Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:25 PM

[O]f the $100 million so far dispensed to faith-based charities by the Bush administration, not one dollar has gone to a Jewish or Muslim organization.

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:56 PM

HaikuJaguar has been conducting Balance Card readings today (until 4pm EST!), so I decided to request a reflection for the coming weeks:

You have good messages to consider then, for your two cards for the next two weeks are Peace and the eternal Wheel.

What these things mean to you, imagine them and cherish them. They are good symbols, symbols of the goodness of the Universe and its eternal faith. :)

Considering how agitated and pessimistic I feel after researching and writing my previous post (I know it was long, but there was so much more I could've said that I left out), that sounds rather reassuring.

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:25 PM

From the first day of this campaign I have talked about the goal of a responsibility era for America. And even before that, it was one of my priorities as governor. For too long our culture has sent this message: if it feels good, do it. And if you've got a problem, just go ahead and blame somebody else. Each of us must understand that's not right. Each of us must understand that we're responsible for the decisions and choices we make in life.

-- George W. Bush, October 2000     

You've probably heard by now about the 60 Minutes II story about mistreatment of Iraqi POWs. But notice this aspect:

According to the Army's own investigation, that's what was happening. The Army found that interrogators asked reservists working in the prison to prepare the Iraqi detainees, physically and mentally, for questioning.
What, if any actions, are being taken against the interrogators?<snip> [S]o far, none of the interrogators at Abu Ghraib are facing criminal charges. In fact, a number of them are civilians, and military law doesn't apply to them.

After I started writing this post, Atrios shared this excerpt from the Guardian:

A military report into the Abu Ghraib case - parts of which were made available to the Guardian - makes it clear that private contractors were supervising interrogations in the prison, which was notorious for torture and executions under Saddam Hussein.
One civilian contractor was accused of raping a young, male prisoner but has not been charged because military law has no jurisdiction over him.

And Amnesty International says this isn't an isolated incident.

So who is in charge? In a recent Slate article, Phil Carter investigated, and couldn't find a definitive answer:

[W]hile the Justice Department has jurisdiction to prosecute military contractors for actions overseas under a 2000 law, it may decline to do so as a result of limited resources and the fact that there is no U.S. attorney's office (yet) established in Iraq to govern U.S. civilian activities there.
The legal murkiness helps shield the contractors from effective discipline. The Coalition Provisional Authority has decreed that contractors and other foreign personnel will not be subject to Iraqi criminal processes. Yet, there's also no clear mandate for American jurisdiction.

Earlier this week, a lawyer for the Justice Department assured the Supreme Court that a U.S. president doesn't need restrictions against torture, because we would never do something like that...

New York Times:

JUSTICE GINSBURG: But if the law is what the executive says it is, whatever is necessary and appropriate in the executive's judgment, as the resolution you gave us that Congress passed, it leads you up to the executive, unchecked by the judiciary. So what is it that would be a check against torture?
CLEMENT: Well, first of all there are treaty obligations

CNN:

GINSBURG: Suppose the executive says mild torture we think will help get this information. It's not a soldier who does something against the Code of Military Justice, but it's an executive command. Some systems do that to get information.
CLEMENT: Well, our executive doesn't.
GINSBURG: What's constraining? That's the point. Is it just up to the good will of the executive? Is there any judicial check?
CLEMENT: This is a situation where there is jurisdiction in the habeas courts. So if necessary, they remain open.

Too late!

The case of Maher Arar didn't get much coverage in the United States, but he was a Canadian citizen whom American officials arrested and sent abroad to a Syrian prison, where he was tortured. [State Department reports have known for a long time that Syria makes widespread use of torture in detentions, and yet we handed him over anyway.] Now we seem to be outsourcing our torture to private contractors. In both cases, it keeps the government's hands superficially clean, but this is not the America I grew up believing in.

I just hope the Justices are following the news and realize that these are precisely the reasons why we need checks and balances on the executive branch.

Speaking of private military companies, members of the armed forces serving alongside these contractors have complained about being endangered by their conduct:

"[T]here are people running around with guns now who are just cowboys. We always conceal our weapons, but these guys think they're in a Hollywood film."

-- the British leader of one security team in southern Baghdad, Source

Locals often mistake the guards for special forces or CIA personnel, which makes active-duty military troops a bit edgy. "Those Blackwater guys," says an intelligence officer in Iraq, "they drive around wearing Oakley sunglasses and pointing their guns out of car windows. They have pointed their guns at me, and it pissed me off. Imagine what a guy in Fallujah thinks."

-- Source

And a Mother Jones article on PMCs noted:

     Because they operate with little oversight, using contractors also enables the military to skirt troop limits imposed by Congress and to carry out clandestine operations without committing U.S. troops or attracting public attention. "Private military corporations become a way to distance themselves and create what we used to call 'plausible deniability,'" says Daniel Nelson, a former professor of civil-military relations at the Defense Department's Marshall European Center for Security Studies. "It's disastrous for democracy."
<snip>
     When the companies do screw up, however, their status as private entities often shields them -- and the government -- from public scrutiny. <snip> Soldiers who disobey orders or violate standards of conduct can be court-martialed and incarcerated; their supervisors can be reassigned or forced to retire. Private companies, by contrast, are able to operate in almost complete secrecy, with little accountability to civilian or military authorities.

And the article provides examples from Yugoslavia, Africa and South America, so this isn't just speculation on what might happen in Iraq -- it's already happened.

Since 2000, I've heard on the fringes of American news media, stories about human rights abuses committed by our own government.

Do we want to live under an administration that tortures POWs? An administration that imprisons an American citizen for over two years without charging him with a crime or allowing him to see even an attorney? An administration that extradites an innocent man where he will be tortured? An administration that has committed a laundry-list of repeated violations of the Geneva Conventions?

Individual soldiers have been charged in some cases, but these atrocities couldn't happen to such an extent without sanction from above. So where is the leadership? Where are the leaders of our country? What happened to "the buck stops here" and being responsible for one's decisions and choices?

These actions are all being done in our names. If we allow them to continue with impunity, we will be held responsible.

Only one of the candidates^* running for president has taken a stand against war crimes committed by fellow Americans, even when it would have been easier and less controversial to remain quiet. The other continues to take actions that permit war crimes to take place, and blames underlings when they are revealed.

Our nation's leaders are responsible to confront problems, not pass them on to others. And to lead this nation to a responsibility era, a president himself must be responsible.

George W. Bush

Each of us must understand that we're responsible for the decisions and choices we make in life.

George W. Bush, October 2000

Knowing all this, which one of these men do you choose to represent us for the next four years?

[See also these posts by Rivka and Jeanne, which initially inspired my outrage last night.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:05 AM

Dick Cheney, as reported in this morning's Washington Post

"I end up spending a lot of time watching Fox News, because they're more accurate in my experience, in those events that I'm personally involved in, than many of the other outlets."

Last October, the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) released a report (PDF) demonstrating that those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions. Among those who primarily watched Fox, greater attention to news modestly increased the likelihood of misperceptions.

So, Cheney gets most of his news from Fox, which is more demonstrably inaccurate than other news sources.

And we already know that the President Bush insulates himself from news coverage and gets his information from briefings from staffers who follow the news themselves. Oy!

[Cheney comment via Suburban Guerrilla]

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:15 AM

Elissa Ely's columns in the Globe are usually so good; she's a psychiatrist and they manage to capture with sensitivity the humanity of people normally stigmatized by society. I suppose it's only logical that if she can show such understanding for the fringe elements, that she'd get mainstream folks completely wrong. Here's the opening of her latest column:

I think the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatry is all wrong. Traditional diagnoses are about pathology. What if instead they described strengths? What if they identified needs that could then be met?

For instance, a delicate soul who cannot tolerate stimulation might carry a diagnosis of "Should-Have-Been-a-Librarian."

No. That's just so utterly... no.

I suppose a note to letter@globe.com is in order for later today...

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:05 PM

You've probably already heard this, but just in case:

• Friday night on ABC, Ted Koppel's Nightline will air a special broadcast showing the names and faces of all American soldiers "killed by hostile fire" in the Iraq war.
• Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns 62 television stations, including 7 ABC affiliates has announced that it will not air the program because "reading aloud the names of U.S. servicemen and women killed in action in Iraq ... appears to be motivated by a political agenda" According to Sinclair's General Counsel, it is "contrary to the public interest."
• Further research has shown that the executives of Sinclair have donated heavily to Bush's campaigns and have close ties to the White House.

The public airwaves belong to the public and are supposed to be used to serve the public interest (that's why they're regulated by the FCC, and cable -- which hasn't the same kind of limited spectrum -- isn't). How could recognizing the sacrifice of our troops not be in the public interest?

Michael Powell claimed to be responding to public demand when he went after recent obscenity cases. So why not see just how responsive he can be by filing a complaint with the FCC over this kind of action. From the FCC website:

You can mail, fax, or e-mail a complaint about a radio or TV station to the FCC at the following address:

Federal Communications Commission Enforcement Bureau 445 12th St., SW Washington, D.C. 20554 Fax: (202)-418-2810 Telephone number: (202) 418-7450 E-mail address: complaints-enf@fcc.gov

You should generally include the following information in your complaint: (1) the call letters of the station; (2) the city and state where the station is located; (3) the name, time, and date of the specific program or advertisement in question, if applicable; (4) the name of anyone contacted at the station, if applicable; and (5) a statement of the problem, as specific as possible, together with an audio or video tape or transcript of the program or advertisement (if possible). Please include your name and address if you would like information on the final disposition of your complaint; however, you may request confidentiality. We prefer that you submit complaints in writing, although you may submit complaints that are time-sensitive by telephone, especially if they involve safety.

What kind of twisted person thinks it's a partisan attack to show flag-draped coffins being treated with respect or to honor the soldiers who gave their lives in Iraq by name? And who is it who really "supports the troops"? Let's pay attention to the real people serving out there and their needs, rather than mouthing pointless collective platitudes.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:15 PM

An interesting potential side-effect of the impending arrival of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts:

Several Massachusetts companies are announcing a discontinuation of domestic partner benefits. Companies who only offered the benefits to same-sex couples did so because those couples were unable to otherwise legally marry. Once same-sex couples have the same opportunity to marry as straights, holding them to the same standards to qualify would no longer be discriminatory.

Several companies are announcing that beginning next year, benefits will be restricted to married couples, even if unmarried same-sex partners previously qualified.

A bit tough -- particularly given (a) the attempts of some in the state to overturn same-sex marriage, and (b) the difficulty of planning a wedding in under seven months -- but it seems rather fair.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:58 PM

The attempts by Republicans to label the 9/11 Commission as biased are increasing. One member has had memos she's written selectively declassified to discredit her. Rhetoric against her has gotten so strong, she's actually received death threats.

Now, Michelle Malkin is going after Bob Kerrey for having the temerity to appear on The Daily Show and crack jokes. She thinks he ought to be kicked off the commission because of it, while simultaneously acknowledging that he won't be.

And then I realized just how diabolically clever this attempt to frame the commission is.

Republicans are trying to paint the commission as biased against the President. That way, if the report is unfavorable to the current administration, they can dismiss it as a partisan attack that can safely be ignored. And if the administration comes out well in the report, it's all the better because it's coming from a "biased" committee.

Furthermore, the natural defensive reaction against such attacks is to say that the committee isn't partisan. But that doesn't actually jibe with the membership and history of the panel, which has included some close ties to Bush and Rice that weren't disclosed until recently. If people respond to the claims of bias by arguing the commision isn't biased, we lose ground in case the commission does unfairly favor the Bush administration or slander Clinton.

Should that happen, and we try to protest the report, Republicans will hold our own words against us and say "you said the commission was unbiased!"

So, best to be very careful as we counter this spreading falsehood. The commission is not biased against Bush. That doesn't necessarily mean it's unbiased, but it doesn't appear to be biased against Bush.

Added later: Interesting to note that the President and Vice President's questioning was held in the Oval Office, with "the commission members [...] sitting on the couches and in chairs." Even the press corps asked "Why not in a place where all of them could sit at a table?" but I think they missed the significance of that seating arrangement.
The administration demanded there would be no official stenographer or recording made of this event. The only notes that would exist would be those made by the members of the panel. And, seated on a couch without a table further hinders notetaking ability. Looks like Tom Toles was more right than he knew.

Added even later: I know I should know better than to trust Drudge, but on his website right now it says, "Commissioners' notebooks were taken from them before they left the session, with the White House saying they would be returned to them after they were reviewed for classified information..." The more details they reveal about this session the worse it sounds. [Just found confirmation; that quote comes from the New York Times.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:45 PM

After the initial excitement over the Google results for "Jew", I came to believe that the "problem" wasn't the result of antisemitic googlebombing, but just happenstance.

After all, how often do Jews actually use the word "Jew" in the singular? We speak of "Jews" plural, but rarely do we use Jew. "I am Jewish" not "I am a Jew." Most of the time when I hear "Jew" used in the singular, it is by antisemites using it as an epithet. What's more, the site at the heart of the controversy had the word "Jew" in its very title, so I suspect many of the links that elevated it to #1 were just other sites pointing to it by name. Google on enough words, and eventually you'll find one with an odious connotation topping the list.

I believe somebody actually went and checked Google that first day and found only about 35 links to the site. That's hardly impressive for a Googlebombing, and looks more like chance. [In contrast, Google currently lists 1,520 links to Wikipedia's entry on Jew, which was the subject of the countermeme.]

The reason I'm rehashing all this old news? Because now the antisemites are getting involved. They're planning their own Googlebombing to return Jew Watch to the top of the list. Somehow, I doubt they'll succeed, but it's happening nonetheless.

And frankly, I don't have much energy to care. The original outcry felt like a tempest in a teapot precipitated by somebody with little technical understanding who believes that the first Google result is the be all end all of searching. But I thought folks who participated in the first round might want to know.

[Credit to Seth Finkelstein for the heads up.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:20 PM

I suppose I've known it for a while, but it took shadowflyer to put it into words:

Shadowflyer created the artwork and is selling merchandise with the slogan on Café Press.She's "not keeping a dime of this - every commission check will be signed over to the fight to re-defeat George Bush and end his campaign of discrimination."

Claudia has created a LiveJournal-sized icon as a way of showing support:

Ashcroft would so not approve...

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:45 PM

For those not using LJ, how many posts or days worth of posts do you publish on your blog's main page? And why did you choose that number? Just wondering...

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:20 AM

I just found this in Penknife's journal. Only eight articles on it in Google News, and not much more in Daypop. I'll just quote her words verbatim, since she's done more reading on it than I have:

It takes a lot to appall me, lately, but this one's appalling.

Edited to clarify a few things; also, I'll keep you posted on how this shakes out over the next several days. The law's only a few days old.


Virginia just passed the "Marriage Affirmation Act." Not only does it ban gay marriage or civil union, and ban recognizing gay marriages or civil unions performed in other states, but it bans any "partnership contract or other arrangements that purport to provide the benefits of marriage."

What benefits are those? Well, the bill's pretty clear about that. ETA: Reading through it again, it's not actually out on the table in plain English. But this particular language probably means the following, according to the lawyers looking at the bill:

Powers of attorney. Custody arrangements. Health insurance coverage for same-sex domestic partners. Joint ownership of property. And--most sickeningly--wills leaving property to a same-sex partner.

It means that starting July 1, when this bill goes into effect, anyone who dies with a will that leaves their property to their same-sex partner can be treated as if they died without a will. Their property goes to their blood relatives. Don't have any? Sorry, your property's forfeit to the state of Virginia.

ETA: Not that the last is necessarily likely--it would probably be legal under this law, but the state's lawyers may not be quite that ready to start a legal battle. Wills being invalidated in favor of blood relatives is very, very likely.

The last time we had laws about who you could leave property to in a will, those laws were to forbid people from leaving property to slaves. That's not a part of our history I'd particularly like to revisit.

Anyone living in Virginia with a child they've adopted in a second-parent adoption? Sorry, you're a legal stranger to your kid in Virginia. If your partner dies, your kid goes to your partner's relatives or becomes a ward of the state. Have a custody order from another state? Thrown out. Have an order to pay child support to your ex's biological child? Probably thrown out too.

Anyone have a power of attorney for your elderly or disabled partner? Sorry, those decisions have to be made by a "real" relative. Or a court-appointed guardian, if you don't have one. Get in a wreck on the Virginia side of the state line, with a health-care power of attorney from another state authorizing your partner to make medical decisions for you? It's probably a worthless piece of paper, and, personally, that scares me to death. We live in Maryland. All our relatives live south of here. It's not like we can avoid driving through Virginia. We could fly, but the airport's in Virginia.

ETA: Whether to honor wills, custody orders, or powers of attorney is going to be up to individual judges. Some of them, in more liberal areas, are likely to say that these don't constitute "benefits of marriage." Many of them, in the majority of Virginia, are likely to say that they do, and throw them out. It's a big, scary question mark. And it leaves people who've made these legal documents to protect their families with no better answer to "Are they still valid?" than "There's a chance that they will be, if you get a good judge."

artaxastra's been getting calls all week from people who are going to have to leave the state. There's the couple who just moved into their new house in Virginia two months ago, the house that come July can't legally be in both their names. There's the national credit card company that may have to move its headquarters if it wants to continue to issue joint credit cards to same-sex couples. There's the professor leaving his tenured position at a university because if he stays his partner won't get his pension.

And there's the one that made her nearly cry at the dinner table telling me about it, the old lady in southern Virginia who lives with her partner. She's sixty-five, disabled, and blind. If her partner can't have her power of attorney anymore, she doesn't know how she'll get her bills paid or her banking done or her prescriptions filled at the drugstore. She asked artaxastra what to do, and the best she could say was, "Move across the state line into North Carolina."

This is just. Plain. Wrong.

And why are they doing this? Well, one legislator was kind enough to provide an explanation: to drive homosexuals in the state of Virginia into a legal limbo, so that they'll either have to become heterosexual or leave, and to break the power of homosexuals in state business and politics.

Right.

Details on the bill are here. It's a done deal, ratified over the governor's intent to veto, but Equality Virginia, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU are planning to legally challenge at least the part of the bill that prohibits private contracts and wills. I hope they win. I really do.

Sometimes, like tonight, I'm just really worried for my country. And really angry at people who can do this kind of thing and then face themselves in the mirror every day.

ETA: Wow. Lots more interest in this than I expected. I want to point out for those of you who are not my usual audience that I'm not a lawyer, and can't really debate the legal interpretation of the bill's language in an informed way. This is what the attorneys who work for Equality Virginia, Lambda Legal, and HRC are afraid the law will be used to do. I understand the reasons why they believe that only slightly better than I understand the explanations behind, say, particle physics. But this is what I hear from people in a position to know.


ETA2: If you live in Virginia, please take a few minutes to stop by Equality Virginia's online action center here:

http://www.equalityvirginia.org/action/index.html

and email your representatives. It's easy to do, and it really does make a difference.

If you're an LGBT person living in Virginia, Lambda Legal's Help Desk can answer the question of what this law means to you personally a lot better than I can. They can also help you find a lawyer in your area if you need one.

Lots more info in Penknife's post, including over 150 comments, which may add further information.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:05 AM

If you have any interest in the latest scientific knowledge regarding female sexuality, whether you're a medical professional or just a curious layperson, BUMC's Institute for Sexual Medicine will be offering another free seminar on May 23rd in Newton.

Boston University Medical Center is one of the nation's leading facilities for research and treatment of sexual medicine. Every time I've heard Dr. Goldstein speak, I've come away enlightened. These are exciting times, as the field is rapidly advancing and changing.

I attended the last seminar (their first), and it was so fascinating, I could barely take notes. What comments I did record are in this Survey for the readership, Let's talk about sex, and A bitter pill to swallow. I'm not sure whether I'll attend this one, since I did get so much out of the last, but I strongly recommend hearing what they have to say, if at all possible.

The registration deadline is May 16; it is free, but they'd like some estimate of how many people to expect.

To register and for more information, go to http://www.bumc.bu.edu/sexualmedicine/fsdprogram

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:35 AM

The following meme is going around:

1. Go into your journal's archives.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

Unfortunately, my 23rd post only contained one sentence, and besides the domain is dead.

So here are the fifth sentences of my 22nd and 24th posts:

• I'm somewhat tempted by Elf Princess and Still the Prettiest, but I probably won't buy either, since I rarely buy t-shirts.
• The courses I plan on taking are:

Not terribly amusing, I'm afraid.

Posted by Lis Riba at 3:35 PM

From today's Onion:

Bush To Iraqi Militants: 'Please Stop Bringing It On'
WASHINGTON, DC—In an internationally televised statement Monday, President Bush modified a July 2003 challenge to Iraqi militants attacking U.S. forces. "Terrorists, Saddam loyalists, and anti-American insurgents: Please stop bringing it on now," Bush said at a Monday press conference. "Nine months and 500 U.S. casualties ago, I may have invited y'all to bring it on, but as of today, I formally rescind that statement. I would officially like for you to step back." The president added that the "it" Iraqis should stop bringing includes gunfire, bombings, grenade attacks, and suicide missions of all types.

By the way, Jon Stewart's take on abortion and Karen Hughes was also quite funny.

And, as long as I'm sharing humorous tidbits, how about this unfortunate name I encountered in The Speckled monster: The Honorable Clotworth Skeffington. I know it's wrong to mock people's names, but since he died sometime in the 18th century and it looks like the given name Clotworth has gone out of popular usage, I think I can be excused this time...

Posted by Lis Riba at 3:15 PM

D'oh! I forgot to include the story I most wanted to mention in my big roundup post from earlier today:

Blog-Tracking May Gain Ground Among U.S. Intelligence Officials

   U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what's reported in some blogs is questionable.
    Still, a panel of folks who work in the U.S. intelligence field - some of them spies or former spies - discussed this month at a conference in Washington the idea of tracking blogs.
    "News and intelligence is about listening with a critical ear, and blogs are just another conversation to listen to and evaluate. They also are closer to (some situations) and may serve as early alerts," said Jock Gill, a former adviser on Internet media to President Clinton, in a later phone interview, after he spoke on the panel.
    Some panel and conference participants, because of their profession, could not be identified. But another who could is Robert Steele, another blog booster. The former U.S. intelligence officer said "absolutely" that blogs are valid sources of intelligence and news, though he said authenticating the information in blogs "leaves a lot to be desired."
<snip>
   The CIA and FBI haven't publicly commented about use of blogs in their work, but many D.C. observers believe both agencies monitor certain blogs.

Well, a big hello to all intelligence lifeforms everywhere. And to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys!

Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:42 PM

As just seen on Demagogue:

Jon Corzine and Ted Kennedy want employers who willfully neglect federal safety rules and, in doing so, kill an employee to be held criminally accountable

A man whose son was killed 11 years ago in a gruesome workplace accident urged Congress on Tuesday to give prosecutors the threat of felony convictions against employers whose neglect for federal safety rules causes a death.

Ron Hayes, a Fairhope, Ala., resident who in December ended his two-year term on the advisory panel overseeing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was in Washington to lobby for a proposal by Sens. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

The Wrongful Death Accountability Act would increase the current $10,000 fine and/or 6 months in prison to a $250,000 fine and/or 10 years in prison for a first offense.

Companies keep pushing the notion of corporate personhood -- well, if they want the rights, then they should be subject to the same penalties as well.

Naturally, the Bush administration opposes this measure.

If you're at all interested in the subject, Confined Space is a weblog devoted to workplace safety issues. It's a very depressing read.

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:45 PM

As I mentioned yesterday, Ben and Jerry tied their Free Scoop Day with a voter registration drive. All the clerks behind the counter wore shirts which said "ETOV: Turn it around," and volunteers were asking people in line whether they were registered and had forms ready.

But what most fascinated me was a little flyer on the counter from Ben & Jerry's and Rock the Vote. If you have Flash, you can see a portion of it by going to this page, and clicking the link for "Get the facts. Every vote counts!" It listed a set of five "National voting rights" which, frankly, I had never heard before. They include:

2. [You have the right to] Cast a provisional ballot if you registered to vote and your name is not on the list at the polling place. If they made a mistake, they will verify it and your vote will count.
3. [You have the right to] Cast a ballot if you are in line at the polling place before the polls close.
4. [You have the right to] Ask questions about election procedures.

These put me in mind of recent election debacles. All the voters who were wrongly scrubbed from the Florida rolls in 2000? Why weren't they given the chance to cast provisional ballots? In 2002, voting machine problems delayed the opening of polls for hours as voters waited in line. While hours were extended, people working odd shifts may not have been able to come back. But if they had been in line before the polls closed, they should've been able to cast a ballot somehow...

Clearly, voters need to be informed of their rights, so they can stand up for themselves when future infringements occur.

Before the Supreme Court issued the Miranda decision, I remember reading about lawyers handing out wallet cards that spelled out people's rights in case they were stopped by the police. Maybe we need to do something similar here.

Create nonpartisan flyers spelling out voting rights. Display them outside the polling places. Hand them out to voters on their way in. Could prevent a heck of a lot of problems. What do you think?

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:15 PM

A few recent stories have been making the rounds of the blogosphere. You may have read some of these already, but since I was chatting with someone who hadn't heard them all, I thought I should share:

I didn't go to the March on Washington last weekend, but I do have fond memories of attending the two in April and November 1989. [Okay, the speakers at the second one bored me enough that I slipped away to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum for part of the afternoon, but I was there in spirit and as part of the headcount!]

At any rate, Bush administration advisor Karen Hughes over the weekend explicitly equated pro-choice opinions with terrorism, saying "the fundamental difference between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life." (Oh, really, Karen? And how many people were executed in Texas during Bush's tenure???) In other words, those of us who aren't anti-abortion are not part of the American people (the antecedent to her "us").

But we're in good company. It was only a few months ago that Education Secretary Rod Paige called teachers a "terrorist organization." So we're in good company.

But what's really stupid and ironic about this analogy is that there has been domestic terrorism in the abortion debate -- but it's all been aimed against the pro-choice side! Rivka elaborates:

Let's look at the FBI's definition of terrorism:

"The unlawful use of force against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in the furtherance of political or social objectives". This definition includes three elements: (1) Terrorist activities are illegal and involve the use of force. (2) The actions are intended to intimidate or coerce. (3) The actions are committed in support of political or social objectives.

Now let's look at the examples of Chuck Spingola, Clayton Waagner, Paul Hill, James Kopp, and Eric Rudolph, all of whom have killed abortion providers or made terroristic threats against clinics. They - among many others - attempted to end women's access to legal abortions through violence, threats, and intimidation, and they were funded, supported, and defended by anti-abortion organizations. Now let's look at the other side, at a list of pro-choice activists who have used violence and illegal acts to intimidate or coerce the general public into supporting their positions: _____________

Speaking of domestic terrorism, Dave Neiwert at Orcinus has spent a lot of time researching domestic terrorism and links between right-wing rhetoric and violence. And he shares a disturbing bit of news that I haven't seen in the Boston papers. A man named Michael J. Breit was arrested last week:

Federal agents say they recovered seven guns, more than 1,300 rounds of ammunition, pipe bomb making components and other explosives, a list of government officials and political and public figures with the word "marked" written next to them, and a written plan for 15 heavily armed men to kill 1,500 people at a Democratic presidential meeting.

He was only caught because one of his guns accidentally discharged and somebody heard the gunfire and called the police.

As inconvenient as it may be, I'm somehow finding the heightened security plans for the Democratic National Convention in Boston to be a tad more reassuring, if this is what's really out there...

All around the blogosphere and news, I'm finding more evidence that Republicans are trying to spin the 9/11 commission as biased against Bush. Lambert (of Corrente) points out yet another way the administration is trying to increase partisan disputes over the findings:

Look at this little detail:

The White House had requested that no stenographer be present during the closed-door session. ... [T]here will not be an official record.
(via AP)

So, if the WhiteWash House wants to avoid partisanship, why on earth would they avoid having a neutral observer create the record?

Finally, Nathan Newman notes an important distinction in this administration's priorities:

The Bush administration went to China to negotiate a deal on technology access, yet they didn't say a word about China's crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong, and the labor gulags around the country.
And we are supposed to take them seriously when they say we are in Iraq because of their deep commitment to democracy?

More later...

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:35 AM

With the deadline for the Massachusetts same-sex marriages rapidly approaching, I'm seeing more articles about how the forms are being redesigned and ways this will affect town clerks and justices of the peace. And I'm wondering...

Are any visuals available online for the new marriage forms the state is creating in the wake of the SJC decision?

Because, besides the need to change "bride" & "groom" to nongendered terms, there are some other improvements that need to be made.

When we got married in 1999, we had a problem because the form asked for each of our father's name and our mother's maiden name. That assumes that the wife's name will either be her birth name or husband's name -- with no room for remarriage or other name changes. [Ian's mother's current name is *not* her maiden name, nor does it bear any relation to it or Ian's father's last name.] There need to be separate and equal spaces given in the form for both parents' full names.

I can't remember for certain, but I also think the form as we filled it out five years ago didn't have an option in case Ian decided to change his name upon marriage -- only room for the bride's new last name. There needs to be options for one, both, or neither partner to change their names upon marriage.

I hope somebody is thinking along these lines as they're redesigning the forms... And I really wish we could see the forms under development to make such suggestions.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:59 AM

because he doesn't have commenting to his blog. He asks Why does the right wing hate America so much?, pointing out Newt Gingrich's new book is "an alternate history in which the Confederates win the Battle of Gettysburg" and notes "[j]ust imagine the firestorm if a still-active Democratic politician had written a novel with Santa Ana as its hero."

I just wish to point out that one of Gingrich's earlier novels was an alternate history in which the Nazis won World War 2. I don't know if that makes matters better or worse.

Must dash off to a meeting now, but had to share that. [via BT!]

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:30 PM

Amazingly enough, for all the reading I do from library books, this is the first time I've really had this problem, but the previous borrower of this current book must've been a heavy smoker. <kaff> The book reeks of cigarette smoke. Just flipping through the pages for the plates in the center nearly knocked me out. I can read it, though not as closely as I might otherwise get, and I can still smell the tobacco faintly. I hope whoever it was enjoyed the book (I suspect so, since it seems to have permeated all the pages quite thoroughly, rather than the odor being restricted to the edges). The library network has five other copies circulating (aside from those currently checked out or not processed yet), and were it not for the needless cost to the financially strapped libraries, I'm sorely tempted to put another copy on hold so I can return this one without interruption to my reading.

Also, I'm rather disgruntled at how the author/publisher of a historical nonfiction book can get away without any index at all -- not even a name index. So far (about two chapters in), I'm enjoying it well enough, and there are plenty of notes and factual details in the back, but in the first chapter, I noticed a name familiar from other contexts and wanted to see whether the author made any other references to him... No way to tell without reading the whole thing, I guess. But I'm quite disappointed.

Oh, the book in question (in case anybody's curious)? The Speckled monster: a historical tale of battling smallpox

Added later: I have just put another copy of the book on hold in the library network. Ian started feeling ill just sitting in bed near me as I was reading. And it is an entertaining book, one I think he'd enjoy after I finish. So, hopefully I'll have a different copy before Friday, and with luck the library will be able to deodorize this book and get it back into circulation soon.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:25 PM

Free ice cream isn't quite such a bargain when one gets a parking ticket along the way... However it still tastes as sweet.

Ian and I were talking about fanfiction last night, and I was relating this LJ discussion on how much author's permission matters to fanfic writers (specifically discussing Anne Rice's actions and speculating about how they handle things in their own fandoms).

The conversation turned to which books inspired fanfic (as opposed to movies or television or comics). On Fanfiction.net (which is by no means authoritative, but provides a decent overview), the #1 book source of fanfic is Harry Potter with 125,979 stories. #2 is Lord of the Rings (with one-quarter the number of fics of Harry Potter), but as far as I recall, most of that sprung up after the first film. The #3 listing are the works of Tamora Pierce, which do not have any media tie-ins, and that has barely one-eighth the number of of LOTR, and 1/30th of Harry Potter. And the numbers go down from there. [FWIW, I do not believe Harry Potter fanfic derived its predominance from the movies, but instead owes its strength to the three year gap between books four and five.]

I also feel I need to apologize to Tamora Pierce for ever thinking her early characters were Mary Sue-ish, after seeing this fanfic summary:

Kel is not the only one to work to become a page. Who is this strange girl with the Gift and wild magic?

Page, mage and wild magic!? <amused smile> I won't provide a link to the story, because I don't wish to shame the author. I'm sure she's a young fan with the best of intentions, and this is a good exercise in learning how to write better. [In fact, that's precisely what Tammy Pierce has to say on the subject: "On fanfics in general, I think they're one way to develop your skills as a writer."]

Back to my original statement, I know of some authors who oppose fanfic (at least of their own works) because their characters are their children, and they don't want others mishandling them. I wonder how such authors feel about their settings and invented worlds. Is there the same bond, or is it less personal since it's not referring to... well... people? Would a story in your authorverse that involves none of your characters give the same feeling of violation if the writer gets details wrong? Maybe the story is set in another time or place, or in the same time & place but in a different social circle. How do the feelings of ownership (I'm not talking copyright and legalities here, but emotions) towards invented races and geography compare to those towards characters?

Any authors of original fiction care to share their feelings towards fanfic of their own works?

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:25 PM

Dan Drezner writes about outsourcing and distance education.

Last year, in my Social Informatics class, the professor raised the point that every improvement in communications technology this century -- radio, television, computers, and now the internet -- was heralded as a breakthrough for distance education. But it was always trumpeted as a way for those folks, the "disadvantaged" children, to benefit.

But the real question is, would you take such a course? Would you be okay if that was your child's education?

If you wouldn't want it for yourself, then why on earth would you think anybody else would settle? And there's a lot more to schooling than just taking classes -- the entire social aspect, for example.

And so far, people haven't been willing to pay as much for distance education, even though the initial setup costs are much higher. It's one thing to take a class or two this way, which this article may be reflecting, but how many people are really doing their entire academic career this way? Or is it just a few classes here and there before transferring to a local school?

As I said, these kinds of changes were promised with each new technology, and have mostly failed to fundamentally transform education each time. So count me as pessimistic that human nature will have changed that much.

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:20 PM

As mentioned yesterday, today is Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day. I was just checking the store locator and discovered that B&J is also offering voter registration stations at most scoop shops for the day! So if you're not already registered to vote, you can do so while waiting in line for free ice cream! How could it be sweeter?

Baskin Robbins' Free Scoop Night (tomorrow) tomorrow also has a charitable twist, affiliated with First Book.

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:02 PM

Anybody else using SiteMeter having problems right now?

Earlier today, I upgraded to a paid SiteMeter account, since my server logfiles for ribrarambles.org are still periodically blanking out. [Description here, advice gratefully accepted!] So, I wanted to use their sitelogs until mine were stable.

For a brief moment after upgrading, I had access to the locked features, but now:

• All the features that should be available for my paid account are now locked again
• It's not retaining my password, even within the same window and session. If I click on certain free options, including Recent Visitors Details, it prompts me for my password again -- every single time.
• Most of the Manager information screens are completely blank -- just the sidebar tabs, titlebars and the footer info.

Is this just happening with my site, or are other users having similar problems?

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:00 AM

I know many of my friends will enjoy this little quiz, and though I've only seen a couple episodes, I have the feeling I got the best possible answer:

Which Food Network Chef are you?

I did my best to answer as myself, rather than trying for (or against) any particular result. [via John Kovalic's LJ]

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:44 AM

So, is Bupropion (Wellbutrin) the psychiatric equivalent to penicillin?

A specialist I'm seeing recommended Wellbutrin for a particular off-label usage that seemed odd, so I went and looked up the scientific research on this treatment. [He's a very good doctor and not only gave me the author of the primary paper on this study, but gave me his email address as well, so I could contact him directly with questions.] In the process, I found this one-page letter (with 51 endnotes -- longer than the text of the letter) from the Primary Care Companion Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

The letter is titled "The Many Uses of Bupropion and Bupropion Sustained Release in Adults" and it's primarily a litany of all the ways it's been successfully tried, including:

And that was written in 2002, so who knows what new uses they've uncovered in the intervening two years.

I'm not saying that Wellbutrin doesn't do all it says it does -- after all, the reason penicillin became so popular was because it actually works. But it makes me wonder just how Wellbutrin works, and whether whether there might not be better, more specifically targetted ways of getting the same results. I also find it fascinating how many of these issues are apparently interrelated, considering how the same treatment affects them all...

Just an observation. [This post was in no way funded by Glaxo Wellcome, Inc, though if they wanted to give me any money I probably wouldn't say no. :) I am in no way endorsing the use of Wellbutrin for any ailment, listed above or not, and recommend people read the actual studies and/or talk to a good doctor before considering off-label use.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:35 PM

Josh Marshall, this morning:

What's the signature pattern of the president's life?

When he faces a challenge or a tough scrape, he lets his family and friends bail him out, do his fighting for him.
<snip>
But here's some free advice for Kerry.

Don't get mixed up on the details. Take this directly to the president. Tell him to turn over a new leaf in life and stop being a coward. If the president wants to attack or question your war record or what you did after the war, tell him to do it himself. No special deals, no hidden help from family retainers, no hiding behind Karen Hughes. Tell him, for once, to fight his own fights.

This evening's Daily Kos:

"If George Bush wants to ask me questions about that through his surrogates, he owes America an explanation about whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard. Prove it. That's what we ought to have," Kerry told NBC News in an interview. "I'm not going to stand around and let them play games."

Nicely done.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:35 PM

I'll spare my typing and your reading time by sharing two pictures probably worth a thousand words apiece:

The personal, in today's Piled Higher & Deeper comic strip, presenting a scene that seems extraordinarily familiar.

The political, in this Clay Bennett political cartoon, which I think would be useful in a number of recent flamewars I've seen or gotten dragged into.

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:56 PM

Via Suburban Guerrilla, I find this quote, delivered by the late, great Edward R. Murrow to the Radio-Television News Directors Association:

We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable, and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

Edward R. Murrow spoke those words in 1958. Ted Koppel quoted this in his remarks to that same organization last week, following up by asking whether it's already too late and talking about how current conditions in network news departments came about. He had invited Jon Stewart to introduce him, noting "I have no problem with comedians and entertainers pretending to be journalists. My problem is with journalists pretending to be entertainers."

Lots of good great juicy quotes on the current sad state of television news, which is something Ian and I have been discussing a great deal, recently. We don't have cable television, so in my doctor's waiting room today, I caught some CNN Headline News for the first time in ages. The top stories were: fighting in Fallujah, some bizarre question about Kerry protesting Vietnam thirty years ago, a change in Michael Jackson's legal team, and a George Bush proposal regarding broadband internet access (one of the other patients in the waiting room asked why not spend the money where it's needed in education -- like chalk, which lead to a discussion of the inherent failures of Leave No Child Behind Act and Prop 2 1/2 override attempts). One of these things is not like the other. Three of these things do not belong -- at least, not being given the same amount of coverage and level of importance as the matter of life-and-death.

Back in college, I read Daniel Boorstein's The Image, and though it was somewhat dated, I'm starting to think it ought to be required reading to understand today's media landscape. [I wish I could find my copy to reread. On the other hand, I might find it too depressing.]

At any rate, I'll close with another Murrow quote, intended for news broadcasters, but which also applies to the blogosphere:

The fact that your voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other does not confer upon you greater wisdom or understanding than you possessed when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:00 AM

You know, I actually enjoyed the questions meme (yes, I know, there's one more batch to be answered), so there are another pair of memes making the rounds, and I invite people to participate in either of them:

The original meme last week went:

Post a memory of me in the comments. It can be anything you want. [Then, of course, post this to your journal and see what people remember of you.]

This week, a variant is going around:

Invent a memory of me and post it in the comments. It can be anything you want, so long as it's something that's never happened. [Then, of course, post this to your journal and see what people would like to remember of you, only the universe failed to cooperate in making it happen so they had to make it up instead.]

I'm probably playing with fire by putting both memes into the same post, making it difficult to determine which are real memories and which are wholly fictitious, but what the hey...

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:51 AM

Ever get the impression that some members of the publishing industry don't understand that folks read historical works for pleasure?

Over the weekend I read (and loved! and highly recommend) Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw. Upon finishing, I knew I wanted to read more of the same. But, since there aren't currently any other Victorian novels in dragon's hide (are you planning any more stories in this universe? have you considered opening it up to other authors?) I went to the library about 15 minutes before closing to grab a selection of Trollope, not entirely certain which novels to read and not having much time to seek out opinions.

The first book I started was An Eye for an Eye. The foreward was moderately amusing, so I turned the next page to the introduction. I start reading, and begin thinking that they're setting up an amusing premise... and then suddenly I realize that I've just read some other guy's synopsis of what has to be three-quarters of the plot! This asshole has just spoiled most of the story in an attempt to be all scholarly and erudite! I'm really ticked off. There's no indication in the text that the introduction was written by somebody else, they put it after the foreward which clearly seems to be Trollope's work, there's nothing on the cover saying "with an introduction by"... Oh, wait, here it is inside the cover flap "Simon Raven contributes a spirited introduction..."

<Grumble>

I remember making a similar complaint when Lucas finally released Star Wars on video (before the "Special Edition"s). They placed the interviews and insight before the movie began, and included spoilers. "When Luke finds out Vader is his father..." Don't they think there might be some people who haven't seen the films and might like to be surprised? Particularly since they keep gearing Star Wars to younger and younger audiences, there might be kids for whom this could be their first time...

I'm glad that Usenet seems to have cemented the notion of spoiler warnings in more people's subconscious by now. There are certainly reasonable limits -- I don't think one should wander into a Harry Potter discussion board without finding spoilers for all five books, but even of classics, gratuitous leaks (safe example (spoilers ROT13'd)) can ruin the experience.

Meanwhile, any opinions on whether I should continue/bother with An Eye for an Eye, now that so much has been given away? And is there any recommended reading list for "if you liked Tooth and Claw, you should also try..."

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:20 AM

The weekend of May 15th, Ian and I will be in San Francisco for the wedding of Ian's best man. We're taking an extra day or two (not much time, considering the flights are whole-day affairs in and of themselves), but we'll have some time for sightseeing. This will be our first time to San Francisco, so tips on places to see and do and dine would be most appreciated. [Tips on tacky, touristy things to avoid would also be welcome.]

Also, we know that some of our LJ Friends live in the area, so anybody interested in getting together at some point over the weekend?

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:48 AM

It's gotten a little chilly around here the last several days, but if you're in a mood for ice cream, this week is a good time for a cone or two:

• Tuesday, noon - 8pm: Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day at all scoop shops (click the link for a store locator)
• Wednesday, 6-10pm, Baskin Robbins' Free Scoop Night (store locations)

It seems somewhat odd, the two events on subsequent nights (I thought usually the latter was in May), but who am I to say no to free ice cream?

Particularly given the words of Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics:

Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone -- a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive...This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if WE feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior.

-- Kass, Leon          

Why does this administration keep trying to redefine offensive behavior in stupid ways?

Ignore his nonsense, and just take Miss Manners' advice on how to properly eat ice cream cones (in public) and enjoy a free treat on one of these companies while you're at it.

[Thanks to Joe Teller for the heads up.]