents more than 27,500 high-income households in his Atlanta district. The trend achieves perfect symmetry in Iowa. There, the three wealthiest districts send Democrats to Washington; the two poorest are safe Republican seats.
Stage Three — The Disconnect
To comply with new budget rules, liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill are readying a tax increase of at least $1,000bn over the next decade. Ms Pelosi says she wants to extract all of this from “the wealthy”. When has a party ever championed a policy that would inflict so much pain on its own constituency? At what point will affluent Democrats crack and mount a Blue State tax rebellion?
Stage Four — The Ranting
Will we see the emergence of a real-life Howard Beale, the television anchorman played by Peter Finch in the movie Network ? Beale was disgusted with America’s deteriorating 1970s economy and culture. One night he snapped and implored viewers to get out of their chairs. “Go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell: ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more!’ ”
Or will Democratic voters follow a different cinematic lead, that of the fraternity pledge in Animal House? Perhaps they will accept these tax rises as a political and economic hazing and greet each new tax hike with: “Thank you, sir. May I have another?”
As a reductionist, I seek the beginnings of things, the seeds of change, the fundamental underlying principles that hurdle trends and collapse waves of probability.
The self-sacrific of an individual for the greater good is a concept for which Republicans have absolutely no neuroreceptors. They could never imagine this urge in themselves and cannot conceive of it in others. So they project all of their deepest fears on altruistic actions.
For example, Warren Buffet is the new Republican Satan because he believes he is taxed less than his secretary.
This is the gulf that divides and cannot be crossed.
It is not intellectual.
It is biological.
Nov 23 2007
Some afternoon news and open thread.
The Los Angeles Times reports on Justice Stevens and the tipping point. “Justice John Paul Stevens, 87, last week became the second-oldest justice in the Supreme Court’s history… Although Stevens has given no hint of retiring and shows no sign of slowing down — in the courtroom, he looks and sounds much as he did 20 years ago — the question of his tenure looms over the court and the 2008 presidential campaign. If there is a tipping point in the Supreme Court’s future, it is likely to come with his departure. What kind of justice would replace him — and how strong the court’s slim conservative majority would be — may well depend on who is elected president.”
The Guardian reports another person has been killed by police in Canada by Taser. So, Inquiries launched after Canadian stun gun deaths. “Canadian authorities have launched urgent reviews into the safety of Taser stun guns following two recent deaths. Yesterday, a 45-year-old man died while in police custody after being shocked by the 5,000-volt weapon… Canada’s provincial Nova Scotia government today began an inquiry into Thursday’s death. Police said the victim had been taken into custody on assault charges just after midnight on Wednesday, when he became violent. The man then tried to escape from the police station, but one officer used a stun gun to shoot him in the thigh. Emergency services took the victim to hospital where he was assessed, deemed to be healthy, and released back into police custody. The man, whose identity has not yet been released, died 30 hours after being shocked.”
The Denver Post reports Polis blogging from Baghdad about the war. “Congressional candidate Jared Polis, in a late-night blogging session from his Baghdad hotel, said Wednesday that all U.S. senators and representatives should see the war firsthand. The Boulder Democrat.. was hit with few confrontational questions during his hour-long blog chat on the political website coloradoconfidential.com. Polis, a multimillionaire Internet entrepreneur, acknowledged he is covering his trip expenses as well as those of the Mile High United Way representative traveling with him.” Polis has also been posting on Daily Kos.
According to The Christian Science Monitor, On election eve, Australia’s opposition leader says climate change is his no. 1 priority. “Kevin Rudd, a bookish former diplomat who heads the opposition Labor Party, has pledged to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, a move which would leave the US as the only developed nation not to have ratified the treaty. Mr. Rudd, a fluent Chinese speaker, has also promised to withdraw Australia’s small but politically significant contingent of 550 combat troops from Iraq… [Rudd] said he would personally represent Australia at a UN climate change meeting of environment ministers next month in Bali to discuss the next stage of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Ratifying the Kyoto treaty would be a radical departure from Prime Minister John Howard, a climate change skeptic and close friend of US President Bush. ‘Australia needs new leadership on climate change. Mr. Howard remains in a state of denial,’ Rudd said.”
There’s a bonus story below the fold…
The Miami Herald reports Herb Saffir of Saffir-Simpson Scale dies.
Herbert Saffir, co-creator of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale and a persistent advocate of strong building codes, has died. He was 90…
Soft-spoken but determined and active almost to the end, Saffir began developing the five-category hurricane scale during the late 1960s.
He soon enlisted the assistance of Robert Simpson, then director of the hurricane center in West Miami-Dade County, and their system of rating the destructive capability of hurricanes on the basis of wind speed and storm surge moved into common usage during the mid-1970s.
Now, it is mentioned so frequently that a sort of shorthand has taken hold. Category 1. Category 2. Category 5. The words ”Saffir-Simpson” rarely appear in the media, a development that annoyed Saffir’s relatives and close associates, but he never made a big deal over it.
So, what else is happening?
Nov 23 2007
I refuse to go shopping today. But having the day off from work did give me some time to think about what to do with my holiday gift list. Being the couch-potato pajama-blogging slouch that I am, I thought I’d look around the internet for some good ideas.
I don’t buy for many people, but one of my biggest challenges is buying for my 7 neices and nephews. They range in age from 10-19 and none of them live near me. I haven’t seen most of them for over a year. Now that they are mostly into adolescence, the line between kewl and nerdy is pretty thin and I don’t want to make any mistakes. For years I bought them books for birthdays and christmas. But I just don’t know enough about their tastes to pick well this year.
Finally, all but one of them live in consumer-driven Dallas, Texas. They are being productively molded by that culture and the holidays are a crash course in the art of always wanting more “stuff.”
So I was looking at the possibility of giving them a donation to something like Heifer International. From everything I hear, this is a great organization. But as I look around the site, for my purposes, I don’t think its quite right. There’s not enough there to engage these young people. I can just see them getting a notice that I’ve donated chickens in their name and them saying, “Yeah, ok. Now on to the next gift.”
And then I found TisBest Charity online. You buy a gift card and the recipient goes online to choose from over 200 charities it can be donated to. On the website, the charities are grouped into categories including: animals, art and culture, building community, children, disabilities, education, environmental, health, homelessness, human rights, humanitarian, hunger, peace and non-violence, senior citizens, sports and recreation, and women’s issues. Each individual charity that is listed within those categories has a brief description and a link to their web site.
Here’s a sample of what the emailed gift card looks like (they have quite a beautiful selection of different images to go on the card):
So each of these young people will receive a bit of cash for themselves (always an easy bet for teenagers) and a TisBest Gift Card for the same amount. What a great way to teach young people about these causes and about philanthropy!!
Nov 23 2007
The Associated Press reports:
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq shortly after the fall of Baghdad, said this week he supports Democratic legislation that calls for most troops to come home within a year.
The remarks will be aired Saturday, as part of the weekly Democratic radio address, and right wing blowholes will undoubtedly begin emitting noxious fumes about General Sanchez hating America. Let the facts speak for themselves: General Sanchez was there; he knows what he’s talking about; the gasbag pundits sit in hermetically sealed sound studios spewing lies.
The legislation, passed by the House, blocked by Senate Republicans, and threatened with a veto by Bush, would have paid for further combat operations, while setting a goal to end combat operations by the middle of next December. It wasn’t even a hard demand to end combat operations, but even just setting such a goal was too odious for the chickenhawk warmongers of the Republican Party.
The Pentagon, of course, announced on Tuesday that they will begin laying off up to 200,000 civilian employees and contractors, unless Congress passes a bill Bush will sign. Nice framing, that. What the Pentagon really means is that they will start laying off 200,000 civilian employees unless the spoiled brat Bush gets his way.
General Sanchez takes a certain blaming-the-victim angle to his explanation, pointing out that our troops are sacrificing life and limb for an Iraqi government that continues to fail to govern. Of course, after blowing their country all to hell, failing to repair the damage, and inciting a civil war, while the majority of foreign fighters entering the country to add to the mayhem come from our ostensible allies, it’s probably not the easiest thing in the world for the factions of our puppet government to settle millenia-old differences. Even so, there’s also a pragmatic realism to the general’s comments, for the Iraqi political leaders are continually failing to meet the benchmarks that are supposed to measure their progress. They are, in fact, not doing the job our troops are supposedly there to give them a chance to do.
“There is no evidence that the Iraqis will choose to do so in the near future or that we have an ability to force that result,” he said.
Sanchez added that the House bill “makes the proper preparation of our deploying troops a priority and requires the type of shift in their mission that will allow their numbers to be reduced substantially.”
Meanwhile, the cost to our troops has once again been revealed to have been understated. USA Today reports:
At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of brain injuries, according to military and veterans records compiled by USA TODAY.
The data, provided by the Army, Navy and Department of Veterans Affairs, show that about five times as many troops sustained brain trauma as the 4,471 officially listed by the Pentagon through Sept. 30. These cases also are not reflected in the Pentagon’s official tally of wounded, which stands at 30,327.
There’s not much more to say, except this: end the war and bring the troops home!
Nov 23 2007
For starters, I must give a hat tip to my good friend, thereisnospoon, for mentioning this frame on our BlogTalkRadio show, “Don’t Hijack My Thread!” when I was talking about how Rudy’s tremendous and consistent showing of bad judgment when it comes to who he aligns himself with and what his major decisions and actions are.
And for anyone who still can overlook his lack of “family values” when it comes to multiple marriages, or his (conflicting) views on a woman’s right to privacy in her personal and medical decisions, surely will at least be a bit disturbed by the fact that Guiliani is closer with the corrupt and indicted Bernard Kerik than he is with his own children. Whether this kills him in the primary battle or the general election, I think this is a simple and direct reminder of what the “strong on crime former Federal prosecutor” Rudolph Giuliani deems to be important when choosing his relationships.
There are so many things that are so very wrong with Rudy that it should be easy to articulate most of them in bite size pieces that would stick with the general or voting public. Generally, they all focus on Rudy’s incredible lack of good judgment and poor decision making on very important matters. Even more important, however, is the fact that his one major perceived strength – strong on crime and “national security” – can so very easily be knocked down by highlighting his close relationship with a corrupt police chief.
The purposeful distancing from his campaign by his own children leaves the door open to really stick in the side of the fundies or other republicans who claim “moral or family values” to be very important for their vote. there are some real good juicy tidbits of just how good a father Rudy is in this article from March:
Mr. Giuliani’s relationship with Andrew has grown strained and distant since his very public and bitter divorce from Andrew’s mother, Donna Hanover, and his marriage to Judith Nathan, according to Andrew and others familiar with the relationship.
—snip—
“There’s obviously a little problem that exists between me and his wife,” the younger Mr. Giuliani said. “And we’re trying to figure that out. But as of right now it’s not working as well as we would like.”
Andrew Giuliani said he would not participate in his father’s campaign, saying his devotion to becoming a professional golfer within three years allows no time for distraction.
—snip—
Some campaign Web sites highlight pictures of candidates with family members, but Mr. Giuliani’s does not mention his children, though it includes photographs and mentions of Ms. Nathan.
—snip—
Mr. Giuliani once prided himself on attending all his children’s events and went to Andrew’s high school football games and Caroline’s plays. But he stopped at some point after his marriage to Ms. Nathan in 2003. He missed his son’s graduation, in 2005, and his daughter’s plays in the last 18 months, said people who attended those events.
Let’s be clear here – this is not a knock on his children, nor is it anything that will drag them into the spotlight. Frankly, it isn’t even ABOUT his children, really. The point here is that Rudy doesn’t even mention his children on his campaign website, and doesn’t even attend his children’s major life events
Now, let’s look at Rudy and his corrupt/indicted buddy Bernard Kerik. Well, for starters, the corrupt former Police Chief was CEO of Giuliani-Kerik LLC, an affiliate of Giuliani Partners LLC until his embarrassing nomination for Homeland Security Chief. The key here is that either Rudy truly did not know about the depth of corruption and illegal acts by his good friend (who he trusted as CEO of one of his companies, and nominated for the top Homeland Security position) and is therefore unfit for President due to having such poor judgment or he DID know about the depths of Kerik’s corruption and illegal acts, making him unfit for President based on knowingly associating himself so closely with corrupt criminals.
He was also a former driver for Giuliani and detective before becoming Rudy’s Police Chief. Now, say what you want about what a driver knows about his employer, but wasn’t the driver of another very famous and wanted man stuck at Gitmo because of his “connections” and had his case heard by the US Supreme Court?
And lest anyone think that even Guiliani is distancing himself from the corrupt and tax cheat Kerik, there is this little nugget from the LA Times article linked above:
Although Giuliani said last week that the two men had not talked recently, they were professionally and personally close. The former mayor is godfather to Kerik's daughter, and Kerik wrote in his autobiography that Giuliani had "made" him.
Press reports have indicated that before Kerik's appointment as police commissioner, a New York City official briefed Giuliani about Kerik's ties to a New Jersey waste disposal company that is at the heart of the federal indictment. Giuliani has not disputed those reports, but maintains he doesn't remember the briefings.
And yes, Rudy is defending Kerik, not distancing himself from him. Once again, if Rudy doesn’t remember briefings about Kerik’s ties to a company at the heart of a federal indictment, then doesn’t that cut right to the heart of his “experience and strength in law enforcement”? Either he didn’t remember those briefings – pretty damning briefings about one of his closest friends and professional partners – and isn’t really strong on crime and law enforcement or he DID remember those briefings and is a liar who is not strong on crime and law enforcement as he would then be covering up his knowledge of this information.
In either event, it is very telling and shows just what Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani finds important, and who he chooses to align himself closely with.
A corrupt tax cheating criminal over his own children. What strength against crime and corruption. And what a great dad – always being there for his children as they enter adulthood. A great model for his kids – showing them that he cares more about his corrupt buddies than he does about them.