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September 13, 2003
Get Thee Hence To Typepad!
I made some new posts at my Typepad site today. Head on over. This site will slowly fade out as the other one catches on. Also, my template seems a bit narrow. I think it may be the .jpgs of the cats that did it. If anyone has a clue how I can make my template wider for my text, please let me know via e-mail.
posted at 11:19 AM by Trish Wilson |
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September 12, 2003
Friday Cat Blogging
One of my cats, Oreo, had five kittens at o' dark thirty in the morning on Labor Day. She gave birth in our bedroom closet. One kitten was light grey. Two were white with grey spots, like Oreo's other kittens. This is her third (and last) litter. Two are dark grey/black. The dark grey/black ones survived. This Monday, they will be two weeks old.
Watching the other three kittens die was a horrible experience. It took them two days. I hope to God to never go through that again.
I still get very upset just thinking about it. I'm sure my s. o. made it this far in my post and he's moved on to the next one. He still gets very upset over the whole business. I haven't had much of a chance to talk to anyone about it. Oreo is not the healthiest cat in the world. She was the runt of her little. She is a tiny cat. I couldn't understand what was happening or why. Her other kittens, which we kept, turned out fine. The kittens that died didn't look all that great to begin with. I thought the light grey one was stillborn. They wouldn't suckle. They kept making this heart-wrenching cry that to this day I cannot get out of my head. Anyone who has had kittens die on them probably knows that cry. My s. o. and I tried feeding them kitten formula. One of the three drank some of it. It slept for awhile, woke up, cried out twice, and died.
We both cried a lot. I couldn't sleep, and when I could it was fitful. I couldn't eat. My stomach was turning itself inside-out. I snapped awake at the slightest sound coming from that closet.
Things have calmed down considerably around here since then. One of the two that survived used to cry the moment it lost physical contact with Oreo, even if all Oreo did was move over a few inches to eat. He doesn't do that anymore. He and his sister eat and sleep -- the two things newborn kittens are supposed to spend all their time doing. They still have their umbilical cords. Their eyes and ears have not opened yet. They can barely crawl. Developmentally, they're right on schedule.
I found out both of them, especially the female, love having their bellies rubbed.
Here are some pictures. Oreo isn't a pissed-off cat, even though she looks like it. That picture was taken about a year ago. I took the pictures of the kittens last Monday, when they were a week old. I would have taken them earlier, but I didn't want to stress them out. Eat your heart out, Kevin Drum. 



posted at 2:30 PM by Trish Wilson |
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I'm Moving To Typepad
I signed onto Typepad (Thanks, Jeanne!) earlier this week. The above post about the cats is my first post over there. I'm going to phase out this site and soon blog only over there, so update your blogrolls and favorite places accordingly.
I'm still getting a feel for it. It's so much easier than plugging in all the HTML myself. It's like driving an automatic after years of using a stick shift. I feel like I skipped a few steps. Plus I now have something I've wanted for a long time -- a comments section!
posted at 2:30 PM by Trish Wilson |
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September 7, 2003
Voting Machines and Fraud
Jeanne (Body and Soul) lives in San Luis Obispo (or SLO, as the locals call it), which sounds a lot like the small town where I live. This is a quaint coastal tourist town in Massachusetts. Most of the houses are about two or three hundred years old. We have beaches, fudge, lobster, and fried clams. There are no traffic lights. People leave their doors unlocked all the time. The most serious crime out here is probably some drunk pissing on the breakwater.
Like Jeanne, I live in a place where "nobody expects anything significant to happen."
Something significant happened in SLO.
Jeanne and other bloggers have written about problems with voting machines. She has had to deal with Diebold, which has already been thoroughly criticized. Nonetheless, "something significant" happened in SLO during the 2002 primaries:
I wasn't concerned about our local system, though, because we use optical scan machines. The machines are made by Diebold, which looks about as fair and balanced as Fox News, but there's a paper trail -- boxes of scantron cards that anybody could look at if there were any suspicions of fraud, or even honest error. What could go wrong?
Plenty. In the March 2002 primary election, the vote counts from our absentee and mail-in ballots showed up on Diebold's Web site in the middle of the afternoon -- four and a half hours before the polls closed.
What the hell was Diebold doing looking at our vote counts in the middle of election day? And how did they get those votes?
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It was illegal for Diebold to have that information before the polls closed. As Jeanne had written, "whether or not the vote count was manipulated in this election (and there's no evidence that it was), this breach shows that Diebold clearly has the ability to manipulate an election."
Diebold not only has the ability, it has the intention. The CEO of Diebold said during a fund-raiser that he intended to help "Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year."
" The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election."
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A few manufacturers of voting machines control about 90% of the voting in this country. One of those manufacturers is Diebold. Thankfully, Rep. Rush Holt has introduced legislation "to require all voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper trail."
posted at 9:55 AM by Trish Wilson |
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Feminista! is Back
After a long hiatus, Feminista! is back.
A reminder: Expository Magazine is looking for articles, art, music, and reviews. Deadline for the next issue is October 1, 2003.
posted at 9: 55 AM by Trish Wilson |
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September 6 2003
Focus On The Family Comes Out Against Joint Custody
Fathers rights groups The Alliance of Non-Custodial Parents Rights (ANCPR - referred to below) and California Parents United are not happy with Focus on The Family's position paper against joint custody. Interestingly, FOTF has made many of the same criticisms I have made about the speciousness of Robert Bauserman's joint custody study. Bauserman's study is often cited by fathers' rights activists in support of joint over sole custody.
One major study praised by shared-parenting proponents as supporting the proposal is Robert Bauserman's review of the published literature on shared parenting. There are a number of problems with this study. In this study. Bauserman analyzed 33 studies that compare joint physical custody or joint legal custody with sole custody settings. However, 22 of these studies were unpublished, non-peer reviewed, ' William Marsiglio, Paul Amato, Randal Day, and Michael Lamb, "Scholarship on Fatherhood in The 1990s and Beyond'' Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62 (2000) 1373-1191. B Marsha Kline, Jeanne Tschann, Janet Johnston, and Judith Wallerstein. ''Children's Adjustment in Joint and Sole Physical Custody Families," Developmental Psychology, 25(1989)430- 438.
B Robert Bauserman, "Child Adjustment in Joint-Custody Versus Sole-Custody Arrangements: A Meta-Analytic Review," Journal of Family Psychology, 16(2002)91-102. closely arrangements.' academic aisserianons rrom graauaie or pusii- graduate students. Also, Bauserman commits a major flaw by lumping two custody categories together as one. He makes no distinction between children In Joint legal custody (where both parents hold legal, but not necessarily residential or physical custody) and children in joint physical custody (where children share equal time in two homes). He then compares that merged group with children in sole legal and physical custody.
This lack of distinction means that children spending as little as 25% of their time living with one parent were counted as joint-physical custody when in reality this time split more approximates sole-custody arrange Therefore, he confuses any benefits of sole custody with apparent benefits of joint physical custody.
The second problem is with Bauserman himself as a researcher. He is one of the co-authors of a very disturbing, pro-pedophilia study published in 1998 in the journal Psychological Bulletin. His article advocated that the term "child sexual abuse" should be changed to the value neutral "adult-child sex" or "age-discrepant sexual relationships" because, according to the study, some boys can actually benefit from having sex with men. Another study. published by Bauserman in 2001, defends pedophilia by stating that boys between ages 12-17 who had been molested by men had as much self- esteem and positive sexual Identity as boys who were not molested. Bauserman has also been published in Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia. Mark Chaffin, editor of the journal Child Maltreatment warns that Bauserman and his co- authors in these pro-pedophilia articles "used scientific data to stake an advocacy position... that went well beyond the data and could lead to it being misused by people for their own purposes."
Can Bauserman be seen as a champion of what's good for children?
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This is another case of strange bedfellows. I and FOTF are about as far removed from each other ideologically as two entities can possibly be. I wrote about the group years ago for Feminista. It's interesting to see that we agree on how bad joint custody is for children.
posted at 1:52 PM by Trish Wilson |
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More Criticism of the Braver Move-away Study
[Talk about strange bedfellows. A well-known fatherhood advocate disses Braver. He (and his co-writer) make many of the same criticisms I have made. Bold added for emphasis.]
Does Moving After Divorce Damage Kids?
By Norval Glenn and David Blankenhorn
Earlier this summer, newspapers across the country trumpeted a new research finding: "Moving After Divorce Damages Kids." The new study, by Sanford L. Braver and two colleagues at Arizona State University, claims that children suffer when the custodial parent, usually the mother, relocates to a new community following divorce. Even moving an hour's drive away from the noncustodial father, the report concludes, causes "significant" problems for children.
This research matters. The "move-away" issue is politically red-hot today -- especially in California, where important court decisions on the issue are expected soon, but also in other family courts across the country. The debate is quite polarized, with those who support the independence of divorced mothers pitted against fathers rights advocates who, based partly on research showing the importance of fathers, want courts to restrict the ability of ex-wives to move away with their children after divorce.
That's why any research on this issue needs to be solid. It's also why newspaper stories describing the research need to be precise. Unfortunately, the episode this summer failed on both counts.
The two of us disagree on the policy issues at stake here. But we agree that the Braver study is a weak one that provides no credible evidence on the effects on children of moving away after divorce.
In the fall of 2001, Professor Braver distributed questionnaires to about 2,000 students enrolled in an introductory psychology course at Arizona State. The questions covered 14 areas of personal well-being. The survey also asked students if their parents had divorced and, if so, whether both parents had remained within an hour's drive of one another after the divorce. On 11 of the 14 indicators, the move-away children of divorce fared worse than did the children of divorce whose parents did not move far apart. That was the entire study.
Academically, this is very thin gruel. First, the differences between the two groups were quite small. Moreover, in the most crucial areas -- friendship and dating behavior, substance abuse, and general life satisfaction - there were no significant differences at all between the two groups.
And what caused the remaining differences between the two groups? No one knows. Certainly the researchers do not know. They did not report, and presumably did not even collect, the background information on the students that would permit even informed guesses about the reasons for the differences between the two groups.
For example, it is highly likely that the move-away parents got divorced when their children were younger, compared to the divorced parents who stayed closer. In many cases, the issue of moving away is also linked to remarriage. Remarriage, in turn, often affects the ability and willingness of noncustodial fathers, who now typically have new dependents and new expenses, to provide financial support to their original families. Similarly, mothers who remarry, or who move away to take higher-paying jobs, may receive or ask for less financial support from ex-husbands.
So what is causing these (small) differences in some of these young people's answers to this one Arizona questionnaire? It is how old you were when your parents split up? Is it whether one or both of your parents did, or did not, remarry? Is it the level of child support and alimony your mother received? Is it how much your parents fought and quarreled before the divorce, or how well they cooperated, or failed to cooperate, after the divorce? Or is it whether your mother after the divorce moved an hour or more's drive away from your father? Or is it something else entirely? Again, no one knows for sure, and on the basis of this study, no one could possibly know. To their credit, the researchers acknowledge as much in what amount to the fine print of the study.
Which brings us to the media. The two of us have observed this scenario countless times. A weak and limited study is reported, sometimes with appropriate cautions and sometime not, in a professional journal. (In this case, the Journal of Family Psychology, a respected publication.) Then the university press office goes to work. They distribute a press release with a strong headline and without any of the reservations and attention to complexity that might have appeared in the professional journal. Then the journalists go to work. They interview the researchers, who often make sweeping statements that make the press release look tame, including expressing their long-held views on public policy issues that are only indirectly addressed, if even that, by the study itself. Finally, the headline writers go to work. The result? In this case, lots of headlines like "Moving Away Really Hurts Kids." The losers in this process are the public and policy makers, who are misinformed about important issues, and children of divorce, whose true interests are not served.
posted at 4:05 PM by Trish Wilson |
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Family Law News
Arrest of Judge May Reopen Divorce Cases. - "The arrest of Gerald P. Garson, the Brooklyn matrimonial judge accused of taking bribes to show favoritism in divorce cases, has opened the door for a potential overhaul of the state's system of selecting judges, a process that could take years." More here. [I was told many of these cases involved allegations of Parental Alienation Syndrome.]
Australian article against joint custody - "Don't forget the third group vulnerable after divorce: children. Rebuttable joint custody is not the panacea for all battles over children of broken marriages."
Finally - a real case of a man falsely accused of abuse. Not only did the man (not woman) who made the false allegation accuse the other of pedophilia, he claimed the man's two children were not his.
The White Elephant of Justice. - (scroll down) "The Women's Rights Network of Wellesley College spent two years digging into the family court trenches, sampling the consumer experience of 40 mothers in 11 out of the 14 counties. Its report, "Battered Mothers Speak Out: A Human Rights Report on Domestic Violence and Child Custody in the Massachusetts Family Courts" was issued months before the Visiting Committee's. It found serious international human rights violations and grave civil rights infractions by Mass. family court judges and staff affiliates against battered women -- in fact, 15 of 40 participants lost custody and/or visitation with their children when they tried to escape an abusive relationship. Chief Justice Dunphy, Justice of the Probate & Family Courts, instead of vowing to investigate, disputed the findings."
posted at 4:05 PM by Trish Wilson |
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Fathers' Rights Activists Linked To Bomb Hoaxes
Why does Wendy McElroy make excuses for fathers' rights activists who have sent more than 60 hoax bombs to family court offices around Britain? These disturbing attacks "mark a huge escalation in the tactics of radical fathers' rights activists who complain that they suffer discrimination at the hands of the family courts system. The Observer has learnt that the elite anti-terrorist police group SO13 has now been brought in to investigate the hoax campaign amid fears of more serious attacks in the future."
Targets of the hoax bombs included "Colchester, Ipswich, Swansea, Cambridge, Wrexham, Middlesbrough and Mansfield. There was widespread disruption, including the evacuation of part of Colchester town centre. In Wrexham shops and local businesses were closed down as the bomb squad was brought in. Scotland Yard declined to comment on the incidents. 'We are investigating a series of suspect packages but we do not comment on hoaxes,' a spokesman said." The bomb scare was aimed at Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass). A Cafcass spokeswoman said that this "is an unacceptable and criminal activity which puts our staff and the families and children who visit our offices at risk and, understandably causes them distress."
McElroy warns her fathers' rights readers that "violence is the worst possible "strategy" for anyone who seeks social reform. It is not only immoral and illegal, it is also counter-productive to the cause being advocated. The first time an innocent human being is injured, a movement using violence loses all moral credibility; it also creates a justified backlash of anger from the public and repression from authorities."
She refuses to see that her fans in the fathers' rights movement have already condoned similarly violent behavior by the Australian Blackshirts, a group of about 300 male fathers' rights activists dressed in masks and paramilitary uniforms who were accused of "making threatening phone calls, giving out accusatory pamphlets and broadcasting allegations against women by megaphone." These women included their ex-wives. States Attorney Rob Hulls had warned the group's leader, John Abbott, "against the
distribution of abusive open letters, phantom phone calls and mysterious knocks on people's doors."
Hulls said that such "intimidatory and cowardly behaviour" was illegal.
No kidding. These men stalk and harass their ex-wives and other women.
Of course, these men claim that the courts are biased against fathers. Women file most often for divorce nowadays. John Abbott sees this as "evil. It is a sentiment that seeks to bypass the 1970s, when feminism first rocked the pillars of patriarchy. Then, women stayed home, and stayed in bad marriages. Now, they work and opt out of poor partnerships more frequently than do men. Some men, particularly those who are middle-aged and unskilled, have found this hard to accept. But, whereas many men's groups complain about it, the Blackshirts harass and intimidate."
The Blackshirts claim that they are only interested in preserving marriage. John Abbott feels he is "doing what needs to be
done to stop divorce and reclaim the status of marriage and family." Has it occurred to McElroy that the kind of abusive and destructive behavior these men have engaged in probably led to the end of their marriages in the first place? Here's an excerpt from an article describing the Blackshirts as witnessed by the child of one of their targets:
Sandra thought the amplified voice drifting into her kitchen came from the
gelato vans that trundle along her suburban Melbourne street on Saturday
mornings - until her son yelled, "There are men in masks outside." Seeing
the four black-clad men, their faces hidden under caps and bandannas, Sandra
spirited Peter to his room, dialed the police and yelled "I've got
terrorists outside." But the police were already close by. The masked men
had just paid a visit to Wendy, who lives in the same suburb, and officers
had a copy of the letter one man was now reading through a megaphone while
his companions distributed copies along Sandra's street. "Dear neighbor,"
the letter read, "Sandra has petitioned for divorce without reason, shamed
her family and introduced an immoral stranger to her son. We the Blackshirts
will not let those who corrupt children rest."
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McElroy inferred that the fathers' rights group Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents Rights (ANCPR) is a "temperate" voice. If that's the case, why did ANCPR founder Lowell Jaks blow off stalking and harassment of women engaged in by the Blackshirts? Rather than condemn the Blackshirts for harassing and stalking women, Jaks said that "what the government there, as well as the government here and in other so called "developed" countries don't seem to get is that people feel profoundly wronged when a contract is broken, and the person breaking the contract is rewarded while the person wishing to honor the contract is punished." Jaks minimized the "intimidatory and cowardly behavior" of the Blackshirts, saying "[m]any of you on this list [the ANCPR mailing list] would use the same terms to describe the threatening letters they regularly receive from child support enforcement agencies."
The obvious question: why the hell would these men "regularly receive" letters from child support enforcement agencies? Because they have not been paying child support, often for many months! These are not dads facing hard financial times who are unable to pay. These refuse to pay. They don't want to give the bitch one thin dime, and if they do, they want an accounting of every penny. Willful refusal to follow a court order to pay child support is what lands these guys in jail, if they end up there. It is a fathers' rights perpetrated myth that debtor's prisons are alive and well in America today, and that "beatdead dads" who cannot pay end up in jail.
Fathers Are Parents Too! also excuses the Blackshirts' violent behavior. Australian fathers' rights activists Lindsay Jackel sent several articles about the group to the FAPT mailing list, along with this comment: "The group is organised and in your face. They are Dads who have lost everything, have received no justice or fairness at the hand of a feminist (family and magistrates) court and legal (government) system (when they were taught in school that they would if innocent), have nothing to lose and are frustrated and angry. Their hopelessness has turned to despair and to depression. The Blackshirts offers them community and hope. John Abbott, their leader, is known to me. He is both angry and committed. He will not be deterred and, if necessary, will no doubt be prepared to be a "martyr" (jail) to the cause."
ANCPR and FAPT do not believe these men should be held responsible for their actions. They are "victims" of "the system." John Abbott is a "martyr." Blame the bitch, the feminazis, and the courts for supposedly driving away dads. That's why these women and their children are stalked with megaphones and hate mail. That's why court houses receive hoax bombs. McElroy described angry and violent fathers' rights activists as "revolutionaries," which means "they have given up on the possibility of reform and, so, wish to sweep the system away -- a process that does not require consent." Her message is that if dads aren't allowed to "be part of their children's lives," then we shouldn't be surprised that they may do things like make bomb threats. She blames women and the courts for male violence.
You are deluding yourself, Wendy. Men who engage in tactics like bomb hoaxes, stalking, abuse, and harassment are not interested in reform. Neither are men who keep their ex's in court in a never-ending churn of frivolous litigation. Neither are men who violate protective orders, claim their ex's have "parental alienation syndrome," blow off their own abusive behavior with cries of being falsely accused, refuse to pay child support or petition for joint physical custody hoping to lower their court order, and demand in court "equal parenting time" that they were not interested in while married to their children's mothers. They are abusive and sometimes violent control freaks who are angry that they are unable to have their unreasonable demands met. They are also not extremists within the movement. The use of intimidation by fathers' rights activists seems to be increasing. Some judges have seen their names and addresses posted to the Internet. The Equal Parenting Council has "named and shamed" several Cafcass officials on its web site. Men and fathers' rights organizations who minimize or condone these activities do not represent good dads. They certainly do not have the welfare of children in mind.
Why does McElroy create excuses for these abusive jerks? Why does she side with fathers' rights activists who do not condemn abusive and violent behavior like stalking, sending hate mail, and creating hoax bombs? These men, angry that they do not get their way in court, resort to more abusive tactics, sometimes violence. And fathers' rights activists sympathize with them. Hold them up as heroes and "martyrs" for "the cause." As usual, it's the bitch's fault. If blaming her isn't enough, blame the court system that these men claim is biased against fathers.
posted at 4:05 PM by Trish Wilson |
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September 3, 2003
What I'm Reading Today
Calpundit links to a new study on whether variations in intelligence are due to genes or environment.
Skippy's back from Alaska!
The four bloggers who subbed for Atrios have their own group blog now. Stop by Corrente and say "hi."
Ted Barlow at Crooked Timber aptly demonstrates why the Cruz Bustamante/MEChA-is-racist story is bullshit.
Abuse At A Distance: "The Montana Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a man did not need to touch
or even see his partner to be guilty of abuse. Counsel for Kenneth Vukasin Jr. had argued that he could not be convicted of abuse, since his girlfriend remained behind a locked door during his drunken rage. But the court upheld the conviction on the grounds that his partner's reasonable
fear of injury proved abuse ..."
Any Dark Age of Camelot or EverCrack addicts out there? Here is the link for you! [via Jane at The Daily Rant and Michelle at A Small Victory.]
Remember my comments yesterday in my "war on boys" post about the over-diagnosis of ADD/ADHA and how Ely Lilly financially benefits from sales of Ritalin? With that in mind, read this.
I haven't had much to say about the recent removal of a two-ton monument of the 10 commandments from the Alabama Judicial Building, but I have wondered one thing the Fundies rare discuss: which version should be displayed? There are Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic versions. Not all have 10 commandments. Exodus 20: 1-17 and Deuteronomy 5: 6-21 have seventeen while Exodus 34: 1-26 has nineteen. It would be a kick to see the Exodus 34: 1- 26 version on display. I wonder how the court would enforce the 19th commandment, "do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk"? My favorite is the the 4th commandment. Anyone who knows my AOL screen name knows why -- "Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles." I've always wondered why the "one true God" would feel so threatened by lesser regional gods that he demands total obedience from his human followers and the destruction of all worship of those other gods.
posted at 12:20 PM by Trish Wilson |
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New Bush Administration Rules Favor Corporations, Screw People
The Bush Administration has killed the Hypocratic Oath. As of November 1, new rules will make it more difficult for patients to obtain emergency care at hospitals. This rule will also make it more difficult for some patients to win damages in court for injuries caused by violations of the federal standards. [via Atrios.]
EPA lifts ban on selling PCB sites: "The Bush administration has ended a 25-year-old ban on the sale of land polluted with PCBs. The ban was intended to prevent hundreds of polluted sites from being redeveloped in ways that spread the toxin or raise public health risks.
The Environmental Protection Agency decided the ban was "an unnecessary barrier to redevelopment (and) may actually delay the clean-up of contaminated properties," according to an internal memo issued last month to advise agency staff of the change." [From a poster in Atrios's comments section.]
Clean Air Act Gutted: A new EPA rule, " revision of the 1977 "new source review" provision, allows the nation's most polluting power plants to upgrade equipment without implementing new emission-control measures. Scientists and officials have criticized it as the biggest rollback in the history of the Clean Air Act, saying it could boost pollution in New York City and around the country, costing billions and threatening the health of many Americans."
posted at 12:20 PM by Trish Wilson |
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September 2, 2003
Who Unlocked The Cages and Let The Monkeys Out?
I have been getting some weird feedback lately. A guy e-mailed me in defense of Warren Farrell. If you recall my recent posts, Farrell had made pro-incest statements for Penthouse in 1977. This guy wrote "Even if everything you say about him regarding his view on insist [sic] is true that does not mean his other views or opinions do not have merit."
I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.
Old Warren Farrell/Penthouse noise is getting smacked about on an AOL non-custodial dads board. One of my friends sent me the link. I don't post anymore, but it was interesting to see all the Farrell white noise now that he's running for Governor of California.
Some fathers' rights advocates have infested Ampersand's message boards. Bean told me about it. Some idiot there included a link to his/her web site devoted to bashing me. Whoever created it was too chicken-shit to identify him or herself. I've never seen this site before. I don't know if it's new or old. I got a kick out of it. I thought it was telling that the first thing one of the father's rights advocates bragged about was his unsuccessful attempt to eliminate child support. That makes it so clear that fathers' rights advocates are not concerned with children's needs. I agree with Bean. I must be doing my job right if the anti-feminists throw a hissy fit.
And finally, the most bizarre of all. I've been getting hits from the Freeper message boards. At first, it made no sense. The Freepers were gnashing their pointy little teeth over a lesbian couple who had protested after a Catholic school had denied the entry of their 4 year old daughter. Someone with the ridiculous name "I_Love_My_Husband" included a link to my blog with these comments:
Her leftie blog.
THIS IS AN ACTIVIST ATTACK BY Homosexual Agendaists!
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Uhm.... It is??? I am???
A few more searches cleared up the matter. Apparently, the lesbian parents are named Lee Inkmann and Trish Wilson. I_Love_My_Husband (Oh, dear God that makes me chuckle. I don't feel a need to justify my relationship with my s. o. by announcing it in a screen name.) didn't do a proper Google search. Here are more comments:
Name of mothers:
Lee Inkmann and Trish Wilson (not sure about Trish). KC said this was a planned activist attack against the Church, and I believe this is true. Trish Wilson has a website called The Women's Network, and Lee Inkmann gives seminars and used to own a dealership.
MORE RESEARCH IS NEEDED ON THEM FREEPERS!
*****
I take that back.
According to the Eugene Public Library
Lee Inkmann & Trish Wilson
They gave money.....TOGETHER! They are the lesbian ACTIVIST couple!
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There are several Trish Wilson's on the web. If Freepers want to master their smear campaigns, they need to learn how to properly conduct a Google search. I feel like that poor woman who was incorrectly identified as the Kobe Bryant rape victim. Not that I mind. I'm getting more hits from the mistake.
Ain't nothing quite as enjoyable as yanking a Freeper's chain. 
posted at 6:21 AM by Trish Wilson |
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Here We Go Again -- More "War On Boys" Blather
When I see a headline like "Girls Get Extra School Help While Boys Get Ritalin," I am offended. It is more of the same old backlash complaint that girls are doing well at boys' expense. I already addressed this nonsense in a previous post.
You see, I have a son. He is in high school. Garbage like that op-ed doesn't help him at all.
I'm not surprised that it's unsigned. I wouldn't want to attach my name to all that baseless invective, either.
A boy's parents filed a complaint after learning that at upper middle-class Franklin High School, where he was enrolled, "three of the four students who tied for valedictorian were girls. Among the National Honor Society members, 76% were girls. And girls comprised 85% of the students on Franklin's 4.0 honor roll."
The superintendent of schools found that "the skewed performances by gender at [the school] pretty much mirror the imbalances across the state and the nation." The op-ed writer warned that a drop in male salaries is one possible detrimental outcome of this supposed war on boys. "Workers with only a high school diploma earn $20,000 a year less than those with a bachelor's degree." It's too bad that the op-ed writer didn't point out that some women with degrees earn less money than men with only a high school diploma. Labor analyst Russell Signorino sees "job prospects for young noncollege men as better than those for young noncollege women." That last comment was buried in an article bemoaning the war on boys, no less.
"Skewed performances by gender" are not the problem. Schools do not focus on girls to the detriment of boys. In fact, while improvements have been made, both boys and girls continue to be overlooked by schools. Pitting boys against girls is not going to solve anything.To go down that backlash route is going to cause greater harm to both boys andgirls.
The editorial writer claims that "[i]nstead of pursuing sound solutions, many educators merely advocate prescribing more attention-focusing Ritalin for the boys, who receive the drug at four to eight times the rate of girls, according to different estimates. "Too often the first reaction to an attention problem is 'Let's medicate,'" says Rockville, Md. child psychologist Neil Hoffman. "Some schools are quick to recommend solutions before they've fully evaluated the problem."
While I agree that some children may have ADD/ADHD, I think that it is over-diagnosed. ADD/ADHD seems to be an American phenomenon. The drug is made by Ely Lilly, an American company. American children account for the vast majority of prescriptions There has been plenty of criticism that Ritalin is prescribed mainly for the benefit of teachers and parents who are either not interested in or incapable of dealing with boisterous and aggressive boy behavior. Of course, Ely Lilly financially benefits from massive sales of Ritalin. Boys have been labeled by teachers and doctors as problems in need of special control or assistance. Normal, active, age-appropriate behavior and inappropriate aggressive behavior that is socialized in boys has been deemed a "problem" that needs to be "cured" with pills. Some boys diagnosed with ADD are quick to pick up on this attitude, and they use ADD as an excuse for their actions. To reduce medicating boys in this manner to a problem caused by too much school attention paid to girls does a grave disservice to boys.
Want to read more? Go here.
posted at 6:20 AM by Trish Wilson |
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August 30, 2003
Mirror Site For The Women's Network
Yesterday I created a mirror site for my web site, The Women's Network. The original is here. I made a few updates to both web sites.
posted at 3:10 PM by Trish Wilson |
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I Write Like A Dude!
Long Story, Short Pier provided a link to The Gender Genie, an algorithm that predicts the gender of the author of a written text. I had heard about this but until now never ran across the algorithm or the study. I couldn't resist.
I added the first couple of paragraphs of my article about Sanford Braver's move-away study. My score was 481. I was heavy on supposedly male keywords like "the," "a," "some," "number," and "it." Female keywords were identified as contractions, and words like "with" and "for." I suppose those two words are considered feminine because they imply something relational. I had a great laugh to learn that possessive pronouns are viewed as feminine. Women. More possessive than men. :::snicker:::
According to the researchers, the algorithm should predict the gender of the author about 80% of the time. According to the authors who submitted texts, the algorithm got it right only half the time. So, folks, it's all up to chance.
I thought all of this was funny, since during my early days on AOL I was often mistaken for a man. I used to hang out in the "X Files" chats back when no one had ever heard of the show (we were one of the online fan clubs that kept the show on the air), and it got to be a running joke. One of the show's writers (Glen Morgan) used to drop in and chew fat with us, too. These were very chummy, intimate, small chats. Just fans hanging out and talking after the show. I was present from the second episode on. I've never before or since had an Internet experience quite like that one. I don't think it's possible anymore, not with how corporate AOL has become. This was back when you could create your own message boards about anything you liked, and the current Terms of Service Gestapo did not yet exist. Those were good times.
Postscript - Just for kicks, I submitted this post to the Gender Genie. It still thinks I'm a dude. Har. 
posted at 3:05 PM by Trish Wilson |
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August 28, 2003
Traditional Family Idealogue Wastes No Time Blaming Childhood Obesity on Single Moms
Elizabeth Marquardt at the Family Scholars Blog made an incredibly offensive statement when she linked to this New York Times article about rising rates of childhood obesity. She wrote: "[A]n article on a new study on childhood obesity reports that, among several other reasons for the increasing problem, "Researchers have also linked the risk of obesity to growing up in a single parent home." These used to be fighting words, with incensed advocates from the left charging that pointing out a connection between family structure and serious social problems among the young was stigmatizing single parents and stepfamilies. But the links are there and they are real. Thank goodness reporters and researchers are increasingly willing to acknowledge them."
The same study also found that "Hispanic and African-American children are
disproportionately hard hit compared with white children." So, why didn't she blame obesity on race? After all, "the links are there and they are real." She would not dare say that those kids are fat because they're black and Hispanic. She'd never get away with such a racist statement. But sexism is okay. It's okay for her to pontificate that single moms raise fat kids.
This report only reinforces what we already know -- poverty and all the conditions that go along with it directly contribute to these problems, not being a single or divorced mom or being black or Hispanic. Besides that, obesity is getting to be a world-wide problem. It's not isolated to the U. S.
Marquardt either doesn't understand or she refuses to acknowledge that mother-blaming is a bipartisan activity. I've seen "advocates from the left" just as quickly blame single mothers for "fatherlessness" and "serious social problems" as advocates from the right. Both the left and the right have supported welfare reform, fatherhood initiatives, and marriage programs. Advocates from the left have been just as vocal as right-wing advocates in repeating mother-blaming "fatherlessness" nonsense propagated by the National Fatherhood Initiative, the Institute for American Values (presided by Family Scholars Blog participant David Blankenhorn), and Fathers' Manifesto. That said, the advocates who do point out that there is no causal relationship between family structure and serious social problems tend to be from the left. Marquardt would probably blow me off as one of those "incensed advocates from the left." Let her. I have the backing of reputable social studies and research that has pointed out that the relationship she cites is correlative, not causal. One does not lead to the other. Marquardt has conveniently forgotten to mention that. It's so much easier and much more enjoyable to point fingers at single moms.
Oh, and while I'm on my rant, knock it off with the "single parent" shit. The ideologues who blame obesity, teen pregnancy, low S.A.T. scores, alleged problems for kids who move with mom, juvenile delinquency, etc., on "single parents" blame ONLY mothers. It's time they stopped pretending otherwise.
Update: Here's a list of sources on my web site that blows big holes in the claims that single and divorced mother homes cause "serious social problems."
posted at 2:30 PM by Trish Wilson |
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August 27, 2003
Don't Forget To Check Out Mars Tonight

This evening, Mars and Earth will pass closer than they've been in 60,000 years. Mars will be the brightest object in the eastern sky shortly after sunset. It will be the red one. If you can't catch it tonight, don't worry. It's going to be close for a couple of months.
posted at 10:05 AM by Trish Wilson |
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WARNING: You May Be Selling Your Own Personal Information on eBay -- And Not Know It
Lots of people buy and sell stuff on eBay all the time. I have bought Tomb Raider action figures (they are not dolls!), movie props and costumes, and computer games. I understand what addicts mean by "shopper's rush." You do the happy dance when you buy something for much less than you know it's really worth. You do the same when you already own something you bought for only a few bucks that sells for mucho dinero on eBay. When I see someone pay over $100.00 for the tape "Toonces The Driving Cat," I hug the tape I bought over ten years ago for six bucks in Blockbuster and cackle with delight. Then I watch it again. I will never sell it. Enron employees who were sacked sold their worthless stock certificates on eBay for more money than the stock was probably worth. Some clown tried to sell Iraq. The bids skyrocketed until eBay figured out what was going on and yanked the auction.
eBay is fun. It can also be dangerous if you aren't careful. I drowned my cell phone a couple of months ago. It didn't even put up a fight. It just rolled over and died. Rather than purchase an overpriced replacement from a snotty Sprint salesman who uses motor oil for hair cream, I visited the Wild and Wonderful World of eBay.
Within a short time, I found a better cell phone -- for a whopping $3.25. The shipping cost more than the phone. A phone from a store would have cost me at least $100.00 because I already have phone service. Fuck that.
I had a big surprised when the phone arrived. The guy who sold it to me never deleted his cell phone entries. I had his full name and telephone number, the name of his place of employment and the telephone and fax numbers, his boss's cell and home phone numbers, his mom's phone number, home and work numbers of his friends, and all sorts of other personal information I had no business having. There was nothing of great interest on it, like a telephone number to his bank in the Caymans that his wife knows nothing about. Nonetheless, the little hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Didn't he know he should have deleted all that information? Did he know how to delete it?
That brings me to an eBay story that is thousands of times scarier than mine. [via FARK] A guy bought a BlackBerry RIM for $15.50. I bet he did the "shopper's rush" happy dance. He didn't realize how much of a great deal he got. His BlackBerry came with something worth much more than sixteen bucks: a treasure trove of corporate data, including " more than 200 internal company e-mails from financial services firm Morgan Stanley and a database of more than 1,000 names, job titles (from vice presidents to managing directors), e-mail addresses and phone numbers (some of them home numbers) for Morgan Stanley executives worldwide."
As was the case for me when I turned on that cell phone, all that info was there for him to read the moment he turned on his BlackBerry.
Turns out the seller (who asked to remain anonymous... like, duh!) was a former v. p. of mergers and acquisitions for Morgan Stanley. He left not long ago.
The Morgan Stanley info wasn't the only thing available on that little device:
"In addition to personal e-mails that reveal the VP's own Charles Schwab IRA account numbers, the name and phone number of his mother and the amounts he paid for his monthly mortgage, car and Visa bills, the e-mails discuss confidential information about loan terms for Morgan Stanley clients, debt-restructuring strategies for specific companies, preliminary talks for potential merger deals and even some creative ways of interpreting contracts.
In the latter category, an e-mail exchange between two Morgan Stanley employees discusses a client who seems to want to step around the terms of a contract signed with a third party. A Morgan Stanley employee advises telling the company to stay "aboveboard" and follow the letter of the contract."
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In the immortal words of The Onion, Holy Fucking Shit!!
It doesn't end with electronic contraptions like cell phones and BlackBerries. Microsoft Word isn't safe, either. Apparently, important information such as social security numbers, old versions of documents, names, etc., can be hidden in a Word document. Microsoft products are more trouble than they're worth. It's no accident that the virus epidemic is aimed at all things Microsoft. I won't use Microsoft Word unless it's absolutely necessary. Most publishers want submissions in Word. I own a Mac. I prefer Appleworks or WriteNow. The best way to avoid all the virus and security headaches is to avoid using Microsoft products.
Apparently, much of the information on that BlackBerry is now public and no longer sensitive, but still... Imagine if something like that got into the wrong hands. Imagine your personal information -- your phone, work, and fax numbers; your bank account numbers; your social security number; your personal password to your bank and Internet accounts -- imagine all of that getting into the hands of a hacker or an identity thief. There is a lesson in the stories about eBay: before you sell something, especially if it is electronic, make sure you've erased all of your personal information from all areas of the device, including cache files. You may not be so lucky as to accidentally hand that information over to someone nice like me.
posted at 9:35 AM by Trish Wilson |
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August 26, 2003
More Thoughts On Joint Custody
Ms. Lauren at feministe responded to an earlier post of mine about joint custody. She and her ex have joint custody of their son, Ethan. Some key points in her description of their arrangement bear repeating.
"our success has been based on our cooperative and non-confrontational nature as parents and our desire to make sure that ethan is a happy, healthy little boy, but i don't think this process would work for everyone. i strongly believe that divorce, and the property and economic disputes that go with it, significantly change the custody process. our (very reasonable) decision not to marry, our clear-cut division of personal objects while together (whatever paid for during the relationship came with the owner when we separated - always keep a separate checking account), our close proximity, our low conflict relationship, and attempt not to meddle in the other's personal decisions when ethan is not in said person's care, have allowed us to maintain a more-than-adequate cooperation that has worked for us.
in addition, joint custody was a mutual decision for us. it works because we want it to work, thus we work on making it work. and believe me, it is work. there is nothing easy about it."
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There are several things that stand out about Ms. Lauren's and her ex's joint custody arrangement:
It was mutually agreed upon.
They chose it with the intention of making it work.
Only one child is involved.
Both have cooperative and non-confrontational natures.
Low conflict.
Little desire to meddle in each other's affairs.
Those early joint custody studies misquoted by fathers' rights advocates cited all of the above as some of the characteristics of the rare parents who chose joint custody. While low conflict between parents gets quite a bit of airplay, the fact that most of those parents also had only one child was very important from a financial, attention, and scheduling perspective. Joint custody didn't always work. The parents who chose it often reverted to a more traditional mother-custody/father-visitation arrangement after about three years. Joint custody tended to be chosen by parents with more financial resources at their disposal. The families in the studies tended to be wealthier than average. They had higher levels of education, and they had better-paying jobs. Joint custody is expensive; more expensive than sole custody. A key point is that all of these parents, including Ms. Lauren and her ex, chose joint custody with the intention of making it work. It isn't for everyone, as she pointed out.
Even when parents do get along well, joint custody still might not be a feasible option. It's easier when neither parent remarries, or if stepchildren are not involved. Sometimes parents need to relocate. Work schedules may not blend well with joint custody. Children's needs change as they age. What worked fine when they were five probably won't work as well when they are fifteen.
Ms. Lauren asked, "but i'm not sure how joint custody plays a part in this. any good parent would do these things anyway - a primary parent would permit and encourage the other parent to be a major part of the children's life with or without a joint custody order, and a non-custodial parent would maintain emotional involvement and pay child support without complaint and on time if he or she truly cared about the child's quality of life. what then does joint custody really do? not much, unless it is abused."
She's right that good parents do these things anyway. Custody and visitation may be looked at as a way to ease the transition from marriage to divorce, or, in Ms. Lauren's case, from two parents living together with their child to living separate lives. Parents with traditional mother sole custody/father visitation are perfectly capable of caring for and properly raising their children. They do it all the time. Sometimes they even re-arrange their visitation schedules to accomodate a sick child, a vacation, a business trip, a prescheduled event, or an emergency. Imagine that! Switching weekends without a knock-down, drag-out fight or a threat that "I'll see you in court for interfering with my 'parenting time.'" Wonders never cease.
Contrary to assertions made by fathers' rights advocates, non-custodial fathers aren't reduced to "visitors." Joint custody, at least the "shared parenting" nonsense promoted by the fathers' rights movement, primarily has to do with time (joint physical custody) because the more time the non-custodial parent has scheduled with the children, the lower the child support order. The percentage of time varies per state. In some states the children may be scheduled to be with their father as little as 35% of the time for him to qualify for joint custody -- and the lower child support that goes with it. Parents who use joint custody as a weapon aren't interested in working with the other parent, getting along, or even caring for their children.
Joint custody should not be used to attempt to artificially recreate an intact family post-divorce. Existing studies show overall that joint custody doesn't work well, even under the best of circumstances. Children don't like the constant shunting around. It's costly. It does not take into account life changes such as a remarriage, a move, and the child's growing interests in friends and outside activities. It too often, especially with the recent political push for "shared parenting" by fathers' rights advocates, becomes a tool used to meddle in the other parent's decisions. Abusers and control freaks have threatened to fight for either joint or sole custody in order to get a court agreement they like. Joint custody has also been used as a means of lowering a child support obligation. Court-ordered joint custody against the wishes of one parent (usually mom) is a license to meddle in decisions that parent had been making all along, but now that the couple has divorced, her decisions are questioned and held up every step of the way. This is not to say that occasionally joint custody works. Of course it does. Parents are perfectly free to try it if they like. However, it should not be mandated because a vocal minority of malcontents demand it.
posted at 2:11 PM by Trish Wilson |
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The Boy Who Died During A "Faith Healing" At A Church Service Isn't The First Child To Die In Such A Manner
You've already read that the medical examiner's office ruled that "an 8-year-old autistic boy who died at a prayer service where church members tried to heal him of "spirits" was suffocated."
The case immediately reminded me of a similar death several years ago.
10 year old Candace Newmaker died during a "rebirthing" therapy session. "Rebirthing" has been aimed at children with attachment disorder. They cannot bond with their parents. Candace was adopted. She and her mother had difficulty bonding. The therapists and her mother wrapped her inside a blanket which was supposed to symbolize death and rebirth. Candace's "rebirthing" would occur as she crawled out of the blanket into her mother's arms. The therapists and her mother were supposed to press large pillows against her to make it harder for her to come out. The pressing symbolized uterine contractions. The therapists said things to Candace like "You got to push hard if you want to be born -- or are you just going to stay in there and die?," apparently not understanding that her cries that she could not breathe were not symbolic acting-out. The child suffocated. CSI used it as a story line for one of its episodes.
There is no rationale for "rebirthing" therapy. It is not scientific. It is not a medically-recognized form of treatment. While the practice continues to have its supporters, I personally can't see its value. I've run across far too many shady forms of "therapy," "faith" healing, and bogus syndromes over the years, most notably the specious Parental Alienation Syndrome that continues to be used in court against mothers and their children.
posted at 12:25 PM by Trish Wilson |
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August 23, 2003
And Now For Something Completely Different
I bet y'all are expecting an update about Warren Farrell or some other fathers' rights idiocy. My Farrell post generated a lot of attention.
I'm getting to it. Some blogs linked to my Farrell, marriage initiatives, and joint custody posts. I'm preparing responses that I hope to have up sometime this weekend. If I have time, I'll add my own thoughts on comments about rape and celebrity I've seen on blogs over the past couple of days. I did find some blog posts I thought were interesting, such as The Compendium of Lost Words [Via Randomwalks], the I Ching Caster, the Rune Caster, and the Tarot Caster. I can't remember which blog linked to the Casters.
Fatshadow pointed to a Blog Census about male and female and political and journal blogs. [via Randomwalks.] I've read earlier media accounts dividing women into "journalers" and men into "bloggers," insinuating that what men wrote was more important and more serious than what women wrote. I was rather surprised to see that women accounted for only about 4% of what the Blog Census identified as political bloggers. I don't agree with that figure at all. It's much too low. There is a good discussion in Dru Blood's comments section of how women turn the political into the personal, so blogs the Blog Census may have considered journals (a. k. a., "fluff") are really much more in-depth, serious, and insightful than they've been credited. Women bloggers aren't taken as seriously as male bloggers. The same lack of attention and respect also came out in a recent poll of left and right bloggers who named the "Greatest Figures of the 20th Century." Right Wing News should have renamed the poll "Greatest MEN of the 20th Century." [via Alas, A Blog and Matthew Yglesias]
It's too gorgeous outside to coop myself up in the house. I've been reading some fun novels that I must share.
It's going to be another beautiful day today so I'm going to spend it at the beach buried nose-deep in "Ice Hunt," another adventure thriller by James Rollins. If you like the adventure/SF novels by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (they wrote "The Relic"), you'll love James Rollins. I just finished Preston/Child's "Still Life With Crows," which was more of a traditional mystery than an adventure novel. I liked it, although not quite as much as their other novels. It starred my favorite character from their other novels, FBI Special Agent Pendergast. Pendergast, whom the writers based on Sherlock Holmes, is a bit of an enigma. He is fortyish, slender, with white-blonde hair and silvery-blue eyes. At first glance the man looks like an undertaker -- an impression he purposefully plays up by dressing in tailored black suits. At second glance, it comes as a surprise that he's much younger than he had first appeared. He's actually quite handsome and approachable, despite the aloofness. I've picked up bits and pieces about his background from the previous novels, which I'm sure is the writer's intent. Learn a little bit at a time. He from an old money French family in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is widowed. Insanity may run in his family. He doesn't care much for human beings. On the other hand, he is obscenely intelligent, infinitely patient, fussy (especially about his food -- shades of Hercule Poirot), and excessively polite. He drives a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud.
A running joke is that his first name has never been mentioned in any of the novels. I don't know what it is, although an FBI field office agent in "Still Life With Crows" revealed that it begins with "Al." The same agent also said he couldn't begin to even attempt to pronounce it. While Aloysius, Alphonse, Alain, or Alistair are obvious possibilities, I have a pet theory.
It might be Al Aaraaf, after the poem by Edgar Allan Poe. I wouldn't put it past Preston/Child to do something as cruel as that to Pendergast. Imagine a child with a name like Al Aaraaf? Poor kid will grow up to feed Alka Seltzer to sea gulls and shoot pebbles through a blow gun at their snotty cousins while in church.
According to a footnote in an old volume of Poe's poems that I own, "Al Aaraaf" was a star that "appeared suddenly in the heavens -- attained in a few days a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter -- then as suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since." It was a nova discovered by Tycho Braye in 1572. It was visible for about sixteen months.
That's exactly how Pendergast operates. He shows up on the scene unannounced, startles the hell out of everyone, and then vanishes once things wind down.
In the Koran, Al Aaraaf "is the place between paradise and hell where people who have not been neither markedly good nor markedly bad had to stay until forgiven by God and let in to Paradise." An interesting aside is that one of the angels in the Koran Al Aaraaf story is named Ligeia, whose name should be familiar to Poe fans. She's the name of one of several tragic characters he created based on his cousin/wife, Virginia.
That pretty much sums up Pendergast's tortured soul. He doesn't reveal it much to the public. The guy doesn't like to talk about his family. What little I've seen of his family, I can understand why.
I know I'm not doing a very good job describing him. He's beyond description. I think he's one of the more fascinating fictional characters to come out in recent years. Another one is Professor Severus Snape from the Harry Potter novels.
I know my theory about Al Aaraaf is way out there. Maybe the heat is getting to me. If you would like to read the poem "Al Aaraaf," it's here.
Anyway, I will have more to add later. It's just to beautiful to stay indoors.
posted at 1:24 PM by Trish Wilson |
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August 19, 2003
Welfare Reform Marriage Initiatives Are Not About Helping The Poor
Matthew Yglesias critiqued Katherine Boo's New Yorker article about the Bush administration's marriage initiatives as a means of getting people off welfare. I haven't read the hard copy version, but I did read the interview linked to his blog. Matt homed in one major point when he wrote "it's really, really, really hard to know what could actually be done to bring about [happy, stable marriages for poor people]. The goal can be as worthy as you like and you can put tons of money into the program, but unless the program actually accomplishes its goals, there's no point."
The problem is his two assumptions about welfare marriage initiatives: that they are about (1) creating happy, stable marriages for poor people and about (2) helping the poor achieve autonomy.
Marriage initiatives are about neither.
Everything about welfare reform -- the draconian child support collection, the mandatory DNA testing, the child caps, the requirement that mothers seeking assistance name the father, work-fare, the increase in hours a recipient is required to work in tandem with the cuts in child-care assistance, "responsible" fatherhood projects, "male involvement" programs, fatherhood programs for incarcerated and previously convicted felons, marriage initiatives, etc., etc., ad nauseum --
is designed to reimburse state welfare coffers and get those people off the public dole. That is much different from helping people rise out of and stay out of poverty. A name removed from the dole is seen as a success. This does not necessarily mean that the former recipient is no longer poor . Far from it. That person is balanced on a very precarious edge. All it takes is one medical emergency, a lost job, the birth of another child, divorce, lack of adequate day care, an eviction, or (to cite Matthew's example of bus service) lack of adequate transportation for the poor to fall farther into poverty. The difference is that the safety net that had previously caught them is in the process of being dismantled.
I came very close to applying for public assistance following my divorce. I don't want to go into much detail because I am a very private person. Welfare reform was in formation but not as fixed as it is now. Suffice to say that the policies I had encountered and the staff I ran into were very hostile to single and divorced mothers who were in need of help. I had seen that hostility directed towards mothers other than myself. Although I was in dire straits, I did not end up on welfare. I did obtain temporary assistance from the food bank. I had a car. Regarding Matt's recommendation of vamping up bus service, I agree with the person in his comments section that said such a think is feasible only if adequate public transportation already exists. The city in which I was born has very good public transportation, but the one I had lived in immediately post-divorce had a bus system that sucked. It is even worse in the sticks. People who live in rural areas often have no public transporation at all. A bus came by the stop closest to my childhood home every ten minutes. At my current home (rural area), once per hour. Evening train is about once every two hours. Not good if I had to commute by train and bus from Boston. Worse if I had to rush home following a phone call from my son's school that he needed to go to the hospital or was being sent home with a fever. I'd never get around. That's a problem.
I have participated on a committee whose work included criticizing proposed marriage initiatives.
Marriage initiatives deserve the criticism they get. First of all, the government has no business telling people that they should get married. It's no accident that these programs affect primarily the poor. The poor have no adequate means of defending themselves against social experimentation. They don't have the energy. They don't have the time. They don't have the political voice wealthier people have. These programs are social experiments on people who have little means of defending themselves.
Secondly, has anyone noticed that this patronizing attitude is directed only towards poor parents, in particular poor single mothers? Poor adults with no children aren't urged by the state to strive for something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. Poor parents -- particularly poor single mothers -- get to hear all the dreamy-eyed pro-marriage nonsense because they and their children cost the states money. Marriage initiatives not only tell poor parents to get married, they tell these poor parents whom they should marry. Poor single mothers are not encouraged to find a mate who is well suited for them and who would properly care for their children. They are paired up with the biological father of their children, regardless of how appropriate they may or may not be for each other, solely because the DNA test says he's daddy. The state has already begun taking child support from him as reimbursement for funding provided for her and her children.
Supporters of marriage initiatives have not thought ahead. The goal is to get those two married and remove them from the welfare rolls. What about mothers and fathers who have born children with more than one partner? Who do they marry? Is it a "first come, first served" basis? Do they draw lots?
It has not occurred to the marriage ideologues that the additional children born into these marriages (especially teen parent marriages) hurt the parents future economic and long-term viability. The marriage of unwed teenaged parents "increases the chances that additional pregnancies will occur; as a result, educational attainment and employment earnings suffer, and marital conflict and dissatisfaction are probable."
It should come as no surprise that marriage initiatives are promoted by the religious right. Our Christian president gives them the thumbs-up. What's really interesting is that the states with the highest divorce rates in the United States are the Bible Belt states -- "four of the five states with the highest resident divorce rates in the country are in the Deep South, where families pray together but, apparently, can't stay together. Metropolitan states like Massachusetts and New York, supposed havens of marital dysfunction, actually have comparatively low divorce rates." Those same Bible Belt states also have the most Christian churches, the highest percentages of persons who identify as being "churched," the lowest percentages of women who identify as "feminist," and the most pervasive and traditional perspectives on family roles.
Stress negatively impacts parenting. Marriage initiatives do nothing to resolve stressors experienced by single and divorced mothers living in poverty. Marriage does not "cure" poverty. Stress factors that are more likely to be present and to affect single mothers include: financial problems, living in a bad neighborhood, juggling increased outside employment and childcare demands, depression, post-break-up domestic violence and harassment, divorce and custody litigation, and interference with family and household routines by nonresident parents and other third parties (i.e. responsibility without decision-making authority).
Here is another point that the supporters of marriage initiatives had not considered: some of those mothers are were once married and are now divorced. I was one of them. McLanahan and Booth found that "[s]ingle mothers have higher poverty rates than other families and ... a substantial portion of their poverty is a consequence to marital disruption." [McLanahan, S., & Booth, K. (1989). Mother-only families: Problems, prospects, and politics. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51 (3), 557-580.]
Contrary to Boo's assessment, marriage initiatives have already been shown to not work. A New Zealand study found that "both children whose married mothers had stayed married and children whose single mothers had stayed single had fewer behavioral problems than children whose mothers had changed partners." [ J. M. Najman, B. C. Behrens, M. Andersen, W. Bor, M. O'Callaghan, and G. M. Williams. 1997. Impact of family type and family quality on child behavior problems: A longitudinal study. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 36: 1357-1365.]
Even fatherhood ideologues like Andrew Cherlin have been critical of marriage initiatives. He and co-author Paula Fomby wrote the following in their 2002 working paper, "A Closer Look at Changes in Children's Living Arrangements in Low-Income Families. Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study."
"In much of the policy debates about fatherhood and marriage, it has been assumed that two-parent families are better for children than one-parent families. But a number of studies now suggest that the well-being of children in mother-stepfather families is no greater, on average, than in single-parent families... Moreover, evidence is accumulating that the greater the number of family transitions children experience, the lower is their well-being. Family transitions occur when cohabiting or married biological parents separate... it is not clear that the children born to single mothers who later cohabited or remarried are better off, on average, than they would have been had their mothers remained single..." Among other problems, marriage in this context frequently means only that one or some of the single mother's children will be living with their biological father. The other children will be living with a man who is not their biological father, and all of the children will be at greater risk of suffering another family transition from the breakup of this relationship.
Matt is absolutely right that "the problems of entrenced poverty are, clearly, complicated and interlocking. Moreover, the odds that the government is going to devote a really substantial quantity of resources to solving it are, to say the least, minimal." Promoting marriage is a cheap but meaningless fit-it. It's smoke and mirrors. Lifting the poor out of poverty will require much more than the meager 2% of the federal budget allotted to welfare.
So, if these initiatives do not work, why is there so much governmental support for them? One, they are a means of clearing the welfare rolls. Two, they appeal to family values ideologues who populate and otherwise influence the current and past administrations, most notably Admin. for Children and Families deputy secretary Wade Horn, David Blankenhorn (president of the Institute for American Values and author of "Fatherless America"), and everyone at the National Fatherhood Initiative. Marriage and fatherhood initiatives are bi-partisan. Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, and progressives alike have voted in favor of many welfare reform proposals. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore were very supportive of welfare reform and fatherhood initiatives.
Marriage initiatives are part of a larger social experiment conducted by politicians, religious leaders, and ideologues who have chosen a particular family form that they prefer -- the heterosexual, "traditional," two-parent married family. Welfare reform and marriage initiatives are heading in that direction by design. Marriage initiatives and fatherhood programs are funded and promoted while other means of assistance for mothers such as educational incentives, child care, and job training are cut. At the same time, the required number of hours the mother must work has been increased. So, get her married off. Force her to work an impossible work schedule with little or no help with the children. In due time, she will become pregnant again. It will be impossible for her to continue to work those hours while raising additional children. She "chooses" to stay home with the kids while her husband works three jobs. Voila! Welfare reform has successfully brought back the traditional family of stay-at-home mom and breadwinner dad.
This sort of thing won't affect only the poor. Once it gels in welfare reform, these policies and reforms will move up the food chain to affect everyone. I have absolutely nothing against couples who choose to get married. They have my blessing. What I don't like is the government promoting marriage as a means of pushing a preferred political agenda down my throat. I don't know about you, but I don't want the government engaging in a social experiment at my expense.
The only type of family the "family values" crowd considers valid is the "traditional" family. All other family forms -- gay families, single mother homes, divorced mother homes, step-parent families, single/divorced moms and kids living with extended family, etc. -- are deemed as less than satisfactory. The only "real" family, according to these people, is a two-parent, married "traditional" family. All others need not apply. Literally. Welfare reform, "responsible" fatherhood projects, and marriage initiatives will see to that.
posted at 1:11 PM by Trish Wilson |
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August 18, 2003
Men's Movement Advocate Warren Farrell For Governor of California?
Your eyes do not deceive you. The men's movement author of "Why Men Are The Way They Are" who blamed an alleged feminine "lace curtain" for what he claims is widespread discrimination against males has jumped upon the California gubernatorial gerbil wheel. Rather than ask for specifics about what he would do to get California out of the mess it is in, Ann Gerhart of the Washington Post asked him "why ARE men the way they are?" Farrell responded:
"Both sexes are the way they are based on our needs to survive over millions of years. Men are addicted to females who are young and beautiful because youth gave the greatest numbers of years of reproductive capability, and beauty was the sign of the best gene for the culture's need at that time. Women fell in love with whatever looked like the best breadwinning protection for children."
Gerhart's next question was not about his vision for immigration or the budget or the environment or children's schooling.
She asked, "is that why Ben Affleck went to the strip club?"
Just the sort of thing the people of California need: more reminders of Gigli.
Farrell's response was interesting. He blamed "young, beautiful women" for "ruining men's lives." Like they have no ability to ruin their lives of their own volition. Has anyone thought of how offensive his statement is to men?
"Yes. It's why Kobe and Clinton ruined their lives. Putting young, beautiful women in front of a heterosexual male is like putting alcohol in front of an alcoholic."
Gerhart's next inane question was "how much can you bench press?" She should have asked him about pro-incest statements he made in 1977 Penthouse article written by Philip Nobile, "The Last Taboo: Previously Suppressed Material from the Kinsey Interviews Tells Us That Incest Is Prevalent and Often Positive."
I found a copy of this issue at a collectible comic book store several years ago. I own it. The following quotes are not lifted from Internet web pages. They are verbatim, from The Real McCoy. Bold is my emphasis.
From Incest: The Last Taboo - Previously Suppressed Material From The Original Kinsey Interviews Tells Us That Incest Is Prevalent And Often Positive, by Philip Nobile. Originally printed in Penthouse in 1977. Farrell's book on positive incest, "The Last Taboo: the Three Faces of Incest," was never published. He had placed ads in the "Village Voice," the "New York Review of Books," "Psychology Today," and the "New Republic" seeking, for research purposes, people who had committed incest. 200 responded.
"When I get my most glowing positive cases, 6 out of 200," says Farrell, "the incest is part of the family's open, sensual style of life, wherein sex is an outgrowth of warmth and affection. It is more likely that the father has good sex with his wife, and his wife is likely to know and approve -- and in one or two cases to join in."
"... [M]illions of people who are now refraining from touching, holding, and genitally caressing their children, when that is really part of a caring, loving expression, are repressing the sexuality of a lot of children and themselves. ... [T]housands of people in therapy for incest are being told, in essence, that their lives have been ruined by incest. In fact, their lives have not generally been affected as much by the incest as by the overall atmosphere. ..."
"[Dr. Paul Gebhard, then director of the Institute for Sex Research in Bloomington, Indiana] is releasing Kinsey's startling incest material for incorporation in Warren Farrell's work-in-progress, The Last Taboo: the Three Faces of Incest. According to the cultural gatekeepers in New York publishing, America still wasn't ready to hear about positive incest in the mid seventies. Farrell's impressive credentials - a Ph.D. in political science from N.Y.U., former board member of the National Organization for Women, and author of a book entitled Beyond Masculinity -- counted as nothing. His forty-one-page outline (including two sizzling case histories -- one with a New York Writer who has intercourse regularly with his seventeen-year old daughter, occasionally supplemented by threesomes with the daughter's girlfriend, and another with a Notre Dame graduate who made love to his mother for ten years) was returned by twenty-two houses last fall..."
"NBC's "Weekend visit to the Santa Clara County Child Sexual Abuse Treatment Center in San Jose will not help Farrell and [Dr. James Ramey, a sociologist who has also written positive incest material] convince anyone that incest is less than a scourge."
"Although Farrell has personally familiarized [Hank Giaretto, director of the Santa Clara Abuse Treatment Center] with his findings on positive incest before the "Weekend" taping, Giaretto failed to temper his apocalyptism on camera."
"Warren Farrell admires Giaretto's rehabilitative mission among legitimate victims, for his own investigation of positive incest allows for considerable negativity, particularly in the father-daughter category. But he faults "Weekend" for its skewed perspective. "It was like interviewing Cuban refugees about Cuba. "Weekend" recorded sexually abused children speaking about their sexual abuse, which is valuable, but the inference is that all incest is abuse. And that's not true."
"The idea for the book struck him after reading a Times article about incest early last year. According to the piece, only a tiny fraction of the cases ever reaches the courts. In 1976 New York City police received merely one incest complaint and no arrests. Farrell wondered if perhaps some incidents weren't reported because the relationships went smoothly. Since nothing had been written about nonpatient-nonoffender participants, he decided the gap was too large to ignore."
"...[H]is preliminary data suggest that the taboo needs severe overhauling. Breaking down the effects into positive (beneficial), negative (traumatic), and mixed (nontraumatic but not regarded as beneficial) categories -- the three faces of incest in his subtitle -- he says that the overwhelming majority of cases fall into the positive column. Cousin-cousin (including uncle-niece and aunt-nephew) and brother-sister (including sibling homosexuality) relations, accounting for about half of the total incidence, are perceived as beneficial in 95 percent of the cases. ... Farrell points out that boys don't seem to suffer, not even from the negative experiences. "Girls are much more influenced by the dictates of society and are more willing to take on sexual guilt."
"Farrell also hopes to change public attitudes so that participants in incest will no longer be automatically perceived as victims. 'The average incest participant can't evaluate his or her experience for what it was. As soon as society gets into the picture, they have to tell themselves it was bad. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.' "
"Warren Farrell prophesies that incest will be a major social issue in the eighties. If so, the debate will be bloody and presumably unproductive. Those who accept the original sin of incest, the great Judeo-Christian majority, will not be dissuaded by anyone's case studies. The last taboo could become the last straw as the Save Our Children movement heads closer to home."
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This is not the type of person who should be governor of any state.
I don't think he's serious about running, anyway. It reminds me of this-close-to-being-disbarred fathers' rights attorney Barbara Johnson's recent run for Massachusetts governor. There was no way in hell she'd win. Running was only a way to drum up publicity for her fathers' rights advocacy. I think Farrell is pulling a Johnson.
Farrell says this so-called "lace curtain" squelches the male point-of-view. He has blamed it for his publishing woes and his inability to get much attention from the press. Even the Washington Post reporter ridiculed him. How much can you bench press? Now, seriously folks....
Funny, the "lace curtain" hasn't prevented his Penthouse statements from getting attention for the past two decades. I guess the one time he wished the "lace curtain" would do what it was supposed to do, it wouldn't cooperate.
If you would like to know more about Warren Farrell and the Penthouse business, (including threats of law suits against anyone who brings it up) please go to these links on my web site:
Warren Farrell: That Danged Penthouse Article Just Won't Go Away
Who Is Libeling Whom? More On Warren Farrell and that Penthouse Business
Warren Farrell, "Empowerment Feminism," and More Penthouse Backpedaling
Book Review by Trish Wilson. "Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say," by Warren Farrell. (at XYOnline, an Australian pro-feminist men's magazine.)
More on Farrell, from The Liz Library:
Warren Farrell and "Family Sex"
Warren Farrell - "Genitally Caressing Children"
An excerpt from a review of "The Myth of Male Power." (an example of dishonest statistics)
Text copy of Philip Nobile's "Incest: The Last Taboo. Previously suppressed material from
the original Kinsey interviews tells us that incest is
prevalent and often positive." (as originally published in Penthouse, December 1977 issue)
Warren Farrell and Libel
Warren Farrell's Non-Custodial Holiday Parenting. Learn stalking.
posted at 2:07 PM by Trish Wilson |
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Last Thursday's Blackout
Today's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" brings a view of a very dark New York City from across the Hudson River in New Jersey following the blackout. Mars is to the upper right of the moon.
posted at 10:45 AM by Trish Wilson |
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August 17, 2003
Some Interesting Blogs
I've been reading these blogs on and off for some time, but I have never posted about them. They're quite good. Stop by and check them out.
Paleo Judaica -" a weblog on ancient Judiasm and its context." Full of great information about archeology. Also includes updates on Mel Gibson's "Passion" and the appointment of the gay bishop.
Cronaca. Another archeology source. David linked to an interesting genetics article in last year's Nature about human chimeras -- in particular, one case of a boy who "was formed when two eggs, fertilized by two different sperm, fused into one embryo inside his mother's womb."
Mystical Politics - "Containing discussions of Jewish mysticism, especially from the ancient world (biblical, Qumran, Hekhalot, rabbinic, etc.) and of contemporary politics -- and of the occasional interactions between them. It will also include some personal musings about occasional topics. From Rebecca Lesses, Ithaca College."
Don't forget that "Nefertiti Resurrected" airs tonight at 9 pm on The Discovery Channel. Mac Diva links to an BET article showing the face reconstructed from the unidentified skull, and she was black. One of the scientists who assisted in the reconstruction was "bowled over." He said "she has such a beautiful profile. She is stunning."
Indeed she is. 
posted at 11:46 AM by Trish Wilson |
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Ya Gotta Watch Out For Those Snake-Oil Salesmen -- Especially If They Say They Have God's Approval
Fark pointed me to this article about an evangelist who says the water he gives worshippers has "healing properties." Scientific testing says it contains coliform bacteria, which comes from human and animal waste.
Even better: The evangelist is hosting a revival this weekend. The water will be available for consumption.
The best of all: I fell over laughing when I saw this in the article:
[C]onvention center general manager Ted Lewis said he would wait to see a sample of the water for himself before deciding whether to allow it to be made available to Jenkins' followers.
Lewis said he was concerned about whether the water competes with the center's food and beverage offerings.
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Yup, gotta get those priorities straight.
posted at 11:30 AM by Trish Wilson |
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I'm Going To Be Published In "Domestic Violence Report"
I am currently working on a critique of the move-away study by Sanford Braver, Ira Ellman, and William Fabricius. The critique will appear in "Domestic Violence Report," a "leading professional report devoted exclusively to innovative programs, legal developments, and current services and research in domestic violence law and prevention." DVR influences legal and public policy analysts. I'd like to thank editor-in-chief Joan Zorza for giving me the opportunity to write and publish the article. When it comes out, I'll provide updates here.
The issue of "off our backs" that includes my article about bogus psychological syndromes and their use against mothers in court has not come out yet.
posted at 11:15 AM by Trish Wilson |
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August 16, 2003
Bare and Phallus Reporting
"Size is usually more of an issue but the shape of the penis is also important because it evolved to dispel other men's semen, according to scientists in the United States."
The ridge of the penis acts as a "semen displacement device," which apparently came in handy (pun intended) "following periods of separation or in response to allegations of female infidelity," when sexual intercourse often involved "deeper, more vigorous penile thrusting."
To my knowledge, neither Fox News Network nor Al Franken took advantage of this breaking news.
posted at 8:52 PM by Trish Wilson |
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How Photographers Digitally Airbrush Models
Ms. Lauren at feministe links to a web site by a professional photographer who demonstrates what women look like before and after photo shoots. Once you finish looking at the brunette, check out the blonde.
posted at 8:36 PM by Trish Wilson |
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Political Conservatism = Resistance to Change and Tolerance for Inequality (Tell Us Something We Don't Know)
Some choice quotes from The Conservative Hall of Fame:
"Every lesbian spearchucker is hoping I get defeated." - Bob Dornan
"The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned." - Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist
"I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by 'liberal' colleagues, but I think Plessy vs. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." - Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist
"I think 'one man, one vote,' just unrestricted democracy, would not be wise. There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now, and they need and have a right to demand a protection of their rights." - Pat Robertson
"Feminism causes women to kill their husbands, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians." - Pat Robertson
"Yes, I am Dick Armey. And if there is a dick army, Barney Frank would want to join up." - Dick Armey
"AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters." - Jerry Falwell
"I want to tell you 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. - Strom Thurmond
Now, with all that knuckle-dragging in mind, read this article about a new study that found that "at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:
Fear and aggression
Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
Uncertainty avoidance
Need for cognitive closure
Terror management
So, there may by a psychological explanation for that back-asswards thinking displayed by some of the more odious of conservative politicians, commentators, and the like.
I know some of those conservatives will demand that I bring up that weak whine denigrating liberalism by that simpering idiot, Dennis Prager. Gotta be "fair and balanced," right? I won't provide the link here. Those people can look for it themselves. Prager didn't need to "jump through complex, intellectual hoops" to justify his position. Funny, that's a characteristic described in that study about conservatism.
The article is called "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition." It was published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin.
UPDATE: George Will's got his bow tie in a bunch. He says that "Pretentious professors of Psychology, no matter how nuanced and well-documented the studies they produce, will never convince me that conservatives tend to be close-minded and resistant to change."[via Busy, Busy, Busy.]
That's right. The studies those professors produce may be "nuanced and well-documented" out the wazoo. Won't change ole Georgie's mind one bit. Sure sounds like the "fear, aggression, dogmatism, authoritarianism, tolerance of inequality, intolerance of ambiguity, resistance to change and lack of "integrative complexity" in thought and speech" cited by the researchers.
posted at 5:52 PM by Trish Wilson |
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California Voters, Did You Forget About Enron?
West Palm Beach, Florida must be happy to pass the crown for The Most Asinine Election In World History to California. Yeah, it's complete lunacy. Here's the short list:
Ah-nold "True Lies" Schwarzenegger
Arianna "Fat Cat's Avoid Paying Taxes... Whoops! So Do I!!" Huffington
Larry "Porn Peddlar With A Heart Of Gold" Flynt
Michael Jackson (not thatMichael Jackson, but he encourages the name confusion)
Warren "Positive Incest" Farrell
Peter "baseball's been berry berry good to me" Ueberroth
Billboard queen Angelyne ("I can feel myself getting more and more ridiculous every day.")
Gary "I Thought He Was Dead" Coleman.
Comedian Gallagher (Will first row debate seats include shower curtains to catch the chunks of watermelon? Maybe he'll smash a can of "Chock Full O Nuts." Har.)
I read that Michael "Get AIDS And Die" Savage had considered a run, but I don't know if he actually went through with it.
Donald "Father Guido Sarducci" Novello was disqualified because he didn't have the whopping 65 signatures required to run for governor.
Everyone's been having a rip-roaring good laugh over the colossal mess in California. The Terminator stumps on a "no violence" platform. Who would Gary Coleman choose for Lt. Gov.? Danny Bonaduce? Who more resembles a Weeping Norway Spruce, Al Gore or Gray Davis?
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
That's exactly what the Bush Republicans want.
The political circus in California diverts attention away from the fraudulent activities of energy companies like Enron that lead to the FAKE energy crisis in California to begin with. Let me repeat that so it sinks in past the Ah-nold blathering:
The California energy crisis was FAKE.
It was created by energy deregulation and the greed of energy corporations, most notably Enron. How quickly Americans have forgotten V. P. Dick Cheney's top-level meetings with energy executives. The minutes of those meetings are still kept secret.
Don't let Bush and his cronies get away with sweeping the real causes of California's energy crisis under the rug.
Related News: American's worst power outage created political fallout over how the Bush administration and Congress will handle the regulation of the nation's transmission grid during this fall's hearings on energy legislation. Energy industry sources say that "Republican leaders -- including Vice President Dick Cheney -- have pledged to pursue significant delays in the FERC's plan as part of an upcoming bargaining session between the Senate and House of Representatives."
The California recall election will happen in the fall. The energy hearings will also occur in the fall. The media circus over who will be California's next Governor is designed by the Bush administration to distract the American people from the very important issues of political and corporate fraud and greed, and high-level secrecy in the handling of our nation's energy regulation.
Don't let them get away with it!
UPDATE: Greg Palast's delightfully cranky history of energy deregulation did a much better job of dissecting the California energy "crisis" and the blackout that did I. (Via Ampersand, Elayne Riggs, and Lisa at Ruminate This).
ANOTHER UPDATE: From "Meltdown!
Hey Gray, want to solve California's power crisis?", written by Bill Bradley in June, 2001. [emphasis mine]
"Bush buddy Ken Lay, head of Enron, the nation's biggest electricity marketer, garnered some unwanted press from the San Francisco Chronicle when someone leaked to the paper a memo Lay gave to participants in a closed-door meeting with some L.A. notables last month. Among those in attendance were Mayor Riordan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and convicted junk bond financier-turned-philanthropist Michael Milken. Lay's purpose, as the memo made clear, was to enlist high-level support for the continuance of deregulation in California. He also criticized the just-enacted state power authority. Nobody really wants more competition. But he also stressed that deregulation can work, that prices for electricity can begin to moderate from their skyrocketing levels."
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posted at 5:00 PM by Trish Wilson |
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August 11, 2003
More Nonsense from the "War On Boys" Camp
Christina Hoff Sommers carried the torch for grade school boys. Thomas Mortensen carries the torch for college-aged young men.
They're all doomed. And it's women's fault, of course.
There are more women in college today than men. Some researchers see women's educational gains as being at the expense of men. Just look at all the unsuccessful lawsuits against Title IX. The article referred to "boys' second-class graduation rate" as "educational neglect."
Researcher Thomas Mortensen says this gender gap is a "crisis," despite the fact that men's earnings years after graduating from college continue to surpass women's. Women earn approximately 70 cents to the male dollar. By the way, that myth passed around by anti-feminists that women's earnings today are on par with men's (appx. 95%) applies only to unmarried, childless recent college graduates in entry level jobs. Both sexes begin their careers with similar, low, earnings. It is after their mid-twenties that the gap progressively widens. Once the marriages, children, and promotions come along, women lag far behind. The following is from The Pay Gap - Causes, Consequences and Actions, a working paper by the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
(Bold by Trish for emphasis)Both sexes begin their careers with similar, low, earnings. It is after their mid-twenties that the gap progressively widens. Canadian women aged 15 to 24 who worked full-time full-year in 1994 earned $19,269, 90% of what men earn, while women aged 55 and over earned $26,000, 65% of what men earn. As women age, their earnings remain almost static.
Marital status is another, related, factor. Never-married (single but not necessary childless) women who work full-time earn 92% of what never-married men earn: both earn a relatively low wage. Never-married men, never-married women and married women all earn approximately the same (in Canada, $28-30,000; in N.B., $22-23,000 in full-time annual earnings), significantly less than married men (in Canada, $43,300; in N.B., about $37,000). Married men have higher average earnings than all other groups of men and women. No group of women, whether never-married, married, separated, young or old, earn as much as married men.
The relatively small population of never-married women aged 35 to 44 who work full-time full-year earn $32,200, which is 85% of what never-married men their age earn and 72% of what all men their |
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