Oak Ridge, Tenn. - Not a Free Speech Zone

A new sanitized, or censored, edition of the student newspaper is being distributed today, according to Superintendent Tom Bailey.

The new approved edition will not say a word about birth control. The body art article will be seriously revised.

Remarkably, the Oak Ridge High School student newspaper (sic) will not say a word about the censorship controversy that has made international news.

All 1,800 copies of the student paper, The Oak Leaf, were seized last week when school officials objected to the content.

Student-authored articles on birth control and body art sent principal Becky Ervin and Superintendent Tom Bailey into the equivalent of old-time Victorian fainting spells.

But stamping out free speech in the student population is not the only mission of Oak Ridge school officials. The Superintendent has ordered Wanda Grooms, English teacher and the adviser for the paper, "not to speak to reporters about the controversy."

According to reporter Bob Fowler, at the Knoxville News Sentinel, the principal of Oak Ridge High, Becky Ervin "has never been available for comment."

I wonder who else has been forbidden to speak. Superintendent Tom Bailey does appear to have a thing for control.

Knox News Sentinel (Vote in the paper's online poll):

Press organizations and First Amendment experts have been united in voicing strong opposition to the administration's decision.

"I just don't understand why the fine Oak Ridge High School is damaging its reputation in this fashion,'' University of Tennessee journalism professor Dwight Teeter said.

"I thought there was going to be some sort of accommodation reached,'' he said. "This sounds like they're drawing a line in the sand.''

"This school's actions are teaching a lesson more appropriate for prewar Iraq than for the United States of America,'' said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center.

The 10-member board of directors of the East Tennessee chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists "strongly opposes'' the censorship, according to an open letter to Bailey sent Tuesday.

The board says Ervin pulled the two articles "because of subject matter alone, which violates the First Amendment and is contrary to the Supreme Court's ruling for a student newspaper traditionally operated as a public forum within the high school.''

The student editor [Brittany Thomas] said she thinks the issue reflects badly on the school and state.

"I see this going to court,'' she said. She said both the American Civil Liberties Union and the Student Press Law Center "are going against what happened here.''

Students might want to consider a name change for the student newspaper.

Any suggestions?

I vote for: The Pravda Times.

Read the censored articles and a school district press release at the Student Press Law Center.

Previous Posts:
Oak Ridge Students Fighting For Liberty
Ignorance Got Me Pregnant
School Censors Birth Control Information

Censorship Free Press In News First Amendment Birth Control Contraception Feminism Reproductive Rights

Men Forbidden to Sit Next to Children

No, the Matriarchy hasn't arrived. But men are forbidden to sit next to children on the flights of two New Zealand airlines. This has been the policy for at least a year now.

In the interests of protecting children, only women may sit next to unaccompanied children.

Discrimination?

Or do you want your unaccompanied child to be seated next to a man?

Air New Zealand and Qantas have banned men from sitting next to unaccompanied children on flights, sparking accusations of discrimination. . . .

A Qantas spokesman confirmed the Australian airline, which operates domestic flights in New Zealand, does not allow unaccompanied children to sit next to men. The spokesman said the airline believed it was what customers wanted.

Air New Zealand spokeswoman Rosie Paul said the airline had a similar policy to that of Qantas'.

"Airlines are temporary guardians of unaccompanied minors so we have preferred seating for them."

Ms Paul said Air New Zealand tried to seat children near a crew area so crew could keep an eye on them and, when possible, children were seated next to an empty seat.

"Sometimes this isn't possible, so the preference is to seat a female passenger next door to an unaccompanied minor."

When the Herald asked her if the airline considered male passengers to be dangerous to children, Ms Paul replied: "That's not what I said."

When it was put to her that that was the implication of the policy, she repeated: "No, that's not what I said."

Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro said she commended the airlines for putting thought into the policy and for endeavouring to keep children safe.

Dr Kiro said she did not think it was intended to be a slur against men.

Hat tip from Talkleft

Gender Discrimination Politics Patriarchy Sexual Predators Pedophilia Feminism

Dowd: The Autumn of the Patriarchy

The Autumn of the Patriarchy
By Maureen Dowd

In the vice president’s new, more fortified bunker, inside his old undisclosed secure location within the larger bunker that used to be called the West Wing of the White House, Dick Cheney was muttering and sputtering.

He wasn’t talking to the pictures on the wall, as Nixon did when he finally cracked. Vice doesn’t trust those portraits anyway. The walls have ears. He was talking to the only reliable man in a city of dimwits, cowards, traitors and fools: himself.

He hurled a sheaf of news reports with such force it knocked over the picture of Ahmad Chalabi that he keeps next to the picture of Churchill. Winston Chalabi, he likes to call him.

Vice is fed up with all the whining and carping - and that’s just inside the White House. The only negativity in Washington is supposed to be his own. He’s the only one allowed to scowl and grumble and conspire.

The impertinent Tom DeFrank reported in New York’s Daily News that embattled White House aides felt “President Bush must take the reins personally” to save his presidency.

Let him try, Cheney said with a sneer. Things are nowhere near dire enough for that. Even if Junior somehow managed to grab the reins to his presidency, Vice holds Junior’s reins. So he just needs to get all these sniveling, poll-driven wimps and losers back on board with the master plan.

Things had been going so smoothly. The global torture franchise was up and running. Halliburton contracts were flowing. Tax cuts were sailing through. Oil companies were raking it in. Alaska drilling was thrillingly close. The courts were defending his executive privilege on energy policy, and people were still buying all that smoke about Saddam’s being responsible for 9/11, and that drivel about how we’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here. Everything was groovy.

But not anymore. Cheney could not believe that Karl had made him go out and call that loudmouth Jack Murtha a patriot. He was sure the Pentagon generals had put the congressman up to calling for a withdrawal from Iraq. Is the military brass getting in touch with its pacifist side? In Wyoming, Vice shoots doves.

How dare Murtha suggest that Cheney dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged the draft? Murtha thinks he knows about war just because he served in one and was a marine for 37 years? Vice started his own war. Now that’s a credential!

It always goes this way with the cut-and-run crowd. First they start nitpicking the war, complaining about little things like the lack of armor for the troops. Then they complain that there aren’t enough troops. Well, that would just require more armor that we don’t have. Then they kvetch about using incendiary weapons in a city like Falluja. Vice likes the smell of white phosphorus in the morning.

What really enrages him is all the Republicans in the Senate making noises about timetables. Before you know it, it’s going to be helicopters on the rooftop at the Baghdad embassy.

Just because Junior’s approval ratings are in the 30’s, people around here are going all wobbly. Vice was 10 points lower and he wasn’t worried. Numbers are for sissies.

Why do Harry Reid and his Democratic turncoats think they can call the White House on the carpet? Do they think Vice would fear to lie about lying about the rationale for going to war? A real liar never stops lying.

He didn’t want to have to tell the rest of the senators to go do to themselves what he had told Patrick Leahy to go do to himself.

Now all these idiots are getting caught, even Scooter. DeLay’s on the ropes and the Dukester is a total embarrassment, spending bribes on antique commodes and a Rolls-Royce. Vice should never have let an amateur get involved with defense contracts.

Republican moderates are running scared in the House, worried about re-election. Even senators seem to have forgotten which side their bread is oiled on. Ted Stevens let oil company executives get caught lying about the energy task force meeting, while Vice can’t even get a little thing like torture chambers through the Senate. What’s so wrong with a little torture?

And now John Warner wants Junior to use fireside chats to explain his plan for Iraq. When did everybody get the un-American idea that the president is answerable to America?

Vice is fed up with the whining of squirrelly surrogates like Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson on behalf of peaceniks like George Senior and Colin Powell. If Poppy’s upset about his kid’s mentor, he should be man enough to come slug it out.

Poppy isn’t getting Junior back, Vice vowed, muttering: “He’s my son. It’s my war. It’s my country.”

(And the bad news is: this man is our vice president.)

Maureen Dowd Cheney Murtha Torture Iraq War Powell Wilkerson Politics In News Dowd

Oak Ridge Students Fighting For Liberty

Oak Ridge School Superintendent Tom Bailey has decreed that the censored high school newspaper will be reprinted with the offending birth control article entirely removed. The feature on body art will be revised.

At the standing-room only school board meeting last night, Brittany Thomas (Editor in Chief) said that both the American Civil Liberties Union and the Student Press Law Center are working to secure lawyers for the students.

"We're still pursuing this,'' Brittany said. "They (school officials) wronged us.''

Wearing a T-shirt with the saying "Ignorance Isn't Bliss'' painted on it, Brittany joined more than a dozen other students protesting principal Becky Ervin's decision last week to seize the paper before it could be distributed to students.

First Amendment experts have universally decried the confiscation, saying the Oak Ridge student paper has a long tradition as a public forum.

This isn't the best picture, but the students in the picture are awesome. Pictured here, the students from Oak Ridge High are standing up for the First Amendment at their local school board meeting. Several students wore duct tape with the word CENSORED across their mouths at the standing-room-only school board meeting.

As we might have guessed, accurate birth control information does not appear to be available in the school's sex education course.

Students said the birth control article contained information lacking in the high school sex education class, which they ridiculed as inadequate.

School officials are especially offended because the birth control article informs students that they have a right to obtain birth control without parental consent.

But in the age of the internet, censorship ain't what it used to be. Thanks to the totalitarian actions of principal Becky Ervin and school superintendent Tom Bailey, untold numbers of kids across the country are now fully aware of their rights.

Moreover, kids and adults across the country are learning a kick-ass lesson about civil rights simply by watching the awesome students at Oak Ridge High.

Contact Info:
Principal, Becky Ervin: bervin@ortn.edu
Phone: 865-425-9601
Superintendent
Thomas E. Bailey, Ed.D.
E-mail: tbailey@ortn.edu
Phone: 865-425-9001; Fax: 865-425-9070

"Schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. Students and teachers do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of expression at the schoolhouse gates." Justice Abe Fortas, Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969)

Previous Posts:
Ignorance Got Me Pregnant
School Censors Birth Control Information

Censorship First Amendment Birth Control Contraception Free Press Reproductive Rights

Why Mommy is a Democrat

Why Mommy is a Democrat is the answer to the Republican authored attempt at a children's book - Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed .

Funny, both books are about liberals.

Guess the Republican author had trouble coming up with Republican traits suitable for a children's book.

I'm happy to say that even in this cynical age, books that champion greed and selfishness just don't do very well in the children's market.

But if the Bushies have a few more years, this too could change.

Using plain and non-judgmental language, along with warm and whimsical illustrations, this colorful 28-page paperback depicts the Democratic principles of fairness, tolerance, peace, and concern for the well-being of others. It's a great way for parents to gently communicate their commitment to these principles and explain their support for the party.

Why Mommy is a Democrat may look like a traditional children's book, but it definitely isn't just for children. With numerous subtle (and not-so-subtle) satirical swipes at the Bush administration and the Republican party, Why Mommy will appeal to Democrats of all ages!

Finally, a portion of the profits will be donated to Democratic candidates and party organizations, so your purchase will help make an immediate difference!

Politics Democratic Values Bush Democrats Radical Republicans In News

Ignorance Got Me Pregnant

The Associated Press has picked up the story about the Tennessee high school that seized all 1,800 copies of the student newspaper because it featured an informative article about birth control.

School officials say they also object to a story about tattoos and body piercings.

Oak Ridge High School students planned to protest the censorship today by wearing t-shirts such as the one pictured here.

Inevitably there will be talk about Tennessee's high teen pregnancy rate. As a southern state, Tennessee has a history of ranking high in poverty related measures such as adolescent pregnancy and low in measures such as education.

Generally, we feel good about ourselves if we can point to a state that does worse. The tradition, here in Tennessee, is to point to Mississippi or Alabama.

This isn't just a Tennessee tradition. It's an American tradition. The residents of blue states feel good about themselves by pointing to red states.

But this is a sick and delusional tradition. It is a tradition that divides us in 50 different ways. The fact is we are all the same damn country, and as a country, we are the effective Mississippi of the developed world.

So before all you blue staters feel good about yourselves by having a good laugh at Tennessee's expense, consider this:

The U.S. teenage birth rate is the highest in the developed world: twice as high as Canada's, two and a half times as high as Australia's, four times as high as Germany's, five times as high as France's, seven times as high as the Netherlands', and about nine times as high as Japan's (Abma et al., 2004).

Reasons for the lower rates of teenage childbearing in these countries include:

Mandatory, medically accurate sexuality education programs that provide comprehensive information and encourage teens to make responsible choices

Easy access to contraception and other forms of reproductive health care, including abortion

Social acceptance of adolescent sexual expression as normal and healthy

Straightforward public health media campaigns

Government support for the right of teens to accurate information and confidential services (Berne & Huberman, 1999)

In recent years, America's teen pregnancy rates have declined to the extent that only 34 percent of American teens experience pregnancy. (!)

Obviously, the primary cause of our high teen pregnancy rate is ignorance.

A special thanks to Oak Ridge High School principal, Becky Ervin (bervin@ortn.edu) and superintendent, Thomas E. Bailey (tbailey@ortn.edu) for doing their part to foster ignorance in Tennessee America.

No Silence Here has more, as does MTSU's Sidelines

Red States Blue States Teen Pregnancy Censorship Birth Control Contraception Feminism Tennessee Politics

Bob Herbert: Cut Our Losses

Cut Our Losses
By BOB HERBERT

"Jack Murtha is as tough as they come, but he’s seen enough of the misguided, mismanaged, mission impossible war in Iraq to know that it’s not sustainable, not worth the continued killing and butchering and psychological maiming of thousands of American G.I.’s.

“I mean, this was a war done on the cheap and we’re paying a heavy price for it,” he said in an interview just before Thanksgiving.

Mr. Murtha is the Pennsylvania congressman, former marine and traditional war hawk whose call for a quick withdrawal of American troops from Iraq has intensified the national debate over the war. He makes weekly visits to wounded troops in military hospitals, and when he talks about their suffering it sometimes seems as if his own heart is breaking.

“These kids are magnificent,” he said. “They’ve done their duty.”

He talked about the former Notre Dame basketball player Danielle Green, a left-handed guard (”heck of a player”) who lost her left hand in a rocket attack in Baghdad. And he recalled a young marine who was trying to defuse a bomb when it exploded. “It blinded him and took his hands off,” said Mr. Murtha. “It killed the guy behind him.”

In Congressman Murtha’s view, the troops who have displayed so much valor and made so many sacrifices in Iraq deserved better from their leadership here at home. “We went in with insufficient forces,” he said. “We had people in the wrong [specialties], people driving trucks who couldn’t back trucks up. We had security forces without radios. I found 40,000 troops without body armor.”

He has no faith in President Bush’s repeated calls to stay the course. “The number of incidents have gone from 150 a week to 772 a couple of weeks ago,” he said. As additional U.S. forces have been deployed, casualty rates have increased, not decreased. And his many conversations with G.I.’s have convinced him that American fighting men and women don’t have much confidence in their Iraqi allies.

“They don’t trust them - that’s all there is to it,” said Mr. Murtha. The disparagement of Iraqi security forces by American troops was so widespread that Mr. Murtha was surprised when one soldier “started talking about how good they are, how much they’ve improved, and so forth.”

It was a miscommunication. The congressman soon realized that the soldier was talking about how much the insurgents had improved; how they had become more sophisticated, and thus “more deadly.”

Mr. Murtha, 73, is a Democrat who has maintained good ties over the years with Republicans and has extraordinary contacts within the Defense Department and the military. He’s a decorated Vietnam War veteran (Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts) who retired as a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserves after 37 years of service.

He said he’s convinced that there is nothing more the military can accomplish in Iraq. It’s the presence of the American troops themselves, inevitably seen by the Iraqis as occupiers, that continues to fuel the insurgency.

“Our military captured Saddam Hussein and captured or killed his closest associates,” he said. “But the war continues to intensify.”

When he went public with his proposal to pull American troops out of Iraq (he would establish a “quick reaction” force elsewhere in the region, perhaps in Kuwait), he said:

“Our military and their families are stretched thin. Many say that the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on their third deployment. Recruitment is down, even as our military has lowered its standards. Defense budgets are being cut. Personnel costs are skyrocketing, particularly in health care.”

Equipment shortages at premier military bases in the U.S., including Fort Hood in Texas and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, are so severe, Mr. Murtha told me, “that the troops don’t have the equipment they need to train on.”

We need to cut our losses in Iraq. The folly of the Bush crowd and its apologists is now plain for all to see. Congressman Murtha is right, the war is not sustainable. Even Republicans in Congress are starting to bail out on this impossible mission. They’re worried - not about the welfare of the troops, but about their chances in the 2006 elections.

To continue sending people to their deaths under these circumstances is worse than pointless, worse than irresponsible. It’s a crime of the most grievous kind."

Bob Herbert Iraq War Bush Murtha Iraq Election 2006 Politics

Earth to America: Global Warming

Global Warming Comedy Special

You don't want to miss this. Check out the hilarious/tragic video clips at One Good Move.

Scroll down for skits from Bill Maher, Will Ferrell, Robin Williams and Blue Man Group.

Hat tip to Gen. JC Christian, Patriot


In News Global Warming Bush Humor Video Environmental Politics

School Censors Birth Control Information

... Censorship Got Me Pregnant

UPDATE: Margaret Sanger continues to roll over in her grave, and the censored birth control article can be found here.

Please scroll down to the contact info for the pro teen pregnancy folks in charge of this school. When you call, fax or email them, you might tell them that Margaret Sanger sent you.

Saturday, November 26, 2005 / 12:15 PM:

Students at Oak Ridge High School were apparently unaware that birth control is a forbidden subject. The latest issue of the student newspaper - which featured an informative article on the subject - has been censored by school officials. All 1,800 copies of the newspaper have been seized.

"The Oak Leaf, the monthly school newspaper written and produced by students at Oak Ridge High School, wasn't distributed Wednesday because of one particular article and some of its content dealing with sex and birth control methods, according to the paper's editor-in-chief.

"The school administration should realize they don't have the power to censor our paper," Thomas said, while fellow students gathered around her living room late Wednesday afternoon to hand-paint T-shirts they plan to wear to school on Monday in protest.

"When they (the general population) see a pregnant girl, they say the girl should know better," senior Samantha Senn said. "But in a lot of cases, they (the girls) don't know anything."

Other students said they think not allowing the paper to be distributed at school is "ridiculous."

The article which explains birth control methods references a national survey, conducted in 2001, of high school students who were asked whether they were sexually active. Those national percentages were applied to ORHS students.

The article primarily covers birth control methods, quotes Dr. Charles Darling, an obstetrician/gynecologist in Oak Ridge, and tells students where they may obtain contraceptives - including a quote from Darling that says parental consent is not needed to obtain birth control.

According to the paper's Editor-in-Chief, Brittany Thomas (center, photo at right), an article placed underneath the offending story, "advises students to practice abstinence until marriage."

Oak Ridge High School Principal Becky Ervin ordered the search and seizure.

Administrators late Tuesday searched through teachers' rooms and desks and seized copies, they said. The inter-school mail system delivering copies was halted, and the newspaper returned. Bundles of papers were removed from teachers' mailboxes, Grooms [the newspaper advisor] said.

Grooms said she was told to retrieve "all copies that went home. I picked up one copy from one student.''

In support of the censorship, Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Tom Bailey said: "We have a responsibility to the public to do the right thing. We've got 14-year-olds that read the [student] newspaper."

School officials also object to an article about tattoos and body piercings.

According to Superintendent Bailey, the newspaper will be reprinted with all of the offending material deleted.

Editor-in-Chief Brittany Thomas, said that "she and several other students plan to wear T-shirts to school Monday bearing hand-painted comments about the controversy."

The students have contacted the Student Press Law Center. Mike Hiestand, an attorney with the Center, said, "Hopefully, we will be able to persuade the school board to rethink this. If we don't, we help students find lawyers and go to court."

In 1917, Margaret Sanger went to jail for publishing a pamphlet on birth control, titled: What Every Girl Should Know.

In those days, it was illegal to distribute birth control information because it was judged to be "obscene," "lewd," "indecent," or "filthy."

Apparently, 1917 standards are with us still in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Contact Info:
Principal, Becky Ervin: bervin@ortn.edu
Phone: 865-425-9601
Superintendent
Thomas E. Bailey, Ed.D.
E-mail: tbailey@ortn.edu
Phone: 865-425-9001; Fax: 865-425-9070

Hat tip to Michael at No Silence Here

Local blogger Atomictumor has more..

Contraception Birth Control Censorship Student Newspaper Free Press Reproductive Rights Feminism Media First Amendment Sex Education Tennessee

Dishonest, Reprehensible, Corrupt ...

Dishonest, Reprehensible, Corrupt ...
By Frank Rich

"GEORGE W. BUSH is so desperate for allies that his hapless Asian tour took him to Ulan Bator, a first for an American president, so he could mingle with the yaks and give personal thanks for Mongolia’s contribution of some 160 soldiers to “the coalition of the willing.” Dick Cheney, whose honest-and-ethical poll number hit 29 percent in Newsweek’s latest survey, is so radioactive that he vanished into his bunker for weeks at a time during the storms Katrina and Scootergate.

The whole world can see that both men are on the run. Just how much so became clear in the brace of nasty broadsides each delivered this month about Iraq. Neither man engaged the national debate ignited by John Murtha about how our troops might be best redeployed in a recalibrated battle against Islamic radicalism. Neither offered a plan for “victory.” Instead, both impugned their critics’ patriotism and retreated into the past to defend the origins of the war. In a seasonally appropriate impersonation of the misanthropic Mr. Potter from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the vice president went so far as to label critics of the administration’s prewar smoke screen both “dishonest and reprehensible” and “corrupt and shameless.” He sounded but one epithet away from a defibrillator.

The Washington line has it that the motivation for the Bush-Cheney rage is the need to push back against opponents who have bloodied the White House in the polls. But, Mr. Murtha notwithstanding, the Democrats are too feeble to merit that strong a response. There is more going on here than politics.

Much more: each day brings slam-dunk evidence that the doomsday threats marshaled by the administration to sell the war weren’t, in Cheney-speak, just dishonest and reprehensible but also corrupt and shameless. The more the president and vice president tell us that their mistakes were merely innocent byproducts of the same bad intelligence seen by everyone else in the world, the more we learn that this was not so. The web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a P.R. operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House. The real point of the Bush-Cheney verbal fisticuffs this month, like the earlier campaign to take down Joseph Wilson, is less to smite Democrats than to cover up wrongdoing in the executive branch between 9/11 and shock and awe.

The cover-up is failing, however. No matter how much the president and vice president raise their decibel levels, the truth keeps roaring out. A nearly 7,000-word investigation in last Sunday’s Los Angeles Times found that . . .

Read the whole thing....

Frank Rich Bush Cheney Iraq War In News Politics Iraqgate Republican Corruption

NY Times Slams Maureen Dowd's Book

The plot continues to thicken around Maureen Dowd's controversial new book.

Arianna at Huffington Post has a killer post about the New York Times' "bitch-slap" review of Are Men Necessary?

As we've repeatedly seen, the New York Times is screwed up in more ways than one. Here is another log on the bonfire:

What was Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of the New York Times Book Review, thinking when he assigned Maureen Dowd's new book to Kathryn Harrison -- a writer who Dowd had previously slammed not in one, but two different columns?

. . .[W]hen Dowd complained to Tanenhaus about the curious choice of book reviewer, he suggested that if she didn't like criticism, she shouldn't write books, but acknowledged Harrison had admitted that she remembered having been mentioned in Dowd's columns. Even that, though, didn't raise any red flags. And no elementary Google search followed.

If it had, it would have revealed that in 1997, after Harrison hit the best-seller lists with "The Kiss," her memoir of her four-year sexual affair with her father, Dowd described Harrison's book as an example of a hot subgenre: "Creepy people talking about creepy people." In another column a few months later, Dowd included Harrison in a group of "vengeful" memoirists.

So can it really be a surprise that, given the chance, the "creepy" and "vengeful" Harrison pulled out her stiletto and carved up Dowd and Are Men Necessary??

"Like most people who work hard at seeming to be naturally funny," wrote Harrison, "Maureen Dowd comes across as someone who very much wants to be liked." She also asserted that Dowd's skill as a columnist "does not enable her to produce a book-length exploration of a topic as complex as the relations between the sexes." While screwing your father for four years gives you the perfect perspective from which to review a book on the relations between the sexes? ...

Obviously, Dowd shouldn't get special treatment from her own paper -- but shouldn't she, like any other author, be afforded protection from hostile reviewers? Payback is a bitch-slap.

Read the whole thing..

Maureen Dowd feminism Politics Media New York Times

Hypocrite Comics

Seen at Internet Weekly

Michael B. Tokin' Brownie, Inc.

Claiming that his wife, children and grandchild still love him , Michael B. Tokin' Brownie, the former head of the disasterous FEMA, has announced that he is starting a disaster preparedness consulting firm.

I think it's clear by now that we are not talking about just any regular Brownie.

B. Tokin' Brownie's disaster consulting business will aim to help other fatcat CEO's avoid the magic Brownie's own disasterous fate:

"'You have to do it with candor. To do it otherwise gives you no credibility,' Brown said Wednesday. 'I think people are curious: My gosh, what was it like? The media just really beat you up. You made mistakes. I don't want to be in that situation. How do I avoid that?'"

Michael B. Tokin' Brownie claims that his parents are proud of him and that he has already signed up several companies as clients.

Hey Space Cake, in the interests of candor, can we get a list of those clueless clients? And are your parents willing to say that on CNN?

Meanwhile, Tokin' Brownie has been named top political Turkey of the Year by CNN. Catch the video here.

The Heretik has more on Disaster, Inc.

Brownie FEMA Michael Brown Katrina Bush Crony Disaster video

Cindy Sheehan: She's Baaacck

Cindy Sheehan is back in Crawford and is asking protesters to return to Crawford in order to be close to pResident Bush during his family Thanksgiving gathering.

When Cindy Sheehan arrived at the Waco airport Thursday, three dozen supporters erupted into cheers and tears and grabbed her for lengthy embraces. . .

Before Sheehan's arrival, more than 100 protesters at the camp ate a traditional Iraqi meal for Thanksgiving salmon, lentils, rice with almonds and a salad of parsley, tomatoes, cucumbers and bulgur wheat. They said they wanted to call attention to the innocent Iraqi victims in addition to the more than 2,100 U.S. soldiers killed since the war began in March 2003.

"It's significant because the people of Iraq are suffering under our occupation, and for people in America it's business as usual stuffing themselves on fat turkeys," said Tammara Rosenleaf, whose husband is an Army soldier to be deployed in a few weeks.

Bush Protest Cindy Sheehan Iraq War Thanksgiving Sheehan Crawford

Krugman: Bad for the Country

Bad for the Country
By Paul Krugman

“What was good for our country,” a former president of General Motors once declared, “was good for General Motors, and vice versa.” G.M., which has been losing billions, has announced that it will eliminate 30,000 jobs. Is what’s bad for General Motors bad for America?

In this case, yes.

Most commentary about G.M.’s troubles is resigned: pundits may regret the decline of a once-dominant company, but they don’t think anything can or should be done about it. And commentary from some conservatives has an unmistakable tone of satisfaction, a sense that uppity workers who joined a union and made demands are getting what they deserve.

We shouldn’t be so complacent. I won’t defend the many bad decisions of G.M.’s management, or every demand made by the United Automobile Workers. But job losses at General Motors are part of the broader weakness of U.S. manufacturing, especially the part of U.S. manufacturing that offers workers decent wages and benefits. And some of that weakness reflects two big distortions in our economy: a dysfunctional health care system and an unsustainable trade deficit.

According to A. T. Kearney, last year General Motors spent $1,500 per vehicle on health care. By contrast, Toyota spent only $201 per vehicle in North America, and $97 in Japan. If the United States had national health insurance, G.M. would be in much better shape than it is.

Wouldn’t taxpayer-financed health insurance amount to a subsidy to the auto industry? Not really. Because most Americans believe that their fellow citizens are entitled to health care, and because our political system acts, however imperfectly, on that belief, tying health insurance to employment distorts the economy: it systematically discourages the creation of good jobs, the type of jobs that come with good benefits. And somebody ends up paying for health care anyway.

In fact, many of the health care expenses G.M. will save by slashing employment will simply be pushed off onto taxpayers. Some former G.M. families will end up receiving Medicaid. Others will receive uncompensated care – for example, at emergency rooms – which ends up being paid for either by taxpayers or by those with insurance.

Read the whole thing...

Paul Krugman In News Health Care Universal health care

Alice's Restaurant (MP3): Lefty Thanksgiving Tradition

2007 update:
Alice's Restaurant (MP3) -- Happy Liberal Thanksgiving!

Bonus: WKRP Turkey Drop

My thanks to Jeralyn for her post about the lefty Thanksgiving tradition of remembering the last great progressive era via Alice's Restaurant.

Singing along with Arlo Guthrie in his classic 1960's voice of optimism and hope for a better, or more progressive, world has become a tradition in my home too. As Jeralyn observes, remembering the idealism and hope of the 1960's via Alice's Restaurant is a tradition that the children of 1960's liberal activists are carrying forward.

Progressive radio stations across the country will be playing Alice's Restaurant today. Check your listings or check here for the link to Jeralyn's local station.

The MP3 (full length) is here.

Thoughts on the Alice's Restaurant ritual from Ira Chernus, Professor of Religious Studies:

Out here on the left fringe of '60s-style activism, we don't go in much for ritual. We lefties are about freedom, innovation, always finding a new and better way to do things. Still, there is something to be said for ritual. It creates an illusion that things never change, that we can turn back the clock for a moment and pretend things are still the way they used to be. Maybe it's having dinner with the same folks every Thanksgiving, or fixing the trimmings in the same way each year. In my house, it's turning on our local public radio station and waiting for that magic moment when we can start singing along with Arlo.

Snippet from Alice's Restaurant:

Came to talk about the draft

They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street,where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. `Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room 604."

And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."

You can print the lyrics here so the whole family can sing along: Lyrics Connection

Alice’s Restaurant Arlo Guthrie Thanksgiving MP3 Audio

Pro-Lifers to Picket American Girl Store

UPDATE - Sunday, November 27, 2005 - I haven't found any MSM coverage of the demonstration. Rightwing coverage and pictures are here.

Pro-lifers are apparently going to make good on their threat to hold a demonstration outside the American Girl store in Chicago. The demonstration will be held on the busiest shopping day of the year - the day after Thanksgiving.

The Pro-Life Action League has called for a Christmas boycott of American Girl dolls in response to the company's association with Girls, Inc.

American Girl is donating $50,000 - from the sale of its "I Can" wristbands - to Girls, Inc. The nonprofit, Girls Inc., is guilty of radical actions such as providing "after-school and summer programs to girls, including underprivileged ones, for decades." The nonprofit supports birth control and choice. Girls Inc., even supports girls who are lesbian or bisexual [gasp].

Some pro-lifers have threatened to bring their graphic signs to the children's store. Pro-life women will bring their daughters to the demonstration. The girls will carry "Girls For Life" signs.

Pro Life Action League Press Release:

Pro-Life Group to Picket American Girl Place in Chicago

Contact: Ann Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League, 773-777-2900, 312-965-1030 cell, ann@prolifeaction.org

CHICAGO, Nov. 23, /Christian Wire Service/ -- The Pro-Life Action League will lead a picket by parents and their daughters at American Girl Place in Chicago on Friday, November 25, from 10:00 a.m. to noon, in protest of American Girl's ties to the pro-abortion advocacy group, Girls Incorporated.

"The day after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day of the year," said League Executive Director Ann Scheidler. "Our picket will reach thousands of shoppers on Chicago's Magnificent Mile with the unfortunate news that American Girl is funding Girls Inc., a group that strongly advocates abortion."

The demonstration will include many pro-life girls disappointed that American Girl doesn't care about the 1,800 baby girls aborted each day in this country. They will picket American Girl Place holding "Girls for Life" signs -- along with their Samantha, Kit, Molly and other American Girl dolls, each holding her own miniature picket sign. . . .

Pro-lifers may actually be promoting a boom in sales of American Girl dolls. According to Business Wire, "..American Girl dolls and accessories appear to be the "It' kids toy of the season. Over the past 30 days, nearly 23,000 American Girl items have been sold on eBay.com -- a rate of one every two minutes."

You can support American Girl and Girls Inc. by purchasing the "I Can" wristbands. American Girl dolls make great Christmas gifts, or you can donate to Girls, Inc.

Hat tips to the Progressive Daily Beacon and Mission Critical

Previous Posts: Call for Boycott . . and Pro-Life Org Threatens . .

Reproductive Rights Feminism Pro Choice Roe Gay Rights American Girl Dolls Girls Inc. Chicago

Culture of Life: Punishing Women and Children

The experience of Michelle McCusker is a perfect illustration of the misogynistic position of the so-called Pro Life crowd. Fired because she is pregnant and unmarried, she would also be condemned if she chose to terminate the pregnancy.

Whether women are fired or stigmatized for choosing to give birth without the 'blessing' of a man at their side, the message is the same. As Marilyn Frye observed in her classic piece, "Oppression", women are damned if they do and damned if they don't. That's why they call it, oppression.

Too bad if Ms. McCusker gives birth to a child who will suffer from economic deprivation; that is not the concern of Pro Lifers. What's important is that women, and their "illegitimate" children, be punished for straying from the confines of patriarchal tradition, or male control. A woman cannot give birth to a "legitimate" child without the blessing of the man.

Newsday:

McCusker, who is 18 weeks pregnant, was teaching pre-K at the St. Rose of Lima School in Rockaway Beach. A month after school began, she informed the principal that she was pregnant and hoped to carry the baby to term. The principal fired McCusker two days later, according to the complaint.

McCusker, whose residence was not divulged, contacted the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed a complaint on her behalf with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The complaint charges that the school's policy is sex discrimination since only women can become pregnant and thus be charged with violating a doctrine against premarital sex.

The Feminist Chronicles:

In the closing hours of the 95th Congress, passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Bill overturned the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Gilbert vs. G.E. (1976) and Satty vs. Nashville Gas Co. (1977). Both decisions had approved discrimination against "pregnant people," the former in the payment of disability benefits for women recovering from childbirth and the latter in denying women the use of their earned sick leave for hospitalization and recovery from childbirth. The hard-won victory was the result of a two-year massive campaign by NOW and a coalition of labor, feminist, and pro-choice groups. (10/15/78)

See:
Facts About Pregnancy Discrimination
How to File a Charge of Employment Discrimination

Feminism Gender Discrimination Sex Discrimination
Patriarchy Misogyny In News Regulating Women Pregnancy Discrimination

Where Have All the Red States Gone?

The United Blue States of America

Just look at the South! What in this blue world has happened to Texas? And there's still plenty of time before election day 2006, for light blue states to turn deep deep blue. God knows the Republicans are working hard to make it happen.

Dubya, just look what you've done.

Here's the data: Survey USA

Hat tip to kos

In News Bush Blue States Red States Election 2006 Dubya Politics Map

Why Does CNN Hate Cheney?

Is this yet more evidence of the liberal media conspiracy against the Bushies? Could the folks at CNN be just as petrified of the dangerous Bushies as the rest of the world? Or maybe it's simply true that no one likes Cheney.

Drudge Report:

At 11:04:45 AM ET Monday CNN was airing Vice President Dick Cheney's speech live from the American Enterprise Institute in Washington -- when a large black 'X' repeatedly flashed over the vice president's face!

The 'X' over Cheney's face appeared each time less than a second, creating an odd subliminal effect.

As this DRUDGE REPORT screen capture reveals, while one 'X' flashed over Cheney's face CNN ran a headline at the bottom of its screen: "CHENEY: I DO NOT BELIEVE IT IS WRONG TO CRITICIZE."

One top White House source expressed concern about what was aired over CNN.

"Is someone in Atlanta trying to tell us something?"

CNN responds with the expected cover: it was a computer glitch. But we know the truth. The good people at CNN fear the Cheney monster just like the rest of America.

Hat tip to Wonkette

In News Humor Cheney Liberal Media Conspiracy Bush Politics

al-Jazeera Shock and Awe

According to the British tabloid, The Mirror, a government memo has turned up which reveals that Bush once suggested blowing up the headquarters of the Arab news network al-Jazeera. The Mirror reports that it was Tony Blair who talked Bush out of the insane idea.

PRESIDENT Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals.

But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.

A source said: "There's no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it." Al-Jazeera is accused by the US of fuelling the Iraqi insurgency.

The attack would have led to a massacre of innocents on the territory of a key ally, enraged the Middle East and almost certainly have sparked bloody retaliation. . .

A source said last night: "The memo is explosive and hugely damaging to Bush.

A Government official suggested that the Bush threat had been "humorous, not serious".

But another source declared: "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men."

Of course, we know our pResident would never ever suggest such a thing.

An editorial in the same publication notes that this revelation "casts fresh doubt on claims that other attacks on al-Jazeera were accidents. It looks like these were planned assaults on civilian targets."

The editorial concludes:

[U]ntil the White House regime changes, the world should tremble with fear at what this president might do next.

Who you going to believe? A tabloid? Or Dubya?

Hat tip to Taegan Goddard

Bush Blair In News Iraq War Dubya al-Jazeera The Mirror

How Long Must Women Wait for Equality?

We've added our newly created Equality Clock to the TGW shop. The image is from the Women's Pageant for Equality held during the famous Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913.

The 1913 Pageant for Equality in Washington D.C. was described by the NY Times as "one of the most beautiful spectacles ever seen in this country."

In the elaborate and beautifully staged Pageant, "one hundred women and children presented an allegorical tableau written especially for the event to show 'those ideals toward which both men and women have been struggling through the ages and toward which, in co-operation and equality, they will continue to strive.'"

When the line of 26 floats, 10 bands, 6 golden chariots, and divisions of between 6,000 and 10,000 women marching by country, state, profession and occupation was blocked for over an hour by an unruly, unrestrained mob of drunk and disorderly men the shocking news made front page headlines nationwide.

In 1913, women carried banners asking:

How Long Must Women Wait for Equality?

Ninety-two years later, we are still asking the question.

Feminism Equality Women's History Equality Feminist Gifts Feminist Products

Save Roe and Stop Alito

You can help in the campaign to Save Roe and Stop Alito by participating in NARAL Pro-Choice America's national petition drive. The goal is 500,000 signatures by December 9, so there's no time to waste.

Feministing reports that NARAL will send you a pro choice magnet if you collect as few as 6 petition signatures by Dec. 9.

Sign the petition here.

Hat tip to Feministing

Feminism Reproductive Rights Scalito Scalito Bush Supreme Court Alito Roe

SNL Fun With Mean Jean

Saturday Night Live had fun with Mean Jean this week. SNL also mocked the Shrub in China and Mean Jean's fav Fox News. If you missed it, the video is at Crooks and Liars.

Mean Jean, aka Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH), made headlines around the world last week when she suggested that the esteemed Marine and Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) is a coward.

In a recent development, Bluegrass Report argues that Mean Jean "may be violating House ethics rules regarding improper campaign activity by a House member."


humor Video SNL Mean Jean Jean Schmidt Congress Ohio

Kristof: Sudan’s Department of Gang Rape

Sudan’s Department of Gang Rape
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

"Ms. Noura is one of thousands of women and girls to be gang-raped in Darfur, as part of what appears to be a deliberate Sudanese government policy to break the spirit of several African tribes through mass rape.

This policy is shrewd as well as brutal, for the exceptional stigma of rape here often silences victims even as it terrorizes the entire population and forces people to flee.

Ms. Noura, 22, expected to be married soon, and the neighbors said she probably would have received a bride price of 30 cows. These days, they say, she will be lucky to find any husband at all – and will not get a single cow.

This is the first genocide of the 21st century, and we are collectively letting the Sudanese government get away with it. Sudan’s leaders appear to have made a calculated decision that some African tribes in the Darfur region are more of a headache than the international protests that result when it depopulates large areas of those tribes. In effect, it is our acquiescence that allows the rapes and murders to continue.

The solution isn’t to send American troops. But a starting point is to convey American outrage – loudly and insistently – and demonstrate that Darfur is an American priority.

Ms. Noura’s saga began when the Sudanese Army and janjaweed militia burned down her village a year ago and killed her father. She and her family fled here to Kalma, but she is the eldest child and needed money to support her younger brothers and sisters.

So she ventured out of Kalma to cut grass in the nearby fields to sell. That was when the men raped and beat her, leaving her unable to walk home.

Rape leads to particular injuries in Darfur because many girls, as part of female circumcision rites, have their vaginas sewn shut with a wild thorn. The resulting physical trauma from rape also increases the risk of H.I.V. transmission. In addition, the attackers sometimes rape women with sticks or bayonets, causing internal injuries that leave the victims incontinent.

Sudan has backed off a bit in response to protests about the rapes, and it has stopped arresting women who go to foreign aid workers to seek medical treatment. But the rapes themselves are continuing, unabated. The Sudanese police and military are everywhere in the area, but they don’t secure the fields outside the camp where the attacks take place.

In just one of eight sectors in Kalma, I found three women who acknowledged on the record that they had been gang-raped this month within a few days of each other.

Arifa Muhammad, 25, told of being caught by 10 men as she planted okra to have a little more food for her three children. One of the men said, “I know you are Zaghawa, so we will rape you.” Afterward, they beat her with the butts of their guns.

The very next day, Saida Abdukarim, also 25, was tending her vegetables when three men with guns seized her. She pleaded with them, pointing out that she is eight months’ pregnant.

“They said, ‘You are black, and so we can rape you,’ ” she recalled. Then they gang-raped her and beat her with sticks and their guns. She absorbed the beating, trying to protect her unborn baby, and although she was too battered to walk, she has so far not miscarried.

To me, Ms. Noura, Ms. Arifa and Ms. Saida are among the heroes of Darfur. There is no shame in being raped, but plenty of stigma should attach to those who ignore crimes against humanity. In my book, it’s the politicians who don’t consider genocide a priority who aren’t worth a single cow.

These three women have the backbone to stand up and be counted. We in the West have so much less to lose, yet we can’t even find our own voices. Let’s hope that the courage of these three women may inspire President Bush, Kofi Annan and other world leaders finally to show a little more backbone and stand much more firmly against genocide."

Nicholas Kristof In News Rape Feminism Darfur Genocide Kristof

Jewish Group Opposes Alito

The largest branch of North American Judaism has voted to opppose the Bush effort to swing the High Court yet further to the right. The group's 2000 plus delegates voted on Sunday to oppose the nomination of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Alito has gone on record with the statement: "[T]he Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

Samuel A. Alito Jr is so steeped in patriarchal values that "he voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law that required a woman to notify her husband before an abortion."

"The Union for Reform Judaism represents about 900 synagogues in North America with an estimated membership of 1.5 million. Of the three major streams of U.S. Judaism - Orthodox and Conservative are the others - it is the only one that sanctions gay ordination and supports civil marriage for same-gender couples.

The Senate Judiciary Committee plans confirmation hearings on Alito's nomination in January."

According to the Resolution Opposing the Nomination of Judge Samuel Alito Jr:

Judge Alito’s elevation to the Supreme Court “would threaten protection of the most fundamental rights which our Movement supports including, but not limited to, reproductive freedom, the separation between church and state, protection of civil rights and civil liberties, and protection of the environment;...”

See: The Union for Reform Judaism website

Hat tip to Talkleft

In News Supreme Court Alito Feminism Reproductive Rights Abortion Roe Bush ScAlito Politics

Krugman: The War's Over...We've Lost

The War's Over...We've Lost
Paul Krugman

"Not long ago wise heads offered some advice to those of us who had argued since 2003 that the Iraq war was sold on false pretenses: give it up. The 2004 election, they said, showed that we would never convince the American people. They suggested that we stop talking about how we got into Iraq and focus instead on what to do next.

It turns out that the wise heads were wrong. A solid majority of Americans now believe that we were misled into war. And it is only now, when the public has realized the truth about the past, that serious discussions about where we are and where we're going are able to get a hearing.

Representative John Murtha's speech calling for a quick departure from Iraq was full of passion, but it was also serious and specific in a way rarely seen on the other side of the debate.

President Bush and his apologists speak in vague generalities about staying the course and finishing the job. But Mr. Murtha spoke of mounting casualties and lagging recruiting, the rising frequency of insurgent attacks, stagnant oil production and lack of clean water.

Mr. Murtha - a much-decorated veteran who cares deeply about America's fighting men and women - argued that our presence in Iraq is making things worse, not better. Meanwhile, the war is destroying the military he loves. And that's why he wants us out as soon as possible.

I'd add that the war is also destroying America's moral authority. When Mr. Bush speaks of human rights, the world thinks of Abu Ghraib.

(In his speech, Mr. Murtha pointed out the obvious: torture at Abu Ghraib helped fuel the insurgency.)

When administration officials talk of spreading freedom, the world thinks about the reality that much of Iraq is now ruled by theocrats and their militias.

Some administration officials accused Mr. Murtha of undermining the troops and giving comfort to the enemy. But that sort of thing no longer works, now that the administration has lost the public's trust.

Instead, defenders of our current policy have had to make a substantive argument: we can't leave Iraq now, because a civil war will break out after we're gone.

One is tempted to say that they should have thought about that possibility back when they were cheerleading us into this war. But the real question is this: When, exactly, would be a good time to leave Iraq?

The fact is that we're not going to stay in Iraq until we achieve victory, whatever that means in this context. At most, we'll stay until the American military can take no more.

Mr. Bush never asked the nation for the sacrifices - higher taxes, a bigger military and, possibly, a revived draft - that might have made a long-term commitment to Iraq possible. Instead, the war has been fought on borrowed money and borrowed time. And time is running out.

With some military units on their third tour of duty in Iraq, the superb volunteer army that Mr. Bush inherited is in increasing danger of facing a collapse in quality and morale similar to the collapse of the officer corps in the early 1970's.

So the question isn't whether things will be ugly after American forces leave Iraq. They probably will. The question, instead, is whether it makes sense to keep the war going for another year or two, which is all the time we realistically have.

Pessimists think that Iraq will fall into chaos whenever we leave. If so, we're better off leaving sooner rather than later. As a Marine officer quoted by James Fallows in the current Atlantic Monthly puts it, "We can lose in Iraq and destroy our Army, or we can just lose."

And there's a good case to be made that our departure will actually improve matters. As Mr. Murtha pointed out in his speech, the insurgency derives much of its support from the perception that it's resisting a foreign occupier.

Once we're gone, the odds are that Iraqis, who don't have a tradition of religious extremism, will turn on fanatical foreigners like Zarqawi.

The only way to justify staying in Iraq is to make the case that stretching the U.S. army to its breaking point will buy time for something good to happen. I don't think you can make that case convincingly. So Mr. Murtha is right: it's time to leave."

Paul Krugman Bush Murtha News Politics Iraq War In Krugman

Photograph Your Sexual Harasser

This is good - a blog which strikes back at street harassment.

At Holla Back, New York City women post photos of and rants about the creeps who sexually harass them. New York City may be bigger than Nashville, but women and girls cannot go for a 5 minute walk in Nashville without enduring harassment.

Every city needs a blog like Holla Back, so mothers, wives and sisters can start kicking some ass. Assuming these creeps have mothers, wives and sisters.

Via DED Space via Pandagon via Feministe

Feminism Sexual Harasment Gender Politics Misogyny Patriarchy Regulating Women In News

Another Dubya Moment

The Adventures of Bush and the Door

"BEIJING (Reuters) - Irked by a reporter who told him he seemed to be "off his game" at a Beijing public appearance, President George W. Bush sought to make a hasty exit from a news conference but was thwarted by locked doors."


Adventures of Bush and the Door Photo Essay here...

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars

UPDATE: The WaPo has the story, along with some additional thoughts on the limited nature of the Bush Adventures: "In five years in the presidency, Bush has proved a decidedly unadventurous traveler, an impression undispelled by the weeklong journey through Asia that wraps up Monday. As he barnstormed through Japan, South Korea and China, with a final stop in Mongolia still to come, Bush visited no museums, tried no restaurants, bought no souvenirs and made no effort to meet ordinary local people."

Yep, that's our provincial pResident; aka, The Bubba in a Bubble.

UPDATE2: The BBC has the video. Wonder if Michael Moore can work this one into one of his new documentaries? He could caption it: Clueless George can't find an exit strategy. [Hat tip for the video to Blondesense]

Dubya Bush China Humor News In Politics

WH: Americans Agree with Michael Moore

If the White House is to be believed, the majority of Americans are now in the "extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party." Heh.

As usual, the White House responds to criticism with mafia-like efforts to swiftboat the messenger. In the latest battle, the Bushies hoped to discredit former Marine colonel, Rep. John Murtha by charging that he is in the Michael Moore camp.

The always-sick Rovian tactics have finally become so absurd that they serve as yet more nails in the Republican coffin.

CBS News:

"Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces and we have become a catalyst for violence. The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion.

Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty. It's time to bring them home."

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa)

"It is baffling that [Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa)] is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party."

Scott McClellan, White House

With Bush's poll numbers in the 30's and 52% of the public saying that we should get out of Iraq fast, the White House is effectively admitting that the majority of Americans are in the Michael Moore camp.

Michael Moore responds:

Dear Mr. Bush:

I would like to extend my hand and invite you to join us, the mainstream American majority. We, the people -- that's the majority of the people -- share these majority opinions:

1. Going to war was a mistake -- a big mistake.

2. You and your administration misled us into this war.

3. We want the war ended and our troops brought home.

4. We don't trust you. . . .

But hey, why not cut out the name-calling and the smearing and just do the obvious thing: Come join the majority! Be one of us, your fellow Americans! Is it really that hard? Is there really any other choice? George, take a walk on the wild side!

Your loyal representative from the majority,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com

Make that "the extreme liberal wing" majority.

Thanks for that Scotty, you and the dysfunctional White House made my week!

Iraq War Bush Michael Moore Murtha White House McClellan

Bush Is Not A Crook

Hat tip to Internet Weekly


Bush Nixon Republican Corruption

Frank Rich: One War Lost, Another to Go

One War Lost, Another to Go
By Frank Rich

"If anyone needs further proof that we are racing for the exits in Iraq, just follow the bouncing ball that is Rick Santorum. A Republican leader in the Senate and a true-blue (or red) Iraq hawk, he has long slobbered over President Bush, much as Ed McMahon did over Johnny Carson. But when Mr. Bush went to Mr. Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania to give his Veterans Day speech smearing the war’s critics as unpatriotic, the senator was M.I.A.

Mr. Santorum preferred to honor a previous engagement more than 100 miles away. There he told reporters for the first time that “maybe some blame” for the war’s “less than optimal” progress belonged to the White House. This change of heart had nothing to do with looming revelations of how the new Iraqi “democracy” had instituted Saddam-style torture chambers. Or with the spiraling investigations into the whereabouts of nearly $9 billion in unaccounted-for taxpayers’ money from the American occupation authority. Or with the latest spike in casualties. Mr. Santorum was instead contemplating his own incipient political obituary written the day before: a poll showing him 16 points down in his re-election race. No sooner did he stiff Mr. Bush in Pennsylvania than he did so again in Washington, voting with a 79-to-19 majority on a Senate resolution begging for an Iraq exit strategy. He was joined by all but one (Jon Kyl) of the 13 other Republican senators running for re-election next year. They desperately want to be able to tell their constituents that they were against the war after they were for it.

They know the voters have decided the war is over, no matter what symbolic resolutions are passed or defeated in Congress nor how many Republicans try to Swift-boat Representative John Murtha, the marine hero who wants the troops out. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup survey last week found that the percentage (52) of Americans who want to get out of Iraq fast, in 12 months or less, is even larger than the percentage (48) that favored a quick withdrawal from Vietnam when that war’s casualty toll neared 54,000 in the apocalyptic year of 1970. . . .

Mr. Bush may disdain timetables for our pullout, but, hello, there already is one, set by the Santorums of his own party: the expiration date for a sizable American presence in Iraq is Election Day 2006."

Read the whole thing...

Frank Rich Iraq War Murtha Bush

How Many Ways Do We Torture?

Now that Comedy Channel star Bush has cleared up the torture question, we can finally move on to counting the many ways that we torture:

ABC News

Nov. 18, 2005 — Harsh interrogation techniques authorized by top officials of the CIA have led to questionable confessions and the death of a detainee since the techniques were first authorized in mid-March 2002, ABC News has been told by former and current intelligence officers and supervisors. . . . .

5)The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6) Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

"The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.

The U.S. does not torture and Brownie did a heck of a job. This brings to mind the great still unanswered question about the Bush pResidency:

Incompetent or Idiot or Satan?

Hat tip to Talkleft


Available in TGW Shop

Torture Bush dubya miserable failure