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

Sometimes birthdays come early

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Last week sometime, Prairie surprised me by mentioning what she’d been thinking about for my birthday present this year. Really surprised me, too — it was far and beyond anything I’d expected her to do.

When we went online and checked prices, we found that there was a 20% off sale going on right then…and that it would be over in just a couple days. Since waiting and paying more money didn’t make sense, Prairie went ahead and ordered the present for me.

It came in today.

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).

More Reunions

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One of the more popular way to combat comment spam these days is to have your weblog software automatically turn comments off for posts more than a few days old. I’ve played with this ability in the past, but there’s one big reason why I’ve never stuck with it for very long: the comments that pop up on old posts can lead to some fun coincidences.

Late last year, I mentioned one such situation, where a bunch of people from Anchorage’s old punk community started stumbling across an old post of mine, started chatting in the comments, and ended up setting up their own website to keep in contact.

Over the past few months, I’ve been watching a very similar situation develop. Back in 2003 I posted about the annual “Goth Day/Bats Day” at Disneyland, when as many goths as possible spend a day flitting about the Magic Kingdom. A year later, a chance comment on that post mentioned a UK Disney Channel show called “Bus Life” that ran in 2004.

Apparently, that was enough for Google to push that post to the top of the rankings for people searching for “disney bus life” or “daniel bickerdike“, one of the actors on the show. Since then, that post has become a meeting point for both fans of the show and cast members, giving them a chance to reconnect after having all gone on to other projects for the last couple years.

I love watching stuff like this go on — and I’m very willing to put up with the occasional bout of comment spam in return for being able to watch old friends reconnect thanks to Google and some random piece of babble on my site.

iTunes “Prelude” by Mauve Sideshow from the album Meet Me in the Wasteland (1993, 2:20).

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)

Garth Brooks is a Gateway Drug

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Neither Prairie nor I are big fans of country, but we both listen to a little bit. Last night I’d popped on a compilation I made a few years ago as background music while I was cleaning house, and still had it going when Prairie came home. It turned out that she knew every song on the CD as well, and we had fun listening to some of the songs and chatting about what got us started listening to country.

In my case, while dad had some small part in it (he’s not a big country listener either, but his LP collection is responsible for introducing me to Johnny Cash when I was a youngster), it can all be blamed attributed to some of my ex-girlfriends. They listened to some, I happened to be around, and I ended up discovering that there actually was some country music that I enjoyed listening to.

Prairie can also blame credit an ex for the songs that she found that she likes. In each case, though, one of the primary artists we found was Garth Brooks. I mentioned that I’d often noticed when talking to people that, if they had even a little bit of country in their collection, there was a pretty good chance that Garth would be in there somewhere, if not the sole representative.

Which led to the realization that Garth Brooks is a gateway drug.

So now you know, kids.

Don’t do Garth.

Herewith, then, is a selection of country music approved by me (and, in most cases, by Prairie, also). It’s pretty much entirely the fun, upbeat style of country…I just can’t get into the ballads.

  1. Toby Keith, How Do You Like Me Now?
  2. Jodee Messina, I’m Alright
  3. Garth Brooks, Two Piña Coladas
  4. Mary Chapin Carpenter, Down at the Twist and Shout
  5. Clay Walker, Then What?
  6. Dolly Parton, Why’d You Come In Here Lookin’ Like That?
  7. Clint Black, Only On Days That End In ‘Y’
  8. Reba McEntire, Fancy
  9. Joe Diffe, Third Rock From the Sun
  10. Shania Twain, Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You)
  11. Tim McGraw, Something Like That
  12. Lee Ann Womack, I’ll Think of a Reason Later
  13. John Michael Montgomery, Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident)
  14. Trisha Yearwood, She’s In Love With the Boy
  15. Brad Paisley, Me Neither
  16. Collin Raye, Little Red Rodeo
  17. Reba McEntire, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia
  18. Rick Trevino, Bobby Ann Mason
  19. John Michael Montgomery, Life’s a Dance
  20. Trick Pony, Pour Me
  21. Rodney Crowell with Johnny Cash, I Walk the Line (Revisited)
  22. Dixie Chicks, Goodbye Earl

iTunes “I Walk the Line Revisited” by Crowell, Rodney with Cash, Johnny (2:43).

Freeline Skates: Because There Aren’t Enough Ways to Kill Yourself Already

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Actually, these things are seriously cool. I don’t think you’ll ever catch me actually trying them (I’ve yet to set foot on a skateboard, and I haven’t tried any form of skates — traditional roller, inline, or ice — in years), but they’re still neat. Two skateboard wheels attached to the underside of a small (looks to be about 3″ by 4″) board just big enough for your foot. One set for each foot. Skate.

(via MeFi)

to grok, have grokked, am grokking

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Of the many contributions Robert Heinlein made to the world, I think the word ‘grok‘ is my personal favorite.

Grok (pronounced grock) is a verb roughly meaning “to understand completely” or more formally “to achieve complete intuitive understanding”. It was coined by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land, where it is part of the fictional Martian language and introduced to English speakers by a man raised by Martians.

It should be made clear that there is no exact definition for grok; it is a fictional word intended not to be “understood completely”.

In the Martian tongue, it literally means “to drink” but is used in a much wider context. A character in the novel (not the primary user) defines it:

“Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.”

I’m working my way through the last few chapters of my MAT097 (Elementary Algebra) assignments (factoring, rational expressions, working my way towards quadratic equations), and while it’s not quite as difficult as it was back in high school, and as long as I follow the patterns, plug all the numbers and letters in the right places, and don’t make any stupid mistakes swapping positive and negative signs around, then I end up getting the right answers more often than not.

But I sure don’t grok it. Don’t think I ever will, either.

Still…as long as I’m getting the right answers the majority of the time, then I’m doing okay. Not great…but okay. And that’s fine with me.

iTunes “Groove Radio pres. House (full mix)” by Various Artists from the album Groove Radio pres. House (full mix) (1997, 1:13:46).

Happy π Day!

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It’s π day (3/14). Whee!

Randomness:

  • I’m in the last week of the quarter, touching up my last paper for English (no final, yay!) and cramming through the last few sections of Math in order to be ready for the final on Tuesday. Hence, why things have been relatively quiet lately. There has been action in the ‘eclinkticism’ sidebar (also known as my del.icio.us account, but a definite dearth of actual content. So it goes.

  • I’ve sent off my one birthday wish to my parents, and they’ve said they’ll consider it. Yay! This, of course, now has me wishing that my birthday was just a little bit earlier in the summer. Heh. In any case, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’m not, however, posting just what the birthday wish was, as I don’t want to jinx anything.

    • Said birthday, by the way, is May 3rd, at which point I’ll be turning 33. The same age Jesus was when he died, according to tradition. Should anyone want to get me anything (including, but not limited to, friendly e-mails wishing me well, cards, books, music, money, a 30″ Apple Cinema Display…y’know, little things…), I won’t complain.
  • Thanks to a random Google search, my first girlfriend dropped me a note to say hi and get back in touch. Pretty mindblowing, but it’s been a lot of fun catching up with her.

  • As we move into spring (finally!), I’m looking forward to getting out of the house a bit more over the spring/summer festival season and finding some more good photo opportunities. Events that I’m hoping to show up at over the coming months (pending days off from work, financing, and other random things that might get in the way), some of which Prairie is looking forward to accompanying me to, others of which she’ll smile indulgently, roll her eyes, and pat me on the butt as I walk out the door:

    1. Sakura Con 2006 (Saturday 3/25): Seattle’s anime convention. While I’m not huge into anime (I’ve enjoyed a lot of what I’ve seen, but I’m no big fan), I’m planning on heading down to wander around on Saturday, when they’re having their costume/cosplay contest. Should be lots of fun costumes wandering around.

    2. Emerald City Comicon (Saturday 4/1): Seattle’s comic book convention. Again, I’m not a huge comic fan (my collection consists of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, Alan Moore’s Watchmen and V for Vendetta, the Clerks comics, and issues 1-10 of The Tick). However, I did have fun taking photos when I stopped by last year’s ComiCon, and hope to do the same this year. Again, I’m aiming for Saturday, to take advantage of the day’s costume contest.

    3. Norwescon 29 (Friday 4/12 – Sunday 4/14): I’ve been hearing about Norwescon since I came down to Seattle, as many of the regulars at the_vogue are also big into sci-fi, fantasy, role playing, and all the other various forms of entertainment that can be found at a fantasy convention. This year, I have a few friends that have been planning on going, so I figured it could be fun to take the weekend and actually go to this thing to see what I thought. Should be interesting….

    4. Folklife (Saturday 5/27): This will be my third jaunt to Folklife. I’ve got a small set of photos from 2004 and a larger set from 2005, we’ll see how many I come home with this year. Planning on Saturday as a definite day, other days may happen depending on scheduling (there are other people at work who also want to hit Folklife, we’ll just have to see how the weekend works out).

    5. Seattle Pride Parade (Sunday 6/25): Unfortunately, this one’s questionable right now, as that’s inventory weekend at work and the schedule is marked “NO OFFS” for this day. I’ve mentioned (ahem…whined…) about this to my manager, but I’m not sure yet if I’ll be able to make it or not. A shame, as I’ve been there in 2001, 2003, 2004, and 2005.

    6. Bumbershoot (Saturday 8/2 – Monday 8/4): A possibility, but questionable at this point. Prairie and I skipped last years, and may end up skipping this year also. If it weren’t enough that ticket prices keep getting higher and they’ve dropped Friday from the festival schedule, we’re looking into the possibility of taking a 2-week trip down to California in September, so timing and finances may not allow adding Bumbershoot to the mix. Until that’s confirmed, though, it’s still a tentative on my list.

And…I think that pretty much covers everything for now.

Oh, one last thing. Battlestar Galactica just wrapped up their second season. Oh. Wow. So good. If you’re watching the show, you know what I’m talking about. If you’re not watching it…well, you should be. Grab Season One from Amazon or Netflix, and Season Two from iTunes, sit your butt down, and watch the best sci-fi to grace the small screen in years.

Okay. Now I’m done.