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Melinda, thank you for your heartfelt and eye-opening post on being a pro-life Democrat. I get frustrated enough being put on the defensive for being a women who is pro-life, without the added angst you have of feeling excluded from your own party. I've been trying to come up with a response to further the debate, but you put everything so well--enough with the fund-raisers and the noisemakers on both sides--and it's a little dull to write a post saying "Yes, I agree!"
But I am bothered by a broader problem related to the intolerance you've encountered. If we can't even be nice to the people on our own side when we disagree with them on one or two things, how ever are we supposed to start getting along with those whose worldviews are vastly different? I feel like, with the proliferation of Internet news and blogs and 24-hour news channels, we are subjecting ourselves to so much information that we have to be more selective than in the past, and many of us are winnowing out any information that doesn't mesh with our own ideology.
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Today's the last day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and some bloggers are arguing that the ubiquitous "pink-ribbon" approach has gone too far. (See the second panel.) Over at The Assertive Cancer Patient you can find a critique of the relentless "awareness" approach: Sather is giving out awards to readers who nominated the tackiest and most trivial products sold in the name of breast-cancer. The prime offender?
Grand Prize: to the blogger Dubutant, for her entry: Jingle Jugs for Life
Jingle Jugs sells life-size boobs, or "racks," that bounce in time to the song "Titties and Beer." Its market? Frat boys.
From the Jingle Jugs Web site: "Our newest version of Jingle Jugs comes with a pre-recorded breast cancer message. A second re-recordable chip allows the user to record a message of his or her own choice, such as a favorite song, your favorite team's fight song, a romantic message, a political commentary . . . all to which the Jugs will dance and move in synch." (http://www.jinglejugsforlife.com/)
Debutaunt's comment, in a letter to Komen: "... Honestly, I can't see in any good conscience how you can justify accepting money from this vulgar company. They sell a product that is so putrid and heinous, but are justifying it since they donate a ‘percentage' to breast cancer organizations -- then show proudly their giant check to Komen."
Now, the original Jingle Jugs product sounds totally ridiculous, and this "Jugs Across America" tour is juvenile at best. (Traveling Breast Museum? Please.) But the vilification of the company's breast cancer product raises some questions in my mind: Is it really all that bad for the makers of this yucky product to preach a philanthropic message to their customers, however self-serving it may be? Is this product purely a shameless attempt to win some easy PC-points? Or is it indicative of the fact that we now live in a hard-headed post-feminist age where we accept that the objectification of women will always exist, but ensure that at least now people who buy gag items like this know (or are reminded) that women aren't just objects, they're people who can get sick too? I lean toward thinking the latter. But I can imagine that if I had breast cancer I'd be grossed out.
Check out Sather's write-up of the worst pink-ribbon products here.
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On Obama-bama-bama ...
Apropos of your great post on Hillary and toughness last night, Meghan, it’s worth contrasting the whole “manly-girl = scary-girl” Hillary narrative with the other big campaign story this week: Barack Obama needs to stop being such a wuss. Here’s just a smattering of the recent suggestions to that effect.
I was at the huge rally for Obama in Charlottesville, Va., Monday night. Organizers claim it was the largest paid crowd he’s drawn anywhere as a presidential candidate, and close to 5,000 people showed up. Excellent local coverage here, here, and here. I confess to being less certain than my colleagues that the speech really lifted off. It was good, but it didn’t soar, and I have seen Obama soar. I think where he wobbled was at the moments where he tried to do outrage: He’s pacing the stage, giggling at his own jokes, calling back to the people in the crowd who yell “I love you!” and then he takes on this mask of aggression? Why?
The moments at which he did lift off were vintage Obama: telling the crowd that he needed them to feel powerful enough believe in their government again. He is pitch perfect when he reminds us that government is fixable; that the missteps and lawlessness of the past seven years can be turned around; that democracy itself will lance the wound. Maybe I’m wrong, but if America is one-tenth as sick of the hissing and snarling that passes for political discourse as I am, the whole anger-as-theater thing is not the way to campaign. Don’t get me wrong. I am angry, too. But I have seen what seven years of unhinged political rage achieves. I want less of that, not more.
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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column about the Dutch-Somali politician and writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali, best known for her outspoken defense of the rights of Muslim women. Among other things, I noted that the Dutch parliament was about to vote on whether to extend a promise some of its members made in 2002: to pay the bills for Hirsi Ali's personal security, which are hefty. (To repeat: In 2004, Theo Van Gogh, co-director of a film she and he made about women in Islam—titled Submission—was murdered by a fanatic. The murderer pinned a death threat to Van Gogh's chest, claiming Hirsi Ali would be the next victim. After being in hiding for some time, Hirsi Ali eventually moved to the United States, since Holland had become a far too dangerous place for her to live. Nevertheless, she remains a Dutch citizen, endangered by the peculiarites of the Dutch political situation, largely threatened by fanatics resident in Holland.)
In response to this piece of writing, I received an astonishing quantity of email, mostly from Holland. Some claimed that Hirsi Ali is rich, now that she's written a best-selling memoir, and can pay for her own security (not true); some said they felt embarrassed that their government was reneging on its promise; some complained about my use of the word "Holland" to describe a country called "the Netherlands" (to which the only answer is that we don't complain when the French call our country "Les Etats-Unis"); some wanted to know what they could do to help. None of it mattered much, because the Dutch parliament voted "No," and now Hirsi Ali, possibly the greatest women's rights activist of our generation, is fund raising. She is being helped by a variety of sources at the moment, including some bits of the U.S. government, some American sympathizers, and others. But we all hope she will live to an extremely old age; and security is expensive. So for those who wrote and asked how to contribute, here is the information, directly from her office:
The preferred and most immediate way to assist Ms. Hirsi Ali in the financing of her private security protection is through the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust. This private trust fund can accept non-tax deductible donations from within the United States and internationally, and is entirely dedicated to financing Ms. Hirsi Ali's security.
Checks should be made payable to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust and sent to:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust, Bank of Georgetown, 1054 31st Street, N.W. Suite 18, Washington, DC 20007. Ayaan Hirsi Ali Trust Tax Identification Number: 75-6826872
For more information please contact: John Matteo (jmatteo@jackscamp.com) or
Mackenzie McNaughton (mmcnaughton@jackscamp.com), representatives for Ms. Hirsi Ali.
I hope that answers that question.
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If we need any reminder that it's not easy to be the first popular female candidate for the American presidency, it arrived Monday in the form of an announcement by the AP that Hillary Clinton was leading in yet another poll. This one? The candidate likely to make the "scariest" Halloween costume. Some 37% of the respondents to the survey chose Hillary as their front-runner. (Giuliani was second, with 14%. More key details here.)
The fright-mask news arrives roughly a month after it was announced that Clinton had led in a Pew poll asking respondents about the relative "toughness" of the various candidates: In it, some 67% of Democratic-leaning voters said that Hillary was the first candidate who came to mind when they heard the word "tough." By comparison, only 39% of Republican-leaning voters thought of Giuliani when they heard the word "tough." (Yet he was considered the "toughest" Republican candidate.) All this might seem to be good news for Clinton: after all, over the past year, she has labored hard to burnish her "tough" persona, so as to stave off the perception that a woman--and a Democrat, to boot!--would prove soft on matters of foreign policy. It'd be easy to think that it had finally paid off.
But I've been wondering all this time whether a "tough" backlash was on its way (maybe just because I've been reading Susan Faludi's flawed but sometimes piercingly insightful The Terror Dream). And just last Friday a crucial American institution paved the way for said backlash. In a segment entitled, "Is it OK for women to cry" -- pegged to Ellen DeGeneres' on-air breakdown--the Today Show broadcast images of Clinton giving a speech and shaking hands and confidently pronounced that many people think "that she is too stoic, that she doesn't reveal enough of herself"--on its way to elaborating on the communicative benefits of crying in public. If media coverage of the last election was filled with accusations about girlie-men, will this one be full of talk about manly-girls? Let's hope not. In the meantime, here's an article that briefly discusses the latter group (scroll down); apparently we see them as "pretenders." Sound like a familiar critique of Clinton?
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Hillary jumps the same way as Obama:
"I am deeply troubled by Judge Mukasey’s continued unwillingness to clearly state his views on torture and unchecked Executive power.
The Attorney General is the chief defender of the rule of law in our country. After Alberto Gonzales's troubled tenure, we cannot send a signal that the next Attorney General in any way condones torture or believes that the President is unconstrained by law. When we leave any doubt about our nation’s policy on torture, we send a terrible message to the rest of the world. Judge Mukasey has been given ample opportunity – both at his confirmation hearings and in his subsequent submission to the Judiciary Committee – to clarify his answers and categorically oppose the unacceptable interrogation techniques employed by this Administration. His failure to do so leaves me no choice but to oppose his nomination."
Meanwhile, the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee await Mukasey's answers to the questions they've asked him.
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OK, XX Team, most of you are solid supporters of choice, so please help me out here. After my piece on Michelle and Barack Obama’s marriage ran yesterday, a lot of the reaction I saw on the Web boiled down to: I’m not interested in anything that woman might write, because I disagree with her on abortion. Even though the Obama piece contained not a word on that subject; why would it? And even though my actual views in that regard are somewhat less thrilling than advertised. My question: Has it really come to the point that we only listen to people pre-certified as in agreement with us on all crucial matters? And if so, what does that cost us?
For months, I’ve been in John Kerry mode, thinking that nothing could possibly be gained by answering people who are too mad to listen. (Who, me, thin-skinned? Let it go.) But is this What Hillary Would Do? Think again, caballeras.
So, belatedly: Contrary to the provocative headline on my mild but reviled June op-ed in the New York Times, I never posited that “Pro-Choice is a Bad Choice for Democrats.’’ In fact, on the sheer politics of the abortion issue, I’ve said just the opposite.
What the piece argued instead is that pro-choice should not be the only choice for Democrats in good standing. And that Democrats are losing voters they don’t have to lose by out-and-out insulting any who dare differ on this one matter.
These are not classic single-issue voters, in other words, but otherwise liberal pro-lifers who just want to be able to attend a party function without hearing themselves described as extremists. But even the modest proposal that we make more room at the table was shouted down, perhaps in part because so few readers were in possession of their temper by the time they’d finished scanning the headline.
The fact that the paper’s normally judicious headline writers – not exactly grab-the-reader-by-the-lapel types, in my experience – saw an argument for self-interested tolerance as indistinguishable from a call to overturn Roe was only one indication that when it comes to this subject, subtlety is out of the question, and middle ground very hard to stand on.
When some of the women I interviewed for my book about what women want in a president first spoke about feeling unwanted in the Democratic Party as dissenters on abortion rights, I thought that was interesting, but not something I had ever experienced personally.
The over-the-top reaction to the op-ed changed that, though; Google me now and you’ll come away convinced that I spend off-hours throwing rocks at pregnant teenagers. Though none of my critics on either side – the National Right to Life took exception, too – seemed to have gone to the extreme of cracking open the book the op-ed was based on, its pages are actually filled with women expressing all points of view. (Because, perhaps poignantly, the object was never to come up with six easy ways to win the women’s vote; it was to help us understand one another a little better, and maybe even see that, as Barack Obama says, there really is more that unites us than divides us. Or so I’d like to think.)
Among those I met along the way were opponents of choice who said they’d never be happy Republicans, but found it hard to stick around and subject themselves to abuse from fellow Democrats. And in my new life as an abortion concern troll, I now know what they were talking about.
Yes, I am Catholic, and try to hang in there with my church – except when I don’t. Or won’t. So I happen to oppose abortion, same as I do the death penalty and the war in Iraq and the truly immoral disregard for the already born. (And while we’re obsessing over Roe, isn’t the Supreme Court busy overturning everything else we thought was nailed down?) After 35 years at the barricades, it’s clear that this is an issue that will never be solved by either the Congress or the courts. Or that most politicians even want to be shed of, since it has been so darned good for business in both parties.
I sympathize with those on both sides of this debate, and rue that we are so busy doubting each other’s motives and calling each other names that the mothers and children we all say we care about end up quite beside the point.
As far as I can see, the only actual result of the whole baby-killers-versus-women-haters craziness is that it keeps those who genuinely fear for the health and safety of women and those who genuinely see “termination’’ as an Orwellian name for a thrown-away child -- considered less than human just as slaves once were -- from ever working together to help anybody, other than those who raise cash whenever we clash.
Which is why I have long since had it with the leaders on both sides of this electric fence; they carry right on fighting and raising vast sums on the backs of women in trouble, while the abortion rate remains ridiculously high – whether you see it this way or this.
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In a press release today, Obama said of Mukasey: “While his legal credentials are strong, his views on two critical and related matters are, in my view, disqualifying. We don't need another attorney general who believes that the President enjoys an unwritten right to secretly ignore any law or abridge our constitutional freedoms simply by invoking national security. And we don't need another attorney general who looks the other way on issues as profound as torture. Judge Mukasey's professed ignorance of the debate over the propriety of practices like “waterboarding,” or simulated drowning, as a means of interrogation, was appalling."
Now what? Do other Democrats--among them Hillary Clinton--jump the same way? Or do they (ie some of the senators on the Judiciary Committee) keep trying to look like they're pressing Mukasey while planning to wave him through?
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Wow, I take a couple days off and all heck breaks loose on the teen sex front. I have to agree with Melinda that there is a vast middle ground that is being missed up in Portland, Maine. What have they got against parents up there, anyhow?
One thing that I find interesting from reviewing the posts on the subject is that all of us who support the idea of calling parents at least sometimes are … parents. For better or worse, having children changes your perspective. When I was in high school and college, I always said, “I’m going to be one of the cool parents. If my kids want to drink, I’ll let them do it at home. And I’ll give them birth control, and …” you get the picture. Now that I have children, I’m trying to figure out where I can snap up some GPS-enabled ski jackets. (And they certainly won’t be going to summer camp.)
Just kidding on the ski jackets. But it raises an interesting point. On the one hand, we're better able to keep track of our kids with cell phones and other gadgets, and the concern is we're not letting kids be kids. On the other hand, they're not acting much like children if they're having sex at age 12. But I suspect that some parents use "helicoptering"—knowing where kids are at every moment, signing them up for every activity under the sun to keep them busy and then attending every practice—as a substitute for actual involved parenting. Why, who needs to talk to Suze and Johnny about sex when you know they're not having it, because their RFID tag tells you they're at the mall like they said they would be. (Too bad that unless you're Jack Bauer and can upload the mall schematics to your cell phone, you won't know if they're at the movies or in the broom closet.)
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In answer to your question, Emily, no, I don’t think it would be good if 12 became the new 16, and suddenly preteen sex seemed perfectly normal or even yawn-worthy. That said, I think we as a culture do too much gnashing of teeth over the preservation of virginity. Few of my precocious friends regret their early encounters, and none of them seem emotionally stunted or scarred.
In contrast, I think it can be harmful to wait too long. I had a couple friends in college (OK, they were girls) who had a fairy tale view of sex and kept delaying the act. They waited and waited until suddenly all their potential partners had lots of experience while they had none. That’s not a great state of affairs.
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I think Juliet is right: We do worry more about girls and sex, as I've argued here and here in Slate. Although I share Emily's impression that my teenage peers most confused about their sexuality were girls, I don't think we should rely on anecdotal evidence or our personal histories to try to understand the broader realities of teen sexuality today. After all, one of the reasons girls can seem more confused about sex than boys is that our cultural rhetoric routinely casts them as victims rather than lusty conquerors. Of course there's another good reason girls might be more confused: They bear the consequences of unprotected sex (i.e., pregnancy) in ways that boys just don't and never will. But being alarmist on their behalf doesn't serve a clear purpose; yet you see this kind of scare-mongering over and over in the media (especially the conservative media). The American Family Association Journal spotlights an alarming statistic about girls and sex ("46% of teen girls become infected with an STD during their first sexual encounter") next to a supposedly gender-neutral 2003 piece about teen sexuality; there's no comparable stat for boys.
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If early sex isn't necessarily bad sex, could we agree that it's usually a bad idea? I'm agnostic about calling parents, because it seems so case by case to me, in terms of the kids and the parental relationships involved. And I'm all for the release of a 17-year-old like Genarlow Wilson, whose case exemplifies the worst intersection of adult prudishness and prurience. I also remember from my middle school years a couple of cases of kids having sex at 13 or 14 that didn't seem harmful. But I also remember other kids who seemed confused or taken advantage of, and yes, they were girls. Juliet, do we really want to veer closer toward a norm that sweeps up young teens? You were in 8th grade a lot more recently than I was--what in your experience makes you think differently than I do?
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This weekend, a friend showed me artist Edina Tokodi’s incredible moss
graffiti, which features moss in the form of animals like rabbits and deer
and abstract compositions mounted on walls in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Tokodi’s
work is a whimsical surprise, green and playful. But I think moss will be creeping up on us more and more.
Last week, the New York Times announced it was installing an
“open-air birch and moss garden” in the lobby of its new building. It was about
to import seven ginormous birch trees and “several tons of moss” from New
Jersey, according to incredulous accounts from NY
Mag and Gawker.
Moss has also shown up in designs for green rooftops. And a few years ago, a
“moss laboratory” was created in a shed at a minimum-security prison
(because working with plants is apparently good for inmates and moss
cultivation does not require sharp objects.)
Where else will moss spread? I’m betting yoga studios, table
arrangements, and fancy facial cleansers. Maybe moss is the new lemongrass. Still, tooling around the web, I realized its new uses couldn’t possibly be more creative
than its traditional ones: some kinds of moss were included in wound dressings because
of their antibacterial properties. Some were even used as diapers because they
can absorb up to ten times their weight in liquid. Any takers?
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Given that this is a women’s blog, I can’t help but point out that the last couple posts on preteen sex haven’t been gender neutral – they’ve focused primarily on girls engaging in “risky” behavior. Torie, though you start out discussing any person 13 or younger fooling around, you go on to specify that it’s disturbing when “a 13, 12, or 11 year old girl” has sex. And Melinda, in your vivid anecdote about your friend who caught two kids making out and then had to call the parents, you mention what it was like for your friend to rat out the girl, but not the boy.
Is this because we find it ickier when girls are sexually precocious than when boys are? That the thought of reporting a 12-year-old girl to her parents/guardian/the cops is a no-brainer, but that reporting a boy is a bit murkier? Or am I way off?
Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea to call the cops or a kid’s parents. Maybe a phone call’s in order if the kid shows lack of judgment in general, or if the kid’s making out as a way to act out. But from my perspective early sex is not necessarily dangerous sex.
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Torie, I agree that there’s no need to call the D.A.’s office on teenagers messing around, but I do think the parents of middle schoolers have a right to know the score, so to speak. I don’t what’s up in Portland, Maine, but they seem to be having trouble locating the vast expanse of middle ground between initially refusing to let the parents of 11-year-olds know they were handing them birth control – and now promising that they will report every sexually active kid to the cops.
Has anybody else seen that Disney movie where Goofy follows his son off to college because he misses him so much? That is going to be me in a few years, moving in across the street from West Point, just like Douglas MacArthur’s mommy. As a warm-up, a couple of summers ago, I had the bright idea that I would accompany my children to a camp for 9- to 18-year-olds, where I would teach a little writing class and get loads of work done.
One of the reasons that loads of work thing didn’t happen is that I had other duties at this camp, too – patrolling the rec center to bust up late-night make-out sessions, for instance. Some of the other teachers were assigned an even more onerous job, on a detail known as the Bush Patrol. (My then-9-year-old son was happy to hear that the staff was on the lookout, making sure the president was nowhere in evidence.) But no, what this assignment really involved was whizzing around the far reaches of the campus in a golf cart, armed with a whistle and flashlight, interrupting couples at play in the bushes. If you broke up anything serious, you were supposed to call the parents and report exactly what you had seen.
I swore I would never do anything of the sort, but some of my friends felt otherwise, and one said she already had made such a call -- and had even provided details when the dad on the other end of the line refused to believe her: “Sorry, sir, but your daughter’s head was moving up and down.’’
Bad as it was for this friend who had to make that call, getting it must have been many times worse. Yet still not as bad as not getting it might have been, you know? There is just too much at stake to keep parents of the loop.
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Following the kerfuffle over birth control for the Hanna Montana set, health officials in Portland, Maine, have agreed to report “all illegal sexual activity involving minors as required by law,” according to an article from a Maine newspaper. That includes any time someone 13 or younger has sex, even if it’s consensual. What this does is basically nullify the idea of providing oral contraceptives for the middle schoolers.
But as Slate’s William Saletan has noted recently, consent laws are particularly tricky now that girls are reaching puberty earlier. Of course it’s disturbing to think of a 13, 12, or 11 year old girl having sex (whether we’re talking full-on intercourse or “fooling around” that includes other behaviors, like oral sex). But I’m even more disturbed by the decision to force health-care professionals to report consensual activity among teens. Perhaps it’s because I’m not a parent and, as a 23 year old, I vividly remember middle school, in all its oily-skinned, awkward glory. I knew girls who were having oral sex as 13-year-olds. I was fairly grossed by that idea, even at the time. But I was also relieved that at every physical, my doctor would assure me that I could talk to her in confidence about anything. There was nothing to tell—any romantic life I had at the time was strictly in the fantasy category. But it was a relief to hear it and helped me have some trust for her. If the 13-year-olds know that their doctor has to report any sexual contact, are they really going to be truthful during check-ups? Probably not. And if I’ve learned anything from watching House, M.D., it’s that being honest with your doctor is the most important thing you can do.
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Sam Brownback feels reassured about Giuliani's stance on abortion. No surprise there--in addition to whatever Giuliani said to Brownback in private, he has made it clear that he will appoint Supreme Court justices in the overturn-Roe mold. When does he go from being a pro-choice candidate to a pro-life one, in terms of the impact he would have as president and the way in which voters should evaluate him? Are we already there?
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If Mukasey does say now that waterboarding is torture, should that be enough for the Democrats to wave him through? What about his testimony on the presidents power to act outside statutory boundaries with regard to interrogation and wiretapping? And even if Mukasey were to change his tune now on all these fronts, what does that really mean, since his previous statements allign so closely with his record as a judge and his writings? The Democrats were awfully quick to say that his confirmation was virtually assured. Now that's not looking so wise.
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After Phil and I wracked our brains to understand why Michael Mukasey wouldn’t just admit that waterboarding is torture, and in light of Rudy Giuliani’s weaselly parsing of the same question, it’s heartening to read this morning – via the AP -- that some of the Senate Democrats seem willing to use that as the basis for a no vote on Mukasey.
Good to hear. There is just no good reason to call this an open question, a matter of interpretation, or something too secret to discuss rationally. In the same regard see this great new piece on Rudy and executive powers by Rachel Morris. Talk about things that make you go hmmmmmm.
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Here's what Giuliani has to say about waterboarding, in reponse to a question about AG-choice Mukasey's refusal to say that the tactic amounts to torture: “Well, I’m not sure it is either. It depends on how it’s done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it. I think the way it’s been defined in the media, it shouldn’t be done. The way in which they have described it, particularly in the liberal media. So I would say, if that’s the description of it, then I can agree, that it shouldn’t be done. But I have to see what the real description of it is.”
Whaaa? The descriptions of waterboarding are clear and unrefuted. They come from inside the CIA. Here's a short video reenactment. As Dahlia points out to me, Giuliani's hemming and shuffling is like the senators who didn't bother to find out how the Guantanamo detainees were treated before voting on John McCain's anti-torture provision in the Detainee Treatment Act. If you don't know what's happening, you can keep going along with it.
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Opening statements in the Darren Mack trial yesterday revealed some sort of crazy quilt defense strategy that seems to involve tossing out at least 12 alternative theories and hoping one of them resonates with each the jurors. Of course the blame-the-victim prong involves painting Mack’s estranged wife, Charla, as a violent, sexually voracious (and deviant) “terrorist” and the judge as lifelong a man-hater. I guess this explains why the jury questionnaires were all so focused on the prospective jury’s histories of violence, abuse, and marital discord. The plan was to seat a jury that was already steamed up about gender equality, ugly divorces, physical violence, then appeal to every single one of those grievances.
This odd split defense – the first murder was self defense and the shooting of the judge was insanity -- was pursued over defense counsel’s objections. It’s all something of a mess, but laced though it are strong defense claims that the unfairness faced by fathers in family court are pervasive and unbearable, and that the injustices of Mack’s divorce were like those of the American colonists fighting the British – only worse. Glenn Sacks calls this the “Mary Winkler” defense and cautions that it “only works for women.”
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Good catch, Melinda, on how Rudy wants to help the "worst people" in our society as long as they are his pals—and surely Rudy considers child-molesting priests worse than squeegee men. This article describes Giuliani's friendship with the defrocked priest who now works at his firm. It goes back to childhood and the former priest, Alan Placa, presided over two of Giuliani's weddings (and the annulment of the first marriage, over the objection of Giuliani's first wife). Yes, Rudy's big on loyalty, but to a point. Witness his friendship with his former police and corrections commissioner—and crook—Bernie Kerik. Giuliani pushed for Kerik to become head of Homeland Security in the Bush administration, but the guy was such a sleazeball that the nomination had to be withdrawn almost immediately. The embarrassment, and Kerik's subsequent conviction for taking illegal gifts while serving in the Giuliani administration, ended the friendship. But surely Rudy—Mr. Crime Fighter—knew who Kerik really was all along, just as he knows now who Placa is. So why is he so close to such men—and what do they know about him? And won't Rudy soon be forced to rid himself of this troublesome priest?
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Hillary as Scarlett at Twelve Oaks does not work for me, with or without bosoms showing. But what has my big-girl panties in a twist today is Rudy’s regard for a man removed from his job as a priest over multiple allegations of sex abuse. After the church fired Monsignor Alan Placa, he went to work for Giuliani Partners. Where his new boss, the former prosecutor, shows him the kind of compassion he never had for turnstile jumpers: “I know the man,’’ Giuliani told reporters. “I know who he is, so I support him. We give some of the worst people in our society the benefit of the doubt. And of course I’m going to give it to one of my closest friends.’’ Of course; we are all law and order guys until the perp is a pal.
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Parody site of the day, via feministing: Guns for girls. "My Little Carbine" takes the cake for its pastiche of My Little Ponies with assault weapons. It's startling to me how perniciously traditional many children's TV ads still are. We didn't have a TV when I was a kid, and I sometimes think that one reason I didn't realize I was supposed to behave like a "girl" was that I never was held captive by ads like this stunner or this.
Sadly, the Disney Princess Poison Ring seems all too realistic a talisman, at least among eighth-graders; I'm fairly sure I must have worn one, metaphorically speaking, at some point.
via Feministing.
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Emily, I think you are right that Hillary uses the language of “choice” in a really fascinating way. When I covered her Senate race against Rick Lazio in 2000, I was immediately struck by the way she used that word to explain everything from her position on abortion to her decisions about parenting, her marriage, religion, and policy preferences. I think it was one of the central features of her rhetoric then, and it still offers a rather amazing contrast to the language of the Nancy Pelosi's and Laura Bush’s – who tend to say they were chosen for public service but not that it was their own choice.
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A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll finds that 42 percent of Democrats believe Hillary Clinton was right to stay with Bill after the Lewinsky affair. Just 5 percent say she made the wrong choice. Meanwhile, Hillary talks about her marriage in the new issue of Essence. "Now obviously we've had challenges as everybody in the world knows. But I never doubted that it was a marriage worth investing in even in the midst of those challenges and I'm really happy that I made that decision. Again, not a decision for everybody. And I think it's so important for women to stand up for the right of women to make a decision that is best for them."
In other words, it's all about supporting a woman's right to choose. That's familiar from the abortion context, of course, and also from the debate over women who decide not to work. Does it work here?
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I must confess to a more than passing obsession with the Darren Mack trial, which gets under way today in Las Vegas. Mack stands accused of fatally stabbing his estranged wife Charla with their 7-year-old daughter upstairs in the home, then shooting – sniper style – at the family court judge who was presiding over their divorce and custody dispute. Of course part of my fascination is that I knew Darren and Charla quite well, back when I clerked at a Reno divorce firm.
The current jury pool offers a snapshot of everything weird and wonderful about Vegas, including, at present, a former go-go dancer who has been married three times, a veteran trapeze performer, as well as a floor supervisor for a local casino who’s studied martial arts since he was 5. But I am mostly curious to see whether the defense will indeed be styled as a referendum on father’s rights and their alleged unequal treatment in family courts. After the shooting, Mack left a message on his cousin’s answering machine asking, “If anything happens to me, please make sure that the true story about the injustices that are going on in that courtroom get out to the media and the public.” I guess he’ll finally get his wish.
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"I'm well aware that my opponents on both sides are paying a lot more attention to me," Hillary Clinton said. "I'm reminded by some of my friends that when you get to be my age, having so many men paying attention to you is kind of flattering." I like this--it's relaxed, undefensive, self-deprecating--a good example of putting on your big-girl panties, as Melinda would have it. And a welcome respite from some of the horrified reaction to the Hillary cleavage story, which I found overly sanctimonious. She's the first female candidate. Like it or not, her femininity is at issue. And when she can pull it off, disarming will usually work better than huffy or stern. Or am I skimming over what are really murkier waters?
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Australia is also in the midst of an election season, though theirs has big two advantages over ours right now.
1. Their parliament election, which will determine whether John Howard remains prime minister or has to move aside in favor of opposition candidate Kevin Rudd, is just a month away.
2. The most embarrassing YouTube video to surface in their election so far features Rudd idly picking at his earwax and then licking his finger. (Watch it here.)
The etiquette breach occurs while one of Rudd’s fellow members of Parliament is droning on something to do with permanent residents. Rudd’s not the only one bored stiff—the redhead sitting in front of him appears to be fighting off sleep, and the woman to his left looks mighty fidgety.
I’m confused, though, about how Aussie blogs and newspapers are reacting. The footage is apparently a few years old and has been on YouTube for months, but it’s only now become an issue. A news site says the 30-second clip “could do more damage to Kevin Rudd's election chances than any policy blitz.” Blogs call it Rudd’s “macaca moment.” Really? I’d be relieved if I saw footage of Barack Obama caught picking his nose, or John McCain trying to surreptitiously rid himself of a wedgie. It’s gross and it’s bad manners, but there’s something endearing about catching politicians in those off-guard, embarrassing moments.
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The good news in the study Meghan writes about is that both men and women reported feeling more comfortable in professional groups that included more women. Does this mean that men, too, find predominantly male groups more intimidating? Or less inter