(Special note to less-than-quick-on-the-draw-but-who-think-they’re-really-geniuses- rightwing readers: No kidding? You noticed my own careless deployment of anarthrous occupational nominal premodifiers? Whoa, are you sharp!)
* And PZ, I loved reading about the evolution of whale morphology, too, and think I got the basic points, even if many of the details were beyond my immediate knowledge. But as it happens, I wrote the music for the whale evolution section of the PBS Evolution series, so some of the issues were familiar. Fascinating stuff.
[Update: Tip of the prop to Steve Silberman, the author of the Wired article discussed below, who is participating in the discussion in comments. Thanks so much for taking the time to do so! He also corrected some information about the legal status of model rocket engines that I misremembered from his article (it was not in front of me), which I appreciate. Sorry to have misrepresented it.
I was thrilled to hear from from a longtime model rocketeer, who will be attending the National Sport Launch in Waco, TX this weekend. He wrote to inform me that there has been a significant increase in the number of women involved in the sport, which is great news. I’m hoping I can persuade him to write a little bit about his experience down in Waco!
Finally, I’d like to address the issue of mandatory vaccination against cervical cancer, which came up in comments. If – a big if – the cervical vaccine is as safe and as effective as is claimed, then it is immoral – no, make that evil – not to require the widest possible vaccination of youngsters. Period. That protecting your child from cancer has become a political football for the rightwing is simply beyond belief.
Of course, if there are serious reasons not to vaccinate an individual child – eg certain medical conditions, for example – there should be available some mechanism for opting out. But there are ways of creating an opt-out without indulging the rightwing’s perverse desire to place the lives of their children in danger’s way from this kind of now-preventable cancer.
As far as I know, however, there may be some scientists who are urging commonsense, but there are no serious plans to mandate vaccination in the US, nor will there be, for the simple reason that ignorant rightwing creates will create too much of a fuss. The lack of a mandatory vaccination program doesn’t make such neglect any less evil simply because a large part of the presently acceptable cultural discourse has been hijacked by crazy people. This campaign against a non-existent mandatory vaccination program is merely a way to limit, as much as possible, the distribution of the vaccine to those who, if they knew about it, would insist upon having their children protected from a ghastly, deadly cancer.
The only conclusion I can reach from this is that the evilosity of the right knows no bounds. Even children are endangered by their idiocy? Yes, even children.]
Cervical Cancer Vaccine – The Times has an article that mentions the rightwing opposition to the wide distribution of a truly astounding vaccine that could seriously reduce the incidence of cervical cancer. I discussed this recently in the War On Fucking series. If ever there was an issue in which the utterly evil stupidity of the rightwing agenda is exposed for what it truly is, this is it. No genuinely serious system of moral values could ever justify a campaign to minimize the distribution, if not the outright witholding, of a significantly important life-saving medicine from a child (which is the best time for this vaccine to be administered). For most of us, this is a given. But not for the extreme right of Dobson, Robertson, and their numerous allies in the Bush administration. It would be extremely interesting to get Bush himself on record as to what he thinks should be done.
The War On Brains – Wired magazine has an article in the current issue (not yet online) about the increasing discouragement of real science opportunities for kids. Chemical sets, which were once boxes filled with wonder and (carefully circumscribed) danger, have been emasculated due to liability concerns. And some scientific supply houses have undergone extensive harassment, all in the name of fighting terrorism of course, in order to shake out information on who orders what chemicals and when.
The upshot is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for smart kids to get hands-on experience in chemistry and other sciences. And under the Bush administration, it is becoming near hopeless. As Wired explains it, the problem is not only that it deprives many of our children of a wonderful hobby, but that it seriously stunts the educational development of scientists, who should learn to “speak” chemistry – by doing chemistry – as young as possible. Nearly every scientist I know traces their interest, not surprisingly, to a childhood fascination with their science toys. Yes, there are potential dangers with some of this stuff but the article responds “So what?” and makes a good case.
This fear of science has been taken to ludicrous extremes by political opposition (Schumer, among others) which has led to attempts to ban the sale of model rocket engines. I’ll have more on this later when I’ve had a chance to do more research, but it seems as if the article is mistaken [UPDATE: Not so, see Steve Silberman’s discussion in comments for details], that model rocket engines aren’t being banned exactly, but some legal things are still being left up in the air -so to speak. The larger point of the article, tho, is right on: This country should be doing everything possible to encourage scientific curiousity and experimentation among our kids, not finding excuses to lock up bicarbonate and vinegar so that a science teacher has to check the stuff out whenever he wants to do a demo. Given our shameful ignorance of science and its methods, this is close to being a serious national emergency.
As I said, more later. I think model rocketry is a very important subject – recreationally, educationally, culturally, and politically – which deserves more attention than it’s received.
Dave Neiwert credits me with the original coinage of the term three years ago, and links to this post from back then. Not quite, which I’ll explain in a second. But it’s the larger issue that needs to be emphasized:
There is a difference in kind between religious belief and politics that hides behind religious belief to escape criticism. Whether you call such politicians “Christianists” or “Dominionists” as Dave Neiwert suggests isn’t terribly important, I think.
What is crucially important is that such a distinction be drawn. The christianists have co-opted not only the symbols of Christianity but have succeeded in forcing the media to mislabel their political behavior as “Christian.” Thus, we hear about “Christian values” such as opposition to the teaching of science, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the religion that worships Christ as Savior. Christianists, of course, are free to call themselves whatever they like. But there is no excuse for permitting them to hijack the term “Christian” for their specific political purposes, let alone the symbols of that religion.
Regarding coinage of the term, according to William Safire, Andrew Sullivan first used the term “Christianism” 1 day before I did. For the record, I never read, and still haven’t read, Sullivan’s post. (He’s not on my list to read, which is long enough, thank you very much. In fact, I doubt I’ve read more than two or three of his posts, total.) While I’m quite sure I used the term online before that post, I don’t care that much about priority to bother to search it out. (Besides, as Safire’s article points out, the word goes back to Milton.)
What I did do regularly, and what I still do regularly, is discuss the importance of calling christianists to account for their hijacking of religion – Dave and I had an interesting discussion about it, which he mentions in his post, and I initiated others as well. I gather Sullivan just used the term and dropped it – like I said, I have no idea what he writes or says.
If, by pushing the term “christianist” I helped some folks distinguish between genuine religious devotion and cynical political activism hidden under the skirts of priests, then I am glad. But my efforts are minor compared to the work of many priests, ministers, rabbis, mullahs, and other devoutly religious people who have been struggling for decades – often futiliely – with a concerted right wing assault on their congregations and institutions.
As Digby mentioned, the tale of Iran forcing Jews, et al to wear distinctive clothing or badges is apparently false. It seems to have been concocted by American rightwing propagandists and has no basis in fact.
I don’t know it it’s coincidence or by design, but today I have seen three — count ’em — three different stories trashing the GOP’s favorite Democratic punching bags in that patented superficial tabloid nastiness that we have mercilessly been spared since the Bush administration came to town and trashed the country ( to paraphrase a famous insider bon mot.) Now why is that? I’m sure it can’t be because the GOP is back to its smearing ways just because they are on the ropes. They wouldn’t do that would they? Why we’re at war!
I wrote about the two Drudge blasts from the past earlier today. Now here comes another one, this time from the New York Times: what are all the wags saying about that famous Washington power couple who might be running for the White House? Prominent Democrats are very concerned about the state of their marriage and how that will affect the wife’s ability to run for president. He’s a playboy and she’s a frigid bitch, in case you didn’t know. But they pretend to love each other because they are both superficial, calculating power freaks, which sets them apart from most leading Democrats who are just plain crazy. The grassroots, we know, are very, very angry. (Joe Lieberman is really the only sensible one.)
I have to assume that it is a slow news day at the Times or that a big story fell out and they had to fill it with something because I can’t believe somebody thought it was actually newsworthy to put this on the front page. And it’s a doozy, filled with all kinds of juicy People magazine style armchair psychology as related by anonymous “friends.” Substitute the names and you could be reading about the travails of Brad and Jen or Tom and Katie — all that’s missing is the fake breasts, although it’s possible I missed a reference somewhere. Atrios wonders why they couldn’t get anyone on the record about the frequency of the couple’s lovemaking, but I think they actually hinted quite broadly that they aren’t getting it on often enough to satisfy the public. Page six couldn’t have done any better than this:
Friends — eager to smooth any rough edges on the relationship — tell old-married-couple stories of them gardening, playing Scrabble, and dining out at Le Cirque, Rasika, and Bayou in Harlem with old pals like the former party leader Terry McAuliffe, the power broker Vernon Jordan, and others. Last Christmas Eve, they wandered through the near-empty Chappaqua Village Market together, noticed by the occasional fellow shopper.
Rarely, however, do the Clintons appear in public when they are together. That physical distance is largely driven by their careers, but it is also partly by choice.
[…]
Democrats preparing for 2008 describe the political challenge this way: Clinton could prosper as a presidential candidate, yet the return of “the Clintons” could revive memories including the oft-derided two-for-the-price-of-one appeal of his 1992 presidential campaign, her role in the universal health care debacle, and the soap opera of infidelity.
No folks, that excerpt isn’t from Hello magazine or even Vanity Fair. That’s the New York fucking Times and it’s on page one. If people aren’t thinking about the Clintons in terms of infidelity and betrayal now, New York’s newest tabloid rag is going to make damned sure they are reminded of it.
I do not know if Hillary is running for president and I’m not making a case for her candidacy. I do, however, think she has the right to try to earn the nomination without this gossip-at-the-hair salon coverage by the NY Times. And believe me, it won’t just be her. Look at the spooky picture of Mark Warner on the cover of New York Times Magazine. He looked like something out of a David Lynch movie. I have no doubt that we are going to be reading many derisive accounts of Al Gore the bearded, earth toned circus freak. It’s quite clear that if the Democrats are are coming into power, the Times is going to pick up right where it left off when it was last obsessed with Clinton’s crotch and Hillary’s cold, cold heart. Or perhaps, more to the point, this piece is just a first notice that they plan to.
Democrats be advised: the press is a bunch of braindead robots who are uninterested in changing their puerile Democratic storyline even in the face of the most disasterous administration in American history.It’s shocking. You can love Hillary or hate her, I don’t care. But goddamit the intimate state of her marriage to Bill Clinton is nobody’s business and it NEVER HAS BEEN. If the gossip rags want to play this game, there’s nothing anyone can do. But it is just shameful that the New York Times would go back to their cheap, tabloid coverage of politics when the world is on fire. I’m honestly stunned that this is happening again.
I am writing letters to the editor about this and I urge everyone else to do it too. Perhaps we can request that they put other politicians’ marriages under this kind of scrutiny. John McCain’s wife had some problems if I recall. How’s she doing with that? Maybe a reporter should go around and ask all of her friends to comment off the record. The presidency is a very stressfull job for a first lady. Can she take the pressure without resorting to … well, you know. People are asking. It’s a factor. And hey, what about Rudy? He’s got a helluva marital track record. Matt Stoller has another suggestion, here.
Seriously, I think this deserves some pushback from the blgosphere. Regardless of your feelings for Hillary, this is obviously just the beginning of another trivializing smear fest against Democrats in general. This stuff is done for no other reason than to make Democrats appear unserious, immoral and halfway nuts. There is a concerted effort coming from somewhere to create a drumbeat that when Democrats are in the spotlight the country is going to be back in trivial tabloid scandal land. It almost has the feeling of being a threat. The mainstream press, having apparently learned absolutely nothing from their failures of the last decade are obviously eager to put on their Heathers costumes and have a little bitch party.
This time they need to hear from us. Here is the page with all the email addresses for letters to the editor and to the ombudsman. Let them know we aren’t going to let this happen again without a fight.
Ok. we are getting into some seriously weird territory now. This diary over at Kos about the Christian youth “Battle Cry” rally sounds so dangerous and creepy that I think we need to call in Dave Niewert to translate it for us:
BattleCry Philadelphia was more than just a vulgar carnival designed to suck donations into the coffers of Ron Luce’s corporation “Teen Mania”. Indeed, it had a point, to recruit the future elite “warriors” in the coming battle against the separation of church and state. It turned dark and frightening on Saturday afternoon. After Franklin “Islam is a Wicked Religion” Graham came out to thunder against the evils of homosexuality and the Iraqi people (whom he considers to be exactly the same people as the ancient Babylonians who enslaved the tribes of Israel and deserving, one would assume, the exact same fate) we heard an explosion. Flames shot out on stage and a team of Navy Seals was shown on the big TV monitors in full camouflage creeping forward down the hallway from the locker room with their M16s. They were hunting us, the future Christian leaders of America. Two teenage girls next to me burst into tears and even I, a jaded middle-aged male, almost jumped out of my skin. I imagined for that moment what it must have felt like to have been a teacher at Columbine high school. 10 seconds later they rushed out onstage and pointed their guns in our direction firing blanks spitting flames. About 1000 shots and bang, we were all dead.
WTF??? What does that mean (besides revving up a bunch teen-agers with violent sensationalism for no apparent reason?) It appears that the “Navy Seals” are a group of ex-special forces called Force Ministries who do this schtick at rallies and the like. Can you believe people make a living doing this stuff?
This story has been verified by others, who also report this little synergistic touch:
It began with fireworks so loud and startling I screamed. Lights and smoke followed, and a few kids were pulled up on stage from the crowd. One was asked to read a letter.
This was the letter that opened the event. Its author was George W. Bush. Yes, the president of the United States sent a letter of support, greeting, prayer and encouragement to the BattleCry event held at Wachovia Spectrum Stadium in Philadelphia on May 12. Immediately afterward, a preacher took the microphone and led the crowd in prayer. Among other things, he asked the attendees to “Thank God for giving us George Bush.”
I’m sure most of you have heard this bizarre story about Iran forcing Jews and other religious minorities to wear badges. (In a nice touch of historical color, the Jewish badges are allegedly yellow.) Well, it turns out this was simply made up out of whole cloth and filtered into the media through an affiliate of the Benador Group which include such credible wingnuts as Laurie “Saddam is comin’ ta git yah” Mylroie and Michael “let’s invade France” Ledeen. You have to wonder what they thought they would accomplish by putting out something so falsifiable. I think Jim Henley has it right:
Why? So that months from now, someone hearing about plans to bomb Iran, or seeing footage of bombing on TV, will say to themselves, “Didn’t I read that Iran was going to round up all the Jews and make them wear yellow stars like the Nazis? Something like that. Well, good riddance.” All the story had to do was live long enough to get into circulation.
I actually have a personal anecdote that pertains to exactly that. Before the first Gulf war I was talking about whether or not we should intervene with my brother-in-law, a decent liberal who normally is not one to get onboard military adventures unless something very important is at stake. He was a big supporter of the Gulf War based on that story about killing the babies in their incubators (which had set my bullshit detectors to screaming when I heard it.) He believed it and it made him very hawkish.
It’s as Henley says, these things make their way into the consciousness and pop out down the road when people are being forced to decide if a military action is necessary. They’re planting seeds.
The press is not running with this en masse the way they did with all the earlier nonsense, but it’s all over the rightwing noise machine so there will be plenty of people who believe this crap. Still, it’s a small comfort that the mainstream media is getting a little less easily played.
Poor, poor Republicans. They are reduced to dragging out that poor old fossilized 90s retread Drudge to falsely smear Democrats again. (Geez, next they’ll be starting flame wars on usenet!) That’s a sad comment on the rightwing blogosphere if you ask me.
Old Drudge has found out today, however, that things don’t work quite the same way as they did back in the good old days of “Mad About You” and the screeching harpies of the Barbizon school of blond former prosecutors. Drudge got a letter this morning from the DNC’s lawyer for libeling Howard Dean yesterday and took down his false story.
Matt Drudge is looking for any excuse to smear Al Gore and his new movie, An Inconvenient Truth. He’s been running this story, unsourced, all day:
Burn: Gore and entourage took 5 cars to travel the 500 yards from hotel to screening of global warming pic in Cannes.
ThinkProgress contacted Gore’s representatives, who unequivocally confirmed that Al Gore and his associates walked from the Majestic Hotel to the screening at Cannes. Further, Paramount has committed to making the entire tour promoting the film carbon neutral.
UPDATE: At 3:38 PM EST, about an hour after this post, Drudge yanked the smear on Gore from his site.
This is very reminiscent of another false story about Gore that the press refused to acknowledge was a GOP plant: that stupid canoe trip which, naturally, the Daily Howler has covered in depth.
They’re running the sad old Gore playbook, and some of the media is playing along like good little robots. But it won’t work like it did before. You want to know why? Because there is a counter force to that little weasel Drudge and his fellow character assassins this time — us. Lefty bloggers will be all over the mainstream media if they do this again. We will ensure they get a snootfull of our vaunted liberal anger if they decide that “it’s just fun” to destroy Democrats on behalf of Republican thugs.
(And I’ll add that if a liberal Drudge comes along who works as a tool of the GOP sludge machine and is used to discredit the left blogosphere — wittingly or unwittingly — we will not take the bait. Chris Bowers at MYDD makes this argument explicitly, here.)
I liked the 90s as much as the next person. I tried ecstasy and bought that Alanis Morrisette album and everything. But that was a long time ago. The rightwing noise machine will not be allowed to entertain the boys and girls of the press corps with silly, trumped up bullshit like this ever again without a price being paid. The political media really need to think long and hard about who’s their daddy this time out.
One of the things I find most interesting about the global warming debate is that the libertarian view of how to run the world is completely inadequate in the face of such a thing. Not that it stops them from trying to fit the square peg into the round hole, of course.
Last week the “Competitive Enterprise Institute” unveiled a couple of hilarious ads about global warming in which they literally extoll the virtues of carbon monoxide as “life.” But how else can a group that sells itself like this come to grips with a global, environmental problem:
We believe that individuals are best helped not by government intervention, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace.
That sounds awfully clever until you start talking about global warming, doesn’t it? Both Paris Hilton and I are in the same boat when it comes to being able to breathe on this planet. “Choices” in a free marketplace are beside the point when the very ground we walk on, the very air we breath, the very world in which all of us, rich and poor, live is under threat. Dealing with global warming is the ultimate example of the common good and it’s the most powerful issue upon which the right’s edifice of free market individualism crumbles into irrelevance.
Global warming is a mutual, planetary challenge and the conservatives and wingnut libertarians who see money as freedom can do nothing but put their heads in the sand and pretend it isn’t happening. The only question is whether it will kill their bankrupt ideology before their bankrupt ideology kills the planet.
“An Inconvenient Truth” is coming to your town. Go see it. This is one where we are all, literally, in this thing together.
Mercenaries. I’ve been wondering when this topic would finally make its way out of the ther and be discussed openly. Atrios links to a report by Ted Koppel in which Koppel wonders why we just don’t privatize part of the army, calling it:
“the inevitable response of a market economy to a host of seemingly intractable public policy and security problems.”
The issue is raised by our “over-extended military” and inability of the United Nations to form adequate peace forces. Meanwhile, Americans business interests grow ever more active abroad in dangerous spots.
“Just as the all-volunteer military relieved the government of much of the political pressure that had accompanied the draft, so a rent-a-force, harnessing the privilege of every putative warrior to hire himself out for more than he could ever make in the direct service of Uncle Sam, might relieve us of an array of current political pressures,” Koppel explains, tongue possibly in cheek.
“So, if there are personnel shortages in the military (and with units in their second and third rotations into Iraq and Afghanistan, there are), then what’s wrong with having civilian contractors? Expense is a possible issue; but a resumption of the draft would be significantly more controversial….
“So, what about the inevitable next step — a defensive military force paid for directly by the corporations that would most benefit from its protection? If, for example, an insurrection in Nigeria threatens that nation’s ability to export oil (and it does), why not have Chevron or Exxon Mobil underwrite the dispatch of a battalion or two of mercenaries?”
Koppel notes that Cofer Black, formerly a high-ranking C.I.A. officer and now a senior executive with Blackwater USA, “has publicly said that his company would be prepared to take on the Darfur account.”
He concludes: “The United States may not be about to subcontract out the actual fighting in the war on terrorism, but the growing role of security companies on behalf of a wide range of corporate interests is a harbinger of things to come.”
I assumed this was satire when I read it. But I didn’t chuckle knowingly and move on. It doesn’t work as satire because the nation is, in fact, actually doing this.
Rather than make arcane arguments about whether its right or moral to hire a private army, which will fall on the American public’s deaf ears, perhaps we should just talk about the fact that each “soldier” makes about six figures, can quit anytime he wants and is subject to no rule of law, either local, international or military. Clearly, the administration thinks the regular military are a bunch of stupid chumps. Why don’t Republicans support the troops by spending that money on real soldiers?
