Politics

Politically, I’m very liberal — about as far left as one can go without sliding into Libertarianism.

The President Supports Abortions

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Of course, it’s not President George W. Bush. Rather, it’s President Cecilia Fire Thunder of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Infuriated by South Dakota’s HB 1215, which banned abortions in all situations save a direct threat to the mothers life, President Fire Thunder has pledged to open a Planned Parenthood clinic on reservation land — where it will be under tribal jurisdiction, rather than that of the Government of South Dakota.

When Governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1215 into law it effectively banned all abortions in the state with the exception that it did allow saving the mother’s life. There were, however, no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. His actions, and the comments of State Senators like Bill Napoli of Rapid City, SD, set of a maelstrom of protests within the state.

Napoli suggested that if it was a case of “simple rape,” there should be no thoughts of ending a pregnancy. Letters by the hundreds appeared in local newspapers, mostly written by women, challenging Napoli’s description of rape as “simple.” He has yet to explain satisfactorily what he meant by “simple rape.”

The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.

“To me, it is now a question of sovereignty,” she said to me last week. “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.”

Strong words from a very strong lady. I hope Ms. Fire Thunder challenges Gov. Rounds and the state legislators on this law that is an affront to all independent women.

LiveJournaler [kathrynt's info]kathrynt called the tribal offices, spoke to Ms. Fire Thunder, and got permission to post information on how to donate to the reservation to support this effort.

If you want to mail donations to the reservation, you may do so at:

Oglala Sioux Tribe
ATTN: President Fire Thunder
P. O. Box 2070
Pine Ridge, SD 57770

OR: and this may be preferred, due to mail volume:

ATTN: PRESIDENT FIRE THUNDER
PO BOX 990
Martin, SD 57751

Enclose a letter voicing your support and explaining the purpose of the donation. Bear in mind, the Pine Ridge Res is not exactly dripping with disposeable [sic] income, so do consider donating funds directly to the tribe as well as specifically for this effort.

ETA: Make checks out to OST Planned Parenthood Cecelia Fire Thunder. This will ensure that the funds get routed properly.

For email contact, you can contact the president at:

firethunder_president AT NOSPAM yahoo DOT com
cc:vbush AT NOSPAM oglala DOT org

That is Ms. Fire Thunder’s personal email address; I have received permission to post it here. For the sake of record keeping, do cc: the listed address on all correspondence; that’s her official secretary.

She was frankly kind of surprised that a white girl from Seattle was calling to express support, and even more surprised that the news had spread so far so fast. She’s likely to get deluged with screaming hate mail soon, so get your support in fast. Send email with good thoughts if you can’t send money.

ETA: Yes, please, dear God, link it anywhere and everywhere!

This makes me wish I had more disposable income to donate. Hats off to President Fire Thunder, and I hope this goes forward.

(via MeFi)

iTunes “Victory (Nine Inch Nails)” by Puff Daddy and the Family from the album Victory (1997, 5:35).

Breaking News: Killers can destroy innocent life!

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It still boggles my mind that a man who comes up with gems like this got elected to the office of President of the United States. Twice.

But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life.

No shit, Sherlock.

The full exchange between Bush and Helen Thomas is even better…

Update: Crooks and Liars has video!

Read more

George Clooney does not make statements. He answers questions.

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There appears to be a bit of a tussle going on between George Clooney and The Huffington Post, where his “I am a liberal” post (now removed from THP) was printed.

It’s George Clooney versus Arianna Huffington in a standoff worthy of “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

The newly minted Oscar winner says he did not write a blog posted Monday on commentator Huffington’s Web site, though he gave her permission to use a compilation of his critiques of the Iraq war from interviews with Larry King and London’s The Guardian.

“Miss Huffington’s blog is purposefully misleading and I have asked her to clarify the facts,” Clooney, 44, said in a statement issued Wednesday. “I stand by my statements but I did not write this blog.”

[…]

A rebuttal on [Huffington’s] Web site says she and her staff initially compiled a “sample blog” for Clooney from his interview answers because he wasn’t sure how a blog worked.

Huffington said that after she sent Clooney the sample, a film publicist e-mailed her and three days later approved it, without any changes.

“This was an honest misunderstanding,” she wrote. “But any misunderstanding that occurred, occurred between Clooney and the publicist. We based our decision to post on the unambiguous approval we received in writing.”

Clooney’s publicist Stan Rosenfield disagreed.

“It’s not a misunderstanding, it’s misrepresentation,” he said. “She knows what she was doing. She was saying to people that she had George Clooney’s blog and was printing it. George Clooney does not make statements. He answers questions.”

Arianna Huffington has since apologized and redefined some of THP’s editorial standards.

At the beginning of the week, I was so focused on making it crystal clear that we did indeed have permission to run the Clooney blog that I was blinded to another extremely important issue: that a blog, where the source of the material is not clear, diminishes the amazing work of bloggers who day in and day out put their hearts and souls into writing their blogs.

I can’t thank our commenters enough for, in different ways, driving this point home.

I now realize that I made a big mistake in posting a blog without clearly identifying that the material in it didn’t originate as a blog post but was pieced together from previous interviews.

Sounds like everything’s pretty much wrapped up by now.

To me, this is notable primarily for two things:

  1. The original post — whether or not it was penned by Clooney, said by Clooney, thought by Clooney, or created by painstakingly taping together shreds of paper from cut up and randomly shuffled cereal boxes and erotic novellas — which is still a worthy statement;

  2. Clooney’s publicist’s unfortunate and hilariously pretentious pronouncement that, “George Clooney does not make statements. He answers questions.” That gave me the best laugh I’ve had all morning.

iTunes “Chime (Hot Tracks)” by Orbital from the album Hot Tracks 15th Anniversary Collectors Edition (1997, 5:34).

Vice Versa

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Here’s a thing of beauty:

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify.

At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: “Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?”

Raskin replied: “Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.”

The room erupted into applause.

(via Pharyngula)

Clooney Comes Out

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…just not out of that closet. ;)

Rather, he’s just made the startling public admission that — believe it or not — he’s a liberal. And he’s not afraid to admit it.

I am a liberal. And I make no apologies for it. Hell, I’m proud of it.

Too many people run away from the label. They whisper it like you’d whisper “I’m a Nazi.” Like it’s a dirty word. But turn away from saying “I’m a liberal” and it’s like you’re turning away from saying that blacks should be allowed to sit in the front of the bus, that women should be able to vote and get paid the same as a man, that McCarthy was wrong, that Vietnam was a mistake. And that Saddam Hussein had no ties to al-Qaeda and had nothing to do with 9/11.

This is an incredibly polarized time (wonder how that happened?). But I find that, more and more, people are trying to find things we can agree on. And, for me, one of the things we absolutely need to agree on is the idea that we’re all allowed to question authority. We have to agree that it’s not unpatriotic to hold our leaders accountable and to speak out.

[…] Bottom line: it’s not merely our right to question our government, it’s our duty. Whatever the consequences. We can’t demand freedom of speech then turn around and say, But please don’t say bad things about us. You gotta be a grown up and take your hits.

(via Mike)

Update: Apparently there’s a bit of a tussle going on between Clooney and The Huffington Post, where the above-quoted passage was posted.

It’s George Clooney versus Arianna Huffington in a standoff worthy of “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

The newly minted Oscar winner says he did not write a blog posted Monday on commentator Huffington’s Web site, though he gave her permission to use a compilation of his critiques of the Iraq war from interviews with Larry King and London’s The Guardian.

“Miss Huffington’s blog is purposefully misleading and I have asked her to clarify the facts,” Clooney, 44, said in a statement issued Wednesday. “I stand by my statements but I did not write this blog.”

Vidal on Oscars and Politics

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One of these days I’m actually going to start reading more of Gore Vidal’s work, as each time I’ve run across him (beginning with his role as the Democratic incumbent facing down up and coming right-winger Bob Roberts in Tim Robbins’ excellent political satire), I’ve found him fascinating and incredibly intelligent.

There’s a two part interview with Vidal in TruthDig conducted just before the Oscars that has some wonderful quips in it. Part one looks primarily at the then-upcoming Oscars:

If [Brokeback Mountain] were to win an Oscar, would it be a step forward in tolerance? How important is Hollywood in this equation?

Well, it never has been, and I don’t see why it should be suddenly now. That it was made at all and that it was made so honestly and so well is a good thing, better than to make a mess out of it, or not try at all….

Look, homophobia is fed into every child in the United States at birth. It is unrelenting, it never lets up. They asked a whole raft of high school boys across the country a couple years ago, one of those polls about what they would most like to be in life, and what … they would hate to be, and so forth, and what they would most hate to be was homosexual.

There wasn’t anyone, not one, who just skipped the question. They all said “oh no, that’s the worst thing you could be.”

To get over that training, that’s generation after generation. And it has not done the character of our nation much good. And that’s why we are a joke to the rest of the world, because we carry on about sexual matters everyone else has forgotten about.

Part two concentrates on more political matters:

This is old news now, but in terms of terrorism, there was a lot of protest against the Palestinian Oscar nominee, “Paradise Now,” with a 36,000-person petition to get the film dropped from the roster because it sympathized with “terrorists.”

Never forget there are 1 billion Muslims on Earth. The United States is far too small a country to play big boss – and now far too insolvent a country; we have no revenues, we can’t repair our own infrastructure, much less rebuild the cities that we’ve just knocked down in the Middle East. I think we should learn a little modesty, we’re not number one! At invoking terrorism, yes, we’re pretty good at provoking people to hate us. In fact we’ve been quite successful at that. But we live in a small country, a vulnerable country, a country with no defenses, only “homeland security.” But there’s no true security here – anyone can do anything he wants and will!

Right, so now we have these proposals to build a wall on the Texas/Mexico border, to fill in the tunnels….

Oh it’s just Looney Time, but you see, we have no educational system for the general public. If you come from a well-to-do family, you get a fairly good education, but you get a lot of propaganda along with it. And we have a media that is quite poisonous and only echoes what the administration—and corporate America, which owns the administration—wants us to hear. So the average person has no information, or what he has is so distorted. How can he make up his mind intelligently on any subject?

(via Slog)

iTunes “Metal on Metal” by Kraftwerk from the album Industrial Revolution, 2nd Edition (1977, 3:18).

International Women’s Day 2006

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Today is International Women’s Day.

International Women’s Day is the universal day that connects all women around the world and inspires them to achieve their full potential. IWD 2006 launches another year of working progressively for women’s equality worldwide. It is an important day around the world because the collective power of women is witnessed by milions, and the brave achievements of women past, present and future are respectfully honoured.

Hooray for women!

Er. Maybe that’s not quite the right way to put that. ;)

(via MeFi)

iTunes “My Reign Falls” by Monster and Mother Earth, The from the album Unhooked: The Humpy’s Alehouse Anthology (1995, 3:21).

Name Five…

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Prairie bounced into the room this morning as I was scanning headlines while I woke up. “Quick — name all the members of the Simpsons,” she said.

“Um…Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie.”

“Now — what are the five rights given by the first amendment?”

“…um. Oh. Heh…that’s not good. Let’s see,” I fumbled. “Freedom of speech, religion, freedom to assemble….”

She grinned. “That’s three.”

Kind of a sad commentary, isn’t it? At least I’m not alone.

Americans apparently know more about “The Simpsons” than they do about the First Amendment.

Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half can name at least two members of the cartoon family, according to a survey.

The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just one in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.

For the record, here’s the First Amendment to the Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

iTunes “What the Hell” by Radioactive Goldfish from the album Rhythm and Rave (1992, 3:16).