When Being Black is All it Is

I don't think there is anyone who hasn't been affected in some way by Florida teenager Trayvon Martin's death in February at the hands of a neighborhood watchman who thought he saw a threat in the tall black teenager wearing a dark hooded jacket.  The story is almost too terrible for words. 

I am white and my children are white.  At the same time that I'm grieving with Trayvon's family, trying yet again to come to terms with the needless death of an innocent child, I recognize that I can't possibly grasp what it must feel like to know their precious son would likely still be alive if only he hadn't been black.

It wasn't the hoodie he was wearing that made him a target.  Kids all across the country wear hoodies every day.  It was the darkness of the skin underneath that hood that provided the catalyst for the kind of tragedy that is becoming as commonplace as it is unbearable.

We're in a place where the issue of racism opens up old wounds, forcing us to once again pull it out and examine it.  I would say racism is back, but we all know it never really went away.  We see it in the open hatred toward our first black president; in the collateral hatred toward his wife and daughters; in a generalized hatred toward people whose only difference is in the color of their skin.

I was a young mother during the last civil rights movement.  It was impossible to explain the inexplicable to my children--that in our own country, this country that boasts about fairness and equality in story and song--there are white people who hate black people so much they want to do them harm.

But the conversations I had with my kids couldn't even come close to the painful necessity every black parent had--and still has--in explaining the same thing to their black children.  How can it be explained?  It made no sense then and it makes no sense now.

I look at Sybrina Fulton's face as she weeps over this latest insult to her dead son--the gleeful egging on of a story about his suspension from high school over an empty marijuana bag in his backpack; I hear the anguished rage in Tracy Martin's voice as he defends the reputation of his murdered son, and I am back to a time more than a half-century ago, when defenseless black citizens were humiliated and hurt and killed for no other reason than the color of their skin.

September, 1955.  Murdered teenager Emmet Till's mother weeps at his open casket.  Emmet Till was 14 years old when he was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by white men for the crime of whistling at a white woman. His face was battered beyond recognition, but Mamie Till-Mobley wanted the world to see what pure hatred could do to another human being--and to society as a whole.  "Civil rights activists used the murder of Emmett Till as a rallying cry for civil rights protest, transforming a heinous crime into a springboard for justice. The Montgomery Bus Boycott followed closely on the heels of the case. Indeed, Rosa Parks is quoted as saying, 'I thought about Emmett Till, and I could not go back. My legs and feet were not hurting, that is a stereotype. I paid the same fare as others, and I felt violated.'"

 We are heading toward a new era of ignorance and poverty and those two ingredients become, historically, irrationally, the fuel for a dangerous firestorm.  It's not a leap to suggest that the vital issue of civil rights needs to be addressed and overhauled before violence becomes the norm again.

The stink of prejudice is everywhere. Hispanics feel it, Muslims feel it, LGBTs feel it, anyone who is "different" feels it.  We can't let hatred win.  We owe some measure of attention to the memories of Trayvon and all other human beings who are punished, often to the point of losing their lives, for no other crime than being who they are.

About those Ultrasounds: What if Doctors just say no?

 
I've been wondering--haven't you?--why primary care physicians, and especially OB/GYNs, aren't speaking out about the current creepy Rightward trend toward using ultrasounds as punishment against women who dare to sign up for an abortion.  Turns out some of them are.

They're angry, they're anguished, they're dumbstruck.  (Join the club.)  And they're speaking out anonymously--sadly--because we live in a country where medical doctors can no longer talk freely about abortion, a legal medical procedure, without fear of retribution.

This from a post called "Civil Disobedience" by palMD at his blog, White Coat Underground. (Take a few minutes to read some of his other posts while you're there.  Good stuff.):

"In the case of abortions, where time is essential and providers may not be easy to find, delays in care are unconscionable.  To enforce a waiting period violates the doctor’s ethical duty to provide appropriate, timely care and to avoid causing the patient unnecessary grief.  The law forces us to violate our ethics. To force us to perform ultrasounds, transvaginal or otherwise, is battery.

No procedure can be performed on a patient without their informed consent.  To make another important procedure contingent on an unnecessary one is a clear violation of medical ethics. Abortions can be safely performed without sonography, and should be unless their is compelling medical reason to perform one—with the patient’s consent.  To say that a woman can always refuse the ultrasound as long as they refuse the abortion is an immoral argument, one which removes all autonomy from the patient, and forces a doctor to make unreasonable choices."

 Another caring doctor used John Scalzi's blog, "Whatever", to lay out a plan for civil disobedience.  He says, in part:

"I do not feel that it is reactionary or even inaccurate to describe an unwanted, non-indicated transvaginal ultrasound as “rape”. If I insert ANY object into ANY orifice without informed consent, it is rape. And coercion of any kind negates consent, informed or otherwise.

In all of the discussion and all of the outrage and all of the Doonesbury comics, I find it interesting that we physicians are relatively silent.

After all, it’s our hands that will supposedly be used to insert medical equipment (tools of HEALING, for the sake of all that is good and holy) into the vaginas of coerced women.

Fellow physicians, once again we are being used as tools to screw people over. This time, it’s the politicians who want to use us to implement their morally reprehensible legislation. They want to use our ultrasound machines to invade women’s bodies, and they want our hands to be at the controls. Coerced and invaded women, you have a problem with that? Blame us evil doctors. We are such deliciously silent scapegoats.

It is our responsibility, as always, to protect our patients from things that would harm them. Therefore, as physicians, it is our duty to refuse to perform a medical procedure that is not medically indicated. Any medical procedure. Whatever the pseudo-justification.

It’s time for a little old-fashioned civil disobedience."

 The doctor then offers a five-step plan designed to keep physicians from ever having to perform an unwanted ultrasound on a female patient, starting it off with a bang:

  "1) Just don’t comply. No matter how much our autonomy as physicians has been eroded, we still have control of what our hands do and do not do with a transvaginal ultrasound wand. If this legislation is completely ignored by the people who are supposed to implement it, it will soon be worth less than the paper it is written on." 

And ends it with a bigger bang:

"It comes down to this: When the community has failed a patient by voting an ideologue into office…When the ideologue has failed the patient by writing legislation in his own interest instead of in the patient’s…When the legislative system has failed the patient by allowing the legislation to be considered… When the government has failed the patient by allowing something like this to be signed into law… We as physicians cannot and must not fail our patients by ducking our heads and meekly doing as we’re told.  Because we are their last line of defense."

Alrighty then. 

The Doc is actually echoing more forcefully the guidelines already set long ago by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists--the very guidelines the state of Virginia so clearly and consciously aims to violate. ( The story here by Rick Unger in Forbes.).

In 2009 ACOG reaffirmed their recommendations on non-medical ultrasounds:

"The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has endorsed the following statement from the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM) discouraging the use of obstetric ultrasonography for non-medical purposes (eg, solely to create keepsake photographs or videos) (1):

The AIUM advocates the responsible use of diagnostic ultrasound. The AIUM strongly discourages the non-medical use of ultrasound for psychosocial or entertainment purposes. The use of either two-dimensional (2D) or three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound to only view the fetus, obtain a picture of the fetus or determine the fetal gender without a medical indication is inappropriate and contrary to responsible medical practice. Although there are no confirmed biological effects on patients caused by exposures from present diagnostic ultrasound instruments, the possibility exists that such biological effects may be identified in the future. Thus ultrasound should be used in a prudent manner to provide medical benefit to the patient."

 Of course, the states advocating this unprecedented invasion into women's lives aren't in the least impressed by protestations from anybody not connected with their own Koch-fueled, pseudo-religious circles--not even the medical pros, who are, you know, medical professionals.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, as of March 1, 2012:

•  11 states require verbal counseling or written materials to include information on accessing ultrasound services.

• 20 states regulate the provision of ultrasound by abortion providers.

•  7 states mandate that an abortion provider perform an ultrasound on each woman seeking an abortion, and require the provider to offer the woman the opportunity to view the image.

•  9 states require that a woman be provided with the opportunity to view an ultrasound image if her provider performs the procedure as part of the preparation for an abortion.

•  5 states require that a woman be provided with the opportunity to view an ultrasound image.

There are signs that some state legislatures may be rethinking their actions (Idaho, for instance), but it's a cinch they're only rethinking them in order to get around any detours to their goals.  When they come up with something this nutty in the first place,  the chances that either common sense or common decency will prevail are slim to none.

So how do we get through to them?  We can't shame them; they're shameless.  We can't shun them; they're in charge.  But we can raise our voices in decibels loud enough to be heard above the din of old-testament retribution disguised as modern-day government.

This was never how it was supposed to be.

Red States, White Popes, Blue-bloods: It is to Laugh

In almost every war, there are those moments when soldiers have to sit back and laugh at the absurdity of it all.  Think "Mash", "Stalag 17", "Catch-22", "Slaughterhouse Five".  Like that.  In the war of the Red States against American Women, while the scale may be worlds smaller, and while there's actually been no official declaration, the time has come.  To laugh, I mean.  Honest to God, it is to giggle.

Could even the wildest, zaniest futurist have predicted these hysterical days, when lawmakers in a dozen red states would be falling all over each other to see who could come up with the nuttiest demand to probe into the sex life of Femalus Americanus?

Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett capped last week's antics, turning the usual Republican clown show into an Extravaganza de Burlesque with his lame punchline, "I don't know how you can make anyone watch. . .you just have to close your eyes",  after a reporter asked the Governor if state-sanctioned ultrasounds for women seeking abortions "went too far".

This clip from the Rachel Maddow Show shows the madness in a nutshell:   

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

ThinkProgress Health does another recap, this one with an interactive map showing the states that either are planning or already have hardline, punitive anti-abortion laws in place.  (Okay, this one isn't funny. . .not funny at all.)

But then there's Rick Santorum.  Rick Santorum is running for president, I guess you know.  But is he?   His speeches are sermons and his sweater-vests are the closest he could come to a cassock without drawing attention to his real hope for the presidency.  But listening to him pontificate, don't you just know he's itching to wave at the crowds from his Rickmobile and turn the White House into a papal palace, where he can do what every American president should have been doing all these many years, which is to work tirelessly at saving us sinners from ourselves?

What The Great Santorum doesn't seem to understand is that most of us don't want to go back to the Dark Ages.  Inquisitions are so yesterday.  Self-flagellation hurts.  And women might be ladies but they'll never be chattel again.

So, given that Rick Santorum can't stop showing his inquisitor's hand, in all likelihood Mitt Romney will be the Republican presidential candidate.  Mitt Romney can't help that he was born a blue-blood, but somebody needs to tell him his impression of Thurston Howell III is wearing thin.  It was funny at first--even hilariously funny--but verbal pratfalls from haughty billionaires have never a president made.

Blue-blood presidents, from Washington to Jefferson to Roosevelt to Kennedy,  at least pretended to be egalitarians.  Equality is what our constitution is all about.  The president, as leader of the country, is a representative for the people, not a bottom-line, for-profit CEO.  Maybe this Mitt Romney needs to go back to his Massachusetts governor roots. That Mitt Romney could at least, every once in a while, be convincing in his role as public servant.

And Newt Gingrich.  Where is poor Newt?  As hard as he might try to insist otherwise, he's on the outside looking in.  Delusions of intellectual grandiosity failed to impress his peeps. They yawned and moved on.  Color him green.

It's Settled then: Women, We're at War

Don't expect me to be going over every single attack on women's rights, just because I'm writing about modern-day, 21st century, 2012, just-in-the-last-month attacks, which, as you might have noticed, are escalating at such a dizzying pace we can no longer ignore the rumblings of war.

It's ugly and it's all out there. Even Rush Limbaugh's scrubbed transcripts of his diatribes against Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University student who had the temerity to attempt to testify before certain members of congress about the need for free contraception.  Even Patricia Heaton's deleted tweets about that same student (AKA G-Town Gal).  They're out there.  They're not going away.

No, we're here today to look at the big picture:  How did this latest war of the sexes start?  What was the catalyst?  And what can we do to grind it to a halt now that it's started? 

The obvious answer to question number one is that it's all Obama's fault.  As a part of his health plan (the catalyst), he told insurance companies they would have to offer contraceptive care at no cost to women.  (That would mean, for most, no  co-pay.)  Birth control aids would be free and available everywhere, and since it was mandatory, not to mention laudatory,  not to mention commonsensical and a long time coming, that was supposed to be it.  End of conversation.

Ha!  We wish! .

President Obama's first mistake was that he thought he was taking steps toward helping women more effectively and responsibly manage their reproductive years, when what he was actually doing was antagonizing pissants who have been posing as Manly Men for so long they're not about to be ousted from their comfy zones.

A whole host of Catholic Bishops, pseudo-religious politicians, and paid-to-be-mean pundits jumped on the bandwagon called Control the women by denying birth control, and weren't they surprised when the women they were so itching to suppress wouldn't give in?  A real donnybrook ensued, with everybody weighing in, pro and con, and here we are, in the middle of it all, coming out swinging, and if they want a war, okay, they've got one.

Some highlights:

• The Susan G. Komen Foundation is taken over by a Right Wing zealot who makes it known from Day One that Planned Parenthood can kiss SGK goodbye.  Susan Komen's sister/founder helps figure out a way to do it.  A huge, unprecedented fuss ensues.  Right Wing zealot goes on to greener pastures.  The sister stays and apologizes -- a Pyrrhic victory that nobody feels good about.

•   Long probes up the vagina with cameras on the end used not as medical tools but as instruments of shame-- Zap!  Gone!  Battle won!

• Gooey cold stuff massaged onto a bare belly so a government-issue wand can be waved, not to detect a zygote already determined by other methods to be there, but to establish once and for all that a woman doesn't actually have control over her own body--  Still working on it but we've got them in our sights.

•  Dozens of state legislatures scrambling to make laws against contraception and abortion so harsh Draco the Greek, if he were still alive, would be crying foul-- This one may take a while.

The legal issues, having some semblance of form and substance, are easier to deal with.  There are wise and learned people on our side ready to take them on.  But there's another, uglier issue and it's one we've faced many times before.  It's our old but formidable nemesis: blind, consuming hatred toward people of our gender.

With the rise of the Tea Party and pressure from the Religious Right-to Life-until-It-Actually-Becomes-a-Child, fortified by resident misogynist Rush Limbaugh and hard line Catholic Men in red robes and black robes and pullover sweater vests, the battle to enforce the reproductive rights we've already fought long and hard for is a battle we can't afford to lose.

 The spotlight is on Rush Limbaugh at the moment, but it's Rick Santorum we need to keep an eye on.  He showed his hand when he talked about his reaction to President Kennedy's 1960 speech to the Baptists, where JFK said he would fight hard for the separation of church and state.

Santorum wanted to throw up when he read that.  Why?  Because it's disgusting and unforgivable that  Kennedy had the chance to pave the way for an American Pope and he didn't take it.  Rick will remedy that when he's president.  And guess who will suffer the most under his reign?

The obvious goal is to make sure Rick Santorum never becomes president, but once that threat is gone we'll still be fighting those others working to take us down.  We thought that war was over, but all we really won, we know now, was détente.

Men (and, incredibly, other women) are fighting against those of us who go on believing our reproductive rights are sacrosanct.  Suddenly they're coming out of the woodwork, no longer pretending that Roe v. Wade is all that's keeping us apart.  Now it's about contraception -- a real puzzler, since birth control is the obvious remedy for unwanted pregnancies.

Only women can incubate babies.  It's a fact. If they get knocked up and it's not a good time, the sex police want us to believe they have no one to blame but themselves.  Really?  What other species on the planet punishes the female for being impregnated by a male?  Birth control is a two-way street.  It's irresponsible and gutless to pretend that women did this to themselves, and yet we're hearing it louder and clearer every day.

And why is that?  Because to the people who are coming at us with the same hoary arguments, it's not about the control of birth, it's about the control of sex. That nutty comment by Santorum backer Foster Friess about birth control being as simple as holding an aspirin between our knees?  The admonishment from Rick Santorum that all birth control should be banished because it can only lead to badness?  Rush Limbaugh's crazed, three-day masturbatory fantasy about the reasons women want free birth control?  Sex, sex, and yet again, sex.

It's the same tiresome struggle, but this time we're going to win.  Why?  Because we have a secret weapon.

It's men.  There are more than just a few good ones out there and they're on our side.  They're men who work with us, talk with us, and see us as equals.  They're men who live with us and see our roles as complementary and not competitive or without merit.  They're men who can love unconditionally and have grown so far beyond the ancient need to keep women bound and tethered, they're willing to fight beside us until this war is ended.  Some of them are already at the front lines.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it, you dirty old men of yesterday.  A new day dawns and you've been left behind.  It has to be this way.  It's the way human progress works.

(Cross-posted at Dagblog, where some of the men I most admire hang out.)

What's so Funny about Rush Limbaugh?

 As I write this my sense of humor is intact and waiting as always for something funny to happen.  I can get tickled at the least little thing--adorable babies and clumsy dogs and tripping on sidewalk cracks--and I can howl at even the worst, god-awful jokes.  I can't explain them and I've never been able to repeat them with any kind of comedic skill, but I know funny when I hear it.

I can say without even having to think about it that I've never laughed at a thing Rush Limbaugh has said or done.  I don't get him.  His performances are like those of a mean, out-of-control drunk who thinks everything coming out of his mouth is either hilarious or golden.  He begins every riff quietly, taking his time, pausing, letting his words sink in, and builds to an awesome, wiggly, crazed crescendo.  Oh, my God.  Electrifying to dittoheads and the uninitiated.  Wow!  But to those of us who have been exposed to his antics for decades, they're nothing more than the usual carefully calculated theatrics.  Ho hum.

That's what makes his latest rantings against a Georgetown University law student fighting her college's policies on insuring birth control aids so mystifying.  His initial comments about this young female student were so breathtaking in their vile putridity, the reactions against them were, at last,  refreshingly awesome and swift.  Hundreds of thousands of people protested his words.  Even his usual defenders could be seen slinking away from the ten-foot pole they wouldn't use to touch them.  Yes!  Limbaugh is a pariah!

So did he finally stop and think about what he had said and realize he'd overstepped?  The woman he so viciously word-raped was a young college student and not a politician or a public figure. She was not fair game and she was not a joke.  But no, he didn't.  He was so sure of his base, so sure of the politicians in his thrall, so sure that his advertisers would be too busy counting their money to notice, he came back the next day and the next and attacked this same young woman again.  This time he demanded videos of her sex acts.

His politicians, true to form, gave out some half-hearted hand smacks, reminding us that he's an entertainer, not a Republican spokesman--as if he's only pretending to be one because he'd slept at a Holiday Inn once.

At last count, seven of Rush's sponsors have dropped him, at least for the moment, until all the fuss dies down.  Dozens of petitions are still making the rounds, working to gain enough signatures to pressure all of his backers to leave him helpless and wiggling on his own.  It took all of that for Rush to give an inch and release an odd written statement that, considering who it is from and how rare those things are coming from him, some might take to be an apology.

A Statement from Rush

March 03, 2012

For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week.  In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.
I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit?  In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone's bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.
My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.

"I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke."  Really?  How would you go about attacking someone for three solid days if you DID mean it?

In Rush Limbaugh's 24 years on the air he has apologized six times for the things he's said that backfired.   BuzzFeed has put them all together here.

In 1988 he called Amy Carter "The most unattractive presidential daughter in the history of the country", and "apologized".

In 1992 he called Chelsea Clinton "the White House dog" and "apologized", blaming his crew for confusing him by mixing up pictures of Chelsea and the Clinton's dog.

In 1996 he made fun of Michael J. Fox, saying he either didn't take his medication on purpose or he was faking it when he appeared in a commercial for Claire McCaskill.  In his "apology" he said, "All I'm saying is I've never seen him as he appears in that commercial. . ."

In 2008 he compared then-Senator Obama to Curious George and in his "apology", threatened to fire the caller who brought it up, ha ha, saying he never knew Curious George was--Gosh!--a monkey.

This is not to say that Rush has never said stupid, hateful, racist, misogynistic things before or since.  Oh, he has, and plenty.  That's apparently part of his appeal, God help us.

So think of it.  One of the wealthiest, most famous entertainers in America right now is a stupid, hateful, racist, misogynistic radio personality who broadcasts a show three hours a day, five days a week highlighting his own peculiar, insulting, disrespectful brand of humor.  Millions of seemingly sane listeners adore him and are honored to align themselves with him.

In many dark parts of our nation he is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to deliver a one-hour speech to friendly packed houses, mirroring the stupid, hateful, racist, misogynistic rantings direct from his incredibly popular radio show.

He is so successful, grown politicians fear him more than they loathe him and cannot bring themselves to denounce a man who, underneath all that bluster, is a weak-kneed coward.

He will not debate or answer to anyone.  His radio callers are screened so no one can ever dispute anything he says.  He won't make public appearances in places where people who disagree with him might be in attendance.  He has never appeared on a program where he might be asked hard questions.  He attacks women and children and the handicapped with impunity and laughs along with his audience at the outraged responses.

He is a monster in the eyes of most normal human beings, and so I ask this question in all seriousness:

What is so goddamned funny about Rush Limbaugh?


(Update, 3/8/12:  Media Matters reports that Limbaugh made disgusting comments about Sandra Fluke 46 times over three days and only apologized for two words.  They're listed here. Over 40 advertisers have retreated from his show. Sen. Carl Levin wants the Armed Forces Network to stop broadcasting Limbaugh's show to the troops.  Rush says it's all good.)

Romney Beats Santorum in Michigan. Both Sore Losers

Rick Santorum didn't win in Michigan yesterday.  That's the good news. The bad news is that Mitt Romney did.  In a better world, the vote would have been for "Noton Yourlife", but we've come to accept that even those destined to be harmed the most by that bunch will vote for the one who promises to hurt them hard enough to leave scars.

Because Michigan is an open primary state, there was a push by certain of the left to make it a win for Santorum.  The reasoning was that his relentless, escalating, off-the-wall, on-the-pulpit rantings would finally do him in and, come November, nobody in their right mind would vote for him.  With Santorum in the race Obama would handily claim the prize. 

Obviously, they haven't been paying attention.  It doesn't matter who wins in Michigan or anywhere else.  Big Money is going to back the Republican nominee and since it's worked so well for them all these long ages, they'll pay big to keep the hate machine going.

The hate machine is all the Right Wing has left.  It's what fuels their desperate efforts to make the country in their own image and they've been at it for so long they're not about to give up now. This is their moment.  They're on the verge of complete control.  They've already taken over states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Arizona, Virginia--and who knows how many more would fall if they could finally eliminate or at least emasculate the federal government?  What a coup!  And all done legally, without a single shot fired.  It could all happen in the voting booth.  The United States could be the first sovereign nation in the world to vote themselves out of existence.

In his Wasn't-I-Great-in-Michigan? concession speech last night Santorum repeated the same old stuff:  I'll keep hating on Obama, I'll repeal that crazy health care act, I'll make sure we can pray and preach anywhere we want to, I'll. . .I'll. . .okay, goodnight, then.

In his We didn't win by as much as I would have liked but dammit we won acceptance speech, Romney promised to keep on hating on Obama, to repeal Obamacare, to lower the taxes on business, and to run the country as any good cost-cutting CEO looking out for his best buds would do.

To say that each of them lied through their teeth is to repeat the obvious.  Over the days and weeks we'll keep harping on the lies, blathering on about what lying liars they are, as if pointing out the truth is some sort of weapon.   Pea-shooters against Goliath.

We're in for a long fight.  November is a long way off.  But history will never be able to record that Rick Santorum won the Republican primary in my beautiful state of Michigan.   That's my energizer this morning.

At Peace

 Onward.

No Politics Today. Fun and Games (for me) and Biz Bizness Otherwise

The grandkids are visiting and have been here for almost a week, so any attempts at writing even a semi-serious blog have been totally wasted efforts.  I would much rather be with my darlings anyway, but in order to keep my standing as a weekly blog columnist (something only I, apparently, care about) I pulled this out of the cyber-drawer where it's been sitting for a while.  If you weren't expecting much, this should do it for you.  I'm off now.  See you soon.

 There's no Bizness like Biz Bizness

Nothing earth-shaking here. Just wanted to share an advertising grab I'm finding even odder than most. Went looking for Biz Stain Fighter the other day and it wasn't easy to find. Three stores later I finally found a box sitting alone way back on a shelf. I'm trying to clean the rust stains from some old linen and lace pieces and people who do this sort of thing recommended Biz. I was busy reading the directions, and wasn't paying much attention to what else was on the box, so I didn't fully comprehend the words in the big yellow band right away. Then I did.

I haven't tried it yet, so this is neither a recommendation nor a condemnation of the product inside. The truth is, I can't get past that box.

"25% more than 30 oz." Did I save money by buying this size? It doesn't say that. It's simply a statement, and not even a complete one. So what am I supposed to do with that information? It's things like this that drive me crazy. I don't get along well with numbers anyway, and I've always hated story problems, so it could be there's an important message here that I'm just missing.

If I were into whimsy (and I'm not saying I'm not) I might imagine that lonely box sitting way back on that dark shelf getting pretty bored. It might resort to doodling or playing number games, and maybe it got caught in the middle of one.

Or maybe it was something less whimsical and more likely: Maybe the marketing team was brainstorming and someone came up with this lame attempt at drawing customers to their product. Maybe they even went so far as to produce a prototype before someone said, "That doesn't even make sense". But maybe it was too late, and some of the boxes actually got to the assembly line and onto the pallets and made it to the store shelves, where they just sat there, unnoticed, because apparently nobody really buys Biz anyway.

Whatever it is, I had to get this out. Now I can get on with my day. If it's going to drive you crazy too, I'm sorry. If it makes sense to you, if you get what they're going for, you're way too smart to be wasting your time reading this page. (But maybe you could take a minute to explain it.  In private, so I don't look like such an idiot.)

(Cross-posted at dagblog, where they like to think they have more important things to do.)

Thank you, Cal Thomas. Mighty Big of You

I can't think of a time when I've ever agreed with Cal Thomas.  I confess I don't seek him out, but when I see him on an occasional Op-Ed page I'll read him just to see what he's going to say that's going to infuriate me.  I'm rarely disappointed.

So as he sat on a panel at this year's CPAC and said what he said about Rachel Maddow, I wasn't shocked.  He was at CPAC with his own peeps. It was cool.

From the Huffington Post:

During a panel at the conference, a clip of Maddow's appearance on Sunday's "Meet the Press" was played. In it, Maddow said that Republicans are "waging war on contraception."
"I'm really glad...that you played the Rachel Maddow clip," Thomas said after the audience booed a bit, "because I think that she is the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception." As the audience cheered, he continued, "I would be all for that and all the rest of the crowd at MSNBC too for that matter."

It did seem a little odd for a Pro-Life guy to be sort of wishing someone hadn't been born, but he was at CPAC, and it appears to be a whole different world in there.  But, as one might expect, it created a bit of a flap.  It didn't seem like such a much to me.  All kinds of goofy things came out of CPAC 2012 and were being reported hour by hour.  This was actually one of the milder ones.  But it took a new turn when fellow Conservative Greta van Susteren said publicly that Thomas owed Maddow an apology.  (Her commenters obviously didn't agree. Oy. And vey.)

Then last week Rachel announced that Cal Thomas had called her to apologize.  She told her audience, "I completely believe his apology.  I completely accept his apology."  Good.  Classy.

And that was that.  Until today, when I saw a column by Cal Thomas on the Op-Ed page with the headline, "Rachel Maddow and Civility".  I fully expected a diatribe against Rachel, even after his apology to her, but what I read may be the most sincere abject apology I've ever seen in my life.  That it came from a man who some people, including me, considered a tight-assed Right Wing hack, made it all the more amazing. [Note:  The full title of Thomas's piece is "Rachel maddow and my lesson in Civility" but our paper shortened the title to "Rachel Maddow and Civility" so that it could be read as something entirely different.]

He talked about that day when he sat on the panel and watched a projection of a Rachel Maddow Show clip as she talked about the Catholic contraception controversy.  He did not and cannot deny that he said what he said: "I think she's the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception." 

In his column he wrote, "I was asked to be on a panel before what looked like a crowd of about 1,000 conservatives, hungry for "red meat."  He wrote that he "stupidly" said what he said "before thinking".

I'm reading between the lines here but what I'm getting is that a man like Cal Thomas, who began his column with, "When one writes about moral convictions, it's probably a good idea to consistently live up to them," could kick himself for ever getting involved with that CPAC crowd in the first place.  (It'll be interesting to see where he goes from here.)

He writes that since the flap he has watched a couple of Rachel's shows:

"Without engaging in any qualifiers, she is a strong and competent advocate for her position.  Why do so many of us only watch programs that reinforce what we already believe?  Where is the growth in that?  Whatever else she may or may not be, she is my fellow American.

I have many liberal friends acquired over the years.  They are impossible to avoid in the media, but I don't wish to avoid them.  They became my friends because I stopped seeing them as labels and began seeing them as persons with innate worth.  That is what I failed to do in my first response to Rachel Maddow. . .

. . .I expect to like Rachel Maddow because my instinct is to separate the value of a person from his or her political position.  For some strange reason (demon possession, perhaps) I failed to do that at CPAC."

Bravo, Mr. Thomas.  You will lose friends and followers over this, and it will probably be no comfort to you that I, as a liberal, completely believe your apology and appreciate what you've done here.  But none of that is important.  What is important is that the next morning you felt bad about what you had done and you "called Ms. Maddow to apologize. It wasn't one of those meaningless 'if I've offended anyone...' apologies; it was hearfelt."

And by doing that and writing about it publicly you've opened the doors for all of us to remember something we so easily forget when we're in the midst of doing battle with the people on "the other side":  Whatever else we may or may not be, we are fellow Americans.

Women of GOP Land: What do you see in those men?

Hello, women of the Republican Party:  Democratic female of the liberal persuasion here. I know it looks like we couldn't be any farther apart when it comes to ideology, but I know us. I know when it comes to the big issues--our futures and the well-being of the ones we love--we're sisters under the skin.

We should talk. I mean really talk. I don't mean the usual chit-chat, the talk about kids and work and what's for dinner. I mean about politics. When we're together we do everything we can to side-step the issue and it does keep us friendly, but you must have noticed that the upcoming presidential election is becoming the bull elephant in the room.
 
I know you won't want to hear this, and I hear you when you tell me it's none of my business, but for a couple of weeks now I've been especially worried about where you're going with the men in your life. It strikes not just me but a lot of us that the relationship is becoming, well--abusive.

At the moment these four men--Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul--are vying for your affections and from where I sit no matter which one you choose it'll be bad news for you. And, okay, if any one of them wins, it'll be bad for me too. But it's you who has to take control of the situation. When any one of the four tells you he's going to work hard to take away a woman's right to free birth control it's really disheartening for the rest of us to have to watch you applaud and cheer, as if he is God's gift and aren't you lucky to have him?

At least one of them, Rick Santorum (father of seven, no surprise) doesn't believe in birth control in any form. He says birth control can actually be "harmful to women", suggesting that it promotes sex outside of procreation, which apparently, even for those of us not still living in Medieval times, is a bad thing:

  "One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.... Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that's okay, contraception is okay. It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."

He blames "radical feminists" for taking women out of the home and into the workplace, yet he's done nothing to help improve the economy enough so that women who want to stay home can stay home. In his book, "It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good," written in 2005, he wrote: "Sadly the propaganda campaign launched in the 1960s has taken root. The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness."

Ron Paul, a former OB/GYN and a Libertarian to boot, said, “Forcing private religious institutions to pay for contraception and sterilization as part of their health care plans is a direct assault on the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty. On my first day as President, I will reverse this policy.”

Sexual harassment in the workplace?  No problem, women. Dr. Paul says just quit:

'Employee rights are said to be valid when employers pressure employees into sexual activity. Why don’t they quit once the so-called harassment starts? Obviously the morals of the harasser cannot be defended, but how can the harassee escape some responsibility for the problem? Seeking protection under civil rights legislation is hardly acceptable."

Newt Gingrich believes strongly in a Personhood Amendment that says life begins at conception--a loony view with ramifications for everything from the Morning After pill to in vitro fertilization. In his bid to destroy Planned Parenthood he lied when he said the organization's main thrust was performing abortions. He went so far as to pull a fantastical number out of the air--90% of all services were abortions--when the truer number is three percent out of nearly 5 million visits a year.  In truth, only 34 percent of visits to Planned Parenthood are for reproductive services.

Mitt Romney wants to cut off contraceptive services at Community Centers as well, and if he had his druthers he would kill Planned Parenthood entirely. Even after all the evidence to the contrary, he is still trying to convince you that nothing good comes out of Planned Parenthood, when we all know that in so many communities they've become an essential health care lifeline, not just for women of reproductive age, but for men and women of all ages.

My question is, what is it you see in those men?  When you're out there applauding and encouraging men who want to take womanhood back to the status forced on us even as late as the middle of the 20th century, does it bother you even a little bit that you're egging them on, knowing--because they've told you in every way possible--they want to own every little piece of you?


(Cross-posted at dagblog, where the men outnumber us but they never try to outsmart us)

About that Contraceptive Controversy: If it's phony and you know it, clap your hands

 (Breaking news:  President Obama just moments ago provided a brilliant compromise to the contraceptive controversy, as I mention at the end of this piece.  I wrote this before he made the announcement, but the arguments still hold and they bear remembering.  These are the kinds of battles we'll go on fighting, and a major victory such as today's doesn't mean the war is over.  Not by a long shot.) 

So today let's take a look at what some of the good people are saying about this whole Catholic Bishop's Contra Con -- that huffy-puffy outrage over a mandate forcing insurance providers to cover contraceptives for free in every workplace, including Catholic-owned institutions that hire non-Catholics and receive outside funding.  Those places that are not churches. Those places that already offer prescription birth control drug coverage, but with the usual prescription co-pays. 

John Aravosis at Americablog caught the paragraph in USA Today that clearly shows their real motive.  It is to remove all coverage of all contraceptives:  (Thank you, John, and the others who caught it and are emphasizing it.  This may be the most important revelation in this whole phony story.)

That was no consolation to Catholic leaders. The White House is "all talk, no action" on moving toward compromise, said Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "There has been a lot of talk in the last couple days about compromise, but it sounds to us like a way to turn down the heat, to placate people without doing anything in particular," Picarello said. "We're not going to do anything until this is fixed."

That means removing the provision from the health care law altogether, he said, not simply changing it for Catholic employers and their insurers. He cited the problem that would create for "good Catholic business people who can't in good conscience cooperate with this."

"If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I'd be covered by the mandate," Picarello said.

Sarah Seltzer, in a great AlterNet piece called, "How Zealous Clergy and Their Media Enablers are Manufacturing a Controversy over Birth Control", repeated a startling quote from 2010:

"I don't want to overstate or understate our level of concern," said McQuade, the Catholic bishops' spokesperson. "We consider [birth control] an elective drug. Married women can practice periodic abstinence. Other women can abstain altogether. Not having sex doesn't make you sick."

(Can't you just see millions of men, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, going, "Hey, man, what are you doing?  Shut up!  Just shut UP!")

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones writes about his early ambivalence in "Why I'm feeling so Hard-Nosed over the Contraception Affair": 

". . .I simply don't believe that the religious objection here is nearly as strong as critics are making it out to be. As I've mentioned before, even the vast majority of Catholics don't believe that contraception is immoral. Only the formal church hierarchy does. What's more, as my colleague Nick Baumann points out, federal regulations have required religious hospitals and universities to offer health care plans that cover contraception for over a decade. (The fact that some such employers don't cover birth control is mostly the result of lax enforcement.)"

In a New York Times piece,Gail Collins, starting with a devastating admission by her mother-in-law, writes eloquently about the need for this to be a right for all women: 

We are arguing about whether women who do not agree with the church position, or who are often not even Catholic, should be denied health care coverage that everyone else gets because their employer has a religious objection to it. If so, what happens if an employer belongs to a religion that forbids certain types of blood transfusions? Or disapproves of any medical intervention to interfere with the working of God on the human body?

Organized religion thrives in this country, so the system we’ve worked out seems to be serving it pretty well. Religions don’t get to force their particular dogma on the larger public. The government, in return, protects the right of every religion to make its case heard.

Leah Berkenwald at MsBlog writes about John Boehner's promise to kill it all if the president doesn't back down:

This morning, House Speaker John Boehner vowed in a House floor speech to overturn the provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that would require faith-affiliated hospitals and universities to include birth-control coverage in their employee health benefits. The provision, Boehner argued, “constitutes an unambiguous attack on religious freedom in our country.”

Igor Volsky at ThinkProgress follows Rick Santorum as he leaps at the chance to demagogue the "Religious freedom" argument:

 SANTORUM: They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is the government that gives you right, what’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.

You can watch him in action here.
 
David Boies talks about the constitutionality on "the Last Word":

"There isn't a constitutional issue involved in this case," he told MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday. "You don't exempt religious employers just because of their religion. You are not asking anybody in the Catholic church or any other church to do anything other than simply comply with a normal law that every employer has to comply with."

Steve Benen, in a MaddowBlog piece called "It's about Contraception, not Religion", reminds us again why Rick Santorum should never, ever become president: 

Rick Santorum argued several months ago, "One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.... Many of the Christian faith have said, 'Well, that's okay, contraception is okay.' It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."

  Thank you to Jean Shaheen, Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray, good women of Congress, for spelling out why this mandate makes sense.  And to the Wall Street Journal for publishing their message.

Those now attacking the new health-coverage requirement claim it is an assault on religious liberty, but the opposite is true. Religious freedom means that Catholic women who want to follow their church's doctrine can do so, avoiding the use of contraception in any form. But the millions of American women who choose to use contraception should not be forced to follow religious doctrine, whether Catholic or non-Catholic.

Catholic hospitals and charities are woven into the fabric of our broader society. They serve the public, receive government funds, and get special tax benefits. We have a long history of asking these institutions to play by the same rules as all our other public institutions.

So let's remember who this controversy is really about—the women of America. Already too many women struggle to pay for birth control. According to the Hart Research survey cited above, more than one-third of women have reported having difficulty affording birth control. It can cost $600 a year for prescription contraceptives. That's a lot of money for a mother working as a medical technician in a Catholic hospital, or a teacher in a private religious school.

 In a move to bring some reason to this argument, 24 religious leaders; Christians, Jews, Muslims, signed a letter declaring solidarity with President Obama and the HHS:

"We stand with President Obama and Secretary Sebelius in their decision to reaffirm the importance of contraceptive services as essential preventive care for women under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and to assure access under the law to American women, regardless of religious affiliation. We respect individuals’ moral agency to make decisions about their sexuality and reproductive health without governmental interference or legal restrictions. We do not believe that specific religious doctrine belongs in health care reform – as we value our nation’s commitment to church-state separation. We believe that women and men have the right to decide whether or not to apply the principles of their faith to family planning decisions, and to do so they must have access to services. The Administration was correct in requiring institutions that do not have purely sectarian goals to offer comprehensive preventive health care. Our leaders have the responsibility to safeguard individual religious liberty and to help improve the health of women, their children, and families. Hospitals and universities across the religious spectrum have an obligation to assure that individuals’ conscience and decisions are respected and that their students and employees have access to this basic health care service.  We invite other religious leaders to speak out with us for universal coverage of contraception."

This is just a sample of the arguments for a look beyond religious objections to birth control for women.  They are the arguments that caused President Obama, just moments ago, to spell out the brilliant, elegant compromise that should address the concerns of both sides.  Any religious institution that finds objection to providing their female employees with an insurance policy that covers birth control can now opt out of paying for it.  But thanks to Barack Obama and his administration, women in America will no longer have to worry about how they'll pay for contraceptives.  They will be free to any woman who needs them.

  So let the politicizing begin --  the mewing of kittens against a lion's roar.  This is not a religious issue, it's not an Obama issue, it's not simply a women's issue.  It's a human rights issue, and what's at stake is the real definition of freedom.