Media Relations: quick take review: a home at the end of the world/ July 28, 2004
The truly quick take review: If you've read the novel (or listened to the audiobook), you'll be sitting there thinking, "What the hell did they do to this story?" If you haven't read the novel, you'll be sitting there thinking, "What the hell is going ON?"
Posted by iain at 01:19 AM
With something as fun as a cartoon Bush and Kerry hurling musical epithets at one another, you knew lawyers would have to get involved.
And, unfortunately for JibJab.com, they have.
You know the Jibjab thing I'm talking about, right? The flash animation movie swirling around the Internet with President George Bush and Senator John Kerry singing to the tune of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." [...] The bit is hilarious. Unless you are The Richmond Organization, a music publisher that owns the copyright to Guthrie's tune through its Ludlow Music unit. [...] TRO believes that the Jibjab creation threatens to corrupt Guthrie's classic -- an icon of Americana -- by tying it to a political joke; upon hearing the music people would think about the yucks, not Guthrie's unifying message. The publisher wants Jibjab to stop distribution of the flash movie.
Of course the creators behind Jibjab don't agree. "We consider it a case of political satire and parody and therefore entitled to the fair use exemption of the copyright act," said Jibjab attorney Ken Hertz....
I'm moderately amazed that the music publishers are even thinking about making this threat. The 2LiveCrew/Pretty Woman case (more properly known as Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music 510 U.S. 569 (1994)), is so directly on point, surely the courts would just tell the publishers to get lost. In this case, there's not even really any money at issue.
Really, music publishers in general, and this one in particular, need to get (1) a sense of humor; (2) a sense of proportion, and (3) a life. Possibly in that order.
Posted by iain at 11:40 PM
Really, I'm terribly impressed. The Southern Baptist Convention was some considerable peeved at the Republican National Committee for trying to use their church directories in what the SBC considered a highly inappropriate way. Having not learned a single thing from that dustup earlier this month, the RNC went and did it again.
GOP seeks Catholic parish directories (Salon.com/AP Wire)
Douglass Daniel
July 23, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Republican National Committee has asked Bush-backing Roman Catholics to provide copies of their parish directories to help register Catholics to vote in the November election, a use of personal information not necessarily condoned by dioceses around the country. In a story posted Thursday on its Web site, the National Catholic Reporter said a GOP official had urged people who attended a Catholic outreach event in January to provide parish directories and membership lists to the political party.
"Access to these directories is critical as it allows us to identify and contact those Catholics who are likely to be supportive of President Bush's compassionate conservative agenda,'' wrote Martin J. Gillespie, director of Catholic Outreach at the RNC. "Please forward any directories you are able to collect to my attention.''
The RNC is using the information from parish directories only for its nonpartisan voter registration drive, RNC spokeswoman Christine Iverson told The Associated Press on Thursday. Those efforts target members of other faiths as well as people who belong to nonreligious organizations, she said....
Translating values into votes, Republicans seek parish directories (National Catholic Reporter, ncronline.org)
By Joe Feuerherd
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is urging Bush-supporting Catholics to provide parish directories and membership lists to the GOP. Martin J. Gillespie, Director of Catholic Outreach at the RNC, made the request earlier this year. "We … want to work with you to identify active Catholic voters throughout the country. In this respect, we need your help in requesting parish directory and membership lists of Catholic groups and associations [bold in original]," wrote Gillespie. [...] No one should be shocked at the lengths each campaign will go to this election to identify and energize their voters. But if asking congregants to help spread a political message is "direct," what does that make asking Catholics to fork over their parish directories to the Republican National Committee?
Back on July 3, the following AP article appeared:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The Southern Baptist Convention, a conservative denomination closely aligned with President Bush, said it was offended by the Bush-Cheney campaign's effort to use church rosters for campaign purposes. "I'm appalled that the Bush-Cheney campaign would intrude on a local congregation in this way," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "The bottom line is, when a church does it, it's nonpartisan and appropriate. When a campaign does it, it's partisan and inappropriate," he said. "I suspect that this will rub a lot of pastors' fur the wrong way."
The Bush campaign defended a memo in which it sought to mobilize church members by providing church directories to the campaign, arranging for pastors to hold voter-registration drives, and talking to various religious groups about the campaign.
Other religious organizations also criticized the document as inappropriate, suggesting that it could jeopardize churches' tax-exempt status by involving them in partisan politics.
Campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said the document, distributed to campaign staff, was well within the law. "People of faith have a right to take part in the political process, and we're reaching out to every supporter of President Bush to become involved in the campaign," Stanzel said....
So, they've pissed off the leadership of the Baptists, and now the Catholic hierarchy is none too thrilled with them. At this rate, by the end of August, they'll have worked their way through every conservative-leaning denomination in the country. One assumes that, despite the anger of the denominations' leadership, they're getting enough information back from the parishes and churches to justify the ongoing ill-will they're creating.
That the GOP would attempt to use the church in service to its partisan political goals in this way is ... somewhat distressing, if not at all surprising.
Posted by iain at 03:44 AM
And today's lesson: if you're going to travel abroad, remember to keep it zipped. Or at least use a condom or 20.
Holidays can be bad for your health, according to research suggesting that those who seek sex in the sun should be screened for infectious diseases when they return. More than 30 million UK residents - about half the population - travel abroad each year, said a paper in the British Medical Journal. Karen Rogstad, a consultant in the department of genito-urinary medicine at the Royal Hallamshire hospital in Sheffield, has found an "alarming increase" in the number of sexually transmitted infections. Foreign travel appears to be responsible for a small but significant proportion, including 21% of syphilis cases in men.
Nine per cent of people with gonorrhoea reported having sex abroad in the previous three months. Bisexual or gay men mostly had sex in the US and Europe, while hetero-sexual men had sex in the Caribbean or Far East. Women mainly reported new sexual encounters in the Caribbean, the paper said. Many new cases of HIV infection in the UK were the result of encounters abroad - a quarter of the UK-born women infected between 2000 and 2002, and 69% of men, of whom probably 22% were infected in Thailand.
The women were infected in Thailand? Oh. Well. Um. My. Whoda thunk?
To be sure, these are British statistics. But there's no reason to assume that the risk is any lower for Americans traveling abroad. (Especially since we seem to be having sex with Britons when they come here. It would be fascinating to see what the statistics were for people having sex with foreigners who come to visit. Those stats probably couldn't be properly determined, however.)
Posted by iain at 02:38 AM
Oh, good grief. I do so very much hate the political silly season, which is getting ever sillier this particular season.
A proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw the burning of the American flag won the approval Tuesday of a Senate Judiciary Committee split largely along party lines.
Raised by some Republicans as a mark of patriotism this election year, the measure passed on a 11-7 vote and was sent to the full Senate for final congressional approval. While the Senate has repeatedly rejected such measures in the past, both sides predict a razor-close vote this time.
At a guess -- andit is, of course, only a guess -- this amendment, like the other, will fail to acheive cloture, but this time along a more predictable 55-45 vote in favor, rather than the peculiar 48-50 vote against the FMA. I can't imagine that any senator opposed to this amendment wants to be on record as having voted directly against it (although a vote against cloture achieves something of the same goal for the Republicans, who are desperately searching for some "patriotic" issue with which to belabor the Democrats). I mean, if the Republicans need this sort of false issue to unify their conservative base, then doesn't that say that the Republicans' actual issues and positions are the problem in the first place? And doesn't it strongly suggest that they're trying to distract their constituents in a move that's profoundly insulting to said constituents' intelligence? "Hey, look over here! Flag burning amendment! Patriotism! Woo-hoo! Pay no attention to the bankrupt positions laying over there on the floor, just vote for patriotism, goddammit!"
I would also like to know what the hell Dianne Feinstein was thinking to vote for the measure. Not that it would have made any difference, but still. The hell?
Posted by iain at 02:01 AM
So, Da Coach ain't running. And many people rejoice.
KRT Wire | 07/15/2004 | Ditka won't seek U.S. Senate seat, blasts gay marriage: Former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka said Wednesday he would not ask Republican leaders to make him their U.S. Senate nominee, forcing a political organization hobbled by scandal and infighting to search for another candidate to replace primary winner Jack Ryan. "Five, six years ago I would have jumped on it and would have ran with it, and I know this, that I would make a good senator, because I would be for the people," Ditka said in an impromptu news conference in front of his Near North Side restaurant. "But . . . I have made commitments. I have obligations, and that's basically the whole reason I've chosen not to go in that direction."
Then, in Ditka's typical blunt-speaking fashion, the former coach launched into an unsolicited tirade about a Massachusetts court decision legalizing gay marriage. "What's the matter with right and wrong? Talk about right and wrong. It's either right or wrong. There's no in-between," Ditka said. "And I'm not going to change, and you're not going to change me, no matter if some judge in the state of Massachusetts or the Supreme Court says it's right. It's not right. Wrong is wrong."
Dillard Considers Senate Race; Oberweis Shows Interest
NBC5.com
POSTED: 4:12 pm CDT July 18, 2004
UPDATED: 4:36 pm CDT July 18, 2004
An Illinois state senator said he plans to decide later this week whether he'll seek the Republican nomination in the race for U.S. Senate, while a wealthy dairy farmer who lost in the primary is considering taking another shot at the vacancy. For more than three weeks, Republicans have been trying to find a replacement for millionaire Jack Ryan who dropped out of the race after the release of embarrassing sex club allegations.
State Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, said he's discussed the possibility of replacing Ryan with several GOP officials. [...] Meanwhile, dairy owner Jim Oberweis said he's still considering whether he wants to be appointed as the Republican to challenge Obama.
On the one hand, it's got to be great to be Obama at the moment. Until the Republicans come up with a candidate, he doesn't have to say a single solitary word on the issues. He doesn't really have to say anything about anything; he just has to make sure that he keeps his face in front of the public so that they don't forget he's running.
On the other hand, it's got to suck to be the Illinois GOP central committee. Not only do they have to replace a candidate, but they get to be seen floundering about the issue in public. It can't engender confidence that finding a replacement for the nominee (whom they kind of didn't want anyway) has proven to be such a difficult task. And when the nominee finaly makes an appearance, it will be apparent that it's not going to be the first or second or even third choice. Which will also not be good for them.
On the up side for us residents, at this point, the national GOP has probably written off Illinois as unwinnable for the Senate. We're not considered a swing state for presidential politics. Thus, we're likely to be spared the relentless presidential and Democratic nominee visits and campaigning. (Which, yes, can be informative, but somewhere along the way wind up being an intensely irritating event.)
Posted by iain at 09:37 PM
The Senate dealt an election-year defeat Wednesday to a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, rejecting pleas from President Bush and fellow conservatives that the measure was needed to safeguard an institution that has flourished for thousands of years. The vote was 48-50, 12 short of the 60 needed to keep the measure alive. Six Republicans joined dozens of Democrats in sealing the amendment's fate. [...] In all, 45 Republicans and three Democrats voted to keep the measure alive. Six Republicans joined 43 Democrats and one independent in opposition.
The odds have never favored passage in the current Congress, in part because many Democrats oppose it, but also because numerous conservatives are hesitant to overrule state prerogatives on the issue.
Of course, the House is going to try to bring this back up in September. If both parties keep better control of their members than the Senate did (a somewhat big "if"), the amendment will still fail, but it will fail by having an insufficient majority -- that is, if it were a simple law as opposed to a constutional amendment, it would have the numbers to pass -- as opposed to failing to achieve cloture.
Purely a side note: you do have to love that essentially what happened to the amendment was that the Republicans filibustered themselves -- although, that said, even if every single one of the Republicans who voted against cloture had instead voted the other way, there wouldn't have been enough votes for cloture. However, a 54-44 vote for cloture would have been a somewhat different campaign issue than a 48-50 vote against. At 54-44, the GOP could have blamed them dirty dog Democrats for blocking a vote on an issue that's "...the ultimate homeland security, standing up and defending marriage" as Senator Rick Santorum put it. (One must be impressed at the truly remarkable breadth and depth of Santorum's assholery.) It's much harder to make that argument when it's the members of your own party keeping you from achieving even a simple majority.
Posted by iain at 01:18 PM
Why, yes, we do torture people in jails here, as well. And if they're lucky, someone finds out about it.
Nine current and former Chicago Police detectives have invoked their Fifth Amendment rights rather than answer questions about police torture for a pending civil lawsuit. The detectives -- including former Area 2 Cmdr. Jon Burge -- cited their right to remain silent and avoid self-incrimination in response to 25 written questions posed by attorneys of freed Death Row inmate Aaron Patterson. Patterson is one of at least six freed inmates who have civil cases pending against the detectives and the City of Chicago, charging he was threatened and tortured into giving a confession. He also accuses the state's attorney's office of covering it up. Patterson's attorney, Flint Taylor, said the detectives were asked about 47 victims of police torture.
Taylor said invoking the Fifth Amendment is significant because the detectives will be stuck with those answers and, unlike in a criminal case, a jury can be instructed to hold their lack of answers against them.
One of the interesting things about this case is that Patterson alleges that the state's attorney's office colluded in covering up the torture. And the Cook County state's attorney at the time of the torture was, I believe, hizzoner the current mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley. (Why, yes, he was; according to the CEOs for Cities bio page, Daley was State's Attorney of Cook County from 1980-1989, when we elected him mayor. According to the 1999 Chicago Reader article, he was arrested on these charges in 1986. Imagine that.)
That issue aside, one really wonders what's left for the city and county to say in their defense. Who is there to defend the officers? The officers themselves can scarcely do much else but take the Fifth or (possibly) lie on the stand (assuming for the sake of argument that the allegations are true); the statute of limitations hasn't run out on all the crimes of which they stand accused. Many of them, but not all of them. As noted in an earlier piece, but for a statutory requirement in the union agreement that forces the city to defend the officers, it might have sued the men itself. Another detective's sister has stated that he admitted the torture to her. (Although this probably is effectively nothing more than hearsay, legally.) I wonder if this essentially turns the case into a walkover for the plaintiffs. What sort of usable defense can the city or the current and former officers mount when their defense is "I ain't talkin'"?
Posted by iain at 06:18 PM
Gay marriage vote appears DOOOMED!... maybe. (But in an entirely different way than had been predicted, if the current situation persists, and one which will be moderately embarrassing to the Senate Republican leadership; they've got rebellion in the ranks, it seems. Even though they'd have a few conservative Democrats who would be willing to vote for cloture, they can't get enough of their own party to sign on. Heh.)
Gay marriage vote appears doomed
Senate leaders unable to agree on procedure
By Tom Curry
National affairs writer
MSNBC
Updated: 4:13 p.m. ET July 13, 2004
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats on Tuesday appeared headed toward a tactical victory on the hot-button issue of same-sex marriage. What seemed likely Monday — an up-or-down Senate vote on a proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage as only "the union of a man and a woman" — appeared very doubtful a day later as Republican and Democratic leaders were unable to agree on a procedure for a vote. [...] “Most states, including Maine, have passed laws declaring that they will not recognize same-sex marriages, regardless of where they occurred,” [Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine] said. “I support the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which protects the traditional right of states to determine for themselves what constitutes marriage. ... As long as this law is on the books, I see no need for a Constitutional Amendment."
Dems May Dodge Marriage Vote
(CBS) By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer
Wednesday's scheduled vote on the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage was timed by Senate Republican leaders to portray Democrats as out of touch with mainstream America ahead of their late July political convention. But Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, the Democratic presidential ticket, will likely dodge the domestically divisive issue. Republicans continue to lack the 60 votes needed for initial passage of the bill. And the two-thirds majority, 67 votes, required to amend the constitution (pending ratification by two-thirds of the states) is well out of the GOP's reach, likely by more than a dozen votes. [...] The Kerry-Edwards campaign said Tuesday that neither man would vote in the Senate's procedural test. If that passes, both senators will participate in the final vote, requiring two-thirds support. [...] Although the conservative base enthusiastically supports a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, there is some concern among Republican strategists that the push for a ban may make President Bush, and Republicans in general, look intolerant.
Already President Bush has all but estranged his only gay constituency. Log Cabin Republicans, the leading conservative gay-rights group, is almost certain not to endorse Mr. Bush. “The president has truly jeopardized the endorsement of Log Cabin Republicans. He did that first on February 24, when he came out with the federal marriage amendment and he reinforced this in his radio address this weekend,” said Patrick Guerriero, the group's executive director. “We are very close to a breaking point,” he added.
Excuse me ... "VERY CLOSE to a breaking point"? They're not broken yet? How much more punishment do they want to take? How much more public humiliation do they think they should bear in hopes that Our Glorious Shrub will change his mind and embrace them (and their campaign donations, of course)? Dear god in heaven, what on earth does it take for these people to get a fucking clue? Their party has taken them for granted, then dismissed them outright, and now the leader of said party is publicly declaring that yes, he really and truly does believe that they should be second-class citizens, at least when it comes to marriage. Their party doesn't want them.
That said, given that the amendment is likely to fail outright, the more conservative House is alternatively looking at amending the Judiciary Act to strip the federal courts of the jurisdiction to hear challenges to the federal DOMA.
Marriage Protection Act of 2003
108th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3313
To amend title 28, United States Code, to limit Federal court jurisdiction over questions under the Defense of Marriage Act.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 16, 2003
Mr. HOSTETTLER (for himself, Mr. PENCE, Mr. SMITH of Michigan, Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey, Mr. GOODE, Mr. AKIN, Mr. GUTKNECHT, Mr. WELDON of Florida, Mr. JONES of North Carolina, Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland, Mr. FORBES, and Mr. PAUL) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To amend title 28, United States Code, to limit Federal court jurisdiction over questions under the Defense of Marriage Act.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Marriage Protection Act of 2003'.
SEC. 2. LIMITATION ON JURISDICTION.
(a) IN GENERAL- Chapter 99 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
`Sec. 1632. Limitation on jurisdiction
`No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or determine any question pertaining to the interpretation of section 1738c of this title or of this section. Neither the Supreme Court nor any court created by Act of Congress shall have any appellate jurisdiction to hear or determine any question pertaining to the interpretation of section 7 of title 1.'.
(b) AMENDMENT TO TABLE OF SECTIONS- The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 99 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new item:
`1632. Limitation on jurisdiction.'.
The Supreme Court will nonetheless still retain appelate jurisdiction, via the various state supreme courts, over the 30-odd individual state DOMAs. Mind, I'd imagine that the Court's hoping and praying that no such case comes down the pike for a good long time.
Posted by iain at 05:56 PM
With the resignation of Andrea Barthwell from the Bush administration last Friday, speculation turned to the chances of a black female physician emerging as the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. While serving in the Bush administration, Republican faithful say they are leery of Barthwell's history of giving to Democrat candidates and never giving to Republicans.
Well, yes, I should think that might concern one or two people. Kind of makes you wonder why on earth she calls herself a Republican. Then again, one wonders the same thing about Colin Powell, when one looks at his stand on the issues. Apparently, there's a devoutly massochistic streak in some people that revels in public embarrassment and humiliation. But I digress.
... over the weekend, the drum beat continued to draft former Bears' coach Mike Ditka , a rough and tough George W. Bush supporter, and known over the years as a Republican supporter.
Ditka's wife insisted over the weekend that there was no chance her husband would consider running for U.S. Senate.
But Monday morning, Chicago's Fox WFLD-32 Darlene Hill interviewed Ditka. In the interview, Ditka began to reveal some of his positions on political hot button issues that could face a U.S. Senate candidate.
". . . You think the people in Washington now are the best people for this country? I'm talking about Senators, Representatives. Are they doing the best job for the people who put them there? That's all I'm asking," Ditka said to Hill. "If you really believe that then I don't belong in politics. I don't believe they're doing the best job for the people who put them there."
Then Ditka made a reference to his position on abortion: "You talk about banning smoking. Okay, why don't we ban abortion? Let's talk about things that are really important. You know you talk about well you think one thing can harm your health, the other one takes a life," he said. "Come on here, you know you're talking to a guy that is ultra-ultra-ultra conservative. So you know people who don't like that, you won't like me one bit. . ."
Of course, it's entirely possible to feel both that the people currently in Washington aren't the right ones for the job AND that Ditka isn't either.
If nothing else, Ditka as a senator has the potential for entertainment, as well as language that would make Cheney's recent "fuck yourself" moment seem positively tame. The FCC would wind up massively fining CSPAN every time a Senatorial debate was shown. (For that matter, the debates on the way to the election, if there are any, would be vastly entertaining all by themselves; Da Coach has never shown particular patience with people who vehemently disagree with him in public.
Posted by iain at 03:40 PM
89.3 KPCC | Perspectives | Sandra Tsing Loh
Posted by iain at 03:29 PM
Four years after earning the moniker Flori-duh, the state is again risking becoming a late-night talk show one-liner for mismanaging a presidential election. Once again, there is turmoil over a list of who is eligible to vote, and the voting machines themselves in some of the state's biggest counties are under question: The touchs-creen machines touted as a space-age solution to the 1960s-era punch-card dinosaurs are proving to be a colossal headache.
Sensing a mounting public relations disaster less then four months before what could be another squeaker of a presidential election, state officials Saturday yanked the controversial ''felon-purge'' voter list. It was a concession to the critics who barraged the administration with complaints and data showing that the list was riddled with errors -- this despite Gov. Jeb Bush's vow that the state, after the 2000 debacle, would become a model of election reform for the nation. [...] The controversy started to blaze out of Bush's control when The Herald reported that more than 2,100 people remained on the list of potentially ineligible voters despite having won clemency -- the right to vote -- after serving their sentences. Many of them were black -- part of the Democratic base that mobilized against George W. Bush's candidacy in 2000 and nearly cost him the presidential election.
Then the discovery this week that Hispanics -- who in Florida lean Republican -- weren't on the felon purge list sent Bush critics and conspiracy theorists into overdrive, considering that the list was prepared by a Republican administration that went to court to block the public's right to review it.
So let me get this straight-ish.
The outrage of the state when 21,000 mostly black, mostly Democrat-leaning individuals were mistakenly included on the list did not stir the state to feeling that it should do something. (Note that this includes only people who were granted clemency; it says nothing about people who were not felons and who should not have been on the list in the first place, which was a particular problem in the last election.)
But the "accidental" exclusion from the list of thousands of Republican-leaning Hispanics, who should have been on the list, did.
The solution, to drop any list whatsoever, means that while the Democrats will remain on the list, so will the Republicans. To be sure, given registration numbers, an advantage to the Democrats.
Really, the corruption level of Florida politics is beginning to make Cook County's near-legendary corruption look peculiarly picayune, by comparison. Mind, Cook County's corrupt politics are at least competent -- they would never have tried a dodge this bad twice in a row. (We prefer to have the dead voting, thanks. Harder to notice, you see.)
In the meantime, in order to try to ensure that the theoretically Republican-leaning Hispanics decide to give the Democrats a try, the administration is now embarking on some magnificently badly timed and ill-advised revisions to what it is pleased to call its Cuba policy.
WASHINGTON – For more than 40 years, the debate has persisted: Do tough sanctions against Cuba weaken Fidel Castro's government or entrench it? President Bush's actions make clear where he stands. He believes loopholes in the embargo are serving as a lifeline for Castro.
At midnight Wednesday, new regulations take effect to sharply reduce Cuba-bound dollar flows from the United States, mostly by way of Cuban-Americans. Properly enforced, the measures could deprive the island of up to $150 million a year, according to administration estimates. The measures are being imposed despite growing congressional disenchantment with the embargo. Lawmakers voted by comfortable margins last year to end restrictions on travel to Cuba. A threatened presidential veto killed it. Proponents argued that U.S. tourism would plant democratic seeds in Cuba; the administration contends the chief effect would be an economic windfall for Castro. The measures taking effect on Thursday appear aimed partly at the November elections. In 2000, Bush's 4-to-1 advantage over Al Gore among Cuban-Americans in Florida helped to carry the state in 2000, by a mere 537 votes, and to win the White House....
BUSH LOSING SUPPORT AMONG CUBAN-AMERICANS
New York Post
July 10, 2004 -- WASHINGTON — President Bush is losing support among the crucial Cuban-American constituency in Florida and new curbs on U.S. travel to the island are stirring some division, a poll released yesterday showed. Sixty-six percent of respondents said they would support Bush if the election were held today, down from 82 percent who voted for him in 2000, according to the poll of 800 Cuban-Americans, commissioned by the William C. Velasquez Institute. Bush won Florida in 2000 by just 537 votes after a recount battle, and the Cuban-American community has traditionally been a reliable Republican bastion. Cuban-Americans were also reluctant to back Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Only 16 percent said they would vote for him if the election were held today, according to the poll.
So at this point, about the best outcome that Bush can hope for is that a substantial portion of Cuban-Americans in Florida are both so disillusioned with his wrongheaded policy, but not at all enthusiastic about Kerry, so that they simply don't vote at all. The problem with this is, a certain number of Cuban-American votes would have gone to Kerry anyway -- no group is a monolith -- and those voters aren't likely to change their mind unless Kerry does something particularly boneheaded between now and the election (always a possibility). Thus, all Bush is doing with this policy -- with which the Republican House has already pointedly disagreed, voting to ease the parcel content restrictions -- is to cut into his own voter base, thinking that by pandering to the Cuban American exile community, they'll like him more. It may appeal to hardliner exiles, but surely most of the exile community isn't hardliner, because otherwise, there wouldn't be so much flowing into Cuba. The problem is, telling them "You can't go home, you can't send soap and clothing to your family, you can't send them money, you can only visit once every three years -- and if you didn't make the June 30 visitation window for this year, you're just shit out of luck until 2007, regardless of when your last visit was," ... well, those statements really aren't calculated to make people like him, are they?
Posted by iain at 03:01 PM
You know, this is really impressive to watch, in that "Thank heaven it's not the Democrats with this mess," sort of way.
The Illinois Republican Party took another body blow Thursday, as the candidate considered the favorite by a number of GOP leaders dropped out of the running to replace U.S. Senate nominee Jack Ryan. State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger said his late entry into the race would have made it nearly impossible to raise the money required to compete effectively against Democrat Barack Obama. [...] "It's just very hard from a standing start to pull something like this together," Rauschenberger said. "We need a candidate with a different set of attributes if you're going to run a 100-day short race." Rauschenberger said he believes "it's still a winnable race," but it would require a politician or celebrity known throughout the state or someone with access to personal wealth or an existing federal campaign fund.
Well, that's the problem, isn't it? With this little time, the Republicans need a known quantity with a private fortune to have even the slightest chance. (Which, peculiarly enough, describes Jack Ryan, more or less. Interestingly, he has yet to file to paperwork to withdraw from the race, although he's announced that he has done so. One would assume that he will file the paperwork once the party lets it be known that they have a candidate; otherwise, he may linger on as a most peculiar lame-duck candidate indeed. I suppose it's marginally better for the Republicans to have a candidate who's not actually running on the ballot than to allow Obama to win in a walkover.) Every known quantity is looking at this mess, looking at the fact that the Republicans were trailing anyway, calculating how much they'd have to spend to become familiar only to likely lose anyway, noting that the national party organization is taking a studied hands-off attitude to this race, and saying, "Um ... no. Really. No. Thanks awfully, but ... no." Reportedly, Rauschenberger even did himself a bit of damage at the national level by refusing; apparently, you just don't say "no" to Big Dennis Hastert. (The way it's been reported in local media makes Hastert sound like a conservative Republican Godfather, really. Any moment now, Hastert's going to call out the local goons to teach Rauschenberger a lesson he's never going to forget.)
It's gotten so weird that apparently they're looking to yank people out of Our Glorious Shrub's administration to try to run for this office.
Bush aide resigns to explore Senate run (Chicago Tribune, registration required)
By CHRISTOPHER WILLS
The Associated Press
Published July 9, 2004, 4:03 PM CDT
The deputy director of President Bush's drug-control office resigned Friday to explore a run for the U.S. Senate in place of Jack Ryan, the Republican nominee who dropped out over sex club allegations. Andrea Grubb Barthwell, a Chicago-area physician, had been deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington since 2002, focusing on reducing demand for drugs. Federal law barred her from seeking the Republican nomination while she worked for the government.
Barthwell, 50, told The Associated Press that no one had assured her that she would be the GOP candidate or that Ryan would actually remove his name from the ballot, something he has yet to formally do. "I'm interested, I want to be considered and I will make myself available to those who make that decision, but I am not assuming that I will be the candidate and I am not assuming that once I get all the information that I need, that I would want to run in this particular race,'' Barthwell said. [...] If Barthwell were chosen to face off against Democrat Barack Obama, it would be the first time in history that two black candidates battled as the parties' nominees for a U.S. Senate seat.
I will admit, the concept of a black woman running as a Republican nominee is ... intriguing. And just the teensiest bit appalling and revolting, of course. Offsetting the publicity advantage -- two blacks running for senator from the same state has never happened before (and no wonder) -- would be the reaction of the GOP's more conservative voters, which would be something like, "EW! EW ew ew ew ew! A woman! And not white! No no never never not even to save the conservative agenda, because she pretty much embodies the anti-conservative agenda by her very existence in that position! NO!" Given that these more ideological driven voters are the ones she might need to persuade to give her money, that would be difficult. It's also an open question as to whether or not she'd receive any support from the national leadership -- it's becoming increasingly apparent that the GOP is beginning to regard Illinois as a lost cause, senatorially speaking. (The upside of that is that we're likely to be spared the incessant campaigning already plaguing Tennessee, Florida and other swing states.) That said, despite her statements to the contrary, one wonders if she'd have resigned an administration position without having gotten some sort of assurance that she would be favorably received as a candidate.
Posted by iain at 05:23 PM
Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Price winner, has lent his name to the fight against homophobia in Africa and around the world. The prominent South African says homophobia is a "crime against humanity" and "every bit unjust" as apartheid.
The former head of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa made these statements at the launching of the book "Sex, Love & Homophobia", published last week by Amnesty International UK. Mr Tutu has written the foreword to the human rights group's book. [...] He also regrets the dominant view among his church colleagues. "Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?" Mr Tutu asks.
That man is so very very impressive.
Posted by iain at 01:59 PM
Contrary to popular belief, people in east Asia are no more genetically susceptible to short-sightedness than any other population group, according to researchers who have analysed past studies of the problem. The epidemics of myopia in countries such as Singapore and Japan are due solely to changes in lifestyle, they say, and similar levels could soon be seen in many western countries as lifestyles there continue to change. "As kids spend more time indoors, on computers or watching telly, we are going to become just as myopic," says Ian Morgan of the Australian National University in Canberra. [...] There is little doubt about at least one underlying cause. Children now spend much of their time focusing on close objects, such as books and computers. To compensate the eyeball is thought to grow longer. That way less effort is needed to focus up close, but the elongated eye can no longer focus on distant objects.
One does wonder what, exactly, can be done about this. To be sure, you can send kids outside to play more, and the back and forth may undo some of the damage. But it's unlikely that kids will be asked to read significantly less in schools; it's unlikely that the parents will change their own lives to get rid of the television and the video games and all the other things that require close focusing.
It's interesting to speculate about the ways this will affect different aspects of life. For example, one of the things that's likely to happen in sports is that people playing football or baseball or anything requiring lots of back and forth hand-eye coordination are going to wind up getting startlingly early lasik surgery to fix their myopia, because they can't function otherwise. The armed services of various countries will either start accepting recruits with that sort of surgery -- many refuse to accept recruits with that sort of corrective surgery because it can abruptly go very wrong -- or start providing it themselves because it's the only way they can get troops capable of aiming their weapons. There'll be this whole massive high-tech industry springing up to provide vision aids.
And television screens will, of course, become immense, because those paltry little 17-or-19-inch screens will be just way too small for people to see any more. The minimum will be something like a 45-inch screen, and from there, the sky's the limit! On the other hand, maybe the protests against media indecency will die down a bit, because we'll all be too blind to see. "Wait... was that Janet Jackson's nipple again? Or maybe it was just a spot on the screen...."
Posted by iain at 11:03 AM
One damn short honeymoon, I must say.
Last week, a 45-year-old Reno woman married her boyfriend of three years.
And on Saturday, suspicious her new hubby was having an affair, she called phone numbers that appeared on their caller ID, police said. One of those numbers belonged to an undercover drug detective in the regional Street Enforcement Team.
Tuesday afternoon, SET detectives informed her 48-year-old husband his wife was in jail on charges she gave the detective a $200 down payment to cut off his penis and torture his suspected mistress, said SET Sgt. Dave Evans. Detectives had been unable to find the husband until Tuesday.
Initially, Margaret Lynn Wilson wanted the detective to kill her husband for $2,000, but changed her mind because the maiming was $1,000 cheaper, Evans said....
Well, nice to know that she's on the lookout for a bargain, isn't it? After all, you wouldn't want to waste money having your husband whacked when you could just whack off the dangling bits and get your revenge that way. And, you know, I understand the whole maiming thing is much more satisfying.
Mind, I am somewhat curious as to why an undercover detective's phone number was on their caller ID. I mean, it clearly wasn't a number she recognized, and from the way the article was written, Detective Evans doesn't seem to have been one of the husband's friends.
But here's the part that gets me:
Last July, Wilson was arrested on charges she tried to burn down her now husband’s trailer, police said, and was placed on 18 months probation. He was not home in the West Fourth Street trailer park at the time of the fire, police said.
Um ... why would you want to marry someone who did that? I mean, clearly, it wasn't attempted murder -- or, at the very least, they couldn't prove that it was, or she wouldn't have gotten off so very lightly -- but you would think that once your fiancee has tried to burn you out, you'd say, "Perhaps we should look into ending this relationship before you end me." I mean, there's forgiveness, and then there's brain damage.
Posted by iain at 06:00 PM
The HIV/AIDS epidemic is particularly acute in portions or Asia and Africa, and the Caribbean boasts -- if that's quite the right word -- the fastest growth in cases outside sub-Saharan Africa.
The global AIDS epidemic spread at an alarming pace last year with a record 4.8 million new infections, according to a U.N. report released Tuesday, which expressed concern that the virus is spreading quickly in Eastern Europe and Asia. Issued in advance of the 15th International AIDS Conference, which opens Sunday in Bangkok, the report said that governments were not doing enough to prevent the spread of AIDS. Only one in five people worldwide have access to prevention programs, it said.
Sub-Saharan Africa continued to have the world's highest incidence of AIDS, the report said. But Eastern Europe and Central Asia are suffering from the fastest rate of growth in HIV infections, U.N. officials said. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. In Asia, prevention has been inadequate "partly because of stigma and discrimination," the report said. There were success stories in Thailand and Cambodia, where prevention programs deal more openly with high-risk behavior, such as intravenous drug use and prostitution, said the U.N. report, which warned against "complacency."
The UN might well warn against "complacency", since that appears to be part of what's driving an increase in risky behaviors in this country.
HIV antiretroviral drugs are available to most of the estimated 1.6 million infected people in so-called high-income countries, including the United States. There were 950,000 people with HIV in the United States at the end of last year, 50,000 more than in 2001, the report said. [...] In high-income countries such as the United States, experts are concerned about the resurgence of sexually transmitted infections and high-risk behaviors, such as having unprotected sex. "People are dropping their guard and that will have its consequences," Cravero said.
Of course, part of the problem is that many of those engaging in this behavior are simply too young to remember; after all, it's been 20 years since AIDS appeared. Time for an entirely new generation to become sexually active, and reinvent sex in their own image. Another part of the problem is that the protease inhibitors make HIV/AIDS appear to be a chronic, survivable disease, much like diabetes, for example. (Somehow, the side effects of the drug, like unavoidable explosive diarrhea or chronic anemia, or the fact that a substantial number of people simply can't tolerate the drugs, never quite makes it into the consciousness.) And many of us who are old enough to remember are just tired. Tired of always thinking of sex as a deadly weapon, more or less. Tired of always having to think about sex and disease prevention, instead of treating it as something fun.
And so the rate here will rise due to carelessness and exhaustion, and the rate there will rise due to poverty and inability to act on any information they do have.
Posted by iain at 12:34 PM
Well, it was probably inevitable that it would happen somewhere. Mind, most people would have thought that Boston would have led the charge a year or two ago, given the hefty outstanding judgements against that diocese. For it to be Portland is ... unexpected, to put it mildly.
The Portland Archdiocese announced today it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection rather than proceed with a priest-abuse trial scheduled to begin today. It was the first time a Catholic archdiocese has ever sought bankruptcy protection.
Archbishop John G. Vlazny said he attempted to seek a reasonable settlement in the case and another that was prepared to go to trial if the first one settled. But Vlazny said he could not risk going to trial because the suit sought $130 million in damages. "This is not an effort to avoid responsibility. It is in fact the only way I can assure that other claimants can be offered fair compensation," Vlazny said in a prepared statement.
The church and its insurers already have spent more than $53 million to settle more than 100 claims of priest abuse, the second-highest settlement figured in the nation. [...] The two Oregon cases scheduled to go to trial today - one as a back-up if the first one settled - involved the conduct of the Rev. Maurice Grammond, who has been accused of molesting more than 50 boys from the early to mid-1980s. And he had made the type of inflammatory remarks that can anger a jury. "I'd say these children abused me," Grammond said in a deposition taken before he died in 2002. "They'd dive in my lap to get sexual excitement."
Well ... given the comments by the priest in question, either settlement or bankruptcy really would be the only options. Even with the priest no longer being alive to testify, that sort of comment on the record would make most people flatly refuse to listen to any exculpatory information you might provide. Mind, I'm not sure what sort of exculpatory information you really could provide, given that situation.
Posted by iain at 04:59 PM
A woman came into work today. She had skin like alabaster, lips gone gray, and eyes so empty that you could get lost in them. She had a presence that screamed out for a hug, but made perfectly clear that she didn’t want anyone to dare try.
I wrote down:
GENERAL IMPRESSION: Poor
INITIAL ASSESSMENT: Pt. pale and diaphoretic, pupils dilated. Withdrawn.
“Ma’am,” I said, “I’m a paramedic student. I would like to ask you some questions. Is that alright?”
“Yes.”
“What day is it?”
“July second, 2004.”
“Where are we?”
“At a hospital.”
“And why are you here?”
“I don’t believe in the Fourth of July.”
But really, the Sudanese government wants to help. Of course it does.
MESHKEL, Sudan, July 1 -- After U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan visited one of the best-maintained refugee camps in this war-rattled region of western Sudan on Thursday, he climbed back into an SUV and headed down a bumpy desert road. He was scheduled to tour a scene of even greater desperation in what has been called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, this time a camp that has not received any international aid. But when his convoy arrived at the settlement, the 3,000 people who had been living there Wednesday afternoon were gone. Instead, there was only a muddy field with a few soldiers stepping through the muck.
In a move that befuddled U.N. officials, the Sudanese villagers in the camp were moved overnight and in the morning, said Jan Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs. They were loaded into government trucks "apparently to be dumped," he said, at the gates of the already overcrowded Abu Shouk camp, 12 miles away, where 40,000 people live in a stretch of open desert. A U.N. team confirmed that the villagers had been moved to Abu Shouk. [...] The movement of the refugees highlighted an ongoing concern among aid workers here that the government is working hard to play down the crisis in Darfur as a string of high-level international delegations arrive.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who visited Abu Shouk on Wednesday, said any efforts to cover up the crisis were ultimately futile because he had a clear picture of what was going on. He stressed at a news conference after visiting the camp that the Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, "had to be broken," and he said the government in Khartoum must take action "within days or weeks" to deal with the crisis. The United States began circulating a draft U.N. resolution Wednesday that would place sanctions on the militiamen and ban the Sudanese and other governments from arming, equipping or training them.
During his visit, Annan also emphasized that security was the top priority and told the governor of El Fasher it was vital to assure the displaced villagers that no one would force them to return home without guarantees of protection from the marauding Arab militias....
Of course, the problem is, as has been mentioned once or twice, the Sudanese government does not seem to be interested in the slightest in protecting the villagers form the "marauding Arab militias," so those people may well be stuck in western Darfur provice for ages to come, or continue moving into eastern Chad, which really can't accommodate them.
Posted by iain at 01:51 PM
Oh, for the love of...
Queer Abs! - Get Excited About Exercise Again
Huh. My abs have never been excited about exercise. Guess they're just not queer enough. Wonder if that means they'll be revoking my union card again. I think it's been two years since the last time.
Mind, even if my abs were (or could be) excited about exercise, anybody who actually said "You look ABSulous!" to me would, of course, have to be shot immediately for the good of all mankind, queer or otherwise.
Posted by iain at 11:43 AM
EL-FASHIR, Sudan (AP) -- First come the airplanes. Then the horsemen who burn, rape and kill.
Over and over, terrified villagers told the same story Thursday as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan got a firsthand look at the crisis engulfing Sudan's Darfur region. Annan, accompanied by government ministers and senior U.N. staff, toured one of the 137 camps where more than 1 million people chased from their homes over the past 16 months have sought shelter. Sitting on mats shaded by trees, he chatted with camp elders and women who described the waves of attacks humanitarian workers have likened to ethnic cleansing.
Human rights groups accuse the Sudanese government of backing militias of Arab herders, known as the Janjaweed, in a campaign to forcibly remove African farming communities from the vast western region where they have coexisted, and in some cases intermarried, for centuries. Camp residents echoed their accounts Thursday.
"First the planes were flying over us and bombing us. Then the Janjaweed came," said a 20-year-old woman, who gave her name only as Zahara. "They started to shoot and burn. They took all our belongings. They took men and slit their throats with swords. The women they took as concubines." [...] Here, at least, there have been no attacks, residents said. But women say they don't dare venture out for fear of meeting the militias they say regularly abduct and rape African women and girls. [...] Annan -- who is on a three-week tour to the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe -- has raised the possibility of sending in international troops if Sudan's government can't safeguard its people in Darfur.
Um ... Kofi? Here's the thing: given the presence of planes bombing the villages, it would appear that Sudan's government is actively attacking the people who have flocked to Darfur. Let alone the fact that the militias are apparently roaming around the outside of the camps, judging from the fact that women are afraid of being kidnapped. I think you can kind of take it as given that Sudan's government can't safeguard its people, because it's not remotely interested in safeguarding its people.
GENEINA, Sudan, June 29 -- At first light on Sunday, three young women walked into a scrubby field just outside their refugee camp in West Darfur. They had gone out to collect straw for their family's donkeys. They recalled thinking that the Arab militiamen who were attacking African tribes at night would still be asleep. But six men grabbed them, yelling Arabic slurs such as "zurga" and "abid," meaning "black" and "slave." Then the men raped them, beat them and left them on the ground, they said.
"They grabbed my donkey and my straw and said, 'Black girl, you are too dark. You are like a dog. We want to make a light baby,' " said Sawela Suliman, 22, showing slashes from where a whip had struck her thighs as her father held up a police and health report with details of the attack. "They said, 'You get out of this area and leave the child when it's made.' " Suliman's father, a tall, proud man dressed in a flowing white robe, cried as she described the rape. It was not an isolated incident, according to human rights officials and aid workers in this region of western Sudan, where 1.2 million Africans have been driven from their lands by government-backed Arab militias, tribal fighters known as Janjaweed.
Interviews with two dozen women at camps, schools and health centers in two provincial capitals in Darfur yielded consistent reports that the Janjaweed were carrying out waves of attacks targeting African women. The victims and others said the rapes seemed to be a systematic campaign to humiliate the women, their husbands and fathers, and to weaken tribal ethnic lines. In Sudan, as in many Arab cultures, a child's ethnicity is attached to the ethnicity of the father.
"The pattern is so clear because they are doing it in such a massive way and always saying the same thing," said an international aid worker who is involved in health care. She and other international aid officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they feared reprisals or delays of permits that might hamper their operations.
She showed a list of victims from Rokero, a town outside of Jebel Marra in central Darfur where 400 women said they were raped by the Janjaweed. "It's systematic," the aid worker said. "Everyone knows how the father carries the lineage in the culture. They want more Arab babies to take the land. The scary thing is that I don't think we realize the extent of how widespread this is yet." [...] During a recent visit, government minders warned people at the school to stop talking about the rapes or face beatings or death. Minders also were seen handing out bribes to keep women from speaking to foreign visitors. But those at the school spoke anyway. A group of people handed a journalist two letters in Arabic that listed 40 names of rape victims, and wanted the list to be sent to Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Frank R. Wolf of Virginia, Republicans who were touring the region and pressing the government to disarm the Janjaweed.
Again, Kofi, notice that the government is trying to hush up everything -- although what morons would think you could hush up something this wide-scale, I'm sure I don't know. Combine the military attacks with the attempt to cover up the systematic rape policy, and I'm thinking that perhaps -- just perhaps -- it would be reasonable to assume that you can't trust Sudan's government as far as you can throw it, and you would be an utter and absolute fool to even try.
Reportedly, the UN has given Sudan 48 hours to get the Janjaweed and other militias under control. Even if Sudan had the slightest interest in getting them controlled, 48 hours is a rather stupid deadline. What can they possibly accomplish against a widely dispersed, fairly mobile, leaderless set of groups in that time frame? It would not be a reasonable deadline under any circumstances; under these, it's patently absurd. There's also the wee "Or else what happens" problem; none of the current UN resolutions on this situation has any punitive aspect. And leave us not forget, Sudan itself is head of the security council at the moment; one suspects that they can do all manner of parliamentary action to scotch any resolutions against them.
Posted by iain at 02:24 PM
Oy.
Thousands of police officers and security personnel have begun a full-scale tightening of surveillance and patrols in preparation for next month's Olympics. But work delays will block the so-called "lock down" of the main stadium until just days before the Games, Greece's top law enforcement official said. "For us, the Olympic Games start today," said Public Order Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis. "They start today for the Greek police, the armed forces and the coast guard."
About 11,000 police officers and others began moving into Olympic venues and facilities in the first stage of the "lock down" process, which includes security sweeps with bomb-sniffing dogs and tests of all surveillance operations. By mid-July, nearly all Olympic facilities will be sealed off except for access by security personnel. However, ongoing round-the-clock construction on the main stadium grounds could raise concerns that the last-minute work may compromise the safety of the Games.
Voulgarakis said officials will try to get the stadium fully secured before August 10 -- just three days before the opening ceremony.
At which point anyone who plans to do anything will have had ample opportunity to set things up, because there is no way in hell that Athens security is going to have everything locked down by then. The last days before a major event are always the most frantic and disorganized, and would be even if Athens were ready ... which they clearly are not.
And, of course, the one venue that's assured not to be done, the one that will therefore be at most risk is the one that everyone will be watching in the opening and closing ceremonies. Of course it will.
I have to admit, independent of any profit motives or desire to safeguard their career against injuries, I have a certain sympathy with the athletes who are declining to go due to security concerns. This is just horrendous.
Posted by iain at 02:15 PM
