Thanksgiving

Wow, Trope really did take some great pictures while Wells was stranded in Chicago. Here's another one:

Jacob Wells and Elwood Grobnik, Thanksgiving 2004

I also just finished "What's the Matter with Kansas," and I will be posting on it as soon as I get my hands on the relevant theoretical background to make sense of it all, namely Anti-Semite and Jew : An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate by Sartre. I recommend this book to everyone. No, I'm not claiming the Religious Wrong are anti-semitic - the book is a great dissection of culture-based cultural resentment, whether of Jews, Homos, or Sushi-Eaters. Joe Bob says "check it out."

language keeps me locked and repeating

I'm engaging in some serious multi-tasking this morining. Cleaning my room (to make room for more crap), rippin' cds for my new 40oz ipod (am i really ever going to listen to 20 Dolly Parton songs? hell yeah!), and clicking on some links I've been saving.

One of them sends me to the text of a 1996 memo by Newt Gingrich -- Language: A Key Mechanism of Control. Check out the list of "Optimistic Positive Governing Words" and "Contrasting Words" used to demonize the opponent.

Remember, just like on Pee Wee's Playhouse, whenever your favorite politico uses these words you must scream.

Debt forgiving: Why just Iraq?

I just saw this article in the NY Times regarding the U.S. push to have other countries forgive Iraq's debt.

See it here:

While I think this is a good idea (although one that the Bush administration will trumpet first as a point that the world agrees with what we're doing and second as one that his administration is doing the right thing in Iraq), my main question is why aren't we pushing for this more in Africa or Haiti?

The author of the piece even takes a poke at the countries that are struggling in Africa:

The treatment being given Iraq has in the past been reserved for so-called heavily indebted poor countries, mostly aid-dependent nations in Africa.

Italics mine. Anyone know what the full story is here?

Is Walmart good for America?

I watched the Frontline special last night on Walmart on PBS. It was a farily good show that explained the Walmart philosphy and then traced how that philosphy leads to more lay offs and plant closing in the US to more companies moving shop to China. Bottom line = Walmart is bad for America. Not only bad for American workers but bad for the small towns that Walmart overruns and bad for American consumers. You're not really saving money at Walmart. Their strategy is based on point sales. You see one item that has a great low price that lures you into that specific department. Then in that department, the remainig items are usually higher priced than at other stores. The point sales are the only items you're getting a bargain on. Now how many people know that? I surely didn't before I saw this show. I was dissapointed that they didn't focus on labor relations within Walmart itself. It was never mentioned that Walmart doesn't allow unions or pays women less than men. That's what I would've expected of such a show.

Big cities, that I know of, like Chicago and Portland are trying hard to keep Walmart out of the city. Portland has one Walmart store and from what I've heard, the store is pure crap. The city of Portland is keeping Walmart out based on square footage requirements for commercial buildings. Walmart stores are simply too large to build in the Portland city limits. The nearest Walmart Supercenter is a good 30 mile drive out of town. I'm getting used to not having Walmart around. Target is now my destination of choice, although how much better is that? It's still a mega store. Where else is there to go?

For more info on the program, click here

The Ten Americas, Beyond 2004

Steve first brought this Robert David Sullivan character to my attention about a year ago, I believe. He has a new analysis out about the 2004 elections on a regional basis. You may have seen this DailyKOS diary, which is interesting, although the comments section is annoying. The whole Globe article deserves a close read, because it suggests that much of the conventional wisdom about 2004 has been wrong. The first reaction of many Democrats has been to decry the lingering influence of the old Confederacy in establishing a racist solid South for the Republicans. But a regional analysis shows this isn't true. The South has always been divided between lowlanders and "hillbillies;" and while Appalachia, which we have mistakenly contested, has become the country's most conservative region, the piedmont, which Sullivan calls the "Southern Lowlands," has been trending Democratic. Yes - the very people I was misguidedly badmouthing last week. Atlanta suburbs? Savannah? Sullivan groups them in with Northern Virginia as modernizing, high-tech areas ripe for Democratic takeover.

The other important regional news: "Big River." A lot of people mocked it at the time, but Al Gore's riverboat tour down the Mississippi probably won him the popular vote. If you look at the county map (Kerry is RED here) you will notice lots of red counties along the river. There were more in 2000, when Gore won the region (Bush won Big River this time with 50.1% of the vote). A lot of these counties are not in major media markets and are hours from the nearest big airport. The riverboat tour was good politics, and should be repeated.

A third point: Bush's popular vote margin came from getting votes in "Blue States." This is where 9/11 helped him win a "mandate:" He won some NJ suburbs and Staten Island, and did better on Long Island than he did four years ago. These areas were home to many dead firefighters and cops, especially SI and Brooklyn. I think the 9/11 gains were a one-time anomaly, but they illustrate a point: central cities aren't enough. This is not an urban nation anymore. Democrats can win if they hold the central cities and make gains in the suburbs. As long as Republicans can hold the suburbs and make gains in the "nice" neighborhoods in the cities, we are screwed, landslide screwed. It's amazing how much that election map looks like America from space. The bright spots are Democratic, the outer darkness Republican. We are the thing the darkness fears. To win, like Buffy, we need to invade Hell.

"All of the data are precious to Wal-Mart"*

Be afraid. Be HUGELY afraid. Wal-Mart, in addtion to shortchanging their "associates" and bullying publishers into changing the cover art on books, has been doing, and keeping, lots of homework on their customers. The entire frightening article is here. An excerpt:

With 3,600 stores in the United States and roughly 100 million customers walking through the doors each week,Wal-Mart has access to information about a broad slice of America - from individual Social Security and driver's license numbers to geographic proclivities for Mallomars, or lipsticks, or jugs of antifreeze. The data are gathered item by item at the checkout aisle, then
recorded, mapped and updated by store, by state, by region. By its own count, Wal-Mart has 460 terabytes of data stored on Teradata mainframes, made by NCR, at its Bentonville headquarters. To put that in perspective, the Internet has less than half as much data, according to experts.

There is a bright side to this dark, dark story; the prosecution in the class-action lawsuit brought by the female employees of Wal-mart is working to use this database to calculate back pay and comparative hours and wages by store. Like Nixon's tapes, these data might come back to bite Wal-Mart in the ass. I can only hope.

*No, it's not a typo. And God bless the NYTimes; no matter how weak their writing has become in other areas, they can still use the word "data" correctly in a sentence.

One more for the road

Ashcroft just wanted something for us to remember him by. On Friday, he pronounced that the federal courts --which ruled against the Bush administration and gave prisoners at Guantanamo legal protections--are endangering national security in the GWOT.

"The danger I see here is that intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing of presidential determinations in these critical areas can put at risk the very security of our nation in a time of war."*

It seems that this man has seriously misunderstood the phrase "separation of powers" to mean: "This is the executive branch's power and you can't touch it". Is there any way we could fire this man, instead of just letting him quit?

(In a speech to the Federalist Society national convention. Quoted from the Chicago Tribune, 11/12. Interested in learning more about the Federalist Society? Read here.)

Parental Consent Laws = Less Birth Control = More Pregnancy

(sigh) In the State of Illinois, any person 12 or older is entitled to confidential reproductive health care; a girl can get birth control pills, a guy can get an STD test, etc, etc. If a girl is pregnant and younger than 12, she is also entitled to RH care, under IL law. Except, apparently, in McHenry county, where they have found a "better way". Reprinted from the Kaiser Daily RH Report on Thursday.

Ill. County Requiring Parental Consent for Birth Control Publishes Response to Study Linking Policy to Rise in Teen Pregnancy Rate

Public health officials from McHenry County, Ill., in a letter to be published in the February 2005 issue of the American Journal of Public Health say they want to correct a "serious error"
and "misrepresentations" in a study that reported an increase in the county's teen pregnancy rate in the first two years after implementing a policy requiring parental permission for minors to obtain contraceptives, the Crystal Lake Northwest Herald reports (Legue, Crystal Lake Northwest Herald, 11/9). According to the study, which was published in the August issue of the American Journal of Public Health, McHenry County between 1998 -- when the law was implemented -- and 2000 experienced a significant relative increase in its teen pregnancy and birth rates compared with neighboring counties. The study also found that the county experienced an insignificant decline in the relative proportion of abortions obtained by women under age 20 over the same period (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 8/2). However, McHenry County officials say that the study included 18-year-olds, who were not subject to parental consent, according to the Herald. In addition, county health officials in the letter write that the two-year study period was too short to draw conclusions about changes in the teen pregnancy rate.

Researcher Response
However, study author Dr. Madeline Zavodny -- who worked in the Economics Department at Occidental College in Los Angeles at the time of the study and now is based at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga. -- said that the teen pregnancy rate in McHenry County over the period studied was higher than in neighboring counties, even without the data from 18-year-olds. She added that 75% of the 18-year-old pregnant women included in the study would have been pregnant minors when the policy changed and women who turned 18 over the study period might have eschewed birth control after their 18th birthday because of "habits formed by the policy change," the Herald reports. Zavodny conceded that the two-year study period was too short, saying, "We'll get a better fix on things in the long term." She added, "But then again, this is very important. Do we want to wait that long to find out if people are being affected?"

Policy History//The policy, which makes McHenry County ineligible for Title X federal grant funding, stems from a 1997 incident in which a male teacher pleaded guilty to several counts of child sexual assault for having sex with a 14-year-old female student. The student had been obtaining contraceptive injections from the health department, which at the time was prevented from notifying the girl's parents (Crystal Lake Northwest Herald, 11/9).

I get needled all the time about this law, which I didn't help make, and I've heard teachers or nurses outright lie to teens who are asking whether or not they can get BC or exams without their parents' permission. I feel like printing out this article and handing out copies to everyone who argues with me.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Enter my Caption Contest and win a 12-pack of beer.

I have finally figured out how to post at the Tally Ho, so I am going to abuse this privilege to shamelessly promote my own blog. I have no idea what is going on in the little corner of hell we know as Iraq anymore, so all you have to do to win is be more convincing than Donald Rumsfeld or Scott McClellan.

You know you want to. Who among us does not love beer?

Letters Home

Since it is Veterans' Day...
from a NYTimes.com article today entitled "The Things They Wrote". Go read all three, if you're registered.

Excerpts from letters to his 2-year-old son and his wife from Sgt. Christopher Potts of the Army. Sergeant Potts, 38, of Tiverton, R.I., was killed on Oct. 3 in Taji by small-arms fire.

January
Hi my big guy. How are you? I miss you bad. I miss things like you calling for me in the morning when you hear me in the kitchen, or when you come home at the end of the day. I also miss cooking for you and Mom. But most of all I miss your big hugs. I enjoy hearing your voice on the phone and seeing the pictures you draw for me. I'm sorry for not writing you till now. But the days are very long here, and we only get about four-and-a-half hours sleep a night. I got up a little early to write this because I know you need your own letter too.
March 18
Hi my love. Well, where should I start? First we left Kuwait after being issued a combat load of ammo - M-16 ammo, grenades, smoke grenades, grenade-launcher ammo and C-4. I knew that night that this is for real. Some people paced, some people slept, some of us had to write the just-in-case letters, some just sat. The letter-writing was a real hard thing to do, it definitely makes you aware of the situation and your life. But you'll never have to read it - unless you want to when I get home. It's weird because I'm not afraid of what might happen, or the pain of it. I'm just afraid of not being able to see you again.
The first leg of the trip through the desert was really bad. There were children of all ages from God knows where begging for food and water. The dust was blowing all over them, and some had torn outgrown clothes, and some were barefoot. I looked over at my driver and we were both crying after a few miles. I said to him, You know, this is why I'm here, so that my kids won't ever have to live like that. Then we just drove in silence for a while.
As we got closer to Baghdad you could see blown-up military equipment, ours and theirs. People were on the side of the road selling gasoline out of plastic jugs. There was diesel and fuel spilled everywhere ... then you'd see some slaughtered lambs on the side of the road. The meat is hanging out in the sun and dirt and germ-infested air. Farther down the road there were people bathing and washing up. Other people were picking through garbage.
I hope today I can call. I miss you so much that as I write this part my eyes are
running. The TV in the mess hall said you got snow yesterday. I wish I was there to shovel. I hope you are being taken care of.

It's odd that they are running this piece today; I've always thought that Veterans' Day was more for the soldiers who lived through a war than for the soldiers who died in one. However, it's good for all of us to remember that this war is a personal as well as a political and military event.

Okay, I'm back.

Once again, Molly Ivins says it all.

If I didn't work in the schools, I would have completely forgotten about Veteran's Day tomorrow. It seems particularly relevant this year, since the war will only continue. Don't forget.

Does your IQ determine who you voted for? YES!

A friend of mine came across this website that tracks average state IQ's with who the state voted for in this past election. I don't know how true this is but I found it amusing nonetheless. http://www.commonalty.com/iq.txt

Whatever crumbs of hope I can find

I'm feeling a certain sense of somber relief in the election outcome--is this the last stage of grief? Anyway, it feels good to report on political issues that are not focused on the next Leader of the Free World. Perhaps, since the POTUS seems to have declined that position, we can turn some attention to what officeholder might become the new Leader. Clinton, as UN Sec-Gen?

But first, we need to figure out just who that Leader will be leading. The Kaiser Daily RH Report has posted the latest UN report on world population projections for 2300. They say, basically: "We don't have any idea how many people there will be!" Here's the long version.

Harvey Fierstein's OutTakes video clip, discussing gay marriage bans, is just excellent. You can also read the transcript from this link, but the monologue is much better. Little phrases from it have been rolling around in my mind all morning.

International News of the Weird, and pale attempts at hope

Well, it's nice to know that the US is not alone in drafting stupid legislation. Brazil's Reinaldo Santos e Silva proposes to make it illegal to give a pet a person's name. So I guess if I lived in Brazil, naming my future dog after my ex-boyfriend would be out. (Oops, I guess that option's out for me, anyway.)

On the homefront: can't eat, can't sleep, can't concentrate, can't do anything but think about The Day tomorrow and what we will do when it's all over. Oh, the agony. I'm a-feared that we may still not know for quite a while... However, one of my colleagues, in an attempt to cheer us up, shared this anecdote from her personal life last week.

Last evening, I had a most encouraging experience: in the Jewels supermarket close to my house I encountered five young (12 and 13 year old) African American males. I noticed them when I was going in because they were chattering and "debating" loudly. When they passed me in the store one of them stopped and asked me, "Who'll make the best president, Bush or Kerry?" I said Kerry and started to explain why, two of them said they favored Bush and rather aptly stated their reasons why. We spent fifteen minutes, standing between the produce and the bakery, discussing the reasons why they, as young African American males, should or should not support the war, what does the change in Medicare mean for their grandmothers, the absolute necessity for voting, the trials "our" people went through to gain the right to vote, the draft and abortion - the two who supported Bush did not support a woman's right to choose. All said they couldn't wait to get old enough to vote and I reiterated the necessity for remaining, at all costs, out of the hands of any legal system or they would run the risk of losing their voting rights. One man who stood and listened to us said he was awed that these children were enlightened, interested, polite and smart. I was so proud of them and told them so. To coin one of the Democrats' mantras, "hope is on the way". PS Even the Bush supporters wanted Obama to win! (edited for anonymity and clarity)

So we can be reassured that at least in Chicago, the youngsters are paying attention to politics in this election and will hopefully be motivated to "vote early, vote often" once they reach majority. I just hope that their older brothers and sisters are motivated enough this year to give us a clear Kerry win. I am amending my hopes from "Kerry in 2004" to "Kerry by midnight PST!" Nothing would make me happier.

The Power of Nightmares

This amazing BBC documentary is being posted to Indymedia. It chronicles the dual rise of two fundamentalist movements: the “radical islamists” and the “neo-conservatives.” Footage of a young Donald Rumsfeld pushing a mid-70s “Red scare” is worth the price of admission. Plus Brian Eno provides the soundtrack!

More details from Kuro5hin:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/10/24/115621/52

Part 1:

http://nyc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/19863

Part 2:

http://nyc.indymedia.org/media/all/display/19890