Tuesday, August 31, 2004

dumb men, pt 3

The Revealer: L'il Ol' Me

will it ever end?

follow the links in the summary.

news about stupidity controlling women's lives is just so depressing.

dumb men, pt 3

The Revealer: L'il Ol' Me

will it ever end?

follow the links in the summary.

news about stupidity controlling women's lives is just so depressing.

Monday, August 30, 2004

top 10 conservative idiots!

The Top Ten Conservative Idiots, No. 168 - Democratic Underground

it made me laugh. (and it's well documented, to boot! says the girl who thinks everything should have a footnote!)

why are people voting for this man?

WorkingForChange-Still unreported: The pay-off in the Air Guard fix

do a google search on 'ben barnes' and you get the story (the long-suppressed story) of how quid pro quo shrub's stint in the texas air national guard really was.

and yet - we still have the swifties out there. what a joke our press is.

let the hearburn begin

Let the heartburn begin. The Repub convention kicks off tonight and already the coverage has burned a hole in my chest.

Taking a break from painting yesterday, I caught some GOP congresswomen from the south (including a rep from Kentucky) talking about why the GOP is so bad with single women. The Kentucky rep’s comments came down to this:
Single women don’t have a man to discuss these matters with, so they’re vulnerable to the Democrats’ fear tactics. Married women, on the other hand (their numbers are much better with this demographic), care a lot about safety and discuss these things with their husbands and look to the party that will keep them safer.

I almost had a stroke. Those statements, paraphrased as they are, exemplify all that is wrong with the Republican party. They don’t get it. They don’t get me, they don’t get my friends, they don’t get any of us.

AND they couldn't respond to the questions from Chris Matthews or the cute black chick on CNN about what the GOP had to offer women like me. They just said safety. That's what their policy is about. Safety.

Like we care.

Friday, August 27, 2004

the swifty effect

The Gadflyer: The Poll Miner

so how much did the swift boat crapola really mess up our candidate? a breakdown here.

Thursday, August 26, 2004

we're winning

improve your mind; read a big report by a reputable foundation that says kerry's in the lead.

(smart numbers, people, smart numbers!)

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

keyes on faith

a profile of the illinois senate GOP candidate; it's rather thoughtful but at the end crops up the confidence (arrogance, whatever) that his brand of faith is the only one that serves.

there is no doubt keyes is a smart, well-read man. he's thoughtful about his faith and his political beliefs (let's ignore the flip-floppiness). but for those of us who are of a quieter faith (a faith that doesn't necessarily want to label women who get abortions 'terrorists') the conflation of religious and political rhetoric is problematic and even a little skeevey.

history has proven that it's never a good idea.

the sudan

in the circus surrounding the elections, the war, our boob of a president and emerging scandals surrounding his cabinet, we forget about this:

FURBURANGA, Sudan - In the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan, the killers pray toward Mecca. The million displaced people do as well. Marauding men on horseback, the women raped by them, the rebels who incited the fighting and the politicians, soldiers and police officers who have failed to control it, nearly all are Muslim.

ouch - krugman

read it here.

(i love this guy; his brain is so huge. and i think 4 major papers have come out saying the swift boat vets are liars - new york times, washington post, chicago trib and la times. isn't time we started asking why they lied? and why the same scrutiny isn't being applied to a president whose national guard records mysteriously keep disappearing?)

dumb men, pt 2

say what you will about the practice, but again, the issue is whether or not a woman has reproductive freedom. her moral choices are her own.

and, please, keyes - shut up. you're embarrassing.

Monday, August 23, 2004

stem cells

science...
(you'll need a subscription to read)

again, the difference between an embryo and fetus...

Friday, August 20, 2004

scandal

How a Philosophy Professor With a Checkered Past Became the Most Influential Catholic Layman in George W. Bush's Washington

a couple of weeks ago, the dems had to grimly bear the brunt of governor mcgreevey's resignation and coming out party in new jersey.

now it's the conservatives' turn.

and it's sad that both these scandals turned on sexual dishonesty.

smoke and fire

HungryBlues - A Lynching In Tuskegee

ben from hungryblues picked up this story yesterday about a lynching in tuskegee. (or questionable suicide.)

we'd all like to think that times are different. but i think sometimes we know better.

another Good book

The Revealer - On a Shaky Wall

say it with me, people: SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.

the title's sardonic...

KtB - Bible Porn

not that this is exactly the same thing, but i used to do the same thing: in sunday services when jake was preaching, i'd open the bible and find the 'naughty' stories. it looked like i was being studious, but i was reading for naughtiness.

i was 10. i was curious. and if you can't giggle at the song of solomon, then what can you?!
Salon.com News %7C Church says girl%27s communion not valid

since i'm a protestant, i really don't have strong opinions on what catholics do with their wafers, but this seems a bit much.

what's the logic here? faith is a matter of glutin? no wonder people find religion to be ridiculous.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

school's back in

yeah, i guess vacation's over.

why dumb men are a danger to women

El Paso Times Online

reason #1 why sex ed needs to happen in schools. any woman can tell you that birth control pills isn't an abortifacient. birth control pills prevent ovulation, thereby preventing sperm from fertilizing the egg -- because the egg hasn't been released!!

gaah! dumb men who know NOTHING about women's bodies are making decisions for them.

this is how it starts. one's position on abortion is one thing - on birth control is another. reproductive control over one's body is absolutely necessary for a woman to be independent and autonomous.

for if she can't make decisions about when she wants to have children and how many children to have, then whose decision is it? it's incredibly short-sighted to prevent women access to medically safe and legal birth control--what about family planning? i can't tell you the problems in the black community that could be solved if only someone knew how to wear a condom or take birth control.

but this is how it starts - if abortion rights are knocked down, then the right's next move will be to limit access to birth control (birth control pills, iuds, depo provera, the ring, condoms, tubal ligation, etc.) until a woman's choice regarding her reproductive future belongs to someone else. if she can't get birth control pills, then how will she prevent pregnancy? if she can't buy condoms, then how will she protect herself against disease? and this isn't just about single women or teenage girls - married women also need birth control (or do men think that women will give birth until they die?) do they know that the largest number of women who ask for tubal ligation are married women?

and the predictable response from the conservative right will be 'ah, but then she shouldn't have sex unless she's married, should she?'

let's trace the argument: if a woman is sexually active and gets pregnant, she can't get an abortion because that's murder; but neither could she have prevented pregnancy because that's against judeo-christian ethics, so her sexual activity should never have happened in the first place. or if it did, only in a church/state sanctioned relationship so that the fruits of it will be legitimate.

so we come full circle - basically every law restricting a woman's right to practice safe sex and/or control her reproductive destiny is in the interest of a man (or a masculine institution) controlling her sexuality and her body.

feminism 101, people: if this isn't mysogyny and patriarchy at work then i don't know what is.

(update: the hormones in birth control pills can also change the chemistry of the mucal lining of the cervix, making it 'inhospitable' to sperm - again, preventing sperm from even making it to an egg.)

Thursday, August 12, 2004

holiday aborted because of *this*

ABCNEWS.com : S. Carolina Targeted for Christian State

where to begin?

a christian-only state built on religoius law. i guess if the amish can do it, so can you. but wait - the amish don't have a separate state.

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

taking a break

the convention exhausted me.
politics and my outrage being constantly on High is just too tiring.

the last month of summer is here and i haven't had any significant fun in months.

so now i'm concentrating on boys. politics for boys. and barbecue. and laying out in the sun. and more barbecue. that movie about metallica. dancing. and live music by the lake and the park and the fountain and the seurat exhibit at the art institute.

i live in chicago, the best city in the country! i need to have fun.

so yeah, no politics until the republican convention. then it all starts again. heh heh heh.