Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:10 PM

“You can't outsmart carnival folk. They're the cleverest folk in the world.”

— Homer Simpson

I've submitted two posts on this page (Flappers and feminism and The naming of cats) to the Carnival of Feminists. Assuming either makes the cut and more feminists are reading this page than usual^*, I have a question for y'all.

I asked this in early May and am still hoping to collect more responses before posting further on the subject:

R-O-L-A-I-D-S

Given some of the recent debates and disputes among the feminist blogosphere, I've started wondering how people perceive feminism. Not Justice Stewart "know it when I see it" gut reactions, but putting it into words: How do we define "feminism"?

I'm no academic, but I've found quite a few definitions while searching the web and talking to people. But before I color your perceptions, ask yourself the question:

How do you define feminism?
And do you consider yourself a feminist by that definition?

And then, if you would, post your answer to my comments. Links to other definitions you've found and liked would also be appreciated.

I intend to compile the answers received (from comments and my own searches) in time for the next carnival.

^* What is the collective noun for feminists?

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:00 PM

Had a fun day. Shadesong is in Boston, and we (and other online friends) planned to get together at Route One Minigolf (the one with the giant orange dinosaur.

Unfortunately, they were closed due to the rain, but while we were waiting for everyone to arrive, we got a look at the course. Looks vicious. Looks fun. Now Ian and I definitely want to go. [Anybody else interested in making this a group outing?]

So, instead of miniature golf, we went bowling instead.

Now, I've been trying to get Ian bowling for years. He played candlepin once as a child, but never tenpin. And, because he's got such wide feet, he's been wary of the need for bowling shoes.

Well, I'm proud to say that in his first-ever game of bowling, he scored 61. And he got a 106 in his second game. That included four strikes and one spare overall.

Not bad.

My scores were far less impressive: 41 and then 53. But we had fun, and that's what counts.

After dropping Ian off at a bartending gig, I stopped at the Newbury Street LUSH. [I can't go near them with Ian around -- he can't even walk within five feet of the door before he's overpowered by the smell. Poor sensitive soul.]

Ended up leaving with three different shampoos -- two solids ("New" and "Soak and Float" -- buy two and they throw in the tin for free!) and a free sampler of the Cynthia Sylvia Stout -- plus a small American Cream conditioner. Since I bought more haircare than I intended, I held off on the other item I was considering ("Running for the Embassy")

I want to take a shower and try them out, but I'm torn over which shampoo to use. Isn't that horrible? [Yes, it's Saturday night and I'm washing my hair.]

Fellow Lush fans, feel free to give me advice or gush about your favorite products.

Oh, and for other Boston-area LUSH fans, they're having a special event Thursday night -- free facials and massages, and those who RSVP will receive a goodie bag with purchase. I'm trying to decide whether I can make it there after work...

Unfortunately, the cost turned out to be a little higher than I expected. When I got out of the store, I discovered that the incredibly convenient parking space I found -- slipped into just as somebody else was pulling out -- happened to be a loading zone and there was a big orange tickey on my window. Oh well...

So that's been my afternoon. How are you doing on this cold, rainy day?

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:06 PM

I know this will only get me into trouble, but this question has been nagging at me since it first popped into my head.

I've been following two big messy debates across the blogosphere.

1) To put it briefly, for those of you mercifully ignorant of what's going on lately at LiveJournal, lactivists are upset that LJ policy prohibits any image showing exposed nipples or areolae for a user's default icon, even if the icon shows a breastfeeding baby, although such images may be used as non-default userpics, and one can default to a nursing photo that doesn't show nipples.

It's been a massive uproar and huge protests are planned. [Personally, I think the whole issue has been overblown and folks are making mountains out of molehills, but then it's not my ox being gored.]

2) Anti-pornography feminism seems to becoming much more visible and more vocal than I ever remember. Relations between radical feminists and sex-positive feminists (calling each group by their own preferred term) have become quite tense, and sometimes nasty.

So, how do anti-porn feminists feel about publically displayed pictures of breastfeeding under these circumstances?

Keep in mind, we're not talking about actual nourishing of infants, but just depiction of the act.

Given the 100x100 pixel size restrictions on LiveJournal userpics, these are often little more than naked disembodied breasts with children latched. And as a default icon, this truly is intended to represent the person in a variety of circumstances, reducing the woman to a picture of bare body parts. Is this objectification? I know that many lactivists claim that nursing does not count as nudity, but how does that work in theory?

I'm not making any friends with this post, am I?

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:25 AM

Stephen Colbert famously said:

Pointing out that current Congressional corruption is predominantly among the GOP might possibly appear unfair to the criminals conservative cry-babies.

Better to make things up so the scandals appear bipartisan, even if they're not true.

A New York Times editorial is apparently trying to link Senator Reid's behavior -- which complied with Senate ethics rules -- with the crimes of Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff!

Fortunately, Media Matters is on it. (via Susie Madrak)

Sadly, this isn't the first time in recent months that journalists have ignored their own rules to drag Democrats into the Republican mud.

In November, one of the Washington Post blogs included a scorecard of political scandals within the past year involving current officeholders. The list of offending House members was almost entirely Republican. But the lone Democrat on the list was one who left office in 2004 for crimes committed before he entered Congress. [Josh Marshall]

The author later explained how it happened:

This was an editorial mixup. In my original post, Ballance was not included since, as you rightly point out, he is not a sitting member of Congress. After an edit, Ballance was unnecessarily included for, frankly, balance. I did not read the final edit and therefore was unaware that Ballance had been added to the list.

Interesting behind-the-scenes insight, isn't it? As Josh Marshall puts it, "In this case, reality apparently wasn't balanced enough. So an editor at the Post tipped the scales."

Meanwhile, for the continuing evolution of the Harry Reid story, Paul Kiel is all over it, as are the folks from Media Matters. Rumors are starting to circulate that higher-ups at Associated Press are starting to look into the matter...

[This does appear to be my week for writing followup posts, doesn't it?]

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:44 AM

In response to my Friday night post on pirates, Gary Farber shares this startling tale of government intervention:

ATF agents are always on alert for anything suspicious -- including ninjas.

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearm agents, on campus Tuesday for Project Safe Neighborhoods training, detained a "suspicious individual" near the Georgia Center, University Police Chief Jimmy Williamson said.

Jeremiah Ransom, a sophomore from Macon, was leaving a Wesley Foundation pirate vs. ninja event when he was detained.

After being held in investigative detention, he was found to have violated no criminal laws and was not arrested.

"It was surreal," Ransom said. "I was jogging from Wesley to Snelling when I heard someone yell 'freeze.'"

Ransom said he thought a friend was playing a joke before he realized officers had guns drawn and pointed at him.

ATF agents had noticed Ransom's suspicious behavior and clothing and gave chase, apprehending him, Williamson said.

"Agents noticed someone wearing a bandanna across the face and acting in a somewhat suspicious manner, peeping around the corner," said ATF special agent in charge Vanessa McLemore.

Ransom was wearing black sweatpants and an athletic T-shirt with one red bandanna covering the bottom half of his face and another covering the top of his head, Williamson said.

"Seeing someone with something across the face, from a federal standpoint -- that's not right," McLemore said, explaining why agents believed something to be amiss.

Agents noticed Ransom peering around a corner and said when police sirens sounded, he took off running.

After chasing Ransom and identifying themselves, ATF agents detained him, turning him over once University Police arrived, McLemore said.

As Farber wrote at the time, "No word yet on whether any pirates were also apprehended."

[The rest of his post is a more serious look at what's going on with CIFA, TALON and domestic spying on American political protestors, and is worth reading to stay informed.]

10:55 PS: When I showed the above article to Ian, he said it was nice to see the Bush administration finally taking steps to combat global warming: protecting the pirates by eliminating their natural enemy.

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:12 AM

It's time once again for another episode in our ongoing infinite series Reasons I love my husband, this blog post he wrote, recopied verbatim:

So, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has come out with a 60-second television spot about how greenhouse gas emissions aren't important. It's called "CO2 -- We Call It Life", and is all about how you need carbon dioxide to live, and therefore it can't possibly be dangerous.

I'm looking forward to the other spots they will be producing soon, "You'll Die Without Water, So Shut The Fuck Up Already, New Orleans," and "Plants Grow Buried In Dirt: Why Mine Safety Standards Are Bad."

Update: Another good one from commenter Temima:

"You Call It Stalking; We Call It Devotion"

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:00 PM

Warning: may induce giggles or hyperglycemia!

Beware the touch of death:

[Animated GIF -- give it time to load]

Posted by someone from the Lucky Stars Cattery.
[FWIW, I seem to have weaned myself off their webcam. As the litter's gotten older and more mobile, they've pulled the camera back to a longshot and the kittens are off-camera more of the time.]

In a similar vein, a short video of a kitten with a heavy head.

And, of course, there's always an older favorite of mine: Sleepy kitten making biscuits

PS for Opera users: Don't know about you, but until now I've been unable to play embedded YouTube videos under Opera. I finally went looking for the solution and thought I'd share it for anyone else so afflicted.

The problem's apparently in the type="application/x-shockwave-flash" portion of the <embed tag. I've temporarily fixed it by removing that from the code; alternately, FyberOptic has created a UserJS fix that Opera users can download.

Late Update: added 11:15pm from Magpie. (Note: video quality seems poor at start, but give it 5 seconds and it clears up)

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:35 PM

Hopefully, these last several posts will be sufficient to relieve LiveJournal's indigestion.

Meantime, just as a reward...

I often put a lot of effort into my titles, trying to make them both meaningful and entertaining.
It's not always easy; sometimes a post will be held up for ages until I think of just the right title.

So, here's your chance. Ever wonder how I came up with a particular title or what I meant by it?

Ask me about the title to any of my blog entries, no matter how old, and I'll try to clarify what I meant and why I chose it, and possibly even reveal alternate rejected titles...

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:25 PM

Since several people I know missed one or more of these, some sites worth seeing:

Al Gore on Saturday Night Live
[Also on Crooks and Liars with transcript]

Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth:

• Official website
• Theater List (a dozen in MA)
• Trailer: Google Video or YouTube

Also, for anyone who hasn't seen it yet:

• Colbert roasting the president
• Bush's reaction
• Colbert's comments on his own show

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:15 PM

According to Majikthise, Stanford is having problems with ninjas versus pirates [Wikipedia on the debate]

Meanwhile, Gary Farber has found an article about a genuine historical nine-year-old pirate.

My favorite quote from the piece:

John King, who was sailing with his mother as a passenger from Jamaica to Antigua, "deserted his sloop, and went with the Pirates and was so far from being forced or compelled thereto by them as the deponent could perceive or learn that he declared he would Kill himself if he was Restrained, and even threatned his Mother who was then on Board as a Passenger with the Deponent."

I'm sure many kids would share that sentiment if given the opportunity.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:00 PM

Jessamyn West and TChris have news about the USA PATRIOT Act.

Oh, and any word on advance attendance figures at this year's ALA Conference? Are numbers typical for this timeframe, or are people staying away because it's New Orleans?

Hurricane season started today, and Susie Madrak has some troubling news about the levees...

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:53 PM

Just discovered that LiveJournal is refusing to read my RSS feed because the filesize is too large (over 150k for those at home).

I guess I have been a little long-winded lately.

So I guess it's time for some short and sweet nothings until I'm slimmed down enough for LJ...

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:15 PM

[Continued from yesterday's entry, The naming of cats]

Rarely have I received so many responses to a post, so quickly and all so similar.

Commenters seem surprisingly resistant to calling Hillary Clinton by her surname instead of first name. This is generally expressed as concerns about confusion with her husband Bill.

First of all, the Clintons travel in reasonably separate circles. Most news items usually discuss one Clinton or the other, not both.^* Right now, Bill isn't terribly involved in politics. Googling for news on Bill which doesn't mention Hillary, I find a book deal and a poll on favorite ex-presidents. Searching the other direction, for Hillary without Bill, I see countless articles on the New York Senate race, presidential aspirations, and her stands on various hot-button issues.

Now keep in mind, there are two Kennedy's currently serving in Congress, another cousin who's a political activist[*], and an unrelated Supreme Court Justice. Four men with the same last name and working on similar issues -- and you don't see anybody worrying about getting them mixed up.

That's why I label this gender discrimination. There are plenty of public figures with identical surnames, yet it's mostly the women that people put on a first-name basis. The same thing happens even when people don't share names: “Powell this” and “Powell that” vs. “Condi this” and “Condi that”.

See the difference?

[And, yes, I know there are always exceptions -- Newt (Gingrich) and (Nancy) Pelosi come to mind -- but the overall trend is that women get the first-name treatment much more than men.]

But, back to the Clintons: So how does one minimize misunderstandings from the shared surname?

Aside: Familiarity breeds contempt

Along similar lines, two examples excised from my original post, demonstrating the inequity of current naming conventions:

Final exam: What's wrong with this headline about the 2008 presidential race?

As they sang on Sesame Street, one of these names is not like the others...

Any questions?

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:56 PM

Continuing this morning's more graphical, comic mood, a few others I've run across recently that I've been intending to share.

I'm only displaying the first panel of each; click it to see the whole cartoon:

Tangent 1: Last night on the commute home, I saw a car on the side of the road that had been pulled over by a cop. My first reaction was "whoa, speed traps on this stretch?" Then I saw the driver and passenger were black males, and I immediately thought DWB. Ian had the same response when he saw the car's occupants (without my initial thought that it was justified).

And this is yet another reason why racial profiling is so harmful to this country, because whether or not the traffic stop was legitimate, our natural assumption was that prejudice played a role. It's harmful for society when people have to regard law officers (or the press) with this much suspicion.

Tangent 2: Speaking of comics and minorities, DC will be introducing a new Batwoman and she'll be a lesbian. This story is getting tremendous play on the feminist blogs, and relatively little notice on the blogs by and about comic books. Just an interesting observation on newsworthiness...

[Personally, I was more excited by the news that they're keeping the Silver Age name of Kathy Kane, that she's partnered with existing character Renee Montoya, and how closely the costume resembles that from Batman Beyond. If I want to get all gender-politics about the issue, what is it with DC police forces and lesbians? Maggie Sawyer's been a cop in Metropolis for nearly two decades, and this is the first I've heard of Renee Montoya's orientation (not that I've been following the bat-books).]

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:25 AM

Okay, now it's obvious they're doing it on purpose.

This builds upon last night's post on misleading coverage of Senator Reid.

The same AP reporter (John Solomon) has a new article about Senator Reid.

The new article begins:

[S]everal ethics experts concluded the Senate leader had misstated the Senate rules to his constituents.
Within hours of being questioned by AP about the ethics experts' assertions, Reid's office abruptly reversed course and acknowledged Wednesday night he had misspoken about the ethics rules.

So, what was Reid's mistake?

Despite the appearance of impropriety, it turns out the rules were more lenient than Reid believed.

As John Aravosis explains:

Harry Reid mistakenly claimed that the Senate ethics rules were MORE stringent in this area than they really are. And he wasn't refering to how the rules covered him - which is what AP claims - he was refering to how they covered John McCain. Harry Reid was absolutely correct in how he stated the Senate ethics rules' application to him, and he has not changed his position on that.

Is that how you would read those paragraphs? While you might be able to derive that meaning, it's certainly not the impression given. And how many people will read far enough in the article to discern the truth from the spin?

This is just beyond the pale. Are they trying to prove how untrustworthy we should find the mainstream press?

More details from John Marshall and Paul Kiel

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:40 AM

Via Magpie, an editorial cartoon (click to enlarge):

©2006 John Sherffius

Just about says it all, doesn't it?

Friday night addition: Although, sometimes the right words do appear.

Radical Russ (by way of Darkrose) wrote:

Yes, I know: 9/11 changed everything. Sure did. It proved the land of the free and the home of the brave is actually populated by some very cowardly people who will readily give up their freedoms if they are frightened and who will lash out like violent bullies out of fear with no consideration of the actual culpability of the victim. In one morning, 19 young men with box cutters did to our country, Constitution, and culture what the British, the French, the Mexicans, the Confederates, the Spanish, the Kaiser, Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini, Ho Chi Minh, and Saddam Hussein couldn't accomplish with actual armies and months or years worth of real warfare. 9/11 changed America from a lofty ideal to just another name for a piece of land.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:50 PM

Been a long time since I've posted one of these, but my Free Will Astrology horoscope for the week brought a grin to my face:

Blogger Joseph Cannon has uncovered evidence that George W. Bush may be the grandson of the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley. On his website at http://snipurl.com/pler, Cannon says there's a distinct possibility that Bush's mother, Barbara Bush, was conceived during a ritual tryst between Crowley and her mother Pauline in 1924. I'm not sufficiently informed on the matter to ascertain if it's true, though I can't help but note the strong physical resemblance between Aleister and Barbara. I bring this up because it's an excellent time for all of you Cancerians, including the current American president, to delve into the mysteries of your past. Secrets that have always been hidden are more likely to pop into view than ever before. If you're listening, your ancestors have clues to reveal.

I remember that blog entry. It was posted on April 1st.
Amusing, but probably a hoax.

So, thinking about mysteries of the past, Pope Benedict XVI just returned from Poland.

Many feminist blogs have already had quite a lot of fun with the fact that somebody felt a need to prohibit tampon ads during his visit. [Heavens forfend anyone should publically acknowledge the existence of a sanitary product used monthly by half the adult population...]

According to Violet, Pope Benedict managed to snub the Jews within hours of his arrival:

THE Pope has upset the Jewish community in Poland by not stopping to pay tribute to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis.

The heavily guarded Popemobile sped from Warsaw airport towards the Old Town district and the former ghetto area but barely slowed when it passed the memorial to the Jewish fighters.

Chief Rabbi of Warsaw Michael Schudrich, the Israeli ambassador and a handful of Jewish dignitaries were left standing as Benedict XVI flashed past with a wave.

The article goes on to suggest "the ultra-nationalist Polish Government might have considered it a slight if the Pope had singled out slaughtered Jews rather than Polish partisans," to which Violet snarks: "Because, of course, the Jews who died in Warsaw weren't citizens of Poland or anything."

But most infuriating have been the Pope's remarks (and what he left unsaid) regarding the Holocaust while speaking at Auschwitz.

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (author of Hitler's willing executioners: ordinary Germans and the Holocaust and A Moral reckoning: the role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its unfulfilled duty of repair) summarizes the speech in an LA Times editorial:

Benedict falsely exonerated Germans from their responsibility for the Holocaust by blaming only a "ring of criminals" who "used and abused" the duped and dragooned German people as an "instrument" of destruction. In truth, Germans by and large supported the Jews' persecution, and many of the hundreds of thousands of perpetrators were ordinary Germans who acted willingly. It is false to attribute culpability for the Holocaust wholly or even primarily to a "criminal ring." No German scholar or mainstream politician would today dare put forth Benedict's mythologized account of the past.

Benedict did say correctly that the "rulers of the Third Reich wanted to crush the entire Jewish people." But he then turned the Holocaust into an assault most fundamentally not on Jews but on Christianity itself, by falsely asserting that the ultimate reason the Nazis wanted to kill Jews was "to tear up the taproot of the Christian faith" -- meaning that their motivation to kill Jews was because Judaism was the parent religion of Christianity.

For further reading on the subject, I recommend the following blog posts:

• Eric Muller provides an impressive close-reading of the speech to show just how disturbing the Pope's sentiments really are.
• Over on Wampum, Eric Brunner-Williams points out that the Pope's logic "lets Europe since the 10th century off the hook."
  • [Goldhagen reminds readers that "the German perpetrators saw the Jews as a malevolent and powerful 'race,' not a religious group. Their desire to annihilate Jews had nothing to do with anti-Christianity."]
• Alex Knapp observes theological inconsistency "the Pope manages to conjure up a vision of three different divine beings in just a few short sentences," none particularly inspiring.
• Meanwhile, Jill at Feministe^* is primarily stunned and appalled, but hosts a great discussion.

And all I can do is remember that Joseph Ratzinger once belonged to the Hitler Youth, and wonder what he'll do next.

It seemed as impossible to conceive of Auschwitz with God as to conceive of Auschwitz without God. Therefore, everything had to be reassessed because everything had changed. With one stroke, mankind's achievements seemed to have been erased. Was Auschwitz a consequence or an aberration of "civilization"? All we know is that Auschwitz called that civilization into question as it called into question everything that had preceded Auschwitz. Scientific abstraction, social and economic contention, nationalism, xenophobia, religious fanaticism, racism, mass hysteria. All found their ultimate expression in Auschwitz.

— Elie Wiesel, 1986 Nobel Lecture

^* My intentions to refer to men and women more equitably prove difficult when some bloggers only publically reveal their first names...

---

Damn. Just saw that Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich (mentioned above at the Warsaw Ghetto remembrance) was a victim of an antisemitic attack on the Shabbos during the Pope's visit.

Pulling together the details from AP and Reuters:

[Rabbi Schudrich] was heading to a Sabbath lunch Saturday near Warsaw's main synagogue with a group of people when a young man yelled out "Poland for Poles!"

"That's a well-known pre-World War II slogan which basically means 'Jews, get out of Poland,' and I didn't like hearing it. So I approached the gentleman to ask him why he said such things and his reaction was to punch me in the chest," Schudrich told The Associated Press.

"I was going to hit him back. But before I had a chance to hit him he sprayed me with some kind of spray - maybe pepper spray."

Schudrich said his eyes still burned from the spray but that he was otherwise uninjured. His attacker escaped.

Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz called Schudrich to express his regrets and "declare that there is no place for anti-Semitism," government spokesman Konrad Ciesiolkiewicz told the news agency PAP....

...The Interior Ministry said in a statement it was looking for a 25-year-old man and that the incident might be a "provocation aimed at creating an image of Poland as an anti-Semitic country."

Riiiight... Because it couldn't possibly be that Poland is an antisemitic country.

The following day, Schudrich chanted Kaddish at Auschwitz before the Pope's speech.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:00 PM

Further evidence for yesterday's post on our misleading media.

This time, it's Senator Harry Reid's turn to have his name dragged through the mud.
Josh Marshall summarizes the facts of the case:

Sen. Reid (D-NV) voted against state boxing commission after accepting the commission's boxing tickets which Senate rules say he was allowed to accept.

However, as bloggers are pointing out, the Associated Press story buries and in some cases eliminates any mention that Reid acted against the interests of those who gave him the tickets. You'd think the fact Reid didn't dance to the lobbyists' tune would be the most important item to report in such accusations.

Of course, that kind of exculpatory evidence would undermine the slant of the article, which seems determined to slime Reid as ethically-challenged and influencible by bribery.

Which, the facts show, he's not.

Further details from John Aravosis, Paul Kiel, and Media Matters.

Added 6:45 pm: TPMmuckraker found further errors in the AP article: it would have been illegal for Reid to have reimbursed the Nevada Athletic Commission for his seats to the boxing matches as the AP recommends. [via AMERICAblog]

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:54 PM

Ian made another good point during this morning's drive.

In yesterday's post, I linked to an interview with a lawyer representing several prisoners in Guantanamo who said: “my clients were told by interrogators not to trust their lawyer "because he's a Jew"”

That means that one of the guards -- or somebody higher-up who's giving the orders -- is promoting the antisemitic belief that Jews are less trustworthy, less American... less human? It's a road the Jewish people have been down many times before...

[The small bit of good news this affords me is, after a year of nagging, Ian may finally get himself a passport.]

One reason I think this may come from above, rather than being independent initiatives of low-ranking individuals, is a recent story I heard on NPR's Morning Edition. Steve Inskeep interviewed Alfred W. McCoy, author of A Question of torture: CIA interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror.

The press release at University of Wisconsin (where McCoy is on the faculty) sums up the most important revelation:

"The origins of the Abu Ghraib scandal and the Guantanamo controversy can be traced very directly to the 1950s, when the Central Intelligence Agency launched a massive mind-control project that discovered psychological torture. This proved an unheralded scientific breakthrough, indeed, the first real revolution in five centuries in the cruel science of pain," McCoy says.

As McCoy himself explained in an Amnesty International essay:

After CBS broadcast those notorious photos from Abu Ghraib prison in the April 2004, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed them as unrepresentative acts "by a small number of U.S. military," whom the conservative New York Times columnist William Safire branded "creeps."

If, however, we read these prison photos carefully, they reveal CIA torture techniques that have metastasized like an undetected cancer inside the U.S. intelligence community over the past half-century. That iconic photo of a hooded Iraqi with fake electrical wires hanging from his arms shows, not the sadism of a few "creeps," but the telltale signs of sophisticated torture. The prisoner is hooded for sensory deprivation. His arms are extended for self-inflicted pain. These are the key components of the CIA's psychological paradigm, first developed during the Cold War and then disseminated within the U.S. intelligence community and among allied agencies around the world.

But it's less disruptive to propogate the notion that a 21-year-old private with learning disabilities could on-her-own reinvent "the CIA's signature Cold War torture techniques," developed through decades of research. Particularly when the alternative could rise up to the highest levels in Washington.

On a related note, John Aravosis has some unsurprising news about the Haditha investigation:

Pentagon investigations into the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians are focused on about a dozen enlisted Marines and do not target their commanding officers, the lawyer for one of the officers said Tuesday.

Now that does come from the suspects' lawyers, and such statements haven't always been true in other cases, but it's just further evidence of the same old blame game, finding scapegoats from the lower ranks.

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:42 PM

On the drive into work, Ian and I were discussing politics.

And Ian pointed something out about my speech habits: I consistently spoke of Hillary Clinton as "Hillary", but Al Gore was "Gore".

It's a subtle form of belittlement: referring to the woman by her first name, and the man by his surname.

Using the first name makes the subject more familiar, subtly disempowers hir. The surname is a more formal address and thus invested with greater authority.

Needless to say, I'm going to make a conscious effort to be more equitable in how I refer to public figures and fellow bloggers. Something to watch out for in your own writing (and conversations) as well.

Of course, after I conceded the point, Ian began to chant in a singsong voice:

“I'm a better feminist than yooo-ou!
   I'm a better feminist than yooo-ou!”

Yes, well...

Update:I have since written “A Difficult matter” to follow up on issues raised in this post's comments.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:50 PM

Those of you reading my journal through some mechanism other than LiveJournal may skip this message.

Sympathy-sorry for overloading your friends page with a half-dozen posts.

Near as I can tell from the server logs, LiveJournal is now looking at my feed once every five to six hours or so.

A far cry from its original hourly read (half-hour after, if it finds a new post)

I know it's a pain to get a flood of messages monopolizing your friends page, and I often do try to space my entries out. However, the last read was at 4pm, and I just didn't feel like hanging onto half my posts until after 9.

Raise the issue with LiveJournal -- maybe if enough people complain, they'll finally restore syndication to its earlier, more frequent polling schedule.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:20 PM

By the way, I'm not actually living in the past; I just have more to say about days of old. Particularly since my work schedule means by the time I get around to reading the news, I've already been scooped by countless other bloggers.

At any rate, here are some of the current political issues percolating through my brain:

---

In a much-blogged essay, Jamison Foser writes about Media Matters. In it, he describes our media as "[t]he dominant political force of our time" and demonstrating the lengths to which media coverage of Republicans (particularly Bush) differs from that given to Democrats (particularly the Clintons and Gore), and how the entire nation suffers from this double-standard.

Of course, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, as Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World demonstrates.

Meanwhile, bloggers have their hands full pointing out how meaningless much of the pundit-produced swill is. See, for example, Patrick Nielsen Hayden on the contents of Hillary's IPod or Ezra Klein on Al Gore's no-win summer.

Steve Soto has the latest updates on misleading media portrayals.

---

If that isn't compelling enough, keep in mind, a lax press helped mislead us into war with Iraq, and may be on its way to a repeat performance against Iran.

While subbing for Josh Marshall, Matthew Yglesias showed a combination of underplayed and overplayed news stories give a false impression:

I'm in some ways not an objective source, but the new issue of The American Prospect has a fantastic story about Iran 2003 diplomatic initiative toward the United States in which they made a very favorable offer and expressed willingness to at least talk about anything in exchange, basically, for the United States agreeing to halt various efforts to overthrow the Iranian government or impoverish the country. Needless to say, the administration rejected the opening.

As Jim Henley observes, "If the United States goes to war with Iran, it will be because the White House really wants a war with Iran."

It's still not clear exactly what the White House does want, but Charles Krauthammer most certainly does want a war with Iran. One thing that's notable, I think, is that Krauthammer's wracking up a real record of misleading his readers on the Iran question. Consequently, while it's obvious to me that he wants a war, I genuinely can't tell why he wants one. The arguments he offers all depend on falseholds at crucial steps.

---

Speaking of Jim Henley, he uncovered a startling revelation in Talking Dog's interview with a lawyer representing several Kuwaiti nationals in Guantanamo Bay (emphasis mine):

The Talking Dog: I understand that in some cases, it has been alleged that detainees have been encouraged not to cooperate with their own attorneys, in particular when their attorneys are Jewish. Can you comment on this?

Thomas Wilner: That issue came up with me. Interestingly, it didn't get that much play. But my clients were told by interrogators not to trust their lawyer "because he's a Jew". An interrogator told him "why would you trust him— he's a Jew from a large Jewish law firm— that represents the State of Israel—"
[...]
Anyway, this was printed by Nick Lewis in the Times... "Don't trust him, he's a Jew," but it didn't seem to get that much traction. But one of my clients, Fayez al Kandari, told a female interrogator, code named "Megan" "I don't care who or what he is— there are good people in every religion." That was his answer, from the depths of Guantanamo.

As Henley puts it: "Your tax dollars at work, people, desperately trying to stoke the antisemitism of Middle Easterners."

---

Needless to say, it can also be hard for the media to report the news if the government covers it up.

Kevin Drum looks at our nation's "state secrets privilege": The problem isn't just that the privilege is being used far more often than it used to be, it's that it's being used more broadly. In the past, it was used to exclude specific pieces of evidence that might have compromised national security, but today it's being used to keep cases from even coming to trial.

Even in a case of secret identity, where Condoleezza Rice promised " I believe that this will be handled in the proper courts, here in Germany and if necessary in American courts as well," the Bush administration argued that the victim should be denied a trial because it might compromise national security, to which a judge reluctantly agreed.

And just this past Friday, the Bush administration asked federal judges in New York and Michigan to dismiss a pair of lawsuits filed over the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, saying litigation would jeopardize state secrets.

So much for checks and balances...

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Robert Lindsay has the sobering statistics that Katrina's death toll exceeds 1800. He also links to some controversy over Mississippi's death toll, which may be seriously undercounting a large number of people. [Via Majikthise]

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Finally, via Susie Madrak, Molly Ivins observes the basic illogic behind outsourcing, an aspect I've never understood about privatization (and would still love to hear explained, if possible):

Naturally, in Texas, National Laboratory for Bad Government, we do it all first and worst. We started with this dandy plan to outsource applications and enrollment for social service programs such as food stamps and Medicaid. In theory, we were to save millions -- though I never could understand it myself. You see, Texas has one of the cheapest state governments on the continent, but when we hire outside contractors, they expect to make a profit. Add profit, add cost. Oh well.

In a similar vein, Amber is hosting a lively discussion about libertarianism.

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So, what else is new?

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:00 PM

Rather obviously, I quite enjoyed the last two books I read, so am looking for more titles building upon those subjects, particularly something that can help me get a handle on postwar London.

After a bit of poking about, I've compiled the following list of books which look promising.

• War like a wasp: the lost decade of the 'Forties by Andrew Sinclair
• The 1950s by Edith Horsley
• The Royal family at war by Theo Aronson
• From blitz to Blair: a new history of Britain since 1939 edited by Nick Tiratsoo
• Britain since 1945: the people's peace by Kenneth O. Morgan
• The Abolition of Britain: from Winston Churchill to Princess Diana by Peter Hitchens
• Britain since 1945 edited by Jonathan Hollowell
• The British Isles since 1945 edited by Kathleen Burk
• Ready, steady, go!: the smashing rise and giddy fall of Swinging London by Shawn Levy
• The Transformation of British life, 1950-2000: a social history by Andrew Rosen
• After the Victorians: the decline of Britain in the world by A.N. Wilson
• Never had it so good: a history of Britain from Suez to the Beatles by Dominic Sandbrook
     (I love the dichotomy between this and the previous title: so which way are things going?)
• Appleby House by Sylvia Smith (Fiction)

As usual, I haven't read anything about these and am only relying upon the subjects and titles. If you know anything about any of these books, pro or con, or can recommend other books in this vein, I'd be most grateful.

Also, yesterday, I received recommendations for two books on an entirely different subject, and this is as good a place as any to record them:

• Against the gods: the remarkable story of risk by Peter L. Bernstein
• Fooled by randomness: the hidden role of chance in the markets and in life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

And that's all she wrote...

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:50 PM

I didn't want this to get buried in my review.

Although Joshua Zeitz' Flapper: a madcap story of sex, style, celebrity, and the women who made America modern tells the story of trends from the turn of the last century, many of the issues raised still seem incredibly current.

For example, there have been a lot of recent and heated debates in the feminist blogosphere between radical feminists and sex-positive feminists, with gallons of ink (real and virtual) spilled to decry how girls dress like sluts and young women don't care about politics...

Well, get a load of this passage regarding relations between flappers and older feminists and suffragists:

When conservatives denounced feminists for betraying a "flapper attitude," they were missing the point entirely. Most committed feminists were also chagrined by American flapperdom.

Sound familiar? Even Zeitz noticed the similarity to current attitudes:

Disengaged from politics, more interested in shopping than picketing, drunk on the ethic of sexual freedom and romance, the flapper struck many feminists as misguided as best. At worst, a sellout.
   The ferocity of these attacks betrayed some of the deep political fissures that ran through feminist circles after World War I. ... With feminists now engaged in a hot contest over just what "feminism" really meant, the flapper became a convenient whipping girl who could unite competing factions in universal condemnation and scorn. ...
   In the meantime, if they could agree on little else, feminists across the divide found most young women in the 1920s sorely lacking in the kind of ideological rigor and political commitment that their own generation of activists had exhibited on such a grand scale. Much as veteran second-wave feminists of the 1990s would lament the seemingly apolitical posture of Gen-X women, flappers simply didn't strike the first-wave feminists in the 1920s as concerned one way or the other about the weightier issues of the day.

This section (Chapter 11) goes on to provide a bit of insight into the competing feminist ideologies of the period, how and why they were able to put their differences aside to fight for suffrage, and why the coalition fell apart after achieving that goal. [I strongly recommend reading it, even independently of the rest of the book.]

Of course, the quotes above were just the perception of the older generation. If you asked flappers themselves, you got an entirely different picture. Young women saw themselves upholding the feminist ideals by the way they tried to live their lives.

In 1925, The New Republic editor Bruce Bliven wrote a profile of "Flapper Jane," in an effort to explain their view of the world:

Women have come down off the pedestal lately. They are tired of this mysterious-feminine-charm stuff. Maybe it goes with independence, earning your own living and voting and all that. There was always a bit of the harem in that cover-up-your-arms-and-legs business, don't you think? Women still want to be loved, but they want it on a 50-50 basis, which includes being admired for the qualities they really possess. Dragging in this strange-allurement stuff doesn't seem sporting. ...
   Women to-day are shaking off the shreds and patches of their age-old servitude. "Feminism" has won a victory so nearly complete that we have even forgotten the fierce challenge which once inhered in the very word. Women have highly resolved that they are just as good as men, and intend to be treated so. They don't mean to have any more unwanted children. They don't intend to be debarred from any profession or occupation which they choose to enter. They clearly mean (even though not all of them yet realize it) that in the great game of sexual selection they shall no longer be forced to play the role, simulated or real, of helpless quarry.

Certainly some of this sounds naïve, given our hindsight into subsequent conservative backlashes. Nonetheless, I think most modern feminists would consider those last several sentences an adequate definition for feminism, and I'll bet you most modern young women (and men) would agree with those statements.

So, the next time you see another yet screed on how modern youth shamelessly waste themselves and the opportunities we've provided, it may be worth looking backwards and reminding yourself that this too shall pass.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:10 PM

At ALA Midwinter 2005, I bought a BookFlip (which I reviewed here). I've been using it steadily as my primary bookmark ever since.

Last week, it went missing.

As much as I've liked and used it, I haven't realized quite how superior it is, until I've been forced to do without.

The BookFlip is a bookmark that clips to the spine of whichever book you're reading. Easy to read while walking, eating, or otherwise one-handed without losing your place. No need to worry about where you've put the bookmark down while you're reading. It's literally a snap to remove or replace your bookmark: just a flick of the wrist.

And now mine is missing. :(

I'm hoping it got bundled in our dirty laundry... If not, I may go out and order more, because I've really grown habituated to the convenience.

PS: Since I wrote the above, Ian found my bookflip on the floor of our car. Whew!

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:06 PM

Yesterday, I finished reading Maureen Waller's London 1945: life in the debris of war.

Quite a wonky book: goes into a tremendous amount of detail regarding policies and regulations to paint its picture of life in wartime London.

The first chapter, dealing directly with the bombings (the Blitz, V1 and V2 barrages) really impressed me, both in terms of the Londoners' ability to cope and the efficiency of systems set up to deal with the aftermath. I see a lot of lessons I wish our current government could've adopted in the wake of 9/11.

Chapters are vaguely thematic, and do stretch beyond the alleged 1945 scope in order to provide context. One thing the book desperately needs is a glossary of names in the back. Between mention of government officials major and minor and all the personal anecdotes and diary excerpts, they begin to run together. It would be a helpful memory aid to have a reference for who were the significant people and which were merely interesting.

[This isn't the first book by Waller I've read. I also enjoyed very much her Ungrateful daughters: the Stuart princesses who stole their father's crown, explaining the Glorious Revolution through a close look at the personalities in the royal family, which I also enjoyed.]

Before that, I read Joshua Zeitz' Flapper: a madcap story of sex, style, celebrity, and the women who made America modern, which I strongly recommend.

Fascinating stuff.

Many of the professional reviews criticize Zeitz for spending too much time on F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, rehashing details which 'everybody already knows.' Fortunately for me, I wasn't already familiar with their biography, so this framing device didn't bother me.

Probably one of the big discoveries in this book is Lois Long, who wrote under the pseudonym "Lipstick" during the early days of The New Yorker. Magnificently witty woman. I'd love to read more about her. I agree with Jane editor Catherine Strawn that Zeitz certainly primed the pump for a dedicated biography of the woman and/or collection of her writings. [Also, I can't help wondering whether she might've inspired Shuster and Siegel in creating another intrepid New York reporter: Lois Lane? There are certainly enough similarities.]

What's most remarkable about the book is how fresh and current everything seems. So many aspects to modern life that we no longer even question -- Flapper shows their origins. Early days of advertising, Hollywood, or how about dating:

FWIW, there is a website associated with the book if you want to find out a little more.

Of course, now I'm stuck with the daunting task of trying to figure out what to read next...

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:49 PM

675 pieces of spam between Friday and today...

sigh...

If I don't respond to your emails, they may be getting lost in the garbage and accidentally deleted. I apologize.

I've got to find a better system...

PS: For a more entertaining look at the subject, did you know Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog (E-I-E-I-O)?
Well, last week, he shared Wondrous messages from the internette! which is worth reading.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:45 PM

Ages ago, Ian and I picked up an Errol Flynn DVD box set.

Tonight, for the first time, we tried watching The Sea Hawk.

Between Ian snarking about naval tactics and me snarking about Queen Elizabeth...

We got about 50 minutes into it before giving up, during yet another scene with Flynn clumsily romancing his Spanish love interest.

I will admit rather liking Elizabeth's private scene with Thorpe, though realistically, they never should've been alone -- ladies in waiting should've been in view, if not within earshot. But every time Elizabeth used first-person singular when discussing matters of state before the court -- well, we were not amused.

Given that piracy was a historic equivalent to terrorism -- acts of violence either state-sponsored or by stateless men -- I'd love to see a film that addresses that more openly.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:30 AM

A video of Nirvana's "Smells like teen spirit" performed by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.

Plus further flotsam from around the web:

Two odd techie stories: Teen-repellant turns teacher-proof ringtones. Gamers complaining that a game was ruining the quality of virtual life inside a game. [latter via Gary Farber]

From WisCon, Bear teaches us Hello Kitty is a tool of the patriarchy (or maybe the patriarchy is a tool of Hello Kitty?). [Follow the link on the first comment, for a truly horrifying image!]

Delicious snark. The Broadway musical Lestat is closing after barely a month. It inspired me to look up The Times initial review, which begins:

A promising new contender has arrived in a crowded pharmaceutical field. Joining the ranks of Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata and other prescription lullaby drugs is "Lestat," the musical sleeping pill that opened last night at the Palace Theater.

Speaking of bad prose, McTabby has posted Summary Executions Part XXXVIII. As usual, the comments are brilliant and even funnier than the found bad prose. I think the audience favorite seems to be (link addition mine):

Blaise is just a hamster in the great wheel of life, just one more pawn for Voldemort. His life is useless; he is no one special. The only thing keeping him alive is images of a brunette that keep popping into his mind unexpectedly. And once he finishes up all his business with her... The wheel stops for no hamster.

In a similar vein, I wasted far too much time playing with Seventh Sanctum's story generators.

From their Brain-hurting pairing generator, it suggested: "Artemus Gordon (Wild West West)/Jordan Cochran (Real Genius)" -- which disturbingly enough could work...

Of course, the best comes from the fanfic generator: "This fanfic is about the cast of The Thin Man eating a meal with the cast of Animaniacs." I can write that story in eight words:

Nora Charles: Waiter, will you serve the nuts?

Nuff said?