Magpie

Saturday, June 28, 2003

The culture wars are over.

And, says constitutional law professor Jamin Raskin, liberals won it.

To be sure, the religiously-inflected rage that erupted in 1973 against the Supreme Court's pro-choice decision in Roe v. Wade will simmer and may even boil up right now in reaction to the Court's definitive 6-3 ruling in Lawrence [the decision invalidating the Texas homosexual sodomy law]. Even without the help of the temporarily sidelined William Bennett, Republican party campaign operatives will covertly bet a lot of their vast war chest to rally party moralists, while signaling to gay-friendly Independents in the suburbs that they are "compassionate conservatives" who mean no harm.

This cynical game will be replayed as conservatives carry Justice Antonin Scalia's hysterical warnings in his dissent about incest, adultery and prostitution into the Bible Belt. But, in truth, the high-stakes "culture war" that Justice Scalia has been harping on over the last decade is over and done, as even he seemed to recognize in his bitter, self-pitying dissent. The gay and lesbian movement that has persistently faced down the religious right in the courts is now like the little boy chess master in Searching for Bobby Fisher who assures his opponent in the finals: "You've already lost. You just don't know it yet." [...]

But what pro-democracy populists must learn from pro-sex progressives is to go out and raise hell to change society directly. We -- the people -- need to assert aggressively the very rights that the Rehnquist Court and the Republican party have been trifling with recently: the right of racial minorities to be in electoral majorities; the right of third parties and Independents to run for office on equal terms; the right of young people to an equally funded public education for democratic citizenship; the right of the people to control the airwaves and to have public financing of our campaigns; and the right of all citizens to vote, an enfeebled inheritance which the Rehnquist Court told us does not really exist in a fateful decision called Bush v. Gore.

Via TomPaine.com.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:53 PM | Get permalink

On other blogs.

Magpie has found these interesting items while perambulating the blogosphere today:

At Alas, a Blog, ampersand has some thoughtful comments about the continuing contoversy over whether former US Rep. Cynthia McKinney accused Dubya of knowing about 9/11 in advance.

Body and Soul points us to an Art News article about how and why the looting of Baghdad's National Museum happened.

Are you an e-bore? Follow Me Here knows where you should go to find out.

Little Red Cookbook send us to an excellent article by historian Howard Zinn, which compares the war in Iraq with the Vietnam War.

The Null Device wonders why US workers have so few vacation days, and suggests that the WTO and other agreements could force other countries to eliminate their legally mandated vacation days.

At Wampum, MB takes a critical look at the recent MoveOn.org online primary.

veiled4allah links to pictures of an Islamic-themed mural currently in progress in San Francisco.

South Knox Bubba examines Dubya's much-vaunted prescription drug plan for seniors, and finds that it's an even worse idea than it appears.

At General Glut's Globblog, we find out why corporations aren't busting down the door to invest in post-war Iraq.

And last but not least, The Watch points to a bunch of other good blogs to go look at today.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:52 PM | Get permalink

Freedom of speech in Iraq just gets better and better.

Federal appellate judge Gilbert Merritt is one of 13 experts that the US Justice Department sent to Iraq to help rebuild that country's legal system. During his stay there, he's been sending reports on his experience to the Nashville Tennessean for publishing.

No more.

An order from the US occupation government forbids any member of the government, or anyone working for them, from talking to the press in any way, shape, or form without the approval of the Directorate of Strategic Communication. This includes experts like Merritt. Given that order, he filed his last dispatch from Baghdad.

It is, to say the least, ironic that, as a federal judge, I was asked to come here to try to help erect and establish constitutional values for the Iraqis, including the rights of free speech and other civil liberties.

Americans are entitled to speak their minds, especially on matters involving government, politics, law, foreign policy and other public concerns. We value robust debate because our founding fathers believed that open debate was good in itself and would lead to better public policy, more scientific and technological progress and better artistic expression.

That is what the Iraqis admire about us and wish to have for themselves. They are thankful that we have liberated them from the tyrant so that they may now have prosperity through freedom of contract and free speech.

Yet, irony of ironies, our own citizens here must now clear our own speech with CPA so that our American values and policies, according to the directive, ''are launched in a coherent and coordinated manner'' pleasing to the Directorate of Strategic Communication of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Having ''launched'' our bombs and won the war quickly, I do not think that this kind of control of free speech is the kind of free speech policy most Americans want us to ''launch'' in Iraq.

Via dangermuffin.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:33 PM | Get permalink

Play ball!

Until the outbreak of World War 2, Vancouver, BC was graced by the playing of the Asahi, an all-Japanese semi amateur baseballl team that was known for 'slick fielding, larcenous base running and hitting so precise that it was said they could bunt with a chopstick.' The Globe & Mail has a story about the induction of the Asahi into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame

Ken Kutsukake remembers the terrible winter day when he had to reduce 31 years of life to a single suitcase.

He knew he could not leave behind his work tools.

It was 1942. Canada and Japan were at war. Mr. Kutsukake, born in Vancouver, was ordered to leave his hometown because of the ethnicity of his ancestors.

He packed for life in a relocation camp. Clothes. Family photos. Cleats. Shin guards. Catcher's mask. Chest protector.

For Mr. Kutsukake, the equipment was a daily reminder. They could seize his home, deny him his job, compromise his freedom -- but no one could stop him from playing baseball.

Mr. Kutsukake worked for a company making boxes. After quitting time and on weekends, he was the first-string catcher of the Vancouver Asahi, an amateur team in a local commercial league.

Via Waterloo Wide Web.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:36 PM | Get permalink

Howdy.

Felicitations from Magpie to The Daily Dystopian.

While you're there, check out this post, which takes you to a former CIA employee's rant about VP Cheney and the CIA.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:05 PM | Get permalink

Not funny.

The Age (Melbourne) reports on a prank that could have had disastrous consequences.

A Swiss air traffic controller jokingly put an "al-Qaeda" label on a French helicopter that strayed into restricted air space during the Group of Eight summit, nearly leading to a shoot down by the French air force, officials confirmed.

The unidentified controller put the tag on his radar screen during the June 1-3 meeting in Evian, France, on Lake Geneva, said Patrick Herr, spokesman for the air traffic firm Skyguide.

Herr confirmed a report on a Swiss German television news program that the French military picked up the label on its own radar and immediately scrambled Mirage fighter jets.

Only at the last moment, when they were ready to shoot down the intruder, did the Mirage pilots realise that it was a French transportation helicopter, officials said.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:45 PM | Get permalink

Crows are overrunning Tokyo.

As part of Magpie's continuing effort to keep you up to date on corvid news, we have a report from Voice of America about the tens of thousands of crows that are plaguing Tokyo residents. Huge flocks of crows are waking up sleeping neighbors at the crack of dawn. They're stealing garbage and strewing it all over the streets. And humans who unknowingly get to close to crow nests are finding themselves being attacked by protective crow parents. Japan's Wild Bird Society says that that there are around 40,000 urban crows in the Japanese capital, about four times the number of 20 years ago.

Yukihiro Kominami is a spokesman for the Wild Bird Society, which studies and protects birds. He says thousands of crows have moved to Tokyo and other urban districts to dine on kitchen garbage, set out daily in plastic trash bags. He says the crows, like their human neighbors, love high-calorie foods such as meat and mayonnaise.

Ironically, efforts to protect the environment have made life easier for the crows. Several years ago, Japan began requiring all homes to use transparent garbage bags. That makes it easier for trash collectors to make sure combustable trash is separated from rubbish that can not be burned.

It also makes it easier for the crows to spot the bags filled with scraps of food. Every evening, millions of city residents carefully place their trash bags on the street side. And every morning, thousands of hungry crows tear open garbage bags and scatter the contents across the streets.

And all that extra food makes it possible for larger flocks to thrive.

This crowgirl marvels at the resourcefulness of her relatives.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:31 PM | Get permalink

Buying the presidency (continued).

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Dubya picked up US $5.1 million for his re-election bid at two event during a Friday stopover in California.

"I want to thank you for coming and giving of your hard-earned dollars," Bush told the 600 people who paid at least $2,000 each to have lunch at the San Francisco Airport Marriott in Burlingame. "You are laying the foundation for a nationwide victory next year."

Later, at the Westin Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, the president packed a ballroom and raised $3.5 million.

The California stops were part of a two-week fund-raising blitz that is expected to generate as much as $20 million for the president's re-election campaign.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:13 PM | Get permalink

Iran legislators protest student arrests.

Four members members of Iran's parliament have begun a 48-hour sit-in at the parliament building to protest the recent arrests of student leaders, reports the BBC. Legislators Fatemeh Haqiqatjou, Ali Akbar Mousavi Khoeini, Meysam Saeidi and Reza Yousefian say they are worried about the way in which the students were arrested, and afraid that security forces may mistreat the students during interrogations.

The arrest and detention of student leaders took place after ten days of anticlerical demonstrations in Tehran and other Iranian cities. The legislators accuse right-wing judges of trying to use the unrest to crush the student movement.

From the BBC:

[The legislators] said the students had been arrested by force and, in at least one case, at gunpoint. It was not clear who had detained them, where they were being held, and what charges they faced.

All of this, they said, was out of line with the constitution. If the authorities behave illegally, one of the MPs said, how can we expect ordinary people to abide by the law?

One of the MPs argued that instead of arresting students, the powers-that-be should tackle the so-called plainclothes rogue elements - the right-wing Islamic vigilantes who were allowed to attack the demonstrators and beat them savagely with clubs and chains, causing many injuries.

The MPs said the vigilantes were not rogue elements at all, but were organised and controlled.

They called on the reformist President, Mohammad Khatami, to identify who was behind them.

From the AP

[Saeed] Allahbadashti, one of few student leaders not imprisoned during the protests, said the establishment had lost its legitimacy through the crackdown.

"The judicial authorities are openly lying to the nation. First, they said few hooligans been arrested. Now, they confirm the arrest of 800 students. They are buying only greater hatred from the people whose call for change has been ignored," he said. [...]

[Fatemah] Haqiqatjou, one of 11 female lawmakers in the 290-seat parliament, said at least 30 more students were missing Saturday. "More names are added every few hours while unannounced arrests of students continue in provincial cities," she said.

[Legislator Ali Akbar] Khoeini said the judiciary prevented lawmakers from visiting detained students. "We want to talk freely to detained students without interrogators, the judge and the prosecutor. But judiciary officials are preventing this," he said.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:07 PM | Get permalink

Note to Washington: Iraq war not over after all.

From a BBC story about finding the bodies of the two US soldiers who disappeared on Wednesday:

A senior military official told reporters: "The first clear message that we have to take out of here is that this war is not over. I think that is pretty clear to all of us".

The story notes that 30 US and UK troops have been killed in action since May 1. That was the day, you might remembr, that Dubya landed on the aircraft carrier and declared the Iraq war over.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:50 AM | Get permalink

Friday, June 27, 2003

Another Friday.

And another trip on Wampum's wayback machine.

DEMOCRATIC GROUP SAYS PARTY MUST TARGET 'ORDINARY PEOPLE'
Larry Tye, Boston Globe
June 27, 1991

Democrats must convince voters they can "put government on the side of ordinary people again" to win back the White House in 1992, officials from the Democratic Leadership Council said yesterday during a stop in Boston.

Crucial to getting that message across is finding the right messenger, council president Al From said, adding that there is "a good possibility" the group's first choice -- Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton -- will run for the Democratic presidential...

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:59 PM | Get permalink

Canada's Supreme Court gives a lift to small political parties.

The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down a law making it hard for small parties to maintain status as a federal political party. Under that law, a party had to field candidates in at least 50 electoral districts in order to have a party affiliation listed next to their candidates' names on the ballot, or for a candidate to transfer unspent campaign funds to the party rather than to the government. The law gave other benefits as well.

The Court's decision came in a suit filed by the Communist Party of Canada, which lost federal status after failing to run in the required number of districts. By a unanimous vote, the justices ruled that the 50-district requirement violated the Charter of Rights, although they were split on the reasons why that's so. The opinion filed by the six-justice majority said that the law 'does great harm' by discriminating against small parties and deprecating their contributions to political debate.

"Legislation with such harmful effects would be difficult to justify," wrote Mr. Justice Frank Iacobucci, for the majority.

They said that voters cannot make informed choices unless they are well-informed — and how can they hope to be well-informed if large political parties have effectively strangled the voice of small parties?

"There is no correlation between the capacity of a political party to offer the electorate a government option and the capacity of a political party to formulate a unique policy platform for presentation to the general public," Judge Iacobucci wrote.

He said that votes cast for a small or fringe party are not simply wasted votes.

"As a public expression of individual support for certain perspectives and opinions, such votes are an integral component of a vital and dynamic democracy."

The Court stayed its ruling for 12 months to give the government time to draft new party registration that would meet constitutional requirements.

When looking at the website for the a href="http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/Welcome/index_e.asp">Supreme Court of Canada, Magpie noticed that three of the nine justices are women, including the Chief Justice.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:46 PM | Get permalink

Full text of Lawrence v Texas.

Given that the US Supreme Court's servers seem to be a bit overloaded since their fistful of decisions yesterday, it's being hard to get to the full text of those decisions. A resourceful reader suggests a better link for the full text of the Court's Lawrence v Texas decision, which invalidated the Texas law against homosexual sodomy.

If you go here, FindLaw has the whole thing as an html file. A nice thing about reading decisions at FindLaw is that there are links to the cases cited by a decision, which makes it easy for the obsessive to find out more. Not that Magpie knows anything about being obsessive, mind you.

Thanks, Chris!

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:17 PM | Get permalink

4000 arrested during Iran demonstrations. Crackdown continues.

Reuters reports that Iran's security forces arrested 4000 demonstrators during the recent anticlerical demonstrations in the country's major cities. About half of those people are still being held. Iran's prosecutor-general said that 800 of the arrests occurred in Tehran.

President Mohammed Khatami's failure to publicly defend the right to protest is being criticized by other reformists. On Wednesday, 25 members of parliament called on the president to publicly oppose the mass arrests. And today, Reuters reports that an open letter from 106 'prominent student activists' is calling on Khatami to defend the right to protest, or else resign the presidency.

Meanwhile, Tehran's hardline chief prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi told ISNA [Iranian Students News Agency] that an undisclosed number of newspapers were also being investigated for their alleged role in the mid-June unrest.

"Certain newspapers that played a negative role by causing problems are under investigation," said Mortazavi, who is best known for his closing down of scores of pro-reform newspapers in his previous job as the head of Tehran's press court.

He also alleged that "certain deputies" in the Iranian parliament also played a role in the unrest, but did not say if they too were facing legal action.

The BBC has additional information about those arrested:

They include Abdullah Momeni and Mahdi Aminzadeh, leaders of the biggest student organisation, the Unity Consolidation Office.

More than a week after he was pulled out of his car and taken away by four plainclothes operatives who sprayed him in the face with a disabling spray, Mr Aminzadeh's family still do not know where he is being held or what charges he faces.

BBC Tehran correspondent Jim Muir said the student leaders had not taken part in the street protests and their arrests have caused outrage in student circles.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:10 PM | Get permalink

Dean wins virtual primary.

The results of the online Democratic Party presidential primary election held by activist group MoveOn.org are in, and former New Hampshire governor Howard Dean was by far the voters' favorite. Dean garnered 44% of the vote, followed by US Rep. Dennis Kucinich with 24%, and US Sen. John Kerry with 16%. The remainder of the votes were spread among five other Democratic candidates. Just over 317,000 people voted in the primary, which ended early Thursday morning.

Dean did not win enough votes to get MoveOn's presidential endorsement, however. That requires at least 50% of the vote. MoveON will hold additional primaries over the next few months until a candidate achieves that figure.

A full report on the results and how the online primary was conducted is here.

Mainstream media appear to be taking the online primary seriously. The AP story on the primary is here. The Reuters report is here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:09 PM | Get permalink

Being Joe Bevilacqua.

We've all heard stories about people who've had interesting consequences or difficulties in their lives because they share their name with another person. There's enough of these stories that they start sounding the same — only the names are different. But what if you share your name with dozens of other people in the US and you're a radio producer? Then the story can get interesting.

Meet Joe Bevilacqua.

Once he almost had the wrong tooth pulled because his dentist had another patient with the same name. Another time his auto insurance was canceled because a driver named Joe Bevilacqua struck a pedestrian. (On the very same day that radio producer Bevilacqua was hit by a car himself!) Bevilacqua went to the Internet, and found 42 Joseph Bevilacquas scattered around the country. He decided to do a radio story about all the Bevilacquas out there.

Bevilacqua's piece airs on Saturday on NPR's Weekend Edition.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:08 PM | Get permalink

Remember: The war in Iraq is over.

Here's the lead sentence from a Friday story in Newsday:

A fresh spate of assaults yesterday in Iraq killed at least one American and injured 10, the latest sign that the U.S. occupation is facing an increasingly deadly guerrilla resistance, which is crippling reconstruction efforts and turning even once-friendly territory hostile, military analysts said.

According to Newsday, the pace and sophistication of the attacks against US and British troops has been picking up in recent days — the paper quotes military sources as saying that US troops were attacked in two dozen incidents on Monday alone. And attacks against the country's infrastructure appear to indicate something beyond the dying gasps of pro-Saddam elements.

"When you see four electrical towers in a row blown up - at midtower, rather than on the ground - or when you see a buried gas line blown up . . . it looks like a campaign," rather than merely spontaneous outbursts, said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, a conservative think-tank near Washington. "Are we making progress in pacifying the country? So far the evidence is not encouraging. And this war is not over till the countryside is pacified."

Two previously unknown groups in Iraq emerged this week, providing statements to Arabic television networks calling for anti-American violence. The general expected to take command of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, acknowledged that troops could face terrorist attacks in Iraq even as he raised the possibility of beginning to send troops home.

Also, the attack this week near Basra that killed six British military police appeared to stem from local anger over concerns about intrusive weapons searches, but marked a turning point in the postwar era, an attack on coalition forces in the previously friendly Shia territory.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, blames some of the Iraqi unrest on U.S. promises unfulfilled.

"We've got to make things better. That can't be spin. It has to be water flowing, electricity on, garbage getting picked up. The failure to do that is pretty amazing to me, the fact that we have been so inept about making that happen," Nash said.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:22 AM | Get permalink

Going for the soft targets.

The UK Independent's Robert Fisk looks at what may have led to the ambush in which six UK soldiers died earlier this week.

It wasn’t difficult to guess how the ambush was designed. The Americans are taking too many precautions now; they are surrounded by their tanks and armour, protecting their marble occupation palace, shooting down stone throwers with the abandon of Israeli troops. So why not go for the Americans’ soft-target allies?

Of course, there are the equally predictable reactions of horror. It was a “cowardly”, “despicable” attack, which is how we described all those hundreds of ambushes on British soldiers in Belfast and Armagh. In fact, that’s just how we described the attacks on British troops in Aden and Cyprus and Malaya, in 1920 Ireland, in Kenya and Palestine.

Because, whether or not Tony Blair realises it, we are playing once more the game of colonial occupiers - and now we are paying the price.

It was just the same in 1917. General Sir Stanley Maude proclaimed that his British invasion force had come to “liberate” the people of Iraq - not to conquer them - but within three years, his troops had been gunned down every bit as cruelly as the young British soldiers yesterday.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:05 AM | Get permalink

Travelling.

It's really wonderful where you can wind up on the Web sometimes.

Magpie started by following skippy's link to a post at The McGill Report about how someone in the US (southern Minnesota, to be precise) can find out more about Iran. (There's no direct link I can find — look for the post called 'Give Pistachios a Chance.') The post included suggestions from five Iranian activists living in the US, including this:

Hossein Derakhshan, a University of Toronto student and publisher of Hoder.com, a popular news and opinion Web log about Iran: "Read Web logs written by people who live in Iran. One of my favorites is called Lady Sun, at www.ladysun.blogspot.com. The best foreign correspondent in Tehran is Jim Muir for the BBC. A beautiful and accurate portrayal of modern life in Iran is the movie 'Under the Skin of the City,' which you can get at Amazon.com. Do NOT watch either of the Iranian TV stations out of Los Angeles (Azadi TV and Channel One) that are getting so much press attention these days. They are not pro-Iran, they are pro-money and pro-monarchy. They want to restore the monarchy to Iran."

That led us to Lady Sun, which is quite a nice blog and definitely going onto Magpie's regular rounds. A link on Lady Sun sent us to Women in Iran, where we found this:

Modernity (Tajadod) Newspaper, April 7, 1920 (18th of Farvardin 1299 AH)

Our readers have surely read the series of articles published in this column by someone named "feminist." Feminist, in modern terms, is someone who supports the ladies and defends their due rights; struggles to provide for their needs and improves their personal and social situation. In other words, the person is a follower of Feminism.

There are two kinds of feminism. Some support the rights of women because of their personal and individual gains. They would admire the women to high extents, always singing tributes, and use smooth language to bestow praises on some characteristics and feelings in women that are not even worth appreciating. They use their deceiving ways to dig deeper holes for women and lead them into a new darkness.

But the real feminism, true defense of women's rights, is fundamentally different. Real defenders of the rights of women only consider the financial and emotional comfort of women; they try hard to improve the life of women in and outside the family; and in any case they try to generate laws that would protect and promote the financial and social independence of women. They will try to guide the women towards personal enrichment and an accessible and happy future. Therefore, a true feminist promotes and appreciates the positive characteristics in women, and becomes sad about their mistakes and shortcomings, and will not forsake any efforts to improve these shortcomings.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:04 AM | Get permalink

Tommy Peoples.

The New York Times has a bunch of short reviews of CD by artists from all over the world. Among them is this notice of the newest CD by one of Magpie's favorite fiddlers:

Tommy Peoples, a fiddler from Donegal, has been sharpening up traditional tunes with rough-edged ornaments and sly variations since he was in the Bothy Band in the 1970's. "Waiting for a Call" (Shanachie) is a straightforward set of reels, jigs, slip jigs and strathspeys, played in duos or small groups and mostly recorded in 1985. Five tunes recorded in 2002 with the guitarist John Doyle show Mr. Peoples still has his bite.

One of the pleasing things about the CD is how well the tracks recorded in 1985 mesh with the ones laid down last year. Magpie especially recommends Peoples' fiddling on the 'King George IV' strathspey. Yow!

There's an audio sample of the strathspey (and other tracks on the CD) here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:02 AM | Get permalink

Howdy.

A big ol' Magpie how d'ya do to veiled4allah.

And while you're there, be sure to look at Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Pages.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:02 AM | Get permalink

The Dubya School of Real-Life Editing.

Molly Ivins is on a tear about a number of things in her most recent column, but Magpie was particularly taken by a suggestion she made about halfway through. Since Dubya's minions were able to deal with global warming by removing the evidence for it from the Environmental Protection Agency's recent report on the state of the environment, maybe that method could be used for other things.

Think of the possibilities presented by this ingenious solution. Let's edit out AIDS and all problems with drugs both legal and illegal. We could get rid of Libya and Syria this way -- take ‘em off the maps. We can do away with unemployment, the uninsured, heart disease, obesity and the coming Social Security crunch. We could try editing out death and taxes, but I don't think we should overreach right away. Just start with something simple, like years of scientific research on global warming, and blue pencil that sucker out of existence. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

CrowGirl wishes we could edit out Dubya, Cheney, and Ashcroft that easily.

Via Working for Change.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink

Thursday, June 26, 2003

Strom Thurmond, 1902–2003

The longest-serving US senator ever is dead at age 100. To give you an idea of how long Thurmond was part of the US political scene, he ran for president as a segregationist against Harry Truman in 1948. He then served in the Senate for 48 years, leaving office just this past January.

From the Associated Press obituary:

In a political career that spanned seven decades, Thurmond won his first election in 1928, to local office, and his last in 1996, to his eighth Senate term. "We cannot and I shall not give up on our mission to right the 40-year wrongs of liberalism," he said during his last campaign. "The people of South Carolina know that Strom Thurmond doesn't like unfinished business." [...]

"I want to tell you," he declared in one speech in 1948, "that there's not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes and into our churches." [...]

Thurmond grew up a Democrat - his father once ran for office - but switched to the Republicans in 1964 to support Barry Goldwater's conservative campaign for the White House.

He said at the time he had made the move because Democrats were "leading the evolution of our nation to a socialistic dictatorship."

When Magpie told one of her housemates that Thurmond had died, she wanted to know if anyone had seen the devil taking him away: 'We all know he sold his soul a long time ago.'

Update: No, Thurmond hasn't risen from the grave. But at AlterNet, Christopher George has a preemptive strike against revisionist histories of Thurmond's political life.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:09 PM | Get permalink

Did I say that?

Over at Whiskey Bar, Billmon does a recap of US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's statements on why the Iraq war was necessary. Funny how things have changed since January.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:54 PM | Get permalink

What does a president do?

When they've just been told that a second plane has crashed into the World Trade Center? If that president is Dubya Dubya, he just sits around in a classroom for five minutes, even after a logical time for him to leave presents itself.

The Memory Hole has video and the freeze frames here. Very, very disturbing.

Via This Modern World.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:04 PM | Get permalink

Minimum wage.

With recent hikes, the US minimum wage is up to $5.15 an hour. Huzzah! When you adjust for inflation, that's almost as high as mimimum wage was in 1950. At AlterNet, Holly Sklar fills us in on how far the mimimum wage is from fulfilling President Franklin Roosevelt's goal of 'a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.

It would take $8.45 to match the minimum wage peak of 1968 in 2003. Since 1968, worker productivity has risen more than 80 percent while the minimum wage has dropped nearly 40 percent, adjusting for inflation.

When the minimum wage is stuck in quicksand, it drags down wages for average workers as well. About one out of four workers makes $8.70 an hour or less. That's not much more than 1968's real minimum wage.

When workers don't get a fair day's pay they are not just underpaid – they are subsidizing employers, stockholders and consumers.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:14 PM | Get permalink

If you liked Afghanistan ...

At Asia Times, a commentary by Pepe Escobar suggests that the US and UK are losing the peace in Iraq, and that things will likely only get worse from here on.

To understand what is happening in Iraq, it is instructive to listen to Mohammed Hasan, an Afro-Arab specialist on the Middle East based in Belgium. Hasan correctly assesses that today "there are two governments in Iraq. One of them controls the country by day, by the occupation and the military and psychological terror it seeks to impose. But it does not know what is really happening. This occupation government does not really have a police. It tried to build it, based on the previous one, but in vain: the police is infiltrated by elements from the Ba'ath Party, loyal to Saddam Hussein - the communal base of the administration has disappeared. And this government also has no Iraqi army, which has disappeared. The Iraqi army was composed by officers recruited among the brightest students in Iraqi universities. But they are not collaborating with the reconstruction of the army." [...]

Hasan, like most Arab commentators, sustains that the US has already lost the peace in Iraq. "They tried to incite tensions between Shi'tes and Sunnis to provoke a civil war, and this has failed. Iraqi national sentiment has prevailed." Hasan also mentions the crucial class division of the US Army: for officers in the air-conditioned comfort of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, everything may be under control. But for the young and poor sons of the working class hailing from Kansas, Texas or North Carolina, frying their brains under 45 degrees in the shade and harassed by angry and determined Iraqis, this is hell: "In South Vietnam, the Americans had a supporter army of 1 million Vietnamese, a network of Vietnamese agents and policemen and a certain social base, limited but existant. In Iraq, there is no such base."

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:46 PM | Get permalink

Where is Rumsfeld?

Who knows? But Magpie can tell you where his staffers are, courtesy of a piece by Jim Washburn in the Orange County Weekly. They're on the phones, trying to convince cities around the country to structure their July 4th celebrations around the invasion of Iraq.

"I got the impression that they had a list of every city in the nation that had applied for a pyrotechnics permit, and were calling them to persuade them to be part of the program," said one OC [Orange County, California] city official.

Maybe Rumsfeld’s just looking out for his boys, helping to make sure the troops get the thanks they deserve. But it’s not as if our servicemen aren’t already swamped in bunting, praise and patriotic country songs. Do they really need Washington to orchestrate the public mood for them?

Apparently. The project even has a name: Operation Tribute to Freedom, putatively overseen by Air Force general Richard B. Myer. Check out the website at www.defendamerica.mil/otf/photos/index.html. Therein, it is claimed that Pentagon officials had been "inundated" with requests from communities asking how they could show support for the troops. Another press release remarks on the "spontaneous" displays of support for the military. And there doubtless have been many.

So why, then, does the Department of Defense deem it necessary to cold-call cities to sell them on a military salute?

"It seemed pretty obvious they were just trying to manufacture more public support for their war," said the city official.

This crowgirl thinks the 'Operation Tribute to Freedom' stuff on the Defense Department's website is beyond crass.

Via dangermuffin.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:41 PM | Get permalink

Supremes toss out Texas sodomy law.

In a show of how the High Court and the country as a whole have changed since 1986, the US Supreme Court has invalidated a Texas law banning gay couples from engaging in sodomy (defined by the law as oral or anal sex). The law did not forbid heterosexual couples from performing the same acts.

The ruling came in a case filed by Texans John Lawrence and Tyron Garner, who were arrested in Lawrence's home and jailed overnight after officers responded to a false report of a crime found the couple engaged in private, consensual sex. They were convicted of violating the sodomy law, a conviction that brought them 'sex offender' status in several other states as well. Today's ruling in the couple's favor reverses the 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision, in which the Supreme Court upheld a similar sodomy law in Georgia.

Writing for the Court's majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that the Texas law 'demeans the lives of homosexual persons.'

From the majority opinion:

Far from possessing “ancient roots,” [...] American laws targeting same-sex couples did not develop until the last third of the 20th century. Even now, only nine States have singled out same-sex relations for criminal prosecution. Thus, the historical grounds relied upon in Bowers are more complex than the majority opinion and the concurring opinion by Chief Justice Burger there indicated. They are not without doubt and, at the very least, are overstated. The Bowers Court was, of course, making the broader point that for centuries there have been powerful voices to condemn homosexual conduct as immoral, but this Court’s obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate its own moral code. [...]

The present case does not involve minors. It does not involve persons who might be injured or coerced or who are situated in relationships where consent might not easily be refused. It does not involve public conduct or prostitution. It does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter. The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government.

Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer agreed with Kennedy in full. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor agreed that the Texas law should be tossed out, but she based her opinion on the grounds that the Texas law violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

Dissenting from the majority opinion were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

From Scalia's dissenting opinion:

Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct. [...]

One of the most revealing statements in today’s opinion is the Court’s grim warning that the criminalization of homosexual conduct is “an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres” [...] It is clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed. Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as “discrimination” which it is the function of our judgments to deter. So imbued is the Court with the law profession’s anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously “mainstream”; that in most States what the Court calls “discrimination” against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal; that proposals to ban such “discrimination” under Title VII have repeatedly been rejected by Congress [...]; that in some cases such “discrimination” is mandated by federal statute[...]; and that in some cases such “discrimination” is a constitutional right ...

From the AP:

Although the majority opinion said the case did not "involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter," Scalia said the ruling invites laws allowing gay marriage.

"This reasoning leaves on shaky, pretty shaky grounds, state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples," Scalia wrote.

Thomas wrote separately to say that while he considers the Texas law at issue "uncommonly silly," he cannot agree to strike it down because he finds no general right to privacy in the Constitution.

Thomas calls himself a strict adherent to the actual words of the Constitution as opposed to modern-day interpretations. If he were a Texas legislator and not a judge, Thomas said, he would vote to repeal the law.

"Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources," Thomas wrote.

While sodomy laws are are rarely enforced, they are usually only used against gay men. Lawyers for the two Texas men who filed the suit against the law argued that these laws are part of the underpinnings for other, broader types of discrimination against gay men and lesbians, a view explicitly supported in the majority opinion.

Three states besides Texas have laws banning homosexual sodomy, and nine more states ban it for heterosexuals as well. The Court's decision today probably annuls all of those laws as well.

As you'd expect, there's a ton of reaction to the decision.

Lambda Legal Defense represented the Texas couple in their fight to overturn the law. Its press release on the Court's ruling is here.

"This ruling effectively strikes down the sodomy laws in every state that still has them -- but its impact is even broader. It will be a powerful tool for gay people in all 50 states where we continue fighting to be treated equally," [Legal Director Ruth] Harlow said. "For decades, these laws have been a major roadblock to equality. They’ve labeled the entire gay community as criminals and second-class citizens. Today, the Supreme Court ended that once and for all."

More reaction can be found here and here.

The BBC has an excellent report analyzing the decision in terms of the divisions in US society. You'll find it here.

The full text of the Court's ruling is available for viewing or download as a PDF file here. Click on the link for 'Lawrence v. Texas.'

Note: This post is identical to the one from this morning. For some reason, Blogger wouldn't allow a headline on that one.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:23 PM | Get permalink

Supremes sidestep question of corporate free speech.

With little comment, the US Supreme Court refused to decide whether the right to free speech protects Nike's corporate ads and statements. Without deciding on the merits of the athletic goods corporation's arguments, the justices sent Nike's suit against anti-globalization activist Mark Kasky to the California Supreme Court for hearing.

The case arose from Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike's vigorous defense against allegations that it used Third World sweatshops to manufacture its athletic products.

Nike defended wages and conditions at Asian plants, run by subcontractors, where workers make tennis shoes and athletic wear with the distinctive Nike swoosh logo.

Nike wrote letters and issued press releases and fact sheets about its overseas labor conditions. It said such statements are part of the marketplace of ideas protected by the First Amendment and that it must be free to explain itself to customers, potential customers, or anyone else.

Nike's critics said the company's defense hoodwinked consumers and amounted to false advertising. [...]

When the justices heard oral arguments in April, Kasky's lawyers said no one wants to stop Nike or other companies from speaking up. The point is that when a company speaks, it ought to tell the truth or pay the consequences in court, Kasky and his backers said.

Historically, advertising or promotional material get less protection than the contents of a newspaper or the words of a corporate critic like Kasky.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:33 PM | Get permalink

Ooooooh, shiny!

The San Francisco Public Library has digitized over 30,000 historical pictures of the city. They're all online, with a good index and clickable district map, with more being digitized all the time.

Magpie liked this 1950s photo of a woman and her dog in the Mission district.

Via LISNews.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:26 AM | Get permalink

Amway in India.

Until 1998, Indian law kept direct-selling companies like Amway out of the country. Since the law changed, Amway has gone into India big time, with over a half-million distributors signed up by 2001. The 'Amway opportunity' isn't a rosy one for most people, reports Pacific News Service, and many Indians have seen their dreams of Amway riches go bust.

As Amway has globalized -- two-thirds of its revenue now comes from Asia -- its business model has changed little. Founded in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1959, Amway still sells household products, cosmetics and dietary supplements through a hierarchy of distributors who receive a fraction of the sales of those in the network beneath them. Each newly recruited distributor pays Amway a startup fee -- about $100 in India.

Half of Amway distributors in India are women. The company promotes itself as a business opportunity for middle class women with broad social networks, but few marketable job skills.

"For me this was a chance to do something different besides just staying at home cooking and talking to other wives and taking care of children," says Meena, 45, a Delhi homemaker and Amway distributor for 10 months in 2000, who asked that her real name not be used. "And of course I was thinking I would be making lot of money."

"I have so many friends and relatives, so I was thinking it would be easy," she continues. "But I was running around from eight in the morning until 10 at night for Amway, and I couldn't take care of my family. My network collapsed, and in the end I didn't make any money at all."

For more on Amway and multi-level marketing, check out this entry from the Skeptic's Dictionary.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:49 AM | Get permalink

The rich just keep getting richer.

The NY Times reports that the income of the wealthiest taxpayers in the US doubled between 1992 and 2000, while their taxes dropped.

The 400 wealthiest taxpayers accounted for more than 1 percent of all the income in the United States in the year 2000, more than double their share just eight years earlier, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. But their tax burden plummeted over the period. [...]

A second report that the I.R.S. will make public today shows that the number of Americans with high incomes who pay no taxes anywhere in the world has reached a record. In 2000, there were 2,022 Americans with incomes of more than $200,000 who paid no income tax anywhere in the world, up from just 37 in 1977, when the report was first issued.

If you don't read any other part of the article, check out the graphs.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:35 AM | Get permalink

More strangeness from the ocean.

A scientific expedition trawling the ocean near New Zealand have found many new species of deep-water life. Scientists in a joint Australian and New Zealand research team spent a month on the ocean, travelling over 10,000 miles (6200 km) and collecting specimens and taking photographs to a depth of 1.3 miles (2.1 km).

One newly discovered creature, called the fangtooth, has teeth longer than its head. To avoid piercing its own brain when it shuts its mouth, its teeth fit into opposing sockets. [...]

There was also a squid, nicknamed the wonky-eyed jewel squid, which has a left eye much larger than its right eye. It seems that the big eye looks up for food while the small eye looks down for predators.

Magpie highly recommends the photo of the fangtooth.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:25 AM | Get permalink

Homeland security, Aussie style.

The Australian parliament has passed a 'draconian' anti-terrorism law, reports the BBC. Under the new law, the ASIO (Australia's main spy agency) can hold someone as young as 16 years old for a week without charge because they are suspected of knowing something about terrorism — the person does not actually have to be a terrorist herself. It also allows the ASIO to refuse to allow detainees to choose their lawyer, and it can restrict their access to whatever lawyer they are able to obtain.

The law could have been worse. The original draft made no provision for detainees to have legal representation, and allowed the ASIO to detain children as young as 14 years.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) "can now get on with the job of protecting Australians and Australian interests against other threats to our security", Attorney General Daryl Williams said in a statement after the bill was passed.

But Senator Andrew Bartlett of the opposition Australian Democrats said the law's powers were draconian.

"We think the very extreme new powers are not needed and we're very worried about how they will be used," he said.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:15 AM | Get permalink

Quickly, now!

Where did this quote come from?

Life in Baghdad often seems at variance with the optimistic pronouncements coming out of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the US and UK authority mandated with running Iraq by last month's United Nations security council resolution. Police have returned to work but are seldom seen on Baghdad's streets, where cars are stolen in broad daylight and traffic jams are constant. Heaps of rubbish lie in the street - closing even the entrance to the central bank - yet sporadic clean-up campaigns seem designed more for publicity than for effect. Power seems to be off far more than the average of four hours a day that the CPA says is the case.

This slow pace of reconstruction is feeding discontent. There is a real fear among officials of the CPA and other agencies working in Iraq that without a visible rise in living standards over the next few months, the coalition could face an organised and entrenched Iraqi backlash. The violence already sweeping the country is a sign that the window US policymakers thought they had in which to manage Iraq's transition may be narrowing dangerously. Since the end of the US-led military campaign in mid-April, dozens of US soldiers have been killed or injured in attacks by Iraqi guerrillas. On Tuesday six British soldiers were killed and eight injured in two separate attacks near the southern city of Amarah.

"The situation on the ground is definitely moving faster than we are," says one senior CPA official. "The situation the British faced in 1920, where momentum towards independence became unstoppable, is repeating itself."

Nope, not from the UK Guardian or some lefty website. It's part of a report from Baghdad by NY Times reporter Charles Clover that appeared in Wednesday's business section. Amazing, huh?

This crowgirl finds that last sentence very ominous.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:04 AM | Get permalink

New blog for the 2004 US elections.

It's called WatchBlog, and it's really three separate blogs on one page: One for the Democrats, one for all the third parties, and one for the Republicans.

On the third party blog, for example, is this post, which links to Sen. Robert Byrd's Tuesday speech blasting the administration's handling of the Iraq WMD issue.

WatchBlog going to be one to check in with often, Magpie thinks.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:02 AM | Get permalink

Michael Ledeen.

Do you recognize that name? No? Well, Dubya's advisor and electoral architect Karl Rove does. And that fact should scare anybody.

AsiaTimes has a profile of the neo-con foreign policy analyst who's gunning for Iran (among other countries).

"We are now engaged in a regional struggle in the Middle East, and the Iranian tyrants are the keystone of the terror network," he wrote in Monday's Post. "Far more than the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the defeat of the mullahcracy and the triumph of freedom in Tehran would be a truly historic event and an enormous blow to the terrorists." [...]

Throughout his career, Ledeen has insisted that war and violence are integral parts of human nature and derided the notion that peace can be negotiated between two nations. He was a fierce opponent of the Oslo peace process. "I don't know of a case in history where peace has been accomplished in any way other than one side winning a war [and] imposing terms on the other side," he said two years ago.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink

Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Something new from Dubya and Tony.

Don't you just love people with computers who have too much time on their hands? You'll need either Flash or QuickTime to watch.

Thanks, Steph!

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:26 PM | Get permalink

Iran president urged to oppose student arrests.

Since the recent student-led, anticlerical demonstrations in Iran, scores of students have reportedly been arrested by security officials, and the whereabouts of many of them are unknown. The arrests appear to be designed to head off any massive demonstrations on July 9, the anniversary of the 1999 attack on a Tehran University dormitory by vigilante supporters of conservative clerics.

Reuters reports that Iranian politicians aren't sure exactly who has been making the arrests. The police and the Intelligence Ministry claims that they only have a few students in custody.

As a result, 25 members of the Majlis (the Iranian parliament) are asking President Mohammed Khatami to take a firm stand against the arrests. They've asked the president to attend a closed-door meeting with parliamentarians to discuss the arrests, and at least some of the 25 have made it clear that they expect Khatami to deliver more than just expressions of regret.

While defending people's right to protest, pro-reform Khatami -- whom protesters called on to resign during the recent demonstrations -- has said little about the recent arrests.

When asked to comment on Wednesday, he told reporters: "In this country criticism should be free, the right of protest should be free. But everything should be in the framework of the law." He did not make clear whether his reference to the law applied to the actions of the protesters or the security forces.

Khatami has been facing increasing criticism from reformists inside and outside the Majlis and government.

"What we are expecting from Khatami is to fulfil his promises and to fulfil the slogans which drew people to the ballot boxes," parliamentarian Nouredin Pirmoazen told Reuters. [...]

Critics say the mild-mannered cleric's philosophical style is too soft for the tough world of Iranian politics.

"Since Khatami is not a politician and has no abilities in this field...(he) will not bring any changes at the present time or in the future. He is just killing time," said one caller to the reformist Etemad newspaper's open forum column.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:44 PM | Get permalink

Feds give Enron the 'death penalty,' then okay unfair power contracts.

The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has barred Enron from 'competitively' selling electricity and natural gas anywhere in the US. The company will still be able to sell power, but only at prices far below market levels. This is the first time that FERC has given its 'death penalty' on a power seller.

While FERC was able to look tough in dealing with the bankrupt Enron, It handed power sellers a big wad of loot by ruling valid the long-term power contracts made in California and other western states during the height of the 2000–2001 energy crunch. States had claimed that the prices in those contracts were the result of unfair practices by the power sellers.

Magpie notes an interesting choice of words at the end of the AP story referred to at the top of this post:

After a 13-month investigation into the matter, FERC singled out seven subsidiaries of Enron and five other companies for taking advantage of a dysfunctional market and reaping millions of dollars in unjust profits.

What do you want to bet that the phrase 'dysfunctional market' came right out of the mouth of someone at FERC? It makes it look as though the problems with power supply and power rates during 2000 and 2001 were caused by an act of God, or by nobody in particular. You know, markets just get dysfunctional from time to time. The story could have as easily used the phrase 'rigged market' or 'manipulated market,' but those carry such unpleasant connotations that somebody, somewhere actually did something wrong.

But that's not all. The larger phrase 'taking advantage of a dysfunctional market' makes it look like that the energy companies stepped into a situation that already existed, and then just tried to make some sharp business deals. The reality that the companies created the situation by manipulating energy supplies and prices just isn't there.

When Magpie taught radio news reporting, she always told her students that their choice of words has a huge effect on how listeners understood a story. You always want to be careful and choose the word that comes closest to what you mean. The use of 'dysfunctional market' by the AP is a good example of how language can obscure the facts, and of how subtle the resulting bias can be.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:39 PM | Get permalink

No, it's not Palestine.

And that's not an Israeli soldier in the foreground of this picture.

Yes, US forces are tearing down houses in an Iraqi town to discourage the residents from hostile acts. How many years of occupation did it take before the Israelis got to that point in Palestine? And what lessons did that destruction teach the Palestinians?

The US has been occupying Iraq for about two months now. I think we have a problem, Houston.

Via Shock & Awe.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:05 AM | Get permalink

Hope, memory, and Palestine.

In Arab News, James Zogby describes how he fell in love with Palestine because of a visit to the Ein Al Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon, over 30 years ago. He was impressed by the creative spirit that came from Palestinians' hope for their future, and he wonders what has happened to that spirit in the succeeding years.

As I was soon to discover, this power of Palestinian hope had become the raw material of Palestinian artists. And so I immersed myself in their works. Poets like Mahmoud Darwish, Sameh Al Qasim and Tawfiq Zayyad and painters like Kamal Boulatta and Ismail Shamout and the novelist Ghassan Kanafani — all gave collective voice to the dreams and stories of their people and their demand for recognition — so that others might come to appreciate what they had lost and respect their right to justice. What troubles me now is how much of this is lost or ignored. The stories are no longer told, the poetry has not been available for years, nor are the paintings shown. A new generation wishing to learn about Palestine must instead make do with news stories, political rants and the like.

How, one might reasonably ask, can a confused public come to support the rights of refugees when they have become invisible? How can a new generation come to be inspired by and learn to love the Palestinian dream, when it is no longer shared? And how can the Palestinian demand for justice win support when its presentation has been reduced by its advocates to a whine or an angry polemic? It is not that the Palestine case is not advocated, but that it is promoted in the abstract — without a human face, without a human story.

What troubles me, therefore, is that now, with so much world attention being focused on Palestine, their real story is not being told. The Israeli side has, as it has for decades, defined the presentation. And, as a result, the dominant images of Palestine have become bombers or an ineffectual Authority — with the people rendered invisible and their stories not heard.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:04 AM | Get permalink

We're here. We're queer. We live in India.

The Hindustan Times reports that India's first-ever Lesbian/Gay Pride march will be happening in Kolkata (Calcutta) on June 29 — the same day as larger marches in San Francisco, Sau Paulo, and New York.

Christened 'Walk on the Rainbow', the march is being organised by Integration Society, an organisation that has been working with lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transvestites (LGBT) for several decades. LGBT India, a network of more than a hundred organisations working for sexual minorities in the country, is supporting the march in India.

"We expect a few hundred people to take part. Apart from LGBT members, people from all walks of life who support freedom of sexual choice are being invited," Integration Society secretary Rafiquel Haque Dowjah said. He believes the march will create awareness and increase tolerance towards the LGBT community.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:04 AM | Get permalink

The comments.

If you hadn't noticed, people have been starting to use that 'Comments?' link down at the bottom of each post. There've been some mighty good comments, too — and we're not just talking about the ones that agree with Magpie.

So make sure that when you read the posts, you look for the comments, too. Otherwise you'll miss some of the best stuff.

Update: Someone suggested that the difference between 'Comments?" and "Comment" was hard to notice. So Magpie made some changes. Now it's 'Any comments?', '1 comment', and 'Several comments (#).' Let us know how you like the change.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:03 AM | Get permalink

A room of their own.

Some of the best international news coverage and analysis these days comes from Inter Press Service. A good example is this story about how Iranian women have taken advantage of Islamic strictures to gain a bigger role in society than is possible for women in most Islamic countries.

Iranian women are not preoccupied only with their classes, but have been among the key groups pushing for political reform and more openness in this society caught between the tussle between conservative and reformist clerics in the political leadership.

During the protests of over four nights near Tehran University earlier in June, the participation of women students in them prompted debates within families.

In the vicinity of Amirabad and Gayshah areas near the university hostels, reporters witnessed arguments between mothers in their mid-forties and fifties and their daughters, who wanted to take to the streets to vent their frustration about the lack of press freedom and to call for a more open society.

The mothers said the pro-government vigilantes were brutal and told them not to join the protests. But the daughters said they wanted, like their parents did in the Islamic Revolution 24 years ago, to bring about drastic change.

''You and your generation took to the streets 24 years ago and made revolution, now you and your generation have no right to prevent me to go for another change,'' one female student was heard arguing.

The IPS story on Iranian women is especially refreshing given the tendency of the Western press to focus on questions of dress — often to the exclusion of most other issues affecting women — when covering Iran. Take, for example, this recent story from the UK Guardian, which is much better than most of what passes for news about Iran.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink

Tuesday, June 24, 2003

That old demon alcohol.

Magpie just loves it, especially in the form of a good whisky liqueur. But, as Teresa Nielsen Hayden of Making Light tells us, there are lots of other liqueurs. And you can make them in the comfort of your own home.

Fruits may or may not have to macerate longer, but they do have to age longer. If you put up blackberry liqueur in blackberry season, it’ll get good just in time to do in everyone at your New Year’s party. Good blackberry liqueur is wicked stuff. The first time I made it, Patrick sampled the first bottle right before New Year’s. “Aw, too bad,” he said. “It tastes great, but all the alcohol has evaporated.”

I tried some myself. It tasted like sweet innocent summer fruit. Then my earlobes got hot. “We have a winner,” I said. We threw a hell of a New Year’s party that year. That was the year that Jerry Kaufman broke our broomstick, and Kathryn Howes and Rebecca Lesses broke one of our chairs while demonstrating wrestling moves, and Joanna Russ got into a whipped-cream fight, and Ole Kvern went home without his shoes when there was snow on the ground. There were bodies all over the carpet next morning.

But I digress.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:38 PM | Get permalink

More news from Kingsley, Hampshire.

The Summer Colours report is just in at The King's Blog.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:14 PM | Get permalink

Howdy.

We usually only say that when another blog links to Magpie. But we liked Rational Animal enough that we thought we should do it without a link. Rational Animal appears to be a younger blog even than Magpie, but it's certainly one to watch.

For example, as much as Magpie reads the UK Guardian, she'd never noticed any cartoons. But Lilith at Rational Animal noticed, and she spotted this one here.

Thanks to Cowboy Kahlil at ReachM High for the blogspotting.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:53 PM | Get permalink

You know, he has a point there.

Jay Leno, via AlterNet's Quote of the Day:

This week President Bush insisted he is absolutely convinced that Saddam had a weapons program. Of course he was absolutely convinced that he won the 2000 election, so I don't know.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:11 PM | Get permalink

What's wrong with this picture?

The LA Times reports that trendy retailer Abercrombie and Fitch has paid a US $2.2 million to the state of California to settle state charges that the company required its employees to purchase Abercrombie clothing and wear it on the job. Abercrombie isn't admitting any wrongdoing, but over 11,000 current and former employees will be getting checks of between US $180 and $490, depending on their position and length of employment.

The deal made public today with California labor officials is the most recent controversy involving Abercrombie's business practices. Last week, a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco accused the national retailer of racial discrimination in its hiring procedures. Abercrombie denied the charges. [...]

The chain store operator has long courted controversy. The company has carefully tried to cultivate an image that its apparel is "cool" to wear in a direct appeal to teen and college-age shoppers. Abercrombie routinely has used scantily clad models in its advertising and at times created apparel catalogs that included drinking and sex tips.

The company also has been publicly chastised for pushing the envelope with certain apparel trends. Last year, it was forced to pull T-shirts that featured Asian caricatures, and it was criticized for offering a line of thong underwear for little girls.

And here's the clincher:

Yet, Wall Street hasn't focused too much on the company's controversies. On Tuesday, the stock rose 79 cents to $26.93 on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares have gained 33% in the past year.

If you want to find out more about the racial discrimination lawsuit against Abercrombie, go here.

[Free reg. req'd. for LA Times]

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:21 PM | Get permalink

Storm warning.

Over at Wampum, MB has figured out what the current condition of the US reminds her of.

I, for one, am keeping my galoshes nearby.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:25 PM | Get permalink

Wishing and hoping.

Oh, that Donald Rumsfeld is such an optimist!

"I have reason, every reason, to believe that the intelligence that we were operating off was correct and that we will, in fact, find weapons or evidence of weapons, programs, that are conclusive. But that's just a matter of time," he told a Pentagon media briefing. [...]

"It's now less than eight weeks since the end of major combat in Iraq and I believe that patience will prove to be a virtue," Rumsfeld said.

Of course, all the searching for Iraqi WMDs that the US has done so far hasn't turned up anything of consequence except a couple of lab trailers that were probably used to produce hydrogen.

This crowgirl finds it so comforting that, under that gruff exterior, our own US Secretary of Defense is always wishing on a star.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:55 PM | Get permalink

More good PR for the US occupation of Iraq.

Last Thursday, US forces in Iraq attacked a truck convoy near the village of Dhib, saying that high-ranking members of the former Iraqi government were trying to escape to Syria. Villagers insisted at the time that the US was wrong about the convoy — that it was smugglers, not Saddam. Now, reports the Washington Post, the US is backing off its initial claims about the convoy, and Dhib's residents are angry about the 'collateral damage' caused by the attack.

Angry and resentful, residents of the village interviewed today at Central Qaim Hospital, where two people wounded in the U.S. strike were taken, acknowledged that they could not know for certain all the occupants of the vehicles. And as smugglers, with a penchant for secrecy, they left some questions unanswered -- why the trucks were apparently empty, for instance. But they insisted the attack was a case of mistaken identity, that their houses were targeted unnecessarily and that the four vehicles were part of a smuggling attempt gone bad.

Residents said the U.S. blitz lasted two hours under cover of night. And they said they were left wondering why a village -- whose biggest change in the wake of the government's fall is that its sheep can graze closer to the Syrian border -- is now occupied by American forces.

"During the war, they flew over our village and never attacked us," Hamad said. "Why now?"

The U.S. military in Qaim refused to comment today on the attack. "The bottom line is it's an ongoing operation," said Capt. Aaron Barreda of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is based locally in a cement factory outside the city.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:05 AM | Get permalink

'How do we tell a convincing story?'

From the Canadian Medical Association Journal comes a chilling story told by psychiatrist Ronald Ruskin.

What if Ben-Izmael's wife wasn't raped exactly when she said? I have a report that documents his torture and her rape. The problem is dates. Places, times, float; memory dislocates. Why don't the authorities believe me?

Via Waterloo Wide Web.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:03 AM | Get permalink

Where your MP3 dollar goes.

Here's a hint: Not to the artist.

Via Rebecca's Pocket.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink

Monday, June 23, 2003

Five more years.

For US troops in Iraq, that is. That's what US senators from both parties are saying.

Over at Whiskey Bar, Billmon figures out the bill.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:07 PM | Get permalink

New to the blogroll.

Magpie just likes The Mad Prophet better and better, especially because he's cranky, too.

Make sure to check out this post about the latest Dubya effort to get rid of overtime pay.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:40 PM | Get permalink

Respecting our own.

Over at The Nation, editor Katrina vanden Heuvel has some thoughts about how the US treats its own dissidents. It's short and to the point, and we reprint it here in its entirety.

President Bush's support for Iranian student protesters reminds me of something a Russian friend said to me many years ago, during the Soviet era: "You Americans are an odd people. You love our dissidents, but you don't like your own dissidents. You should support your local dissidents, too."

Don't get me wrong. I think Americans should support Iran's student movement--while understanding that fundamental reform must come about peacefully, indigenously and without US interference. But I'd like to see a little respect for our own dissidents too.

On February 15th, when more than two million Americans protested the Administration's rush to war in Iraq, Bush contemptuously dismissed them as a "focus group." White House spokesman Ari Fleischer added that "Often the message of the protesters is contradicted by history." Millions of Americans who have opposed corporate globalization have been treated with even more derision.

The other day Bush said, "I would urge the Iranian administration to treat [the protesters] with the utmost of respect." Okay, but how about treating your own dissidents with some respect, Mr. President?

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:16 PM | Get permalink

What kind of country tolerates this?

Three badly burned Iraqi children needed medical aid, and two US Army doctors refused to help. The children are now covered with scabs, and one of them can't move one of his legs. The Army sergeant who tried to help them get medical help is questioning what it means to be a US soldier.

No excerpts. Just go read this AP report.

Thanks to Body and Soul for spotting the story.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:48 PM | Get permalink

Right-wing reaction to affirmative action ruling.

US conservatives are not particularly happy with the Supreme Court's split rulings today on affirmative action, which failed to toss affirmative action into the dustbin of history, as the right had hoped for. Magpie found these responses particularly interesting, given the federal body that the two individuals are members of.

Two Republican members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights expressed disappointment in the rulings and assailed the court for allowing race as a factor in admissions.

"The court should be ashamed of itself, and this nation should be ashamed of itself for celebrating," said Abigail Thernstrom, a commissioner and senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute.

"We have just signed on to quotas for the foreseeable future for decades to come," she added. "We're going to have race-driven decision making from now on with the moral legitimacy of the court. It's disgusting."

Thernstrom said the court was "buffaloed by rotten social science," and her colleague on the commission, Cleveland labor lawyer Peter Kirsanow, said the court relied on so-called "expert studies" on race, many of which have been debunked.

In Kirsanow's view, the key issue came down the court's finding in the law school decision that student body diversity was a compelling government interest.

"The majority opinion is impressive in how it can contort the plain and unambiguous language of the 14th Amendment into a license to discriminate, albeit carefully," Kirsanow said.

As long as universities don't use overt point systems or numerical indices that emphasize race, they will still be able to consider racial preferences, he said. Many schools - and probably businesses as well - will now tailor their affirmative action policies to the law school's approach, Kirsanow said.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:22 PM | Get permalink

ACLU: Supreme Court's filtering decision isn't that bad.

The American Civil Liberties Union is finding that proverbial silver lining around the dark cloud of the Supremes' ruling that public libraries must install Internet filtering software if they want to continue to receive federal money. According to the ACLU, 'the Justices essentially rewrote the law to minimize its effect on adult library patrons,' allowing adults to insist that the software be disabled.

The law had allowed librarians to disable the blocking of a particular website only "upon a bona fide research or other lawful purpose," thus requiring librarians to become censorship police. However, in a fractured decision in which no majority joined, the Court today essentially rewrote the rules, saying that librarians can disable the software entirely on request and that patrons do not have provide a reason as to why they want a site unblocked. The ruling also implies that patrons would not have to identify themselves to request unblocking. Both the law and the opinions are unclear as to what the unblocking rules will be with respect to children [...]

What is clear, as Justice Kennedy wrote, was that "on the request of an adult user, a librarian will unblock filtered material or disable the Internet software filter without significant delay." That distinction leaves the door open to additional challenges if libraries do not adopt an adequate unblocking system, Hansen said, and the ACLU will explore that possibility.

The full ACLU statement on the Court's decision is here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:06 PM | Get permalink

Supremes 6, Freedom of Information 0.

By a 6-3 vote, the US Supreme Court has upheld a law requiring libraries that receive federal funding to install and use filtering software on public-access computers connected to the Internet. The decision overturned an earlier federal court ruling that requiring filters violates the constitutional rights of library patrons. Ten percent of US Internet users go online at public libraries, so the Court's ruling may affect the sites that these users can access.

The Court ruling was on a challenge to the Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000. Under that act, libraries that get federal dollars must use content filtering to prevent access to obscenity, child pornography, and sexually explicit material. The challenge to the law was led by the American Library Association and the American Library AssociationAmerican Civil Liberties Union, who said that filtering demanded by the law was unconstitutional censorship.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said the law, the Children's Internet Protection Act, does not turn librarians into censors. Rehnquist's opinion was joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen Breyer, in separate opinions, said the government's interest in protecting young library users from inappropriate material outweighs the burden on library users having to ask staff to disconnect filters.

Justice John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the law went too far in restricting material in public libraries, which are used by more than 14 million people annually.

While six justices voted to uphold the filter requirement as constitutional, two of them said that filters could be required only if adult patrons could request that the filtering be turned off. That position was taken by the US government in its argument for reinstating the filtering law.

For the full text of the decsion, there is a PDF file here.

The American Library Association was quick to condemn the Court's decision, and made it clear that the ALA will make it a priority to work with member libraries to lessen the effects of filtering on their patrons.

We are very disappointed in today’s decision. Forcing Internet filters on all library computer users strikes at the heart of user choice in libraries and at the libraries’ mission of providing the broadest range of materials to diverse users. Today’s Supreme Court decision forces libraries to choose between federal funding for technology improvements and censorship. Millions of library users will lose.

We are disappointed the Court did not understand the difference between adults and children using library resources. This flies in the face of library practice of age-appropriate materials and legal precedent that adults must have access to the full range of health, political and social information. The public library is the number one access point for online information for those who do not have Internet access at home or work. We believe they must have equal access to the Information Superhighway.

In light of this decision and the continued failure of filters, the American Library Association again calls for full disclosure of what sites filtering companies are blocking, who is deciding what is filtered and what criteria are being used. Findings of fact clearly show that filtering companies are not following legal definitions of “harmful to minors” and “obscenity.” Their practices must change.

To assist local libraries in their decision process, the ALA will seek this information from filtering companies, then evaluate and share the information with the thousands of libraries now being forced to forego funds or choose faulty filters. The American Library Association also will explain how various products work, criteria to consider in selecting products and how to best use a given product in a public setting. Library users must be able to see what sites are being blocked and, if needed, be able to request the filter be disabled with the least intrusion into their privacy and the least burden on library service.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:08 AM | Get permalink

Look out Australia!

The International Herald Tribune reports that the Aussie government is getting ready to loosen up the country's media ownership laws.

The proposed changes would let companies own assets in two of three media categories - newspapers, television and radio - in one market, rather than the current limit of one. The cap on foreign ownership of television networks and newspaper publishers would be abolished.

"There will be cataclysmic changes to Australia's media landscape if this law passes," said Patrick Russel, a media analyst at Merrill Lynch Co. "We'll see a series of mergers and acquisitions in the next three to five years."

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (owner of the US Fox network, among other things) is expected to try to buy the country's number-two broadcast TV network soon after the rules change.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:04 AM | Get permalink

What we still don't know about 9/11.

xymphora has been musing on all the questions that still remain:

The United States has embarked on two dreadful and unsuccessful wars based on the excuse of these attacks, and turned the country into a fascist security state. You would think there might be the slightest effort to answer some of these questions. The Bush Administration is stonewalling on even the most basic documents, and appears to have gotten away with one of the greatest cover-ups yet devised. The most striking thing is that most if not all of these issues could easily be resolved if the right people were forced to answer some rather simple questions.

Magpie doesn't think that the US has achieved fascism yet, but xymphora's questions are nonetheless very thought-provoking. Read all 20 of them here.

Via TalkLeft.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:04 AM | Get permalink

America droning.

Walter Kirn used to feel like Walt Whitman when he took a road trip: listening to the radio, he could hear America singing. Just by listening to accents and what people talked about and the type of music that a radio station played, he always knew where in the US he was. Not on his last trip, though. Station after station was broadcasting the place-less sameness of Clear Channel.

Clear Channel's critics -- who multiply each day, it seems -- tend to come from the political left. Their big beef is the network's supposed conservative bias, which, for attentive regular listeners, isn't supposition at all. The powerful syndicator of Rush Limbaugh and numerous other popular right-wing talk-jocks is truer and bluer than Oliver North's flag pin. But for me, that's a minor grievance, mere partisan grumbling. It's the creeping paralysis of our national vocal cords and the gradual atrophying of our eardrums that bothers me and would surely have bothered Whitman. That's why I'll probably skip this summer's road trip: I fear that I'll drive my car into a ditch. Radio from nowhere produced by nobodies eventually makes you nod off at the wheel.

Via NY Times. [Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink

Sunday, June 22, 2003

Ooooooh, shiny!

There's no clouds like noctilucent clouds.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:28 PM | Get permalink

Sore losers in California.

Salon has an excellent story by Tim Grieve, looking at the growing possiblility that California Republicans will succeed in calling a recall election against Gov. Gray Davis. Recall backers say Davis lied about California's budget problems when campaigning for election, and therefore deserves to be kicked out of office. Opponents say the Republicans are bad losers, and are backing the recall because they can't win a gubernatorial election legitimately.

The recall effort was sputtering until arch-conservative southern California legislator Darrell Issa pledged up to US $700,000 to bankroll the recall effort. And guess what? State law allows Issa to run to be Davis' successor.

But for some, it's something much worse. It's another example of Republicans' manipulating the rules and procedures of the democratic process to ensure their own partisan gain, no matter the cost in taxpayer money or public cynicism. It happened in 1995 when House Speaker Newt Gingrich led congressional Republicans in a shutdown of the federal government. It happened in the right's relentless pursuit of the Whitewater witch hunt against Bill and Hillary Clinton, and again in the impeachment of President Clinton.

If the recall drive makes the California ballot, voters will be asked not just to decide Davis' fate but also to name his replacement if Davis is recalled. There is no primary and no runoff; it would be remarkably easy for a candidate of any party to get on the ballot, and no matter how many candidates there are, whoever wins a plurality of the vote wins the governor's office. That confluence of circumstances favors a hard-right candidate like Issa, whose base of loyalists will turn out to dump Davis and then vote solidly for one of their own to replace him. For Issa, it's a custom-made election, paid for in small part by his contributions to the recall drive and in much larger part -- some say $30 million worth -- by the California taxpayers.

"This is a blatant abuse of the recall process," says Craig Holman, who follows campaign finance issues for Public Citizen's Congress Watch and drafted a campaign finance reform law adopted by California voters in 1988. "The recall process is intended as a once-in-a-millennium procedure that would be invoked to remove some office holder for, most likely, criminal activity. This is clearly not that. It's Darrell Issa using his money to try to set up a procedure in which he could potentially get elected governor realizing that he can't do it if he followed the normal route."

[Subscription or ad view req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:12 AM | Get permalink

Do corporations have freedom of speech?

Sometime in the next few weeks, the US Supreme Court should issue a decision in Nike v. Kasky, an important case about the free-speech rights of corporations. The facts of the case are this: In April, 1998, anti-sweatshop activist Marc Kasky accused athletic goods giant Nike of making false statements about its labor practices in Third-World factories, and filed an unfair competition and false advertising lawsuit against Nike in California. Kasky won the case, and the verdict was later upheld by the California Supreme Court. Nike appealed that decision to the US Supreme Court, claiming that the suit would unconstitutionally silence its speech on an important public issue.

At TomPaine.com, attorney Lisa Danetz of the National Voting Rights Institute gives a history lesson on the legal doctrine of corporate 'personhood,' and tells why she thinks the Supreme Court should rule against Nike:

The Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Civil Rights Amendments (which include the Fourteenth Amendment) were not framed with corporations in mind. Nowhere does the Constitution or any of its amendments mention corporations, although the drafters were all clearly aware of corporate existence. Indeed, early in our nation's history, Chief Justice Marshall warned against automatically granting constitutional rights to corporations:

"A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence."

Marshall was on to something. As creations of state law, corporations do not -- and, arguably, should not -- receive the same protections as individuals. The state grants corporations certain advantages (such as limited liability) to help them make money. It's not unreasonable, then, for the government to make sure corporations don't use their economic benefits to gain unfair advantage in other arenas of civic life.

In a bizarre twist, the Court's initial grant of "personhood" to corporations, such that they enjoy constitutional protections at all, is attributed to an 1886 Supreme Court decision that refused to address the issue. In published versions of the ruling, a court reporter inaccurately summed up the case as deciding that corporation were "persons" entitled to protection by the Equal Protection Clause, when in fact the Court explicitly avoided doing just that. Yet for some reason, the Supreme Court has adopted that as the meaning of the case.

Since that time, the Supreme Court has extended some constitutional protections to corporations, and denied others. For example, corporations enjoy due process protection and some limited free speech, but are not protected by the Fifth Amendment's right to guard against self-incrimination, by the "privileges and immunities" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, nor by the Fourth Amendment's right to privacy. The Court has made these determinations on an ad hoc basis, with little consistency as to why and when a corporation enjoys constitutional protection.

At some point, the Court needs to articulate a rationale for deciding which rights to extend to these bodies. Corporations do need certain limited rights, after all, in order to function. They must be able to defend themselves from lawsuits, so they require the protection of the due process clause as it applies to property. Media companies must enjoy freedom of press to operate in the news business.

That said, there is no reason whatsoever to extend more First Amendment protections to corporations. The First Amendment promotes communication as a means of self-expression, self-realization, and self-fulfillment. The First Amendment was also intended to protect the integrity of the political process by allowing the free flow of debate and information, and to protect the rights of listeners. Granting corporations the same speech rights as individuals advances none of these purposes.

If you want Nike's view of the case, it's here.

Via The Watch.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:04 AM | Get permalink