No Reason To Celebrate

According to the CIA, which keeps statistics on everything in THE WORLD FACT BOOK, a baby has a better chance of surviving to its first birthday in these countries than it does in the United States of America:

Singapore
Sweden
Hong Kong
Japan
Iceland
Finland
Norway
Malta
Czech Republic
Andorra
Germany
France
Switzerland
Macau
Spain
Slovenia
Denmark
Austria
Belgium
Australia
Liechenstein
Guernsey
Canada
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Portugal
Gibraltar
United Kingdom
European Union
Jersey
Ireland
Monaco
Greece
San Marino
New Zealand
Aruba
Isle of Man
Italy
Faroe Islands
South Korea
Cuba
Taiwan

A Clear Link

We don't need your federal dollars.

Just one day after Bush rejected the legislative plan to authorize federal support of stem cell research, the governor of California did something amazing. He put up $150 million Californian dollars.

So what if this move helps to distance him from an increasingly unpopular president. At least he's doing the right thing.

Hypocrisy: A Tutorial

Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have beliefs, virtues and feelings that one does not truly possess. The word derives from the late Latin hypocrisis and Greek hupokrisis both meaning play-acting or pretence. The word is arguably derived from hypo- meaning small, + krinein meaning to decide/to dispute. A classic example of a hypocritical act is to denounce another for carrying out some action whilst carrying out the same action oneself.

The term hypocrisy is also commonly used in a way which should be more specifically termed a double standard, bias, or inconsistency. An example would be when one honestly believes that one group of individuals should be held to a different set of morals than another group.
Hypocrisy also refers to the act of criticizing others for behavior which one engages in as well, or in other words, not practising what you preach. (Source: Wikipedia)


Today, at a marvelously staged press event, this man said:

"We should not use public money to support the further destruction of human life."

and

"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others. It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect."

and

"Each of these human embryos is a unique human life with inherent dignity and matchless value. "

and

"America must never abandon our fundamental morals."

and

"If this bill would have become law, American taxpayers would, for the first time in our history, be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos. And I'm not going to allow it."

and

"I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line."

In other news, the US has sped up bomb delivery to Israel.

Apparently, American taxpayers can be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human beings in the Middle East. This is not a crossing of a moral line or a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect.

Quaker Agitator is Right

In the history of this blog I have referenced other authors and other sites, but have never pasted the comments of another blogger here in their entirity. Today that changes. To select sections of this post and then provide a link over to the originating page simply isn't good enough. These comments are too passionate, too articulate, too honest, and too powerful to be cut up.

From Quaker Agitator:

Yesterday, the United States Senate voted 63-37 to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. In most polls, upwards of 70% of Americans - as represented by this vote count - approve of using federal money for this research.

Today, the president of the United States - not "the President of the Family Research Council" or "The President of Focus on the Family" - but the President of all of the people of the United States used the power of his office to veto this bill, the only time in six years that he has ever used it. And it looks as if the Senate will not be able over-ride that veto, which is what they should do if they really wanted to carry out the will of the people.

In vetoing the bill, the president surrounded himself with a group of little children who had all, one presumes, once been embryos. I noticed that he included no children who suffer from juvenile diabetes, no folks like my sister who daily have to deal with the ravages of multiple sclerosis, no people like Michael J. Fox whose lives are slowing coming undone due to Parkinson's disease. They were all embryos once, too.

I was pretty sure before this afternoon, but now I am forever convinced that George W. Bush is absolutely, positively the worst president in the history of this country, and that history will remember him that way as well.

I grew up during the Vietnam War era. I came of age as Richard Nixon came to power, and that has always shaped my political thinking. For a time, during my teenage years, I thought we could never have a worse president than Nixon. He ran for office promising to end the war, and then expanded it - secretly - committing what amounted to a war crime with his bombing of Cambodia. He claimed to support civil rights, but came to power through the use of the GOP's infamous "southern strategy," which haunts us still. He made permanent the public's distrust of its political institutions because of the Watergate scandal and associated crimes. And that's just the tip of the Nixon iceberg. The day he stepped onto the steps of that helicopter, turned, and waved to the cameras, my mother wept, not for him, but for what he had done to America.

As bad as Nixon was, St. Ronald of California, whose face some conservatives want placed on our money, was worse. From the opening of his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi - the place where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964 - Reagan divided this nation along the lines of race and class. He allowed a shadow government to literally operate in the basement of the people's house to subvert the will of Congress, break the law, and sell arms to terrorists, the same terrorists we are fighting today. His economic plan benefited the wealthy, devastated the poor, and took eight years of Clintonomics to clean up. His crimes are myriad, and too many to explore here. I thought then that he was as bad as we'd ever get.

So much for that.

I won't even try to list all that's wrong with this regime: it's well-documented all over the place anyway. His warmongering and wanton destruction of human life overseas is bad enough all by itself. His religious hypocrisy and blatant disregard for America's standing in the world has done lasting damage to our nation. As a teacher, I see daily the destructive impact his education policies have done to public education, which, of course, was exactly what they were intended to do: destroy it. But there is no forgiving this. There is no redemption from this. This is not about being "pro-life," and for this man to invoke the word "life" in any context as he killed this legislation simply showed the depth of his depraved inhumanity. Millions of Americans and their families and those who care about them and who care for them will live each minute of each hour of every day with the consequences of his contempt. In serving his tiny constituency of zealots and frauds and moneyed patrons with this veto, George Bush has condemned countless others to perhaps a generation of suffering and death. Because without the seal of approval - and the money - that goes with federal support, vital research in this field will be stymied and delayed.

All because this person and his advisors and those whom he really serves cannot (or choose not to) differentiate a frozen embryo from a real, live, breathing person.

Recently, I wanted to post - in satirical fashion - about the illogic used by those (like Sean Hannity and Jonah Goldberg and the rest) who blindly support this president at every turn and who use every chance they get to claim that any opposition to Bush amounts to "hating." That's the stock line from the GOP talking points and from the Karl Rove Playbook: make dissent about "hatred" of the president as a person, not about real, legitimate dissent. It's such an easy out, and it works so well, too. It's hard to argue against such simple-minded "reasoning." The point of my post would have been that's it's hard to deal with people who cannot tell the difference (or who choose not to) between those who genuinely hold an individual in comtempt, and having contempt for what that person says and does.

But today, however, in my case, may God forgive me, but those folks might be right.

"Thanks, but no thanks."

From The Observer:

Vladimir Putin delivered a barbed retort to George Bush's muted criticism of Russia's democratic record yesterday when he told reporters at a joint press conference that he did not want to head a democracy like Iraq's.

Bush said that, during two hours of discussions, 'I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion. I told [Putin] a lot of people in our country ... would hope that Russia would do the same thing. I fully understand, however, that there will be a Russian style of democracy.'

Putin replied, smiling: 'I'll be honest with you: we, of course, would not want to have a democracy like in Iraq. Nobody knows better than us how we can strengthen our own nation. But we know for sure that we cannot strengthen our nation without developing democratic institutions. And this is the path that we'll certainly take; but certainly we will do this by ourselves.'

GNN has the video link.

Translation: Smack Down.

Moral Degrees of Death

Yes, apparently there are some, according to US Ambassador John Bolton, who announced that Lebanon civilian deaths are morally not the same as the deaths of terror victims.

I'm glad to know that there are moral degrees of killing, however, I need the Bush administration to clarify some of the details for me. Are civilian deaths by "terrorism" better or worse than civilian deaths caused by other acts of aggression like the dropping of an atomic bomb on a civilian target? Also, what about deaths caused by environmental pollution, like, for example, when US companies with factories in other countries just dump their toxic waste into the drinking water? Are those sad, unintended consequences of global monopoly capital, or are they just as bad as some other form of killing?

Oh, and since we're discussing hierarchies, would someone please explain to me the most efficient way to decide who gets evacuated from a disaster zone? Apparently, American and European lives are worth rescuing, but the Lebanese are not. How "American" do you have to be to get rescued? Is it enough to work for the US government? Can you be rescued if you're married to a US citizen? What if your kids are citizens, but you are not? Do you deserve to be rescued then?

h/t to Betmo over at life's journey.

"There will be no investigation, because I don't want one."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush prevented a review earlier this year by Justice Department lawyers of his warrantless domestic spying program, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified on Tuesday...

Gonzales said Bush refused to give the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility access to the classified program begun shortly after the September 11 attacks and disclosed in December by The New York Times.

Noting the importance of the program, Gonzales said: "The president of the United States makes decisions about who is ultimately given access."

Read the rest here, and also check out firedoglake's comments on this story.

For Monday, A List

SELECTED MILITARY SERVICE RECORDS OF THOSE WHO INFLUENCE OR MAKE DECISIONS REGARDING U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN ARMED CONFLICT

Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage.
Dennis Hastert: did not serve.
Tom Delay: did not serve.
Roy Blunt: did not serve.
Bill Frist: did not serve.
Mitch McConnell: did not serve.
Rick Santorum: did not serve.
Trent Lott: did not serve.
John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business.
Jeb Bush: did not serve.
Karl Rove: did not serve.
Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee."! The man who attacked Max Cleland's patriotism. Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve.
Vin Weber: did not serve.
Richard Perle: did not serve.
Douglas Feith: did not serve.
Eliot Abrams: did not serve.
Richard Shelby: did not serve.
Jon Kyl: did not serve.
Tim Hutchison: did not serve.
Christopher Cox: did not serve.
Newt Gingrich: did not serve.
Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor.
George W. Bush: failed to complete his six-year National Guard; got assigned to Alabama so he could campaign for family friend running for U.S. Senate.
Ronald Reagan: due to poor eyesight, served in a non-combat role making movies.
B-1 Bob Dornan: Consciously enlisted after fighting was over in Korea.
Phil Gramm: did not serve.
John McCain: Vietnam POW, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross.
Dana Rohrabacher: did not serve.
John M. McHugh: did not serve.
JC Watts: did not serve.
Jack Kemp: did not serve. "Knee problem, " although continued in NFL for 8 years as quarterback.
Dan Quayle: Journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard.
Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.
George Pataki: did not serve.
Spencer Abraham: did not serve.
John Engler: did not serve.
Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: AWOL from Austrian army base.

SELECTED SERVICE RECORDS OF PUNDITS WHO TELL US THAT IF WE DON'T SUPPORT ARMED CONFLICT THEN WE'RE TRAITORS TO OUR COUNTRY

Sean Hannity: did not serve.
Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a 'pilonidal cyst.')
Bill O'Reilly: did not serve.
Michael Savage: did not serve.
George Will: did not serve.
Chris Matthews: did not serve.
Paul Gigot: did not serve.
Bill Bennett: did not serve.
Pat Buchanan: did not serve.
John Wayne: did not serve.
Bill Kristol: did not serve.
Kenneth Starr: did not serve.
Antonin Scalia: did not serve.
Clarence Thomas: did not serve.
Ralph Reed: did not serve.
Michael Medved: did not serve.
Charlie Daniels: did not serve.

It's About Time

My local paper did something today that it has never done before: LEFT ME SPEECHLESS, but in a good way.

Actually, the paper is not subscription worthy for a number of reasons. So, every Sunday morning, my two dogs and I walk to our local Albertson's and buy the weekend edition from Luis (or his mother, if he's not there). I bring the paper home and read it from the front page to the back page, nursing my coffee cup and savoring the time that I devote to this sort of indulgence. Sometimes my partner and I will swap sections, reading aloud the best or most outlandish paragraphs, adding our own op ed commentary as we go along.

I always read the front page first and the "Desert Living" section second, which are both dominated by local news. Today, all attention is focused on the wildfires that have already managed to consume more than 78,000 acres. Our nation still hasn't been able to effectively deal with the Katrina aftermath. But this is California, not the Big Easy, and there are a lot of rich, white voters whose recreational cabins are in jeopardy (just 50 homes have burned so far). So the FEMA director is expected to visit sometime in the next couple of days to "survey the damage." However, I digress.

What left me speechless was the Milestone section, which publishes "announcements for engagements, weddings, 25th, 50th, 55th, 60th, 65th, 70th, and 75th wedding anniversaries and other significant milestones." Today, for the first time since I began reading the Sunday paper, (sometime in August, 1999), there was a same-sex couple announcement, complete with accompanying full-color photograph. It's not up on the paper's website, so I retype it here in its entirity:

Burt H. Peachy and Charles C. Spence of Cathedral City were united at the Unitarian Universalist Church on June 3, 2006, in Victoria, British Columbia, and June 10, 2006, in Rancho Mirage.

Charles graduated from Michigan State University where he earned a Ph. D. and did post doctoral work at Harvard and Claremont Colleges. He was a chancellor of colleges in California, from 1995 to 2004, district president from 1985 to 1995 and college president in Iowa from 1980 to 1985.

Burt is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach. Formerly a college administrator and theater director, he is currently president of his consulting company.

The couple is celebrating their 12th year together and say they fell in love because they have
"so many things in common, and a zest for life."

For their wedding trip they went sailing through Greece and reside in Cathedral City.

It's about time.

Seriously.

This morning, over at Quaker Agitator, I read about how the New Jersey shore is awash in confederate flags.

Today, Media Matters is also reporting that Ann Coulter has made a fifth appearance on MSNBC.

And not only are members of our armed services alleged to have raped civilians, but the Miles Foundation has documented 518 cases of sexual assault on U.S. women who have served or are serving in Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain and Qatar.

Then, while visiting Matt Hill's site, I found this story. Apparently, on his blog as Chair of the Guilford County Republican Party, Marcus Kindley compared homosexuality to pedophilia.

I admit, I didn't want to believe it at first. Fred Phelps? Of course. A county chair of the Republican Party? Nah. Sure he would think it... but would anyone dare to actually give voice to such out-dated, out-moded homophobic rhetoric?

The answer is yes. See for yourself here, where he also says that the right of a woman to make a personal decision as to whether or not to have an abortion (without there being a societal value judgement on her decision) is the same as the right to make a personal decision to commit "murder, rape, sposal abuse, pedophilia, [and] incest." Spelling errors in original. Disclaimers added two days after initial post.

If you want to really be sick, click here to read the North Carolina Republican Party Platform on homosexuality and other issues. Don't say I didn't warn you.

In addition to the purchase of yellow ribbons:

Verdict: Guilty

Today, Colin Finnerty, one of the Duke students facing sexual assualt and kidnapping charges, was convicted in an attack on two gay men in Washington DC, in spite of the fact that he says he didn't do it and a family priest testified as a character witness. His punishment? Six months probation and a fine of $500. Oh, and he has to promise to stay enrolled in his ivy league school full-time and not venture into the Georgetown neighborhood anymore. That will teach him not to beat up gay people. Read the story here.

Good thing he comes from a nice, white, Catholic family and was only found guilty of gay bashing and not some serious crime, like tax evasion, a federal felony which carries with it lengthy prison terms.

Oh, and check out this website offering prayers of support to the accused.

Quote

[When] ideas are neglected by those who ought to attend to them-that is to say, those who have been trained to think critically about ideas-they sometimes acquire an unchecked momentum and an irresistible power over the multitudes of men that may grow too violent to be affected by rational criticism.

~Isaiah Berlin

Created Equal?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

~ Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

(Commentary by Matt Hill Comer)

On this day 230 years ago, the history of humankind was changed forever. On this day 230 years ago, humanity stood up in valiance and honor for equality, liberty and freedom. On this day, America has yet to live up to those ideals so eloquently and courageously "submitted to a candid world" on July 4, 1776.

Many people have often told me, "Why do you get so excited about the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution? They are just stupid pieces of paper." Everytime I hear a statement like that, my heart breaks. These "little pieces of paper" mean so much, especially to those who have not yet tasted full equality, liberty or justice. To the African-American, the Hispanic, Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transgender people and to the disabled... our American ideals remain, for the large part, just that: ideals still being striven toward but not yet fully realized.

America is a great country... a nation founded on the most progressive principles of equality, liberty and justice for all. Our pledge of allegiance states as much. Of course, equality is something achieved. It isn't automatically handed over to the few or the powerless or to the minority. For almost one hundred years after the signing of the Declaration, African-Americans remained in bondage. For more than 150 years, women remained second-class citizens. Now, after 230 years of promised equality, liberty and justice, LGBT Americans have yet to see it.
LGBT Americans remain second-class citizens. Gay Americans are unable to serve their country through military service. Gay Americans are unable to provide - legally, medically or financially - for their partners or families because we have yet to receive those "legal incidents" traditionally (and prejudiciously) provided only to opposite-sex couples.

Young LGBT Americans are forced, by law, to attend schools which remain unsafe for them, both mentally and physically. LGBT Americans of color face double the amount of discrimination and prejudice when compared to LGBT Americans of a European background - the same could be said of disabled LGBT Americans or the foreign same-sex partners of LGBT Americans (who could be living in the United States right now if their relationship to an American could be recognized).

I fail to understand how, after more than 200 years, America has yet to fully realize its principles and ideals. I fail to understand why we haven't figured it out yet. Are we stupid? Are we slow? Are we too obsessed with backward, prejudiced and demented religious points of view which, according to our principles, shouldn't have anything whatsoever to do with my equality and humanity?

The Fourth of July should be a happy time... a joyful, national celebration of freedom and acceptance. I'm a patriotic American and, yes, I will think joyfully of my nation's founding... but I am reminded on this day that I am not fully equal and that Mr. Jefferson's writings have yet to be applied to me and people like me.

Today is a day when America should be reminded that while we are fighting for freedom and equality around the globe, we have yet to achieve here at home. On this Independence Day I pray and hope with all my heart that America will finally get it and America will finally learn.

God Bless America... and may the Creator of all humankind guide us to fulfill the promises made to all people so many years ago.

Waz Up?

I have been getting dozens of hits on my site from random surfers who are typing some version of "THE ONLY FLAG THAT DOESN'T FLY" into thier favorite internet search engine.

For anyone landing here because they've linked from their search results, please leave a comment letting me know why you initiated the search in the first place, what you were hoping to find, and if you appreciated anything on this site. Together, we can solve this little mystery.

Thanks.

I declare.

To find out more, go here.