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Having briefly surveyed the fragments of evidence concerning Mesopotamian women in different cultures over a 1400-year span, what have we learned? We have seen ample evidence of societies in which the active participation of women in economic, religious, and political life was taken for granted. Equally taken for granted was their dependence on and obligation to male kin and/or husbands.
For the ruling elite, their self-interest as usurpers to the kingship demanded that the form in which they establish power become what one observer has aptly called "patrimonial bureaucracy." The security of their power depended on installing family members in important subordinate positions of power. Such family members were, in this early period, quite often women --who, so to speak, become the first liege-lords of their husband/father/king. Thus emerged the role of the "wife-as-deputy", a role in which we will find women from that period forward.
We have seen the extent and the limits of her power represented by Queen Shibtu carrying out her husband's orders in ruling the realm and in selecting women for his harem from among the captives. Her image can serve as an apt metaphor for what it means, what it meant then, and what it has meant for nearly 3000 years, for a woman to be upper class. Queen Shibtu's role of "wife-as-deputy" is the highest to which such women can aspire. Their power derives entirely from the male on whom they depend. Their influence and actual role in shaping events are real, as is their power over the men and women of lower rank whom they own or control. But in matters of sexuality, they are utterly subordinate to men. In fact, as we have seen in the cases of several royal wives, their power in economic and political life depends on the adequacy of the sexual services they perform for their men. If they no longer please, as in the case of Kirum or Kunshimatum, they are out of power at the whim of their lord.
Robert Pear of the New York Times exposes an old fashioned bipartisan scandal; Genentech lobbyists wrote talking points for legislators and dozens of legislators used them:
WASHINGTON — In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.
Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.
E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.
The lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress.
Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche, estimates that 42 House members picked up some of its talking points — 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats, an unusual bipartisan coup for lobbyists. [NYT]
I am dismayed to learn that my congresswoman, Yvette Clark (D-NY) was one of the legislators Pear caught cribbing extensively from Genetech's notes.
I Blame the Patriarchy marches to the beat of a different news cycle, so this may be ancient history to you, but,
I propose that “stupak” be incorporated into common usage as a verb meaning “to ensure political victory by means of screwing women over bigtime.”
My mind is not boggled that the health care “reform” bill passed the House only because it contains an amendment (the aforementioned Stupak amendment) that would make it illegal for private insurance companies to offer abortion coverage, even when women pay for it out-of-pocket, if those women are also receiving federal insurance dough. It isn’t the least bit surprising that 64 Democrats voted for the bill [view the lip-curling list of politicians who hate you], and that 12 of those were women. It’s scarcely a blip on the Patri-O-Meter that Nancy Collaborator Pelosi was described by HuffPo last week as “triumphant,” and that Barack Godbag Apologist Obama looks forward to signing the bill into law.
Why am I not surprised?
I’ll tell you why.
Patriarchy is a big, boily ass lounging on two fundamental butt-cheeks, without which cheeks it would develop abscesses and go septic and die. Those two butt-cheeks are: sex-based dominance, sex-based submission, and the rapeability of women. OK, three butt-cheeks. Dominance, submission, the rapeability of women, and an almost fanatical devotion to compulsory pregnancy. Four. Four butt-cheeks. Although dominance and submission, as two sides of the same thong, should really only count as one cheek. So make that three cheeks total. Although when you think about it, since the rapeability of women and compulsory pregnancy are merely the practical applications of domination ideology, they’re all really pretty much the same thing. So, for the sake of clarity, let’s just say there is one big honkin butt — the state ownership of women — lolling in a louche manner upon the two cheeks: the rapeability of women, and compulsory pregnancy.
What I’m getting at is this: my lack of surprise at this Stupak shit proceeds from irrefutable evidence that state ownership of women is among the most beloved of our violent culture’s violent traditions. Social conservatives appear to believe that God made patriarchy in his own image, and that he will withdraw his complimentary concierge services and cancel Christmas, NASCAR, and life everlasting if the state stops oppressing women for even one second. So-called progressives just want uninterrupted access to pussy.
Also, people just plain like oppressing women.
That’s why, as part of the ongoing effort to keep women rapeable, rapists are generously protected by the law. Convictions are a joke. They are such a joke that 60% of victims never bother to report their assaults. They are such a joke that at least 20,000 rape kits are sitting around untested in various crime labs across the country. According to RAINN, only 6 percent of rapists ever see the inside of the hoosegow.
“Somehow all we can do is take the statement from the victim. Take the statement from the alleged perpetrator and then throw up our hands because they are saying conflicting things,” quoth this U Mass rape scholar.
If people genuinely wanted to see the end of rape, which they don’t, they’d rescind the Global Accords Governing Fair Use of Women, replacing it with the following: if a woman says she was raped, she was raped. If that’s your DNA, Chad old boy, you’re a rapist. That’s it. The end. “Throwing up our hands” would be discontinued as a law enforcement technique.
So you know that stipulation in the Stupak amendment which would except pregnancies resulting from rape? Happily for fans of the status quo, since 94% of those will never be proven as rapes, denial of access to abortion can continue to oppress all but the wealthiest women.
Although our violence-loving society sort of pretends to pooh-pooh rape, it thinks nothing of claiming state ownership of women’s personal internal organs. Everybody’s fucking ecstatic about this health care “reform” bill. It’s “answering the call of history.” Which history, as usual, calls for women to take it up the butt and like it.
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I’m going to imagine “2012″ happens in the same universe as “The Ugly Truth,” so all those characters die horribly.
Consider this an open thread for you to share thoughts, self-promotion, and random bits of arcana.
She is a feeling and passionate environmentalist who, seemingly so disturbed by geongineering, is compelled to cast our own horse-dung story right back at us with a splat.Kolbert is feeling and passionate! She can't handle the cold hard facts of life! And she's lashing out blindly 'cause Dubner and Levitt are tearing her little world apart with their gnarly, in-your-face truthtelling!
[I]f her Wikipedia page is correct, she somehow accomplished all this with a degree from Yale in … literature.So it's basically a tie, since there's no higher authority we can consult in order to see who has a better grasp of the science. (Or it would be a tie, if Kolbert weren't so "feeling and passionate," which disqualifies her at the gate.)
The time has probably come to admit that neither of us were Ku Klux Klan members either, or sumo wrestlers or Realtors or abortion providers or schoolteachers or even pimps. And yet somehow we managed to write about all that without any horse dung (well, not much at least) flying our way.Right. Because sumo wrestling is pretty much identical to climatology, both in terms of its complexity and its life-or-death implications for modern civilization.
Remember back in December of 2005, when Canadian rapist Jan Luedecke got a free pass because his lawyers had successfully argued that their client’s “sexsomnia” is a legitimate medical disorder that renders the “sufferer” incapable of refraining from assaulting women in his sleep?
Nothing, it will not surprise you to learn, has changed over the past four years.
A review board convening this week to consider Luedecke’s future has declared that he should run free, free, free to float on the ocean breeze, because he has apparently not sexsomnulated anyone but his official partner in 6 years.
That they know of. I don’t suppose that old Jan Luedecke would exactly pipe up about it if he had fallen off the ex-rapist wagon, and it goes without saying that his subsequent victims would have seen clearly the futility of trying to press charges against the poster boy for institutionalized juridical misogyny.
Naturally, nobody calls this bullshit “rare sleep disorder” what it really is, i.e., drunken blotto rape.
[Via Feministing]
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Unidentified terrestrial object, September 2009.
Fellow heartwarming nature crappists will recall that, although spinster aunts are closely related to mushrooms (in terms of a shared propensity to sprout on rotting logs), my mycological chops are not, perhaps, as finely honed as might be considered ideal. Thus I will refrain from positively identifying this appealing, orange, and minuscule (1 cm) mushroom as some gnarly species of Hygrophorus. I mean, let’s face it. It could be elf dung for all I know. Interested parties are invited to submit their theories.
Meanwhile, it has not escaped my notice that the company what manufactures K-Y has come out with a product called “arousal gel.” They make it out of “niacin” and “sensory enhancers.” It’s just for the straight ladies! According to the annoying commercial, using the stuff will cause you to have sex with a doofus dude, will make your orgasm resemble a fog horn, will mess up your hair, and will render you both mute and incapable of preventing the doofus dude from addressing an audience that has apparently gathered at the foot of your bed. The subject of his speech is your enormous satisfaction “down there.”
I Blame the Patriarchy is the world’s #1 science blog, so naturally I ran this K-Y commercial through the old Patri-O-Meter. Results:
– Heteronormativity? Check!
– Dudal interpretation of inarticulate woman’s sexual experience? Check!
– Association of woman-targeted product with romance novel clichés? Check!
– Odd psuedo-science website with pink orgasm juice exploding out of Erlenmeyer flask? Check!
“The use of K-Y® Brand personal lubricants is a personal preference, much like the use of champagne, chocolate, candles, soft music, and perfume.”
Well, count me out, K-Y; spinster aunts are strictly beer, weed, and prog-rock. And dude-free.
Also, since I Blame the Patriarchy is, as I mentioned, an Internetially-acclaimed science blog, I conducted a study on the efficacy of the product. I didn’t feel like coughing up $20 bucks for a bottle, so the study consisted of Googling “KY Intense” and reading a product review on some woman’s product review blog. She had this to say:
“Just because it made me numb, doesn’t mean it will you.”
The comments on her K-Y post contained this gem:
“i have a collection of junk products like this and have no idea what the heck to do with them now because NONE of them work. god, i hate sex…”
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I will write more about this some other day, but I wanted to point Feministe readers to the news (in case you somehow missed it) that 9/11 terror suspects will be tried in domestic courts. This is a major step forward from the days of the Bush administration, when they were sent to Guantanamo and lived in legal limbo.
Some object to terrorists being tried in United States courts because it will afford them “the same panoply of constitutional protections as U.S. citizens during their trials.” I’m unclear on why that’s a bad thing. Federal courts have tried terrorism suspects for years now, and have done a pretty solid job — even when those suspects were afforded basic constitutional protections.
The American judicial system is imperfect, and it depends on an imperfect population to render verdicts. But I’m frankly baffled as to why anyone would think that 9/11 terrorism suspects wouldn’t be treated harshly enough by a New York jury. Believe me, the jury pool that will be pulled in the Southern District will hardly be sympathetic to these guys. And the prosecutors on this case won’t be idiots, either — we’re talking about some of the most talented and seasoned lawyers out there. I imagine that the defense attorneys will be likewise intelligent and skilled. A functional adversary system demands protections for the defendant. The Constitution, and what it affords criminal defendants, are good things. Those protections seek to ensure that even when faced with an unsympathetic jury — as will be the case here — criminal defendants are entitled to basic rights. They ensure that prosecutors do their jobs thoroughly and responsibly. They ensure that we have the fairest system possible, even when any criminal justice system is going to be flawed by its very nature.
The Bush years demonstrated the contempt with which some conservatives view the American judicial system. Liberals also criticize the American justice system, but under very different terms — we want it to be more fair and just. They just don’t think it’s good enough for the “worst” criminals. That lack of confidence is kind of terrifying — if our courts aren’t good enough to try terror suspects, why are we using them to try our own citizens? I’ve written time and again about the flaws in our judicial system (and I wouldn’t mind overhauling many of our laws, which too often lead to racist outcomes; I wouldn’t mind scrapping the death penalty, which these suspects are unfortunately facing), but the idea that we need separate courts for terror suspects because the federal courts aren’t equipped to handle them? Poppycock.
The federal courts are indeed up to the task. And it’s about time that the American public (and New Yorkers in particular) actually saw some justice for what happened on 9/11. A misdirected war in Iraq and a divisive culture war at home (with New York exemplifying All Things Bad) isn’t exactly healing the wounds.
Wouldn’t you know it– while we silly feminists have been agonizing about the impact of the Stupak Amendment after Nancy and the Cardinals did the C Street Shuffle at the Saturday Night Congressional Jerk I mean Dance Off it turns out that if we really want to keep our reproductive rights, all we need to do is get a job at the RNC or the anti-choice group Focus on the Family cuz their health plans cover, wait for it, ABORTION. Really.
I don’t even know why this surprises me. The entire health care debate without end has been one long-winded exercise in stupid. From the get go the sad thing is that what passes as discourse has suffered from the same malady as the abortion issue–a deeply flawed frame. In the case of abortion, the minute the word ‘choice’ and the phrase ‘pro-life’ became the descriptors, the discussion we should have been having about women’s reproductive rights was gone.
As for health care, we have had all manner of false flag buzzwords–public option, triggers, yada yada everything centered around the cost of premiums totally losing sight of the fact that health care is a human right, not a commodity that needs to be delivered in a way that keeps pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies afloat so they will keep funding our elected representatives. Our health care system is ill, it is a disgrace and it is an affront to human decency. Ditto our Congress who, with very few exceptions have apparently had frontal lobotomies and seem to be suffering from some painful form of spinal disintegration. What part of just fix it could possibly not be clear? The answer of course is apparently the whole damned thing and until we insist that Congress get their little patooties (I leave it to you to decide what part of the anatomy you feel that should describe) pointed in the right direction and back on topic, our health care is going to remain in critical condition.
One of the most galling aspects of the Stupak Amendment is that after months of dithering, pontificating, waffling and other forms of ass covering that pass for political debate these days, Stupak happened in the 11th hour before a Saturday vote leaving reproductive justice advocates doing a lot of WTF-ing. I am still deeply shocked that the Democratic leadership that has been so unable to use its majority position to act decisively could all of a sudden simply decide that women’s reproductive rights could just cavalierly be thrown to the Blue Dogs for the sake of the last 3 votes. It is just breathtaking even though it has come to light in recent months that our current system has been shafting women on many health care fronts for quite some time–higher premiums, maternity care, etc. As I noted last week, even high risk state insurance pools have been discrimination against women.
But what is the deal with Pelosi making a last minute concession of this magnitude to the Catholic Church? Wendy Norris sheds some light on why this isn’t just a matter of the Catholic Church playing the abortion card on a moral basis, it is also has a huge stake in the financial ramifications of the health care legislation,
The justifiable anger at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for lobbying on the Stupak-Pitts amendment overshadows what is possibly the bigger motive for the Vatican: the billions of dollars at stake for the church’s hospitals.
The scale of the church’s involvement in the rapidly growing $2.5 trillion dollar American health care industry is staggering.
Abortion may be safe, it may be legal. But if it isn’t affordable, it is de facto not available and that is detrimental to women’s health and an unacceptable compromise, as is the premise that the health of corporations or the Catholic Church trumps that of people. For additional commentary on this issue, please also read,
First off, let me note that I hate Carrie Prejean as much as the next sentient human.
That out of the way, it’s time for me to defend Carrie Prejean.
As you may have heard, former Miss California USA-slash-anti-gay activist Carrie Prejean has a sex tape that’s gotten loose, and perhaps “several more” in the hopper. (No, I’m not linking to stories; keep reading, you’ll see why.) This is, of course, totes hilarious, as Prejean was trying to build a career around moralizing while still being a normal human with feet of clay. This tape, as I read from various liberal blogs and see discussed on liberal talk shows, is a tape of Prejean masturbating that she sent to an ex-boyfriend at some point. The ex-boyfriend is now distributing the tape, and telling stories of how Prejean allegedly wanted him to say she was underage when she made it — leading Michael Musto to opine waggishly that she’s just a typical girl, wanting to look younger than she is.
Hee hee, ho ho, sigh.
You know why Carrie Prejean wants us to think that tape may be illegal? Because she doesn’t want everyone and their twin sister to have video of her masturbating. Why? Because she didn’t release a video of her masturbating for worldwide distribution. She sent it to her then-boyfriend.
Now, yes, Prejean has been involved in moralizing. And here’s where I’m supposed to say that she has this coming, having the temerity to be a sexual being while criticizing others for their sexuality. But you know what? I’m having trouble believing that. Because while Prejean’s opinions on same-sex marriage may be wrong, it doesn’t therefore follow that it’s okay for someone she trusted to break that trust by sharing private videos with the public. Indeed, on the moral spectrum, I’m having trouble seeing why Prejean should be embarrassed by the sex tape, and a whole lot of reason to think that her ex-boyfriend is a major league asshole who women should avoid like the plague. Men too, for that matter.
Guys? It’s me, Jeff. Let’s say your wife, girlfriend, lover, friend with benefits, or friend without benefits is nice enough to send you a tape of herself in flagrante delicto. Guess what? She didn’t sent that to you and anyone you feel like forwarding that to. Unless your best friend, your preacher, your mom, Harvey Levin, Joe Lieberman, or J.K. Rowling was copied in on the email,1 you shouldn’t send it to any of them without first seeking permission from the young2 lady in question.
The reason, of course, is that this woman is choosing to risk a bit of her privacy to give you a momentary sexual thrill — perhaps many, depending on how lonely you are and whether or not your girlfriend goes to college out of state. You owe it to her not to run to your roommate and say, “Hey, look what this girl sent me!” Why this is so should be blindingly obvious — what said woman sent for your consumption may not be something she’d want her mom, her high school math teacher, Kevin Sorbo, or the crowd at an L.A. Lakers game to see. She sent it to you, personally, because she likes you and trusts you enough that you won’t go sending it to someone else. If you go sending it to someone else, that proves that you’re a scumbag who can’t be trusted, and while the woman may be guilty of not seeing that quickly enough, the only real jerk in this picture is you.
You see, it’s like sex. If you and your girlfriend are having consensual sex, that’s fine. If you invite your buddy in unannounced to start having sex with your girlfriend too, without clearing it with her? That’s rape. No, selling smutty pictures of your ex-girlfriend to TMZ isn’t rape. But it’s rape’s evil, less-reviled cousin, and it’s in the same moral ballpark. And just because we like to put the fault back on the Carrie Prejeans of the world for sending these tapes in the first place, the fact is that their privacy is being violated, while the ex-boyfriend in question is lauded for said violation. A moment’s foolishness in the name of lust or love is understandable; a willful betrayal of trust in the name of lulz or cash is reprehensible.
It’s sick and wrong. And it’s nothing to laugh about, even if the victim in this case has been moralizing about other things. For all her wrongness, I don’t recall Prejean arguing that LGBTQQ individuals should have their nude, intimate photos and videos released to the world. She’s wrong on marriage. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to laugh when she’s violated.
For some years, Democrats have denounced parodies that cast their party as utterly closed to the views of those who oppose abortion. Last weekend, Democrats proved conclusively that they are, indeed, a big tent -- and many in the ranks are furious.
From the outraged comments of the abortion-rights movement, you'd think that Rep. Bart Stupak's amendment to the House version of the health-care bill would all but overturn Roe v. Wade.
No, it wouldn't. The Michigan Democrat's measure -- passed 240 to 194, with 64 Democrats voting yes -- would prohibit abortion coverage in the public option and bar any federal subsidies for plans that included abortion purchased on the new insurance exchanges.
Last Friday night, Stupak put forward a final compromise to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that would have prohibited abortion coverage in the public plan but would have allowed an annual vote on the abortion ban for the private plans. Pro-choice Democrats rejected this, and the stronger version of Stupak's proposal then passed.
What happens now? Democratic supporters of abortion rights need to accept that their House majority depends on a large cadre of antiabortion colleagues. They can denounce that reality or they can learn to live with it.
The truth is that even with the Stupak restrictions, health-care reform would leave millions of Americans far better off than they are now -- including millions of women. This skirmish over abortion cannot be allowed to destroy the opportunity to extend coverage to 35 million Americans. Killing health-care reform would be bad for choice -- and very bad for the right to life.
And I did forget
My holy song:
And I had no strength
In Babylon.
By the rivers dark
Where I could not see
Who was waiting there
Who was hunting me.
And he cut my lip
And he cut my heart.
So I could not drink
From the river dark.
You know what I don't want to hear right now about the Stupak-Pitts amendment banning abortion coverage from federally subsidized health insurance policies? That it's the price of reform, and prochoice women should shut up and take one for the team. "If you want to rebuild the American welfare state," Peter Beinart writes in the Daily Beast, "there is no alternative" than for Democrats to abandon "cultural" issues like gender and racial equality. Hey, Peter, Representative Stupak and your sixty-four Democratic supporters, Jim Wallis and other antichoice "progressive" Christians, men: why don't you take one for the team for a change and see how you like it?
For example, budget hawks in Congress say they'll vote against the bill because it's too expensive. Maybe you could win them over if you volunteered to cut out funding for male-exclusive stuff, like prostate cancer, Viagra, male infertility, vasectomies, growth-hormone shots for short little boys, long-term care for macho guys who won't wear motorcycle helmets and, I dunno, psychotherapy for pedophile priests. Men could always pay in advance for an insurance policy rider, as women are blithely told they can do if Stupak becomes part of the final bill.
President Obama, too, worries about the deficit. Maybe you could help him out by sacrificing your denomination's tax exemption. The Catholic Church would be a good place to start, and it wouldn't even be unfair, since the blatant politicking of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on abortion violates the spirit of the ban on electoral meddling by tax-exempt religious institutions. Why should antichoicers be the only people who get to refuse to let their taxes support something they dislike? You don't want your tax dollars to pay, even in the most notional way, for women's abortion care, a legal medical procedure that one in three American women will have in her lifetime? I don't want to pay for your misogynist fairy tales and sour-old-man hierarchies.
From Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA):
The women of the world are demanding a paradigm shift that ensures their participation and leadership on decisions that affect their very survival and that of their families and communities,” said Lorena Aguilar, Senior Gender Advisor for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), on the occasion of the UNFCCC negotiations currently taking place in Barcelona, Spain, ahead of the Copenhagen session this December.
A team of women’s organizations and gender experts from around the world representing the Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA) has been following the UNFCCC negotiations since the Bali Climate Change Talks in 2007, providing technical assistance and training to government delegates on the gender aspects of the Bali Action Plan building blocks of mitigation, adaptation, technology, and finance. As a result, the negotiation texts contain the first ever language on gender equality and women—including 43 references in the texts earlier this year, and 8 references in the current “non-papers”. The Barcelona session is critical for retaining key references, particularly the recognition of women as agents of change, the prioritization of vulnerable groups, the active participation of all stakeholders, and a commitment to gender mainstreaming.
The climate change convention is the only major environmental agreement from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit that does not address gender inequality. Winnie Byanyima, Director of the Gender Team at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), noted, “If we do not address the importance of gender in the climate change debate, we will be responsible for the death and impoverishment of millions of people—many who already suffer extreme poverty, hardship and indignation.”
Cate Owren of Women’s Environment & Development Organization (WEDO) and the GGCA Advocacy Team added, “This is an historic time for gender and climate change. We’re very inspired and positive that something will emerge from Copenhagen, and that it will be gender-sensitive.”
The GGCA will attend the Copenhagen COP, continuing to work with the many supportive Parties on gender-specific text; raising awareness and networking with UN, intergovernmental and civil society organizations; and launching new initiatives by bringing high profile women leaders to speak at a side event and commissioning two major performing arts events.
The GGCA is a joint initiative of 13 UN agencies and 25 civil society organizations working to ensure that climate change initiatives and decision-making at all levels are responsive to both women and men.”
For further information, please visit Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA).

One fake news show spots another. Jon Stewart catches Sean Hannity's producer trying to pass off footage of Glenn Beck's 70,000 teabagger march as Michelle Bachmann's 10,000 teabagger Superbowl of Freedom:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage | ||||
| www.thedailyshow.com | ||||
| ||||
(via Americablog)
Is there a “My mother was pro-choice” / “My mother is pro-choice” bumpersticker? And if not, why not?
I vaguely wish there were a “Sorry your mother was pro-life. My mother chose me” bumpersticker, but it’s too long, and there’s no way to make sure the snark would just reach those who deserve it with their asinine assumptions that the only way a woman would have a baby is if she didn’t believe she had any other option.
ETA: Oo, or for mothers, “Pro-choice: my children are wanted.”
But you wouldn’t want to put that out there because it would be cruel to the still-children kids of pro-life mothers who are old enough to process the implication they aren’t wanted, but not old enough to understand that the political point is about challenging preconceptions about pro-choice mothers. “Pro-choice and a mom” is probably better, if less amusingly snark-ridden. That’s got to already exist somewhere, right?
The group saw no evidence that Hasan, 39, was violent or a threat. It was more that he repeatedly referred to his strong religious views in discussions with classmates, his superiors and even in his research work, the official said. His behavior, while at times perceived as intense and combative, was not unlike the zeal of others with strong religious views, and some doctors and staff were concerned that their unfamiliarity with the Muslim faith would lead them to unfairly single out Hasan's behavior, the official said.
Posted with the kind permission of Kevin Moore. Click on the cartoon to see it bigger, and to see Kevin’s commentary and links.
In addition to Kevin’s comments, I’d point out this post by Ezra, pointing out that (by the weird definition of “subsidize” conservatives are suddenly using), Stupak “did not block the federal government from subsidizing abortion. All it did was block it from subsidizing abortion for poorer women.”
And read as well this piece, pointing out that by the Bishop’s definition of federal funding, the enormous support the Federal government pays to Catholic hospitals and charities must be a subsidization of religion, and is presumably unconstitutional.
So, as I have said elsewhere, I have been feeling guilty about not posting about the goings on Iran of late, and I am beginning to formulate some posts I’d like to write, but this news article caught my eye. No matter how much I might disagree with and oppose the government in Iran, there is no way that the Iranian embassy is wrong about establishing a scholarship in the name of Neda Agha-Soltan. It is, by definition, political:
Iran has criticised Oxford University after one of its colleges established a scholarship in honour of a woman killed during post-election unrest in June.
The Iranian embassy in London denounced the £4,000 ($6,600) Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship offered by Queen’s College as “politically motivated”.
Queen’s said the award would help impoverished Iranians study at Oxford.
Ms Soltan became a symbol of the opposition after she was shot dead at an anti-government protest in Tehran.
For me, even though I agree with the politics, or at least what the politics behind the scholarship are perceived to be–since we don’t know who endowed the scholarship or why–the question is whether or not that is a good thing. I am still made uneasy by the way Neda’s image, and the idea of Neda, is exploited as a symbol of opposition to the government of the Islamic Republic, and, as an academic, I wonder about the degree to which a scholarship like this cannot help but be part of that exploitation, no matter how academically sound, impartial, etc. Queen’s College is in administering and awarding the money.
I wonder what others think.
I Blame the Patriarchy has won an award!
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editor.science@gmx.com
Dear William Lee,
Gosh. Thanks for the honor. I was unable to locate on your site the poll that resulted in your decision to bestow this award, but I am certain that if you applied the same exacting standards to the other winners, I am in some pretty estimable company. Not that it won’t be hard to live up to the kind of unforgettable writing showcased on your website (e.g. “Reading science articles will provide useful and informative information that can usually be applied or implemented to some degree.”)! That Admin guy’s work is très formidable!
This award couldn’t have come at a better time. I’ve been reading Stenger’s book on the New Atheism, from which informational resource I have learned that to be taken seriously as an atheist these days you have to be either a smug dude scientist or Christopher Hitchens. I’m not soused enough to be Hitchens (and unlike Hitch, I am an actual horseman) but I’ve got smug in spades. And now that I am receiving Internetian (rhymes with Venetian) acclaim for being ahead of the curve in my work in the field of great Science information, there can be no doubt that I am a scientist, despite my almost total lack of PhDs. So maybe — thanks to your award — I can finally glom onto some of that serious atheist action and get into that club. Only, you might need to hook me up with a pair of balls along with that Top science Blogs award banner. Also, how much do you pay?
Hugs,
Blog Owner
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...we wrote about the economics of prostitution. But we wrote about some more serious topics, too...
We started down this road in 1976 when the Hyde Amendment passed and when, in 1980, the Supreme Court upheld the principle that the federal government had the right to enact policies that favored childbirth over abortion by restricting funding for abortion. Most Democrats saw that giving antiabortion taxpayers greater moral standing than women who choose abortion was a political power play. After all, taxpayers don't get any other say in how their taxes are used. Pacifists' dollars support war; anti-bailout Americans saw their taxes go to banks just this year. Except on the issue of abortion, if you want to be a tax resister, the only thing to do is not pay your taxes and go to jail.
While everyone considers Demi to be the O.G. cougar, she doesn't see it that way.
"I'm certainly not the first person to be in a relationship with a younger man, but somehow I was plucked out as a bit of a poster girl," she says. "I don't know why that is. But I just kind of step back sometimes and say, 'There is some reason, and what is it that I have to share in a positive way?' I'd prefer to be called a puma."
("Puma" is already used to describe women in their 30s who go for younger men, so 47-year-old Demi doesn't really fall into that category. But she thinks "she came up with the new designation," so maybe it's best to let her go on believing that?)
Now about her 31-year-old husband. She loves him. A lot.

As has been well documented, I have exhibited gallantry and forbearance on this painful subject for years, but dammitjim I can be silent no longer! I Blame the Patriarchy is now officially a “teh menz”-free zone. By which I mean, the bizarre and cringe-u-lational phrase “teh menz” will no longer be admitted into blaming discourse. The only reason I haven’t mentioned it until now — besides the aforementioned gallantry and forbearance — is my reluctance to endure the burning spasms that shoot through my fingers when I type the words.
I am not sure what concatenation of disquieting circumstances originally produced this “teh menz” phenomenon. Neither am I certain what tone the phrase is meant to strike, or why so many otherwise right-thinking people feel compelled to use it. However, I think we can all agree that its day, if it ever really had one, has come and gone, and anyway it really warps my autoharp, so it’s gotta go. Echoing the views of dictatorial and overbearing spinster aunts everywhere, I’d like to ban “teh menz” from the Internet altogether, along with the word “snarky,” horse breeder websites with that scripty font and rainbows on’em, and remarks beginning with “um.” Unfortunately, I am forced to settle for discrediting it here on this lonesome, unpopular blog.
Ditto “wimminz,” “baybeez,” “widdle baybeez,” and any other plural noun that is intentionally misspelled with a “z” within a blaming context. I regret to say that, whatever literary effect the author intends with this stylized illiteracy/baby talk, the result is merely unseemly, and it stinks the joint up.
Come for the pedantry, stay for the snobbery.
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I don’t believe in “natural” rights. Rights are a human institution; those rights that aren’t institutionalized by humans don’t exist. The only rights I, or any of us, have, are the rights that are recognized by the society in which we live.
So I don’t think — for example — that same-sex couples have a right to equal treatment under the law when it comes to marriage, in most US states. They don’t. They should, and I think they will in my lifetime. But we’re not there yet.
When people speak of having rights that aren’t recognized by society, I can’t agree. Where would rights like that come from? From God, I suppose, but I don’t believe in God. From nature, one could say, if one has never ever watched a nature show in one’s life. If you have a right to live, and the government shoots you anyway, and there are no consequences for those who shot you, then in what meaningful sense did the right to live ever exist?
Of course, it can be powerful to speak as if there are rights that exist outside of human institutions. It’s a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy; if you say “I have a right to blah, and that right is being denied to me,” then that use of the rights rhetoric makes it more likely that someday you will have the right to blah. I acknowledge that speaking of rights that way can be useful. But I don’t think it’s accurate.
Illustration via TRG’s Flickr page.

Someday someone will explain to me this fascination America has with the idea that Michelle Obama has white relatives like it’s remotely unusual for a descendant of slaves in America. I notice with all the talk of “So and so was impregnated by X slaveowner” and the rush to interview the white relatives so they can say the obligatory “I’d love to reunite with that side of the family and talk about our history” no one discusses exactly how so many mulattoes came to be born during and after slavery. I know the story of the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings has been played as very romantic, but I sincerely doubt that even if it was that way for them, the same is true of Michelle Obama’s great great great grandmother’s relationship with the man that bought her when she was 6 and impregnated her at 15.
I know romance has nothing to do with why my maiden name is Irish. The slaveowner on that side kept very detailed records of everything. Including Or why my grandmother’s mother had straight hair. My great great grandfather raised her (and presumably loved her) anyway, but there’s some pretty clear evidence in the records that their reasons for moving north to Chicago weren’t based on a desire to leave the farm land that he worked so hard to acquire and hold onto through Reconstruction. My great grandmother was born in 1894 and she’s listed as mulatto, but her parents are listed as black. It’s on that list of things that was never explicitly discussed, but no one in our family is laboring under the delusion that the way she got here was about romance you know?
The power dynamic between slave and slaveowner is almost never recognized in these romanticized revisionist histories, much less what it meant to be a WOC assaulted and impregnated by a white man in a society where you had no hope of him ever facing anything approximating justice. There’s a lot of talk about how long ago slavery ended, but there’s not a lot of talk about the impact it, (and all the events that followed) have had on family dynamics in the black community. Or the psychological effects of institutional racism in any community. Even here there’s no discussion of how the white relatives feel when the new found cousin isn’t the First Lady. Because let me tell you what, our Irish relatives weren’t so excited when we found them. A whole lot of those “Cherokee” relatives people like to claim weren’t NDN, but it was a convenient lie for white families looking to avoid the stigma of having been touched by the tarbrush.
I blog a lot about sociology, critical race theory, and history. I’m not alone, after all there’s tons of research being done in those areas. Not so much when it comes to the psychological effects of racism on an individual level. It’s difficult enough to talk about being a POC and what we deal with as a result of modern institutional racism without trying to articulate the generational emotional and physical trauma of living in a society that’s innately hostile to your very existence. There’s been some work done but it’s not an area that’s easy to navigate academically or socially. Because really when you’re talking about these kinds of family stories it’s easier to smile politely and just not discuss it than to dig up all those bones and really face the pain.
There’s such a stigma attached to seeking mental health assistance (including some very specific intra-community impediments) that I can completely understand why this is the proverbial elephant in the room when it comes to discussing race and racism. But (like all the other aspects) it’s one that cannot be ignored. Because even when it’s not acknowledged the fact remains that racism has an impact on every aspect of life. Everything from parenting choices, to jobs, to housing, to how our communities function is impacted by this huge awful weight and that doesn’t happen in some emotionless vacuum. Even the “positive” stereotypes are hurtful because they’re rooted in deeply ugly historical and social context. Is it really so difficult to at least consider the psychological impact of that kind of ongoing trauma might be beyond the grasp of the casual observer?
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The Cold War was a fact of life.
My parents had grown up during it; I had grown up during it. And I had little doubt my children would grow up during it. From before my parents were born, the Soviet Union and the United States of America were the premier powers on two sides of a chessboard. On America’s side, we had friends like France and Britain. The Soviets had allies like Poland and Czechoslovakia. China was off doing its own thing, Soviet in policy, but more on America’s side than not. Still, the chess pieces were controlled by the Americans and the Soviets, and smack dab in the center of the board were the twins — West and East Germany.
Yes, I know that is a simplistic, America-centric view of what was a difficult, confusing, and dangerous time in human history. But it was the view we were sold — not for nothing was the president referred to, as far back as my memory goes, as “Leader of the Free World.” And while America’s NATO allies were far more independent than was suggested at the time, America played an outsized role in the alliance for the same reason the Soviets did. We were armed to the teeth, armed with weapons that could destroy humanity a dozen times over, in a myriad of horrific ways.
It was these weapons that transformed the Cold War from a mere struggle for national prestige to the potentially suicidal confrontation it was. Some have suggested that nuclear weapons, perversely, may have saved lives, by making the cost of direct conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact too dire for sane leaders ever to comprehend. But if they did so, they did so at a very high price, for every man, woman, and child in the world knew that if ever west or east found itself with a truly unhinged leader, one willing to destroy the world to save it, that all of us could be dead within minutes — if we were lucky. The unlucky — those would be survivors, forced to live in a world where burning wood for fires would unleash radioactive toxins, a world where what few humans survived would be faced with a cataclysmic nuclear winter, followed by several millennia of radioactive poison slowly killing us off, as we descended from our pinnacle to, at best, a stone-age existence. As Albert Einstein once noted, he didn’t know what weapons World War III would be fought with, but World War IV would be fought with sticks and stones.
This was our world, a world in which two sides were constantly jockeying for position, two sides that could end my life and the lives of everyone I loved in an instant. A world in which the Eastern Bloc might as well have been located on Mars. A world in which an Iron Curtain divided Us from Them.
The Iron Curtain was not just a clever metaphor coined by Winston Churchill. It had a real-world counterpart: the Berlin Wall.
The Berlin Wall was built to keep East Germans from escaping to the democratic West, as 3.5 million did between the end of World War II and the start of construction. This outflow had both direct negative affects — it cost East Germany 20 percent of its citizens — and indirect ones, as the constant movement from East to West was a propaganda coup for NATO and democratic Western Europe. It could not continue.
And so the wall was built, beginning on August 13, 1961. It began as a haphazard barrier, made up of barbed wire, chain-link fences, mine fields and unfortified areas patrolled by soldiers. It was still just a wire fence when John F. Kennedy delivered his famous Ich bin ein Berliner1 speech in 1963, albeit a completed one. The wall was built up over time, with concrete walls added in the late 1960s. By the time I was born, in 1974, that wall was complete, and the upgraded Grenzmauer 75 was being installed, 12 feet high and four feet thick, with significant reinforcements on the Eastern side. It is that wall that is remembered best, and the first thing I think of when the words “Iron Curtain” are mentioned.
That wall was the symbol of the Cold War, the unending, unyielding, potentially lethal war that had my parents hiding under their school desks, and that had me lying awake some nights, wondering if my home in suburban Minneapolis would be destroyed in the initial blast wave, or if I might live long enough to see the misery afterward. That massive concrete wall — the one Ronald Reagan urged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down, as if that could happen — was a permanent fixture. It would stand throughout my lifetime. Because countries don’t simply decide one day to let their citizens be free. It doesn’t happen — even if the Soviets are mouthing pretty words like Перестройка and Гла́сность.
And yet, in the fall of my sophomore year in High School, that appeared to be exactly what was happening. In August, Hungary had opened its border crossings with neutral, democratic Austria, and quickly, 13,000 East Germans booked tours to Hungary, and didn’t return. Czechoslovakia soon followed suit, forcing East Germany to seal its border with an ostensibly aligned country. Those East Germans who hadn’t left began to agitate for their freedom. They first chanted “Wir wollen raus! — “We want out!” Then, as weeks went by, sensing that more than freedom to travel may be afoot, the protesters began to chant, “Wir bleiben hier!” — we are staying here.
On October 18, Erich Honecker, who had served as General Secretary of the DDR for eighteen years, abruptly resigned. Egon Krenz was elected to replace him, in a split vote by the People’s Chamber. Krenz said he would institute democratic reforms, but events had overtaken him. Krenz re-opened the Czechoslovak-East German border. The Politburo formally began to discuss lifting travel restrictions with the West, as they weren’t enforceable at that point.
On November 9, 1989, twenty years ago today, Günter Schabowski, First Secretary of the East Berlin Chapter of the Socialist Unity Party, was given the news that travel restrictions with West Germany were to be lifted. They were not to be lifted that day; however, the information Schabowski had did not contain the date they were to end. And so Schabowski, asked when the rules were to be lifted, replied “sofort, unverzüglich” — immediately, without delay.
East Berliners streamed to the border, and realizing that they had nothing to gain from killing people for trying to cross the border over a miscommunication, the East German government ordered its troops to let them through, unencumbered. On November 9, 1989, for all intents and purposes, the Berlin Wall fell.
The Ossis were greeted by the Wessis with open arms, and a jubilant celebration began. Within days, people on both sides of the wall arrived with sledgehammers to knock it down, piece by piece, crumbling rock by crumbling rock.
Krenz’s government did not last another month, and East Germany did not last another year. By December 6, Mannfred Gerlach, who had split with the ruling Communist Party in early October, was elected as head of the Council of State and de facto Head of State; he would be replaced when the Council of State was abolished the following April, and Sabine Bergmann-Pohl, the President of the Volkskammer, replaced him. Her government would last until October 2, 1990, the date on which East and West Germany ceased to exist, as all territory belonging to the DDR was brought into the Bundesrepublik. A nation went directly from being part of the Warsaw Pact to part of a NATO ally. And the Cold War began to end.
There were many other milestones on the way to the liberating of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Czechoslovakia all joined East Germany in shedding their Communist legacies in 1989. In August of 1991, an attempted coup would fail in the USSR, leading to the dissolution of the empire and the freeing of nations like the Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
It did not bring about, as Francis Fukuyama said it would, the “End of History.” Yugoslavia would implode spectacularly, leading to genocidal violence. In a number of former Soviet states, border disputes and ethnic divisions would foment wars and create breakaway, failed states. And while parts of the east, like the Baltic Republics and the Czech Republic, are thriving, others — including East Germany — continue to struggle with the transition from a command economy to Eurocapitalism.
But the end of the Cold War did end a period of political repression in much of Europe, and it ended the threat of global cataclysm that two generations of humans took as an enduring part of life. The worst al Qaeda can dish out today is kids playing with pop-guns next to the threat of an all-out nuclear war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
That threat died over several years. But symbolically, it died twenty years ago today, when people who wanted the freedom to visit their cousins, to speak their minds, and to chart their own destinies abruptly found themselves able to do so. I still remember sitting in my sophomore German class, unable to believe what we were seeing on the television that had been wheeled in for the day. Twenty years later, I have trouble believing it. But I am grateful beyond words that my daughter is not growing up in the world I did, and that throughout Eastern Europe a whole generation is growing up free.

Despite weeks of media attention paid to the now-infamous "C Street" house owned by The Family, a secretive Christian group, U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak — who lives at the house near the U.S. Capitol — denied any knowledge of the nature of the mysterious Washington, D.C., rowhouse and any involvement with the organization that owns it and uses as a seat of influence on Capitol Hill.
During a conference call with reporters Thursday morning, Michigan Messenger asked Stupak, a Menominee Democrat, about the house where he has lived for many years and his connections to the shadowy organization that owns it. The longtime Upper Peninsula legislator claimed to have "no affiliation" with the group, which is known as The Family or The Fellowship.
"I don't belong to any such group," Stupak said. "I rent a room at a house in 'C Street.' I do not belong to any such group. I don't know what you're talking about, [The] Family and all this other stuff."
The C Street house, a former convent, is still listed on official tax documents as a church but it functions largely as a boarding house, with six to eight members of the U.S. House and Senate living there at any given time. Current residents include Stupak, Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), and Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.).
...
Jeff Sharlet, contributing editor at Harper's magazine and the author of "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power," lived for a time at Ivanwald, another boarding house owned by the group in Arlington, Va., this one for younger men without political power.
Sharlet said that Stupak's denial of any knowledge of The Family or its activities is false. "When I lived with The Family at Ivanwald, a house for younger men being groomed for leadership, I was told that Stupak was a regular visitor to the Cedars," Sharlet said. The Cedars is yet another compound owned by The Family, one that hosts weekly prayer events led by former Reagan-era Attorney General Ed Meese.
Sharlet said that Stupak had much greater involvement with the group than he is admitting, noting that the congressman was "a Family-assigned mentor to one of my brothers at Ivanwald." That Ivanwald resident, Sharlet said, "regularly left for what he and others described as mentoring sessions."