Magpie

Saturday, April 23

Pop quiz!

What is this thing, anyway?

Whazzit?

We're not telling. But Frankie Flood will.

Via Null Device.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:00 PM | Get permalink

Portland pulls out of anti-terror task force.

We have to make this one quick, since we're still facing a deadline at work, but we want to at least note that this magpie's home town of Portland, Oregon has become the first US city to pull out of the feds' Joint Terrorism Task Force. The main concern of the city was that cooperation with the task force could result in violations of the civil rights of Portland residents.

You'll find extensive coverage of the issue here at the Portland Commmunique.

Via Portland Oregonian.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:49 AM | Get permalink

Take two pills in the morning and forget about your appeal hearing.

Dubya's administration is dishing out yet another Medicare 'reform.' And this time, the changes show the depth of the contempt in which the Republicans in Washington hold the Medicare system and, especially, the people who depend on Medicare for health care assistance.

You'll recall Dubya's much-ballyhooed prescription drug benefit for seniors, passed by Congress last year. Touted by the administration as a partial solution to the rising prescrption drug costs faced by seniors, it was widely criticized as a giveaway to big pharmaceutical companies. While there is argument over how much benefit the average senior will see from Dubya's prescription drug plan, there is general agreement that appeals of Medicare decisions are going to skyrocket as the plan takes effect.

So what does Dubya's administration do to handle the anticipated increase in appeals? (Appeals, we'd add, that are a direct result of policies implemented by the administration and Congressional Republicans.) It makes it harder for seniors to appeal Medicare decisions.

Currently, it's relatively easy for seniors to make a Medicare appeal. In-person appeal hearing are held at Social Security offices around the country – there are currently more than 140 locations. But that responsibility is being transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services this July, and appeals will all happen at four sites: Cleveland, Miami, Irvine (CA), and Arlington (VA). Basically, if you're not close to one of those locations, you're f*cked.

But, in the language of TV infomercials, that's not all.

Under the new policy, Medicare officials said, most hearings will be held with videoconference equipment or by telephone. A beneficiary who wants to appear in person before a judge must show that "special or extraordinary circumstances exist," the rules say.

But a beneficiary who insists on a face-to-face hearing will lose the right to receive a decision within 90 days, the deadline set by statute. [emphasis added]

[In] a recent study, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, questioned the reliance on videoconferences, saying that "beneficiaries are often uncomfortable using videoconference facilities and prefer to have their cases heard face to face."

Under the new procedures, hearings for seniors who live in, for example, the New England states, will happen in Ohio. And hearings for people in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska will be held in southern California. This would seem to fly in the face of a 2003 Medicare law requirement that appeals judges be distributed 'throughout the United States.'

The changes in the appeals process have provoked intense criticism:

Judith A. Stein, director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, which has represented thousands of people in hearings since 1986, said: "The videoconferences are one of many changes that will reduce the beneficiaries' ability to get fair, favorable decisions. Sick, old and disabled people can be much more effective in person because the judge can see their illnesses and infirmities - how they walk, how they get up from a chair, how their hands shake with tremors."

Nancy M. Coleman, director of the Commission on Law and Aging, a policy and research arm of the American Bar Association, said, "It's a travesty, what's happening to the appeal rights of Medicare beneficiaries."

Ronald G. Bernoski, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges, said face-to-face hearings were valuable for judges and beneficiaries alike.

"Video teleconferences will undermine the judges' ability to assess the credibility and demeanor of witnesses," said Mr. Bernoski, a judge based in Milwaukee. "And it could reduce the beneficiaries' confidence in the proceedings. The intrinsic value of a Medicare hearing is that citizens have an opportunity to sit down in front of a high-ranking official and tell their story to someone who listens carefully and makes a reasoned decision."

Dubya's apologists are defending the appeals changes in typical administration fashion. HHS secretary Michael Leavitt says that senior's access to hearings will be 'as good as or better than' what it is now. But he doesn't stop there:

"Video teleconferences will allow hearings to be provided more timely, with vastly more access points than Social Security currently provides through its offices," Mr. Leavitt said.

We're just a magpie, but our count says that replacing 140 locations with 4 locations isn't providing more access points. But given the propensity of Dubya's administration to deal with criticism by repeating lies and propaganda claims over and over, the response isn't surprising.

Via NY Times.

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

Microsoft in hot seat over lesbian/gay rights.

The software giant is facing a much-deserved public relations nightmare as news of Microsoft's retreat from long-standing support of equal rights for lesbians and gay men continues to spread. Earlier this week, Seattle's The Stranger newspaper broke the news that Microsoft had caved into threats from a right-wing Christian church in Redmond, Washington (where Microsoft is based) and withdrawn its support for a bill to extend equal-rights protections to lesbians and gay men.

[In a February 2005 meeting, Antioch Bible Church pastor Ken] Hutcherson told the Microsoft general counsel that 700 Evangelical Microsoft employees attend his church, and all of them oppose H.B. 1515 [the House version of the bill]. He added that if Microsoft did not withdraw its support of the bill, he intended to organize a national Evangelical boycott of Microsoft. He further demanded that Smith fire McCarthy and McCurdy, the two Microsoft employees who had testified in favor of the bill. Smith did not immediately respond to Hutcherson's demands. After investigating the issue for about two weeks, Smith told Hutcherson that because Microsoft had no set policy restricting employees from testifying on political matters, he would not fire the two employees. He did, however, decide that Microsoft would change its stance on the bill by adopting an officially "neutral" position.

Microsoft did follow through on its promise to change its position and, two months after the meeting with Hutcherson, the lesbian/gay civil rights bill failed in the Washington Senate by one vote, after earlier passage by the state House.

Nationally and in Washington, leaders of lesbian and gay organizations are blaming Microsoft for the bill's defeat. The Human Rights Campaign has sent a letter to Microsoft expressing disappointment with the company:

The defeat of this bill struck a blow to fairness for all Washingtonians. No Washingtonian or American should ever be fired for who they are. Corporations in Washington, especially Microsoft, must recognize the enormous impact this bill could have had at delivering equal protection to GLBT people....

We also find it troubling that public reports allege that Microsoft made this decision not based on a business rationale, but under pressure from conservative religious-political groups. The reported rationale that Microsoft officials were afraid of offending 'Christians' is itself deeply offensive to the many Christians who believe in non-discrimination and were proud of Microsoft's previous position. Further, giving in to threats from a small group fighting to impose their own view of religion on the company and the state will only encourage more such threats.

In addition, the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center has asked Microsoft to return an award it received from the center in 2001, saying the company is no longer worthy of that honor.

It is the first time the center has asked that an award be returned, said Darrel Cummings, the center's chief of staff.

"People in our community are surprised and really shocked by the actions of Microsoft," he said. "There is no apparent reason why this corporation would have taken this action if it were not for the pressure put on them by what we consider to be very right-wing religious leaders that do not reflect the views of the people of Washington or this country."

So far, Microsoft has refused almost all comment on this issue. Big surprise.

Via Seattle Times and The Stranger.

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

Friday, April 22

The morning after gets a bit easier to cope with.

In Canada, that is.

While the US Food and Drug Administration continues to drag its feet on making emergency contraception more easily available, Health Canada has approved the 'morning-after pill' for over-the-counter sale at pharmacies. Canadian women should be able to buy 'Plan B' — the trade name for the drug levonorgestrel soon. Levonorgestrel is 95 percent effective at preventing pregnancy if taken during the first 24 hours after unprotected sex.

The 'morning-after pill' is already available without a prescription in three Canadian provinces. A recent study in one of them — British Columbia — found that use of emergency contraception doubled once the requirement for a prescription was dropped.

Of course, the Canadian religious right is greeting the news about 'Plan B' with typical helpful comments:

Mary Ellen Douglas of Campaign Life Coalition said she's upset no one will discuss any moral concerns with girls seeking the drug.

"I can't believe these girls are going to be intensely concerned about what they're taking," said Douglas. "They're going to be thinking, 'I acted irresponsibly and I must make sure my mother doesn't find out. Now give me the pill.'"

Via CBC News.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:36 AM | Get permalink

Thursday, April 21

Howdy CJR Daily readers!

It figures that the first time CJR Daily notices that Magpie exists , we're in the middle of a big deadline crunch at our 'real' job and can't post at our usual level. And then f'n Blogger goes down, so we can't make this post earlier in the day when it would be noticed by more visitors.

Well, Blogger seems to be working again and we hope to be posting normally again sometime this weekend. In the meantime, we invite you to have a look around. We like to think that we're one of the better examples of the supposedly nonexisent political blogs written by women. Hopefully you'll agree with us after you read what we have on offer.

And do come again, okay?

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

Same-sex civil unions.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed a bill establishing civil unions for same-sex couples in Connecticut. This makes the state the second in the country to enact such a law (after Vermont), and the first to do it without being under pressure from a lawsuit.

Same-sex marriage could be next on the burner for the state. A lawsuit claiming that the state's marriage laws discriminate against same-sex couples is in the courts. And a recent poll shows that over half of Connecticut residents favor same-sex marriages.

You can find an earlier post on Connecticut's civil union legislation here.

Via NY Times.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:13 AM | Get permalink

Wednesday, April 20

Extreme deadline at work.

As a result, the forecast calls for light, possibly nonexistent, blogging on Thursday & Friday.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:16 PM | Get permalink

Yow!

This magpie really wouldn't like to be the one who stole this professor's laptop.

Real Player required. Forward up to 48:50, and hold on to your seat.

Via Boing Boing.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:57 AM | Get permalink

Don't cross the US border if you 'look Muslim.'

Last December, dozens of Muslim Americans were detained by US border officials when they tried to return to the States after attending a religious conference in Canada. Today, five of those detained have filed suit against the US Department of Homeland Security because of those detentions, alleging that the DHS violated their rights under the First and Fourth Amendments of the US Constitution and under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The federal lawsuit is being handled on the Muslims' behalf by attorneys from the New York Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"None of the citizens who were detained had done anything unlawful, nor were they charged with any unlawful act," said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the NYCLU. "It is very troubling that citizens who were exercising their First Amendment rights were singled out because of their faith and attending the conference."

Sadly, the details of the detention are notable in part because they sound like so many other stories of problems encountered by people that US authorities view as 'suspicious':

On their way back from Reviving the Islamic Spirit (RIS) conference in Toronto in December 2004, American citizens who are Muslim were detained, frisked, photographed and fingerprinted. The DHS?s new policy resulted in the citizens being subjected to unlawful detention and treatment near Buffalo, New York simply because they attended the conference. Among those detained by border agents were several families with their children, including an infant and a pregnant woman.

The RIS conference has been held annually in Toronto since 2003. Each year, it has included a strong message of building friendships with and alliances between Muslim and non-Muslim communities. As in previous years, the Premier of Ottawa, the Mayor of Toronto, and a Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had welcomed conference participants on behalf of the Canadian government....

As attendees arrived at the Canada/U.S. border, they were singled out as having participated in the conference, and directed to a nearby building for additional questioning. Several participants wore traditional Muslim dress and were asked about attending the conference before being asked any other questions about their trip to Canada. As more RIS attendees began to amass in the secondary detention area, it became clear that they were victims of profiling. Some were held for as long as six-and-a-half hours overnight.

Said Dr. Sawsan Tabbaa, a Buffalo an orthodontist who attended RIS: "I was treated like a criminal for no other reason than because I was Muslim...."

The conference attendees were isolated from the outside world while being detained. They were prevented from contacting attorneys, their family members or the news media to tell them about their detention. Several of them had their cellular phones seized by border agents.

The ACLU's press release on the lawsuit is here. The NY Times story on the case is here.

A good resource for keeping track of this and other issues affecting Muslims in the US is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:31 AM | Get permalink

Jeffords to retire from the US Senate.

US senator James Jeffords says he won't run again. The senator's defection from the Republican party in 2001 gave the Democrats control of the US Senate for part of Dubya's first term. Jeffords left the GOP because of dissatisfaction with the party's drift to the right.

The person this magpie would like to see replace him is US representative Bernie Sanders, who may be the most left-wing member of the House. Sanders has already said he'd consider running for the Senate if Jeffords stepped down.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:23 AM | Get permalink

And we thought that our day at work yesterday really sucked.

Our day was nothing. We were done by 10 pm. And we only thought about quitting.

Poor alphabitch, on the other hand, really suffered. And today doesn't sound like it's going much better.

Go read her post and then leave something nice in the comments, okay?

Via Suburban Guerrilla.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:04 AM | Get permalink

The new pope.

Many Catholic lesbians and gay men are viewing the papacy of Benedict XVI with wariness, if not outright hostility. Among the new pope's actions when he was a cardinal was a letter to Catholic bishops on the church and 'homosexual persons.' That letter described lesbians and gay men as 'intrinsically disordered,' and said that homosexuality is a 'tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil.'

"I think most of us who were gay and Catholic will never forget when Ratzinger's letter came out. It was so stunning in both its breadth and depth of condemnation," [National Gay and Lesbian Task Force executive director Matt] Foreman said. "The cardinals have elected the most outspoken and venomous opponent of equal rights for gay people in the Catholic Church's hierarchy." Around the country gays and lesbians responded to the news of the new pope with incredulity and concern, citing Ratzinger's history of speaking out against gay marriage and adoption and inclusion of gays in the Catholic Church.

"My initial reaction as a gay Catholic man is disbelief and sadness, almost depression," said Gino Ramos, the co-chair of the gay Catholic organization Dignity/San Francisco. "My heart sank when I heard the name Joseph, and I said, 'Oh my God, bless us all.' "

Local chapters of DignityUSA used to meet on church property, but after members publicly rejected the Vatican's 1986 letter, they were no longer welcome, said Sam Sinnett, the national president.

To this day, members meet at non-Catholic churches instead; Dignity/San Francisco, which has around 85 members, gathers at Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church in the Sunset District. "After that letter was promulgated, we felt like we were in exile," Ramos said.

While this magpie applauds the San Francisco Chronicle for running their article — we doubt many other US daily papers are doing articles on how queers view the new poper — we take away points for the paper's appparent inability to get comments from anyone who wasn't a gay man. From what we hear, there are one or two lesbians in the SF Bay Area. And we bet that more than a few of them are Catholic.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:18 AM | Get permalink

Tuesday, April 19

As the world burns.

In the latest issue of Mother Jones, Bill McKibben explains how environmentalists won an important victory at the 1991 Kyoto negotiations on global warming, but lost the war for public opinion to a clever, but crude, media campaign against taking action to respond to climate change:

At the very least, the "energy sector" needed to stall for time, so that its investments in oil fields and the like could keep on earning for their theoretical lifetimes. The strategy turned out to be simple: Cloud the issue as much as possible so that voters, already none too eager to embrace higher gas prices, would have no real reason to move climate change to the top of their agendas. I mean, if the scientists aren't absolutely certain, well, why not just wait until they get it sorted out?

The tactic worked brilliantly; throughout the 1990s, even as other nations took action, the fossil fuel industry's Global Climate Coalition managed to make American journalists treat the accelerating warming as a he-said-she-said story. True, a vast scientific consensus was forming that climate change threatens the earth more profoundly than anything since the dawn of civilization, but in an Associated Press dispatch the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change didn't look all that much more impressive than, say, Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute or S. Fred Singer, former chief scientist at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Michaels and Singer weren't really doing new research, just tossing jabs at those who were, but that didn't matter. Their task was not to build a new climate model; it was to provide cover for politicians who were only too happy to duck the issue. Their task was to keep things under control.

It was all incredibly crude. But it was also incredibly effective. For now and for the foreseeable future, the climate skeptics have carried the day. They've understood the shape of American politics far better than environmentalists. They know that it doesn't matter how many scientists are arrayed against you as long as you can intimidate newspapers into giving you equal time. They understand, too, that playing defense is all they need to do: Given the inertia inherent in the economy, it's more than sufficient to simply instill doubt. [emphasis added]

In short, the deniers have done their job, and done it better than the environmen- talists have done theirs. They've delayed action for 15 years now, and their power seems to grow with each year. How, even as the science grew ever firmer and the evidence mounted ever higher, did the climate deniers manage to muddy the issue? It's one of the mightiest political feats of our time, accomplished by a small group of clever and committed people. It's worthwhile trying to understand how they work, not least because some of the same tactics are now being used in debates over other issues, like Social Security. And because the fight over global warming won't end here. Try as they might, even with all three branches of government under their control, conservative Republicans can't repeal the laws of chemistry and physics.

McKibben's piece is part of an MJ special project on global warming. You can read the three stories in the project here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:11 AM | Get permalink

'If I weren't anonymous, I wouldn't be able to write half of what I write.'

Over the past 18 months, one of the sources we've cited most often on the subject of Iraq is Baghdad Burning, a blog written by Riverbend, an pseudononymous mid-20s Iraqi woman living in Baghdad. The blog is a compelling blend of the personal and the political, ranging from comments on the rise of fundamentalism in post-invasion Iraq to the joys of finding out that there's water coming from the tap.

BuzzFlash has a long interview with Riverbend. Here's an excerpt:

BuzzFlash: The Bush White House and their representatives keep saying it was all worth it to get rid of Saddam Hussein. We think there might have been other ways of getting rid of Saddam Hussein besides wrecking a nation and taking over its oil. What do you think?

Riverbend: I think this wasn't about the welfare of Iraqi people and ridding them of a dictator. I think this has been about the US strategically placing itself in a Middle Eastern 'hot spot' -- in the middle of Turkey, Iran, Syria and the Gulf countries -- to wreak havoc and promote instability in the area, and have direct access to the oil, of course.

Democracy has to come from within and it has to be a request of the people -- not of expatriates who have alliances with the CIA and British intelligence. People have to want something enough to rise up and change it. They have to be ready for democracy and willing to accept its responsibility. The US could have promoted democracy in Iraq peacefully, but then they wouldn't have permanent bases in the country, would they?

BuzzFlash: What would happen if the U.S. forces completely pulled out of Iraq within a month?

Riverbend: No one knows what would happen. Some people say civil war, others say Iraqis would be able to sort things out. I think the best thing would be to set a timetable for complete withdrawal. This would have the dual effect of giving hope to the millions of Iraqis who feel their country will be under occupation for at least another decade, and it would also push the current Iraqi government to organize themselves and try to win over the favor of the people instead of looking out for personal gain and power. It would also inspire Iraqi security forces to take better charge of the situation in the knowledge that, eventually, they'll have to protect Iraqis instead of Americans.

You can read the whole interview here.

You might also want to check out Riverbend's new book, Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq. Ask your library to get a copy. Buy one at your local bookstore. Or get one online: here, for example.

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

'The life of the miner is the same ...'

'... wherever coal is dug and capital flies its black flag.'

US labor activist and rabblerouser Mother Jones wrote those words in her autobiography almost a century ago. What she said about coal mining then is still true today, and perhaps no more so than for those who labor in the coal mines of China.

The Justice and Peace Commission of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese is currently campaigning to improve the lot of Chinese miners, and they've produced a powerful video showing the hard lives lived underground. [The Shockwave plugin is required to view it.]

The miner's life

Courtesy of CSR Asia, here's a translation of the Chinese text that appears during the video:

The four red messages read:

1. China accounts for 80% of the world?s coal mine deaths.

2. The death rate per million tons of coal extracted in China is 100 times more than the US, 30 times more than South Africa, and 10 times greater than India.

3. There is a coal mine accident that kills over 10 miners every 7.4 days.

4. There is a coal mine accident that kills over 30 miners every 50 days.

The green message says:

How many more need to suffer before things change?

The final screenshot is a request to write to [Chinese Premier] Wen Jiabao:

Let them come back home safely, Protect coal miners? rights now

We urge and demand the Chinese government to:

1. Make life the highest priority and safety the first condition for coal mining production, and implement a policy to protect the rights and safety of miners;

2. Establish a rigorous work safety accountability system, and ensure that officials who breach their duty will be held responsible;

3. Allow freedom of association and let miners organise themselves and participate in the management of coal mine safety practices that directly relate to their safety and health; and

4. Allow freedom of the press and let the media gather news independently so that it can be an effective monitor.

Please join our signature campaign, and mail the above letter to the following address:

Wen Jiabao, Primer Minister of the PRC
General Office of the State Council
2 Fuyou Street
Xicheng, Beijing
China 100017

You can also email the letter with your name to [campaign (at) hkjp.org] and we will forward it for you [replace (at) with @].

Via Peking Duck.

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

Boys Town USA.

Dubya's Labor Department will stop issuing its major set of statistics on women in the US workforce. As best we can figure out, the reason for the new policy is that the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)has more important things to do. And it's too much of a burden for employers to answer surveys. Yeah, right.

We're not the only one unconvinced by the administration's excuses. The National Organization for Women thinks that the Labor Department's motives are crystal clear:

The BLS claims that one factor in their decision is the burden the data collection places on employers. The Bureau fails to inform us, however, that the Current Employment Statistics (CES) Survey is hardly burdensome — it is mandatory in only five states: California, Oregon, Washington, North Carolina and South Carolina.

The CES survey compiles information from over 300,000 businesses, and is considered to be the most reliable data for tracking month-to-month changes in employment. Also, the CES is critical to lawmakers, providing information necessary to crafting public policy that is beneficial to all women.

The federal government's plan to dispense with this routine data collection is an attempt to erase the statistics that identify the glaring inequalities between men and women in the workplace. NOW also notes that this decision is part of a larger effort to erase socio-economic data about women from federal web sites — as well as from government agency concerns in general.

Thanks to NathanNewman.org for the tip.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 AM | Get permalink

Monday, April 18

Pope watch.

Here's the latest from the Vatican:

Black smoke was seen coming from the Sistine Chapel today. Apparently, even the Vatican can't get a toaster that works. Sad, really.

Via LabKat.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:54 PM | Get permalink

Showing the Canadians he cares.

Dubya named David Wilkins as the new US ambassador to Canada today. Wilkins' only apparent qualifications for the job is his work raising money for the GOP, and his being an old friend of the Bush family.

Here's what the Canadian Press had to say about the appointment:

There's little evidence he knows much about Canada-U.S. relations, having spent his career in the southern United States.

Other than a military invasion, it would be hard to send a clearer message as to how little Canada matters to Dubya's administration.

Via Toronto Star.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:18 PM | Get permalink

Wakey, wakey! It's the new world!

Over at fafblog, fafnir is in especially fine form today:

The president appears at a press conference as an eight-month old child. He strongly defends his fiscal policy an throws a bowl a mashed corn at the Associated Press. The Supreme Court announces that precedent is stuffy and old. From now on they will write from their hearts! Their decision in McGinnis v. United Cornbread is a collection of relatively well-received free-verse poetry.

We're a bit confused. While it's obvious that fafblog is fantasizing about the Supreme Court being poets, how does the way the president is described depart from reality?

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:16 AM | Get permalink

How to overthrow a central Asian president ...

Without really trying.

In the wake of the ouster of Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev, cartoonist Ted Rall gives would-be revolutionaries a guide to how it's done.

Vodka kegger?

Ted Rall's website is here.

Via EurasiaNet.

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

Burberry?

Couldn't say it better.

Via Null Device.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 AM | Get permalink

Sunday, April 17

Remember Iraq?

Remember that election they had not too long ago?

Foreign affairs journalist Mark Danner was in Iraq before and during the elections, and he has some very interesting observations on how the Iraqi election was conducted and what the results mean for the long term — for Iraq, for the region, and for the US.

In the ideal vision of a post-Saddam Iraq, the people would have come out to bless the new political dispensation, in which the Shiites assume their rightful place as the majority party and the Kurds and especially the Sunnis, the erstwhile elite who throughout its modern history had ruled Iraq, take their place as proud, active, and politically vital minorities. This is not what happened on January 30. Shiites won a majority, but not enough under the peculiar rules imposed by the occupation to form a government. Kurds, turning out in enormous numbers for their single list, were overrepresented in the new assembly and gained, in effect, a veto over who would form the new government. And finally, little more than one in ten Iraqis came out and voted for Allawi, dashing American hopes that he could remain in power.

Television cameras, which could only show what was before them in the polling places, could not show the day's critical actors, the Sunnis, who did not appear. The real story on Election Day was that the Sunnis didn't vote. If the election was to mark the point from which Iraqis would settle their differences through politics and not through violence, it failed; for those responsible for the insurgency? not only those planting suicide bombs but those running the organizations responsible for them and the leaders of the community that has shown itself sympathetic enough to the insurgents' cause to shelter them?did not take part. The political burden of the elections was to bring those who felt frightened or alienated by the new dispensation into the political process, so they could express their opposition through politics and not through violence; the task, that is, was to attract Sunnis to the polls and thereby to isolate the extremists. And in this, partly because of an electoral system that the Sunnis felt, with some reason, was unfairly stacked against them, the election failed.

The images could not show, finally, the peculiar system of government under which those elected are now struggling to function?a system in effect imposed by the American occupation in the interim constitution, known as the "transitional administrative law." That system demands, among other things, that the national assembly bring together two thirds of its votes to confirm a government, a requirement found in no other parliamentary system in the world. That requirement is an artifact of the larger conundrum of Iraqi politics: it was demanded by America's critical Iraqi ally, the Kurds, who are deeply ambivalent about their connection to and role in an Iraqi state dominated by Shiites, and it was supported by the Americans. In effect the two-thirds requirement, and the political impasse it has fostered, is a legacy of the Americans' reluctance to confront the logical implication of their war to unseat Saddam Hussein and his Sunni elite: that there will come to power in Iraq a government dominated by the Shia, powerfully influenced by Islamic law and favorably inclined toward the United States' foremost enemy in the region, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

If you weren't paying attention to the Iraqi election and want to come up to speed quickly, you could do far worse than to start with Danner's piece.

Via New York Review of Books.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:27 PM | Get permalink

'Walking randomly around the tundra.'

In our continuing quest to bring you the most up-to-date corvid news on the web, we head up to the very northernmost part of Alaska.

While oil development on the state's North Slope has disrupted many animal communities, one kind of critter likes oil rigs just fine: ravens. It seems that, in setting up the infrastructure needed to pump Alaska oil, humans have created an ideal environment for ravens. At least 17 breeding pairs of ravens have set up housekeeping on communication towers, drilling platforms, pump stations, and other structures within the oil fields around Prudhoe Bay.

Hair braiding, anyone?

Stacia Backensto & friend [Photo: Univ of Alaska Fairbanks]

[University of Alaska Fairbanks PhD student Stacia] Backensto said, "They are definitely situated for the most part on major facilities and drill-site pads. They tend to be on the buildings themselves, but there are some nests that are on communication towers that are next to the buildings or structures. Some of the nests are on fire escapes. Some of the nests are on top of exhaust vents. The really smart birds have nests on top of heated pipes, not too hot, but just warm enough to help a female incubate eggs during those really cold weeks of early April and May."

Backensto is trying to learn just what impact oil development is having on Alaska's most familiar bird, and how the area's growing population of ravens may be affecting the region's other wildlife. She says the oil fields, as well as nearby Alaska Native villages and abandoned military sites, all provide ravens along the Arctic coastal plain with the things we all need to survive: food and shelter.

Backensto said, "I think two things happened. We provided a consistent food source to them at a time when they are usually food-limited in the winter. Given that, they were able to start being resident birds in those areas. And secondly, the structures actually gave them an opportunity to nest. That was the primary limiting factor for a breeding population of ravens on the coastal plain."

If you want to find out what the title of this post is referring to, you'll have to read the whole story about Backensto's raven study.

We found another story about the study here.

Via Sitnews [Ketchikan, AK].

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

It's one week until 'Justice Sunday' for the Christian right in the US.

So to start getting ready, let's have a bit of equal time from some leaders in other religions, courtesy of Chuck Currie, a seminarian in the United Church of Christ:

Statement from Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs and Dr. Nazir Khaja

In seeking an understanding of ethical-moral issues that now face us in a technology-driven society, we the people of faith are finding ourselves increasingly disadvantaged. This is mainly because of how political power is being used in Washington; it is not by any means caused by a lack of moral courage and conviction. The continuous assault by those who wish to impose their own values on how others must think about these complex issues is very much exemplified in the latest foray by Senator Frist. In total disregard of the best traditions of our faiths which emphasize tolerance and respect for others, he is using the bully pulpit to coerce and further divide us. We shall not have this happen.

In our traditions, we are told that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by hatred between one human being and the next. The Quran also admonishes people against sowing dissension and obfuscating truth.

Sen. Frist is on dangerous grounds in setting one American against another. He disgraces all faiths and the work that we have done in the interfaith community to establish "common ground" that leads us to higher ground, regardless of one's political affiliation or faith.

People of faith, Republicans and Democrats, have expressed disgust with Sen. Frist's disturbing power play. People of conscience, Pro-Life and Pro-Choice, know they are being manipulated. The "Culture of Life" should affirm the dignity of every human being. The Senator negates this.

Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs, Temple Kol Tikvah Woodland Hills, CA
Nazir Khaja, M.D., Chairman, Islamic Information Service, Los Angeles, CA

Statement from Rabbi Jack Moline

It is a measure of insecurity when advocates attack the messenger. It means they have no confidence in their ability to respond to the challenge of the message.

Progressive people of faith have a profound respect for the varieties of belief. We have had our activism kindled and nurtured by the very religious devotion that impels us to resist the imposition of a particular faith perspective on others. It is not by sufferance that people of differing faiths -- or no particular faith at all -- are participants in American society. It is by right, by law and by principle. And while we acknowledge -- even insist -- that faith must inform the public service of judge, legislator or average citizen, the only righteous standard of conduct when representing the government of the United States or the individual states is the law of the land, drawn from our foundational documents.

Our founding fathers were people of faith whose combined wisdom kept specific religious language out of the the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They appealed for rectitude to universal values and natural law. Had their intention been to establish a default tradition -- Judaic, Christian or otherwise -- they most certainly had the skill to have crafted a less ambiguous way of declaring it and constituting it.

Denominational rallies for unnamed nominees who judge with a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other strike me as not much different than public demonstrations by organizations promoting racial, ethnic or religious superiority. My grandparents came to this country to escape societies that celebrated that kind of prejudice. My faith in God and in the United States compels me to shine a light on the shadow message of those who would demonize dissent.

Rabbi Jack Moline

Chuck Currie's full post on 'Justice Sunday' is worth a read. We thought the following was especially to the point:

Don't be fooled into thinking Bill Frist or his right-wing allies represent Christianity. What they truly represent are political hacks willing to misuse Christian tradition for their own political agenda. The president wants to pack the courts with people who have opposed civil rights legislation, worked to limit health care options for women, and who support intrusive governmental powers to pry into our personal and political lives. We cannot allow them to succeed.

Amen, brother.

Via An Old Soul.

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