Earlier this week, three white supremacists were arrested and, although they haven't been charged, officials appear to believe that they planned to attempt to assassinate Barack Obama. At a glance, the idea of white supremacists wanting to assassinate a black Presidential candidate makes a lot of sense; upon reflection, it makes it appear that they lack the courage of their convictions.
After all, don't white supremacists believe that whites are...well...superior? Isn't it, in their view, a natural superiority, granted by God or nature or some combination thereof?
But if they're so confident that whites are superior and blacks are inferior, then what do they have to fear? Even if a black man could win the Presidency, he wouldn't be up to the job in the way that our "superior" white Presidents have been, right? And wouldn't that just prove their point?
It seems to me that if white supremacists think a black man is enough of a threat that they want to assassinate him, they must fear that he'll prove them wrong.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Who's Raising that "Perfect Child" Now, Sarah?
In the hours since John McCain announced that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would be his running mate, there's been a cacaphony of pro and con discourse. Was Palin chosen for her credentials, experience, positions and talents, or was she chosen because she's a woman and McCain hopes to court voters who previously supported Senator Hillary Clinton? Palin is low on experience, but she has a reputation for pulling out all the stops, and just might restore some of McCain's lost maverick image. Perhaps more significantly, she's a good looking woman with the kind of life and history that makes other women nod and say "You go, girl!"
But through all the buzz--positive and negative--one thing has been troubling me: one thing that I haven't heard mentioned by anyone else.
Just this past spring, Palin gave birth to her fifth child, a child with Downs Syndrome. As a pro-life politician, Palin gained points and gathered accolades simply for having her child--after all, many Downs Syndrome babies are aborted. But what is she doing now?
One of the things that has always troubled me about a large sector of the pro-life movement is the idea many pro-life activists seem to have that it's only their business for as long as it takes to make sure that the baby is born alive. Sure, some people active in the movement work to provide support to those new mothers and make it possible for them to raise healthy children, but for many, the victory is achieved and the battle over when a woman safely passes into her second trimester and can no longer obtain an abortion on demand.
It's always seemed to me that if those people were really so "pro life", they'd be worried about the babies and the toddlers and the adolescents, too...not JUST the unborn.
I don't know enough about Sarah Palin to judge her sincerity one way or the other, but her actions right now are reminding me quite a lot of those people who want to bar the doors of the abortion clinic but then consider the child "not our problem" once it's actually born. She's been applauded and patted on the back by all those "pro life" and "pro family" organizations for giving birth to the child, and now she's...going off to run for Vice President. How, exactly, is it "pro family" for a woman with a special needs infant to hit the campaign trail vying for one of the most demanding jobs in the world? Maybe it's just me, but I've always thought that part of being pro family was putting the needs of your family ahead of your own ambitions.
But through all the buzz--positive and negative--one thing has been troubling me: one thing that I haven't heard mentioned by anyone else.
Just this past spring, Palin gave birth to her fifth child, a child with Downs Syndrome. As a pro-life politician, Palin gained points and gathered accolades simply for having her child--after all, many Downs Syndrome babies are aborted. But what is she doing now?
One of the things that has always troubled me about a large sector of the pro-life movement is the idea many pro-life activists seem to have that it's only their business for as long as it takes to make sure that the baby is born alive. Sure, some people active in the movement work to provide support to those new mothers and make it possible for them to raise healthy children, but for many, the victory is achieved and the battle over when a woman safely passes into her second trimester and can no longer obtain an abortion on demand.
It's always seemed to me that if those people were really so "pro life", they'd be worried about the babies and the toddlers and the adolescents, too...not JUST the unborn.
I don't know enough about Sarah Palin to judge her sincerity one way or the other, but her actions right now are reminding me quite a lot of those people who want to bar the doors of the abortion clinic but then consider the child "not our problem" once it's actually born. She's been applauded and patted on the back by all those "pro life" and "pro family" organizations for giving birth to the child, and now she's...going off to run for Vice President. How, exactly, is it "pro family" for a woman with a special needs infant to hit the campaign trail vying for one of the most demanding jobs in the world? Maybe it's just me, but I've always thought that part of being pro family was putting the needs of your family ahead of your own ambitions.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Huh..I Guess 4016 Diggers CAN Be Wrong...
Yep, 4016. That's how many Diggs a single article on my webzine, Rational Outrage, got not long before Digg decided that the domain was spam and banned us.
My webmaster inquired right away. After all, our site is entirely non-commercial--we're not selling anything, and there's no advertising at all on the site. And to the best of our knowledge, about a dozen of our posts have been submitted to Digg since Rational Outrage launched on March 17. That didn't seem excessive.
The response from Digg stated: As you know, Digg is a community-driven website – our community has consistently reported the domain to which you refer as spam.
Uh huh.
"Consistently", while they were upvoting our school bus rape story 4016 times: http://digg.com/world_news/7_Year_Old_Raped_On_School_Bus_School_Court_Don_t_Care Apparently those 40,000+ Digg visitors who crashed our server and left dozens of comments were just doing spam research.
So then, if that doesn't count for anything, surely the little ones won't, either:
Not the police taser abuse story with 225 Diggs.
Not the maverick composter article with 125 Diggs.
In fact, five of the twelve stories submitted to Digg received more than 100 Diggs. Surprising "the community" could find time to "consistently report" this domain as spam, what with all that upvoting going on.
The cut and paste from Digg also suggested: While we welcome users to submit their own content, overdoing it often incites the users to mark the user as a spammer, the site as a spam site, and otherwise decent content as blogspam.
12 stories. Six months. Submitted by six different people, three of whom have no connection to the site.
I've always pointed out that sites like Digg are private companies and free to make whatever decisions they like within the bounds of the law. If they want to ban us because they don't like our politics or our color scheme, they're perfectly free to do so. But guys...you don't gotta LIE.
UPDATE: On Wednesday evening, August 27, we received a brief email from Digg apologizing for the "confusion" and saying that we should be clear to submit pages from Rational Outrage again. We did not receive any explanation, either from Digg or in response to my requests in the Digg comments for one of the people who had been "consistently reporting us as spam" to explain on the forum or via email. However, we do seem to have been unbanned.
My webmaster inquired right away. After all, our site is entirely non-commercial--we're not selling anything, and there's no advertising at all on the site. And to the best of our knowledge, about a dozen of our posts have been submitted to Digg since Rational Outrage launched on March 17. That didn't seem excessive.
The response from Digg stated: As you know, Digg is a community-driven website – our community has consistently reported the domain to which you refer as spam.
Uh huh.
"Consistently", while they were upvoting our school bus rape story 4016 times: http://digg.com/world_news/7_Year_Old_Raped_On_School_Bus_School_Court_Don_t_Care Apparently those 40,000+ Digg visitors who crashed our server and left dozens of comments were just doing spam research.
So then, if that doesn't count for anything, surely the little ones won't, either:
Not the police taser abuse story with 225 Diggs.
Not the maverick composter article with 125 Diggs.
In fact, five of the twelve stories submitted to Digg received more than 100 Diggs. Surprising "the community" could find time to "consistently report" this domain as spam, what with all that upvoting going on.
The cut and paste from Digg also suggested: While we welcome users to submit their own content, overdoing it often incites the users to mark the user as a spammer, the site as a spam site, and otherwise decent content as blogspam.
12 stories. Six months. Submitted by six different people, three of whom have no connection to the site.
I've always pointed out that sites like Digg are private companies and free to make whatever decisions they like within the bounds of the law. If they want to ban us because they don't like our politics or our color scheme, they're perfectly free to do so. But guys...you don't gotta LIE.
UPDATE: On Wednesday evening, August 27, we received a brief email from Digg apologizing for the "confusion" and saying that we should be clear to submit pages from Rational Outrage again. We did not receive any explanation, either from Digg or in response to my requests in the Digg comments for one of the people who had been "consistently reporting us as spam" to explain on the forum or via email. However, we do seem to have been unbanned.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Remember Roe v. Wade?
Or perhaps the better question would be: Did you ever know what Roe v. Wade says?
I've seen pro-life literature that says, "Did you know that Roe v. Wade allows elective abortions up to the seventh month of pregnancy?" Nope, I didn't know that. And I read the case.
I've seen seen pro-choice people insist that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, the whole country would be immediately cast into a dark world of back-alley abortions...overlooking, of course, the fact that before that happened, each state would have to enact independent legislation prohibiting abortion.
With the Presidential election around the corner, the issue is once again getting a lot of press, but little (if any) of it accurately represents just what Roe v. Wade said or the role it plays in the future of abortion law across the country.
The law that was challenged (and struck down) in Roe v. Wade criminalized abortion in all cases except where it was a life-saving procedure. The United States Supreme Court found that such a restrictive statute violated the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause and that states could exercise varying degrees of discretion in regulating abortion, depending upon the stage of pregnancy.
During approximately the first trimester, states could not limit the right to abortion--that was to be left to the "medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician."
From the end of the first trimester to viability, the state could "regulate abortion in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health".
After viability, the state could regulate--or even prohibit--abortion except where necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.
One interesting point is that the regulation allowed post-first-trimester was required to be reasonably related to maternal health, whereas that shifted post-viability and the state interest in preserving the "potentiality" of human life was deemed sufficient reason for the restrictions.
It is important to note, however, that the Supreme Court ruling only placed a limit upon the regulations a state could impose--it did not impose any regulations itself. Thus, for instance, when pro-life activists say that Roe v. Wade "allows" for abortion minutes before birth, it's technically true...because Roe v. Wade doesn't put any restrictions on abortion; it simply sets forth the circumstances under which a state may do so. And that's as it should be; health and welfare provisions are specifically reserved to the states under the U.S. Constitution (and in any case wouldn't be the purview of the judiciary). What Roe v. Wade said about late term abortions was that states could forbid them, except where the mother's life was in danger. Period.
On the flipside, if Roe v. Wade were reversed, it wouldn't mean that abortion was illegal--it would mean that if states so chose, they could MAKE abortion illegal.
Obviously, Roe v. Wade was a landmark decision that changed the face of abortion law across the U.S. But abortion law is made by the states, within the parameters set forth in Roe v. Wade and subsequent cases. Before millions of Americans--pro-life or pro-choice--base their votes in the Presidential election on the chance that the next President might appoint Supreme Court Justices who might have occasion to rule on a case that might impact the Roe decision, we should all understand what the case says, and what that means to the states.
I've seen pro-life literature that says, "Did you know that Roe v. Wade allows elective abortions up to the seventh month of pregnancy?" Nope, I didn't know that. And I read the case.
I've seen seen pro-choice people insist that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, the whole country would be immediately cast into a dark world of back-alley abortions...overlooking, of course, the fact that before that happened, each state would have to enact independent legislation prohibiting abortion.
With the Presidential election around the corner, the issue is once again getting a lot of press, but little (if any) of it accurately represents just what Roe v. Wade said or the role it plays in the future of abortion law across the country.
The law that was challenged (and struck down) in Roe v. Wade criminalized abortion in all cases except where it was a life-saving procedure. The United States Supreme Court found that such a restrictive statute violated the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause and that states could exercise varying degrees of discretion in regulating abortion, depending upon the stage of pregnancy.
During approximately the first trimester, states could not limit the right to abortion--that was to be left to the "medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician."
From the end of the first trimester to viability, the state could "regulate abortion in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health".
After viability, the state could regulate--or even prohibit--abortion except where necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.
One interesting point is that the regulation allowed post-first-trimester was required to be reasonably related to maternal health, whereas that shifted post-viability and the state interest in preserving the "potentiality" of human life was deemed sufficient reason for the restrictions.
It is important to note, however, that the Supreme Court ruling only placed a limit upon the regulations a state could impose--it did not impose any regulations itself. Thus, for instance, when pro-life activists say that Roe v. Wade "allows" for abortion minutes before birth, it's technically true...because Roe v. Wade doesn't put any restrictions on abortion; it simply sets forth the circumstances under which a state may do so. And that's as it should be; health and welfare provisions are specifically reserved to the states under the U.S. Constitution (and in any case wouldn't be the purview of the judiciary). What Roe v. Wade said about late term abortions was that states could forbid them, except where the mother's life was in danger. Period.
On the flipside, if Roe v. Wade were reversed, it wouldn't mean that abortion was illegal--it would mean that if states so chose, they could MAKE abortion illegal.
Obviously, Roe v. Wade was a landmark decision that changed the face of abortion law across the U.S. But abortion law is made by the states, within the parameters set forth in Roe v. Wade and subsequent cases. Before millions of Americans--pro-life or pro-choice--base their votes in the Presidential election on the chance that the next President might appoint Supreme Court Justices who might have occasion to rule on a case that might impact the Roe decision, we should all understand what the case says, and what that means to the states.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
And Now, For Another Perspective...
In my last post, I shared with you a touching and reality-based view of Bosnia from someone who'd been there. Today, I can't help but share a much more humorous (but nearly as serious) description of the inner workings of the U.S. Postal Service.
This may have rung especially true with me because of my own past experiences with the U.S. Postal service...experiences that once led my five-year-old daughter to tug on my sleeve as I stood at the counter in my local post office and say innocently "How 'bout FedEx?" But somehow I think that if you've ever tried to ship a package...or pick one up...or figure out why one with someone else's name on it was left on your porch...this post is for you.
This may have rung especially true with me because of my own past experiences with the U.S. Postal service...experiences that once led my five-year-old daughter to tug on my sleeve as I stood at the counter in my local post office and say innocently "How 'bout FedEx?" But somehow I think that if you've ever tried to ship a package...or pick one up...or figure out why one with someone else's name on it was left on your porch...this post is for you.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Bosnia Up Close and Personal
This post by an American lawyer who worked in Bosnia in 2001 brings home the destruction wrought by Radovan Karadzic. Maybe his crimes aren't so far away after all--in time or space: Karadzic's Destruction of Bosnia Last Long After War
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Are you REALLY entitled to your opinion?
I'm inclined to say no.
Not to everyone, of course, and not even to those who disagree with me. No, I just want to cut off this whole "right to my opinion" thing for people who don't have a freaking clue and can't be bothered to get one.
Again, whether or not I think you have a clue does NOT depend on whether or not you agree with me. It depends entirely upon whether or not you have a basic understanding of the basic factual information necessary to FORM a meaningful opinion. If you'd prefer not to be bothered with the facts, that's fine: just acknowledge that you don't know enough to have an opinion and SHUT UP. Or, if you really, really feel strongly about your "rights" (even though you're probably misusing the term), go right ahead and form an opinion without any of the necessary information...but then keep it to yourself. Please. Don't confuse others, who might assume that you know what you're talking about.
And here's a tip: it's not a good investment of time to go around forming strong opinions about things that never happened.
Just a few examples:
The Supreme Court did NOT make a recent ruling relating to victims of domestic violence--rather, it made a ruling with universal applicability to the admission of certain kinds of testimony in criminal cases.
A UK court did NOT sentence a man to one day in jail for the murder of a prostitute--it sentences him to one day in addition to approximately thirty months of time already served.
The woman who burned herself with McDonald's coffee did NOT win millions of dollars--and she did suffer very serious injuries necessitating reconstructive surgery.
Bottom line: learn the facts. Or don't. It's your call. But if you choose not to know anything then please, please, please...also choose not to share your ignorance.
Not to everyone, of course, and not even to those who disagree with me. No, I just want to cut off this whole "right to my opinion" thing for people who don't have a freaking clue and can't be bothered to get one.
Again, whether or not I think you have a clue does NOT depend on whether or not you agree with me. It depends entirely upon whether or not you have a basic understanding of the basic factual information necessary to FORM a meaningful opinion. If you'd prefer not to be bothered with the facts, that's fine: just acknowledge that you don't know enough to have an opinion and SHUT UP. Or, if you really, really feel strongly about your "rights" (even though you're probably misusing the term), go right ahead and form an opinion without any of the necessary information...but then keep it to yourself. Please. Don't confuse others, who might assume that you know what you're talking about.
And here's a tip: it's not a good investment of time to go around forming strong opinions about things that never happened.
Just a few examples:
The Supreme Court did NOT make a recent ruling relating to victims of domestic violence--rather, it made a ruling with universal applicability to the admission of certain kinds of testimony in criminal cases.
A UK court did NOT sentence a man to one day in jail for the murder of a prostitute--it sentences him to one day in addition to approximately thirty months of time already served.
The woman who burned herself with McDonald's coffee did NOT win millions of dollars--and she did suffer very serious injuries necessitating reconstructive surgery.
Bottom line: learn the facts. Or don't. It's your call. But if you choose not to know anything then please, please, please...also choose not to share your ignorance.
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