more theocracy

In post-revolutionary Iran, "morality police" rode the streets on motorbikes searching for - and attacking - women who were "immoral", i.e., wearing lipstick, allowing a strand of hair to fall out of their chadors, walking on a sidewalk unaccompanied by a male relative. In Christian America, pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions for products they don't believe women should use.

If you're not following this story, it's about Emergency Contraception, also called the Morning-After Pill, marketed under the name Plan B. (I blogged about access to EC in Canada here.) Pharmacists in various states have been refusing to fill prescriptions for these drugs, citing concerns of conscience. I know the thought of people - make that women - having sex without birth control, or of birth control failure, is a dire problem for other people's consciences. But if you can't do your job properly because your conscience is bothering you, you need to find another profession.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich recently ordered pharmacies in his state to fill all prescriptions, no matter what their employees' personal views. That's encouraging. Illinois State Senator Frank Watson, whose family owns a pharmacy that doesn't stock EC, says this is "an infringement on a business decision and also on the pharmacist's right of conscience." Ah, the old "business decision". Government out of our lives. But wait, doesn't that mean... Hm, this gets confusing!

Read about this from a pro-freedom, pro-individual, pro-responsibility point of view on the Bush v Choice blog from NARAL: here and here.

Facts about the Morning-After Pill here. This is not abortion. This is contraception. And this is not about fetuses or the "unborn" or the pre-born or anything they call the blobs of cells they purport to love so much. This is about people who oppose women's freedom. This is a direct attack on women's ability to control their own lives.

It's also why EC needs to be available over the counter.

And it's also a great example of why I can't wait to get the hell out of here.

what's softer than a softball?

David Corn, the Washington editor of The Nation, asks that question in a piece that might win a prize for Most Obvious Title: "Newspaper Editors Serve Bush Lame Questions" (which I saw at Common Dreams):

I often watch presidential press conferences and find myself shouting at the television: "Don't ask that!...That's a dumb question!...Follow up, follow up!...Come on, don't let him off the hook!"

I realize it's not always easy to press a president in these controlled and staged settings, and most members of the White House press corps are encumbered, rightly or wrongly, by a certain sense of decorum. If a president says something wrong, misleading, false, evasive or stupid, they do not feel empowered to reply, "Excuse me, Mr. President, but that simply is not so. Can you please give us a straight and direct answer?" For those Americans who look to the Fourth Estate to hold--or try to hold--the politicians accountable, White House reporters tend to disappoint. But these journalists are outright ferocious when compared to newspaper editors--judging from Bush's Q&A session Thursday at the annual convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. [Emphasis mine.]

Corn goes on to deconstruct that press conference. Since I never watch W on TV - except via Jon Stewart - this was horrifyingly educational. Read it here. Corn is also the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception.

26.2 miles

Today is Patriots Day in New England, the day of the Boston Marathon.

I love the Boston Marathon because it was the first city marathon to include an official wheelchair division - thanks to the persistence of activists, especially the pioneering road racer and chair designer Bobby Hall. I've also written a lot about Jean Driscoll, who won the women's wheelchair division an amazing eight times in her signature yellow racing chair.

By contrast, an official wheelchair division in the New York City Marathon came much more recently, and only after a long, ugly battle. I'm very proud to have contributed to that fight. I covered the situation for years, which is how I came to know Hall. My notes from an interview with Allan Steinfeld, then the president of the New York Road Runners Club, were to be used in evidence in the last big lawsuit, but NYRCC finally settled out of court. My long wrap-up of the fight is here, from an excellent but now-defunct online sports magazine called SportsJones.

Two Canadian women are entered in the 2005 wheelchair division, Diane Roy and the well-known Chantal Petitclerc. There are some Canadian men running the wheelchair division, too. I'd like to see 24-year-old Christina Ripp, one of my favorite wheelchair basketball players, wear the laurels this year.

redundancy of the day du jour

George Steinbrenner is an idiot.

the test of our progress

In today's New York Times, Bob Herbert remembers my favorite US president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

I know about his flaws and his missteps, though I point to different issues than some. I don't think having relationships outside of one's marriage is a problem for a presidency, especially if it's not even a problem within the marriage!

Amazingly for an American president, FDR was married - happily - to a feminist, a bisexual, a radical thinker. I see this as a measure of a man well ahead of his time. Eleanor was Franklin's intellectual partner, and an enormous influence on his thinking. (A case can be made for Eleanor being nearly solely responsible for FDR's progressive ideas.)

In those days a president's personal life was out-of-bounds for the press. The White House press corps knew about Lucy Mercer, FDR's girlfriend, and many may have known about Eleanor's relationship with Malvina ("Tommy") Thompson. But those were considered things the public didn't need to know. Imagine that.

Anyway, back to the important stuff. Of Franklin Roosevelt, Herbert reminds us:

His goal was "to make a country in which no one is left out." That kind of thinking has long since been consigned to the political dumpster . . . To get a sense of just how radical Roosevelt was (compared with the politics of today), consider the State of the Union address he delivered from the White House on Jan. 11, 1944. . . .

Roosevelt referred to his proposals in that speech as "a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race or creed."

Among these rights, he said, are:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.

"The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

"The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.

"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

"The right of every family to a decent home.

"The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

"The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.

"The right to a good education."

Herbert says, "I mentioned this a few days ago to an acquaintance who is 30 years old. She said, "Wow, I can't believe a president would say that.""

"The test of our progress," said Roosevelt, "is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

Over the next thirty years, the country would make substantial progress towards many of these goals, though others (like the right to health care) remained elusive. Now, sixty years after FDR's death, we've come a long way. Backwards.

ca meets oh meets b&c

Here's an excellent story about some California nurses battling with their state's steroidal governor.

I found this on Welcome to Gilead, where TJ says "Emma Goldman would be proud". You know it. Read about the nurses' issues, their amusing tactics, and their effect on Arnold here.

Turns out this has a direct connection to wmtc. In the L. A. Times story, I noticed this bit: "In the face-off with Schwarzenegger, the association has staged about 40 attention-grabbing demonstrations up and down the state and as far away as Ohio, where sign-waving nurses tailed him to a bodybuilding exhibition. . . . "

A body-building exhibition in Ohio?? Our dogwalker was there! She took the weekend off to drive to Cincinnati with her boyfriend. It was called something like the Arnold Classic. She met Ms Universe. If only I had known about the protesting nurses, I would have asked for a picture...!

what i'm watching: maybe coffee was coffee

Someone just emailed this to me.

+++++++

George: (While preparing bicarb) She invites me up at twelve o clock at night, for coffee. And I don't go up. "No thank you, I don't want coffee, it keeps me up. Too late for me to drink coffee." I said this to her. People this stupid shouldn't be allowed to live. I can't imagine what she must think of me.

Jerry: She thinks you're a guy that doesn't like coffee.

George: She invited me up. Coffee's not coffee, coffee is sex.

Elaine: Maybe coffee was coffee.

George: Coffee's coffee in the morning, it's not coffee at twelve o clock at night.

Elaine: Well some people drink coffee that late.

George: Yeah, people who work at NORAD, who're on twenty-four hour missile watch. Everything was going along so great: she was laughing, I was funny. I kept saying to myself "Keep it up, don't blow it, you're doing great."

Elaine: It's all in your head. All she knows is she had a good time. I think you should call her.

George: I can't call her now, it's too soon. I'm planning a Wednesday call.

Elaine: Oh, why? I love it when guys call me the next day.

George: Of course you do, but you're imagining a guy you like, not a guy who goes (in stupid voice) "Oh no, I don't drink coffee late at night." If I call her now, she's gonna think I'm too needy. Women don't wanna see need. They want a take-charge guy - a colonel, a kaiser, a tsar.

Elaine: All she'll think is that you like her.

George: Yes, she wants me to like her, if she likes me, but she doesn't like me!

Elaine: I don't know what your parents did to you.

+++++++

This is not as off-topic as you may think. No, really! Everything New York City- related is blogworthy to me, and you can't get more New York than the older episodes of "Seinfeld". Like many Woody Allen films, I've often wondered how Seinfeld played to the rest of the country or the world - there are so many inside jokes and NewYorkisms. But Seinfeld follows in the footsteps of (and borrows consciously from, I think) that ultimate New York City sitcom, Jackie Gleason's "The Honeymooners".

What I often notice about the old Seinfelds - and that is completely absent from the later episodes, when the show had achieved status as a National Icon - is the appearance of a genuine, easy friendship among the four characters. When one of them says something ridiculous, the others will look at each other and laugh and shrug good-naturedly.

For a great example, check out the scene in the coffee shop that begins the famed bet ("master of your domain") - the way they all look at each other as George tells them he was caught with the Glamour magazine. The Elaine (with big wild hair) who says, above, "I don't know what your parents did to you" is chuckling and smiling, laughing along with George - in contrast to the nasty shark Elaine (with straightened hair) she was later to become.

I have a theory about Elaine's hair as a barometer of the quality of any given Seinfeld episode, but I'll stop now. I have analyzed this quite a bit. Lest you think I read Saul Bellow and watch baseball to the exclusion of all else.

a perfect example

Why am I moving to Canada? Have you heard about "Justice Sunday"? This nauseating bit of theocracy is brought to us by some of our favorite political hacks, bigots and former criminals: Bill Frist, James Dobson, Chuck Colson, etc. No links, if you don't know them, you'll have to look them up yourself.

There's a good story about it in The American Prospect:

The Family Research Council says anticlerical judges pose a greater danger than al-Qaeda. . . .

The fight over the Senate confirmation of President George W. Bush’s most conservative judicial nominees is about to take an ugly turn, as the administration’s supporters in the religious right prepare an organized campaign to accuse Democrats of being biased against Christians.

For several years now, in the right’s rhetoric against Democrats who have threatened to filibuster judicial nominees, there has been an undercurrent that hinted at an anti-Christian bias. But at a conference on the judiciary last week, sponsored by the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration (JCCCR), the movement began to take a more menacing form.

Story here; right-wing propaganda about JS here.

No one seems to notice that the expression "Justice Sunday" was swiped from progressive Christian groups who actually work for justice. The Unitarian Universalists, for example, sponsor an annual Justice Sunday; the focus this year was on "threats to the human right to water". The Quakers also promote a similar idea. Some churches hold an annual "Racial Justice Sunday" to focus on that unfinished bit of democracy.

So as these right-wing religious fanatics take over the US government, they appropriate the vocabulary of left-wing social activism. The same activism they say these liberal judges promote.

if you can't make it here...

...then apply for a job with the W administration!

Tim Harper, a Toronto Star columnist, has a good wrap-up of how incompetent losers are rewarded by the Bush White House, as long as they fall into lock-step and kiss enough butt.

One will always live in infamy for gravely misjudging the cost of the Iraq war and the reception accorded U.S. troops, publicly underestimating the American death toll and blaming scared journalists for not reporting the war's good news.

The second sat behind Colin Powell in the U.N. Security Council, nodding solemnly and sagely as Washington provided a dossier of inaccurate, fanciful intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

The third was described last week as a "serial abuser" — a bully who berates and intimidates subordinates and a U.S. unilateralist who once declared that no one would notice if the top 10 floors of the United Nations secretariat disappeared.

In the private sector, Paul Wolfowitz, John Negroponte and John Bolton may have been shown the door for their transgressions.

In George W. Bush's world, they all received promotions, joining others who have been honoured, lauded and handed plums after dishing up faulty pre-war intelligence or mismanaging the Iraqi occupation.

Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary who said Americans would be greeted in Iraq as liberators, takes over as president of the World Bank on June 1.

Negroponte, Bush's envoy to the U.N. in the run-up to the war, is headed to easy confirmation as the country's first national intelligence director.

Undersecretary of State Bolton — a caustic purveyor of American muscularity who has emerged as the most controversial of all the president's men (and women) — looks as if he will be confirmed in days as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

They join a long line.

Condoleezza Rice, who sounded some of the most apocalyptic pronouncements on Saddam Hussein's imminent threat to Americans, is the secretary of state.

Alberto Gonzales, complicit in a memo that was interpreted as a green light for prison torture, is now the attorney-general.

I'm tempted to copy the whole thing here, but I'll restrain myself for now. The column is here.

****

After ALPF sent me this good analysis of the current Canadian political crisis, an interesting discussion developed (or is still developing) between RobfromAlberta and G. I'm finding it very educational. Contrary to what my friends over at Big Soccer think, I'm not worried about this supposed emerging conservatism in Canada. One, it strikes me as not all that conservative. Two, it's not like Paul Martin's Liberals are my political ideal. Three, I'm not convinced the Conservatives are really taking over, or if they do, how strong a power they would be. I definitely don't like Stephen Harper, and I've read that he talks more centrist than he really is. But I'm not pretending to know much about this - I'm just watching and reading. Comments welcome.

****

I hope you're still out there. Either Statcounter isn't working properly, or my readership has had a sudden and precipitous drop-off.

and i almost missed it

What with all the "what I'm reading" posts, and pleas for the Salinas, California library, and wmtc's own resident librarian, you'd think I would have pointed out National Library Week. I thought it was April 18-24 - and had a post all ready to go. But no, that was 2004. In fact, the 2005 National Library Week just passed. Duh.

Libraries are so great. Think about it. You walk in, show your little card, and walk out with books or music or movies. Read, listen, watch, bring them back, get some more. What a concept!

Now that we can get so much information online in our own homes, it's easy to forget the mountains of reference materials and archives - all the history and knowledge - all the potential power - those buildings house. To read more about how cool libraries and librarians are, visit G.

The ALA is a leader in the fight against the undemocratic and unpatriotic so-called Patriot Act, fighting to keep the FBI out of our libraries.

The organization also opposes censorship in all its many guises, and supports the free flow of information and ideas, regardless of who those ideas might offend. Their site has some cool links to lists of banned and challenged books. They sponsor an annual Banned Book Week, when people are encouraged to read a banned book.

In parts of the US these days, teachers are afraid to use textbooks that mention evolution. Publishers routinely reject books for young people - no matter how good or how useful they might be - that so much as mention sex, pregnancy or abortion. We must fight against censorship, be it state-sponsored or the insidious de facto censorship of the marketplace.

blog of note

Dr Marco, who blogs here when he has time and sometimes comments on wmtc, is part of a great group blog called Porquois Pas?. The authors describe the site thusly: "A group of people striving for justice & peace for humankind, and respect for this planet & all its species."

Is this what's known as a mob blog? I have trouble seeing a mob as anything but the kind of inbreds who were stared down by Atticus Finch, so I'll stay with group blog for now. Anyway, go check it out.


****

Wmtc notes the passing of Andrea Dworkin at the much-too-young age of 58. Dworkin was a radical feminist, an author, an original thinker, and a tireless voice for the forgotten and the oppressed. Her work helped end the silence around violence against women.

Dworkin's writing was usually controversial; she was often caricatured and ridiculed in the mainstream. She didn't write for readers to nod their heads and turn the page. She wrote to provoke us to think differently. I didn't agree with everything she wrote, and that didn't change my admiration and respect for her. She made me think. She made me question.

To read more about Dworkin and her work, visit the Stop Family Violence website. By coincidence, there's a long quote from a speech Dworkin gave at the University of Toronto.

the moma report

MOMA was spectacular. Special treats (for me) included Van Gogh's The Starry Night, Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Matisse's The Dance, Picasso's Three Musicians, and this monumental Jackson Pollack.

There was much more, of course; I could post images of dozens of Picassos and Matisses that I loved, along with twenty other artists. The building is dazzling, including the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, full of works by Henry Moore, Picasso, Alexander Calder, David Smith and other modern sculptors. I am very partial to sculpture gardens of all types, and this was no exception.

We also had a fabulous meal there. The restaurants and cafes are all run by Danny Meyer, one of New York City's great restaurateurs, whose signature Union Square Cafe happens to be our favorite restaurant. Meyer is famous for serving amazing, creative food in an elegant - but always friendly and unpretentious - atmosphere. His work makes even a cup of tea and a light snack at MOMA an experience. We ended the day with a late lunch (and a good deal of imbibing) at The Bar Room, the less formal area of the restaurant called The Modern. If you feel like parting with a large amount of cash to complete your MOMA experience, I highly recommend it.

Not much Canada-related news to report. I'm following the political situation, but I don't feel qualified to comment on it. I know, why should that stop me, it doesn't seem to stop anyone else...

****

I also remembered that I had visited MOMA more recently than I thought, though still many years ago. They held a Chuck Close retrospective in 1998, which I attended in order to write about Close. (Most of the article is here.)

I hung out with the artist in his studio, and even saw a painting in progress, which was so cool. What you won't see in the story is the huge gaffe I made in the print version. Close, off the record, dissed Christopher Reeve - but I misunderstood where his "this is not for publication" caveat began and ended.

Close was hugely pissed off at the magazine, but considerate enough to let me off the hook at the same time. I felt really bad, not to mention I'll never be able to speak with him again. Such are the vagaries of journalism. Sometimes the missteps are truly unintentional.

the goodbye continues

Not much time to blog today, as the goodbye continues.

We're spending the day at the reopened MOMA. I'm as excited to see the new building as I am to see some of the art I love best - classic Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Brancusi, Rodin, etc. MOMA highlights here, sculpture and painting highlights here.

I still object to the $20 entrance fee - the highest for any Museum in the country. In MOMA's defense, they've secured corporate funding for free Friday nights, there are good discounts for seniors and students, and the cost of membership, which wasn't raised, is now a really good deal. Still, $20 is certainly prohibitive for many people, and must prevent people from experiencing art they wouldn't normally see. But despite this, I haven't been to MOMA in many years, and I absolutely must go before I leave the city. Making a full day of it turns the $20 ticket into a bargain.

Last time I went to MOMA, I saw Woody Allen and Mia Farrow taking in an exhibit together. That's how long ago it was, and that was a true New York Celebrity Sighting.

****

Our interview with the Japanese journalist was fun! He asked good questions and seemed very sympathetic to our position. He told us that the Japanese people strongly oppose the war in Iraq, and that the Japanese Prime Minister is referred to as an Asian Poodle for kissing Bush's ass. I had never heard that expression. Nice!

Unfortunately the story will run only in Japanese, but I'll show you a copy anyway. Maybe there's a wmtc reader who can translate it for us.

secrecy and wishful thinking

From Seymour Hersh's Chain Of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib:

"The requirement that U.S. Special Forces unit operate in secrecy, a former senior coalition advisor in Baghdad told me, provided an additional incentive for increasing their presence in Iraq. The Special Forces in-country numbers are not generally included in troop totals. Bush and Rumsfeld were insisting that more American troops were not needed, but that position was challenged by many senior military officers in private conversations. "You need more people," the former advisor, a retired admiral, told me. "But you can't add them, because Rummy's taken a position. So you invent a force that won't be counted.

. . . .

"Secrecy and wishful thinking, a Pentagon official told me in the spring of 2004, were defining characteristics of Rumsfeld's Pentagon. "They always want to delay the release of bad news -- in the hope that something good will break," he said. The habit of procrastination in the face of bad news led to disconnects between Rumsfeld and the Army staff officers who were assigned to planning for troop requirements in Iraq. In mid-2003, the Pentagon official told me, when it became clear the Army would have to call up more reserve units to deal with the insurgency, "we had call-up orders that languished for thirty or forty days in the office of the secretary of defense." Rumsfeld's staff always seemed to be waiting for something to turn up - for the problem to take care of itself, without any additional troops. The official explained, "They were hoping that they wouldn't have to make a decision." The delay meant that soldiers in some units about to be deployed had only a few days to prepare wills and deal with other family and financial issues.

"The same deliberate indifference to bad news was evident that year, the Pentagon official said, when the Army conducted a series of elaborate war games. Planners would present best-case, moderate-case and worst-case scenarios, in an effort to assess where the Iraq war was headed and to estimate troop needs. In every case, the number of troops actually required exceeded the worst-case analysis. Nevertheless, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and civilian officials in the Pentagon continued to insist that future planning be based on the most optimistic scenario.

"The optimistic estimate was that at this point in time" - mid-2004 - "the U.S. Army would need only a handful of combat brigades in Iraq," the Pentagon official said. "There are nearly twenty now, with the international coalition drying up. They were wildly off the mark." The official added, "From the beginning, the Army community was saying that the projections and estimates were unrealistic." Now, he said, "we're struggling to maintain a hundred and thirty-five thousand troops, while allowing soldiers enough time back home." "

peaceably to assemble, part 2

Yesterday, I mentioned some proof that the NYPD spent a good portion of the Republican National Convention trampling on First Amendment rights. Longtime reader Peter, a Canadian, noted:

And what this story doesn't talk about is what happened to the police officer who registered the complaint against the individual. I don't know about in the states, but in Canada making a false statement in a criminal court is a very serious crime. Especially when done by an officer of the peace.

It's a serious crime here, too - or should be. If I recall correctly, "bearing false witness" is included in a certain dectet of "thou shalt not"s, which I mention only to emphasize that, historically, this has always been considered a big no-no.

In today's Times, reader reaction:

To the Editor:

Re "Videos Challenge Hundreds of Convention Arrests" (front page, April 12):

You report about shocking misconduct in connection with some of the 1,806 arrests made during the Republican National Convention last summer involving the alteration of police tapes.

Charges against hundreds of those arrested were dismissed when unaltered videotapes came to light, but the matter cannot be allowed to rest there.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg should appoint a task force to investigate the misconduct and to prepare a public report recommending reform of police procedures and calling those responsible for the abuses to account.

A police spokesman says officers should not be criticized if their recollection of events does not comport with a videotape.

If a person does not have an accurate recollection of events, he has no business testifying under oath in court in a criminal proceeding that may result in a citizen's loss of liberty.

Marilyn M. Jerry
Princeton, N.J., April 12, 2005

***

To the Editor:

What is truly disturbing about the prosecutions after last summer's Republican National Convention and the alteration of police tapes is that the matter is no longer about allegations of misconduct but about retribution against people who turned out to express opinions opposed to those of the Republicans.

This is the political nightmare we fear the most.

Joseph Keiffer
New York, April 12, 2005

***

To the Editor:

Police officers who offer false testimony about arrests, technicians who alter videos, and prosecutors who offer untrue evidence in court should be prosecuted.

But their misconduct pales in comparison with the systemic misconduct of the New York City government during the Republican convention last year.

The suppression of dissent has become commonplace, and it is an outrage. We need to ensure that freedom is more than a slogan.

Jacob Remes
Durham, N.C., April 12, 2005

***

To the Editor:

While we should be thankful that the technology exists for the common citizen now to more easily protect himself from the repressive tactics of the state (which we so readily allow to abrogate our rights under the guise of homeland security), what legal action can we expect Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to take against the police, who were so quick to deny the right of assembly?

Will we soon begin mass arrests of anyone with a video camera at any public gathering?

Or should we expect technology to allow the police to disable video cameras at their whim, again under the guise of homeland security?

Tony Alfrey
Woodside, Calif., April 12, 2005

***

To the Editor:

Dropping the charges against many of the protesters is but the first step in the more thorough moral reckoning that awaits us.

Your article underscores the yawning chasm between what we as a country are telling ourselves about our role as an ambassador of democracy and the chilling reality of America's role in the world: invading sovereign countries, deporting Muslims to be tortured abroad, and domestically, penning dissenting citizens.

(Rev.) Tom Martinez
Brooklyn, April 12, 2005

***

To the Editor:

For those of us who have for decades demonstrated peacefully in New York City for progressive causes, revelations of police hyperbole are nothing new.

For future demonstrations, I encourage The New York Times and other media to pick up a video camera and rely less on "he said, she said" reportage.

Daniel Katz
New York, April 12, 2005

This is a lot of letters on one topic, which means the Times received a flood of mail - and all from the same point of view. We need to push for an investigation, and a thorough rethinking of policy towards peaceful protesters. Singling out one or two officers for punishment - however deserved - won't change anything. Clearly such widespread abuse speaks to directives coming from much higher up.

hi big soccer!

I still see several visits a day from the infamous Big Soccer thread in my referrers. Thanks for the page views guys - and for not leaving comments!

I can imagine that they're pretty pleased about a supposed conservative resurgence in Canada. Last time I looked they were speculating on whether I would move to France. I guess they don't understand that a Canadian conservative is not that much different from an American moderate liberal. In the immortal words of RobfromAlberta:

Bill Clinton could easily qualify as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Say no more!

****

Allan and I are being interviewed today by a writer with the Kyodo News Service for a story about Americans who are emigrating from the US. He originally asked us to meet where we could be photographed with the Statue of Liberty in the background, which we found pretty amusing. (And way too inconvenient!) I'll let you know how it goes.

the return of the subway guy

I was just wondering what happened to him!

Darius McCollum made headlines in 1980 when, posing as a subway motorman, he took over a train and successfully piloted it for several trips, before taking a turn too quickly and getting nabbed. It turned out he was a 15-year-old, self-taught subway expert. The city was fascinated with him for a time, and many people urged the MTA to give him formal training and hire him.

Since that time, McCollum has periodically resurfaced in the news, and always for the same reason: getting arrested for impersonating an MTA employee so he can work on the subways.

Clyde Haberman, a very good local columnist, gives an update. It's a sad story:

By all accounts, he has shown himself to be quite skilled. Never has he hurt anyone. Indeed, people who know Mr. McCollum describe him with words like "affable," "gentle" and "guileless."

But his actions are crimes. Not even his defenders excuse what he does. And official tolerance of his misbehavior, if it ever existed, has hardly expanded in the fearful post-9/11 age.

Mr. McCollum, now 40, has been arrested 21 times, most recently last June when he tried to steal a locomotive from a railyard in Jamaica, Queens. In February he pleaded guilty, and last week a state judge in Queens sentenced him to prison for up to three years. Much of his adult life has been spent behind bars.

The question his supporters ask is whether locking him up again and again is the wisest way to deal with a man who clearly has an unusual fixation but has harmed no one.

Haberman cites the example of Frank Abagnale, made famous by the film "Catch Me if You Can,", a con artist who was hired by the FBI to solve the kinds of crimes he used to commit. Too bad the MTA can't be so creative.

peaceably to assemble

From today's New York Times:

Dennis Kyne put up such a fight at a political protest last summer, the arresting officer recalled, it took four police officers to haul him down the steps of the New York Public Library and across Fifth Avenue.

"We picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed," the officer, Matthew Wohl, testified in December. "I had one of his legs because he was kicking and refusing to walk on his own."

Accused of inciting a riot and resisting arrest, Mr. Kyne was the first of the 1,806 people arrested in New York last summer during the Republican National Convention to take his case to a jury. But one day after Officer Wohl testified, and before the defense called a single witness, the prosecutor abruptly dropped all charges.

During a recess, the defense had brought new information to the prosecutor. A videotape shot by a documentary filmmaker showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures. Nor was the officer seen taking part in the arrests of four other people at the library against whom he signed complaints.

A sprawling body of visual evidence, made possible by inexpensive, lightweight cameras in the hands of private citizens, volunteer observers and the police themselves, has shifted the debate over precisely what happened on the streets during the week of the convention.

For Mr. Kyne and 400 others arrested that week, video recordings provided evidence that they had not committed a crime or that the charges against them could not be proved, according to defense lawyers and prosecutors.

Full story here. Thanks, Mayor Bloomberg. You helped keep the Republicans safe, and the hotels full. Too bad only Republicans will vote for your reelection.

For those who don't recognize the title of this entry, it's a brilliant bit of writing from 1791, known as the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And if that doesn't work, move to Canada.

today!

Today baseball fans will witness something they've never seen before: a World Championship Flag waving over Boston's Fenway Park. At the Red Sox's home opener this afternoon, the flag will be raised and the players will be given their World Series rings.

The 2004 American League Pennant - harder won, and almost more precious - will also be hoisted. By fortunate coincidence, the New York Yankees, who failed to win that flag four games in a row, will be there, too.

When the players get their World Series rings today, they will be the first Red Sox players ever to do so. There were no rings in the early days of baseball, and in Boston's last championship - 1918, in case you have already forgotten - the players were denied their pins. You can read all about that here.

Congratulations to the Red Sox and all of Red Sox Nation.

86 years in the making

curling again

ALPF, of course, sent this very helpful link explaining Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Curling. I'm feeling more Canadian by the minute.

b news

Several people have very kindly inquired about Buster, so here's an update.

We took the B-boy for a second opinion, and confirmed that we're on a good course. The two treatable conditions - glaucoma and uveitis (inflammation of the eye tissue) - are under control, and the long list of untreatable conditions are stable for now.

We're going to continue using the various medications indefinitely, as long as they keep working. There's a good chance that at some point, they will stop working, and Buster will lose his eyesight. If that happens, there's a simple laser surgery procedure that can alleviate any pain, but not save his vision.

We also learned about surgical options, which are a big gamble. Apparently surgery works brilliantly in humans, but in dogs, not so much. The same surgery might work permanently, or the condition might return in a matter of months, or even days. Surgery that worked would save money (and effort) in the long run, but there's no indicator of whether or not there would be lasting gains. It's really a crapshoot.

We decided we're staying with the new doctor until we move. The first doc, while very thorough and experienced (she's supposed to be the best veterinary ophthalmologist in the city), is brusque and unpleasant. I never really understood the diagnosis or treatment; she either purposely keeps things mysterious, or she just has zero communication skills. The new doc explained everything clearly and gave us reading material describing the condition and the various options.

Also, the first doc was testing for everything under the sun, no matter how remote the chances. There's a line between thorough and recklessly expensive. When our last visit cost $450 extra in obscure blood tests, I signed off.

The new doc agrees with a re-check every two months, and that seems fair for now.

So we have a dog who can still see, but who will probably be blind one day, and a whole bunch of money that I'd rather be saving for Canada being spent on tiny little bottles of eye drops. On the other hand, the drops are working, Buster is happy as a clam, and I'm very grateful I can afford to keep him that way.

b says thank you for asking

if i ever get homesick

This clearly insane person is attempting to document New York City. All of it. Every block, every building. The photographs aren't particularly good, in my humble opinion, but what he lacks in talent he makes up in volume.

In this link he captures New Yorkers' response to the war in Iraq. In brief, we no like.

The photos of September 11, 2001, and the days following, are good, appropriately harrowing because they're such a ground-level view. I won't link to them, but they're at the bottom of the main page if you're interested.

I was hoping to link to my street or my building, but it seems he hasn't worked his way that far uptown.

canada wins gold

Today I read that Canada beat Scotland to win the World Curling Championship.

OK Canadians, can you please put this in context for me?

How much do you folks (meaning, the whole country) care about this sport? Rank it in terms of importance against hockey (obviously Number One), football, baseball, and such? Do people know the names of the players, follow their travails in the paper, go out to watch matches? Or is it played in complete obscurity?

Curling kind of cracks me up. It seems like a sport that must have very old roots - pushing an object across a line is about as basic as it gets - but such a limited scope, like, perhaps, fencing. But I love out-of-the-way sports. Hey, you're talking to a girl who wrote about goalball - played by blind people - and sit-volleyball, played by amputees across a 4-foot-high net. No joke.

So fill me in, eh?*


* That may be the first "eh" I've ever used in wmtc, and I'm not being sarcastic. I like it. It works.

a victory

An item in my ongoing effort to highlight progressive victories: last week Montana became the fifth state - joining Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont and more than 375 local governments - to officially condemn the so-called Patriot Act. According to the ACLU, the supposedly red state passed the strongest statewide resolution against the Patriot Act yet, with overwhelmingly bipartisan support. Details here, in The Nation.

You can read about national resistance to the Patriot Act in this story in the Madison, Wisconsin Capital Times. The writer calls it "the most underreported political story of recent years" and emphasizes the wide political spectrum fueling the fight.

To find out what your own neighborhood is doing to defend the Bill of Rights, visit the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Not a great website, but a great fight.

blog of note

Found this in my list of referrers this morning. Cool title, too: Noblesse Oblog.

The two contributors say they are "Documenting All That is Tacky about Right Wing America -- Official Blog of the Liberal Elite -- A Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community."

prejean on life

I am breaking my vow to keep wmtc a pope-free zone in order to bring you an essay by Sister Helen Prejean from last week's New York Times. Prejean's book Dead Man Walking was politically formative to me: it crystallized my opposition to capital punishment, causing me to take that final step to the absolute.

It turns out that Prejean's work was formative on a global level. She was instrumental Pope John Paul II's change of the Church's stance on capital punishment. About her letter to the Pope, she writes:

I spoke candidly about my disagreement with one part of the pope's 1995 encyclical, "Evangelium Vitae" ("Gospel of Life"), which, while urging imprisonment instead of execution, allowed the use of the death penalty in cases of "absolute necessity." Whenever governments kill criminals, I pointed out in my letter, they always claim to act out of "necessity." I urged him to close the loophole and make Catholic opposition to government executions unequivocal.

This was no small thing. The teaching of the Catholic Church upholding the right of the state to execute criminals "in cases of extreme gravity" had been in place for 1,600 years.

But that's precisely what the pope did: he removed from the Catholic catechism the criterion "in cases of extreme gravity." The omission changes everything, because Catholic teaching now says that no matter how grave the crime, the death penalty is not to be imposed. This cuts the moral ground out from under American politicians who advocate the death penalty for the "worst of the worst criminals."

Sister Prejean is a tremendous woman. You can learn more about her on her website. In her press clips, I found an interview in Time, where she says of Bush: "Honestly, it's hard to look at [Bush's] face on television because everything he says is so untruthful. . . . I hate the way he uses religion. It's a sacrilege to me."

Not growing up Catholic, my direct experience with nuns has been very limited. It's also been great. I have personally known only two nuns in my life. One was a teacher who worked with inner-city teenagers who had dropped out of school and were studying to get their high-school equivalency degrees. (We taught in the same program.) The other is a nurse in Harlem. She is a rape survivor who speaks publicly about her experience and volunteers enormous amounts of time to the cause of lessening violence against women. Both are feminists.

q & a

Question: Why do people confuse the principle of free speech with the belief that they should be able to say anything they want, at any time, in any place?

Answer: Because they lack self-restraint and believe themselves to be the center of the universe.

Other answers welcome. But not from everyone!

oh, never mind

In response to the discussions here and here, about right-wing reaction to Americans leaving the US, I was going to gather up all the previous wmtc discussions on the topic and combine them into some kind of definitive post. But there are so many of them! It's just too much work, and too boring. It seems we revisit the subject periodically, so I'll leave it at that.

Readers have had many good theories on this. Nick, who is also emigrating, says it's the ultimate separation from group-think, and that people are envious that they could never do such a thing. Crabletta says they are insecure. Rob points out the sentimentality many Americans have about the US, an attitude Canadians - although justifiably proud of their country - don't share. Galileo reminds us of the cognitive dissonance inherent in their hypocrisy. G wants to spray them all with Stupid-B-Gone! All these things are true, and there are probably more good theories in earlier posts that I didn't find.

Speaking of cognitive dissonance, one person who I had to ask to stop emailing me was fixated on the expression, "So one of you is finally acting on 'Love It Or Leave It'!" But, um, LIORLI is your expression. I (obviously) have never believed in that fascist, non-democratic slogan. And if this is what you want - if my leaving makes you happy - why are you bombarding me with hateful emails?

****

Wait - one more, I can't resist. I got a comment from the foul-mouthed soccer poster - the one who called me a slut, bitch, etc. He says, in part:

Holy fucking shit, this again? Listen nobody fucking cares if you move to the northern wasteland, it's just that you keep pushing this god damn shit in our face. First you start this website about moving to Canada and then you go fishing for reaction at Bill Archer's guestbook on bigsoccer.

This is hilarious! I started this blog in July 2004. Last week, someone (not this loser) linked to it on a soccer site - I saw it in my Statcounter list of referrers - and was wondering if it was a parody. I posted to assure them that it was no parody, someone flamed me, and hence we have "fishing for reaction". He said a bunch of other nasty and inaccurate things, but this representative sample is enough. The curious thing is why he is reading? Goddess knows I wouldn't read his blog.

our universe, a little smaller: rip saul bellow

I've been saddened by the lack of attention paid to the death of Saul Bellow. He is certainly acknowledged as a great writer in academic and literary circles. But the current literary public - not people who read only popular fiction, but people who read more challenging work - don't seem to embrace him. His work doesn't seem to resonate with the literary hip crowd, the people reading Jonathan Lethem, David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon, and whoever else is the literary darling of the moment. This might be down to fashion and popular trends, in which case, it's fine. Fashions come and go, but greatness endures.

I've been thinking about how Bellow was both a great thinker and a great writer. The two aren't necessarily linked. There are truly great writers - say, Cormac McCarthy - who are limited in ideas. And there are great thinkers who have a limited ability to communicate their thoughts. Writers who are also great thinkers are rare. Shakespeare would be the greatest example in the English language. Saul Bellow was also such a man.

The British writer Ian McEwan eulogized Bellow recently in the New York Times. He closes with this lovely paragraph:

Writers we admire and re-read are absorbed into the fine print of our consciousness, into the white noise of our thoughts, and in this sense, they can never die. Saul Bellow started publishing in the 1940's, and his work spreads across the century he helped to define. He also redefined the novel, broadened it, liberated it, made it warm with human sense and wit and grand purpose. Henry James once proposed an obvious but helpful truth: "the deepest quality of a work of art will always be the quality of the mind of the producer." We are saying farewell to a mind of unrivalled quality. He opened our universe a little more. We owe him everything.

If you're looking for a place to start, try Humboldt's Gift.

once again i remind you

A soccer-board poster (not the one who cursed at me) writes, in part:

I was not planing on moving to John Howard's Australia if Kerry won nor did I conemplate moving to John Major's UK when Clinton won, so I do find this idea of moving a little strange.

My application to emigrate to Canada was filed in March 2003. I was planning on leaving no matter who won the 2004 election.

I did want John Kerry to win, as thought he would be "less worse" than W, but either way, I was leaving. The US is not for me, and I think Canada will be a better fit.

I realize you just found my blog, and didn't know the background. But a glance at some of the older posts, linked at the right, would have filled you in.

Thank you and have a nice day. Somewhere else.

follow-up

Crabletta sent me this follow-up on the Salinas libraries story. (Thank you!)

As word spread of the potential closings, donations came in from corporations, foundations and individuals, and the half-million dollar goal was met. All three libraries will be open a total of 26 hours each week until the end of the year. Not much, really, considering where taxpayer money is going. But for the people of Salinas, it's much better than nothing.

"a side order of human rights"

After posting recently about Cesar Chavez Day and the potential library closings in Salinas, I took special note of an excellent Op-Ed by Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation.

Last month, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group that represents farm workers in southern Florida, announced that it was ending a four-year boycott of Taco Bell. The most remarkable thing about the announcement was the reason behind it: Taco Bell had acceded to all of the coalition's demands. At a time of declining union membership, failed organizing drives and public apathy about poverty, a group of immigrant tomato pickers had persuaded an enormous fast food company - Yum Brands, which in addition to Taco Bell owns KFC, Pizza Hut, A&W All American Food Restaurants and Long John Silver's - to increase the wages of migrant workers and impose a tough code of conduct on Florida tomato suppliers. "Human rights are universal," said Jonathan Blum, a senior vice president of Yum, adding that under Taco Bell's new labor rules "indentured servitude by suppliers is strictly forbidden."

The need for a corporate edict against slavery in the United States reveals just how bad things have become for farm workers. But it also suggests that the fast food companies now sitting atop America's food system can prevent the sort of abuses that state and federal officials seem unwilling to address.

Schlosser notes that migrant farm workers are the poorest workers in the United States. The typical farm worker is an illegal Mexican immigrant who earns less than $8,000 a year. The hourly wages of some farm workers adjusted for inflation have fallen by more than 50% since 1980.

The working conditions in Florida are especially bad. The surprising and good news is that the boycott of Taco Bell - fueled first on college campuses, where the rallying cry was "Boot The Bell", then picked up by many progressive church organizations - was extremely successful:

With coalition members conducting hunger strikes and staging demonstrations in front of Taco Bell headquarters in Irvine, Calif., it seemed increasingly unwise for the nation's leading purveyor of Mexican food to be publicly linked with the exploitation of poor Mexicans. And the coalition's wage demand was by no means outrageous. It was asking for a pay raise of one penny for every pound of tomatoes picked - the first major wage increase in Immokalee since the late 1970's.

As part of the agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers last month, Taco Bell vowed to help "improve working and pay conditions for farm workers in the Florida tomato fields." It promised to give the penny per pound increase to its Florida suppliers, so that migrant wages could be raised by that amount. It invited the coalition to monitor the new labor policies. And it said it would reward those suppliers that treat farm workers well. The penny-per-pound supplement will nearly double the wages of migrants picking tomatoes for Taco Bell. And though there is some debate about the final cost to Yum Brands, the figure will most likely be a few hundred thousand dollars a year - not a huge sum for a fast food company with annual sales of about $9 billion worldwide.

Over the past few years the fast food industry has introduced healthier foods in response to consumer demands. It has adopted tough animal welfare policies in the wake of criticism from animal rights activists. The Taco Bell agreement demonstrates, for the first time, an industry commitment to farm workers' rights in the United States. Only a small number of tomato pickers will enjoy a wage increase as a result of the Taco Bell deal, but it's a step on the right path.

Schlosser suggests that its time to take these tactics to the other fast-food chains. If you've seen "Super Size Me", you know that boycotting these companies can only do you good.

Please read the rest of Schlosser's article, it's very good.

welcome joy of sox readers

Allan has linked to this blog for the first time (outing himself about our move to Canada), so there's a stream of new traffic.

There's also a handful of highly unfriendly readers from a soccer discussion board who are inexplicably outraged by my abandoning the good ole' U S of A, and can't seem to let it go. I won't link to the post where some guy called me a bitch, a slut and whatever else, but here are some choice excerpts from one comment:

As a center-right American who voted for Bush and has relatives in Toronto, all I can say respectfully, is go and do what you want.

Of course, it's not all he can say; he goes on for three or four very long paragraphs. Why would anyone bother to tell another adult who he's never met, "Go and do what you want"? You mean, as opposed to asking your permission? Yes, I rather thought I would. He continues:

In Canada, you'll discover a country that struggles to find an identity, other than being "un-american."

This is very revealing. The writer unintentionally touches on a crucial reason I can leave the United States. Very little, if any, of my identity is tied up in being American. I'm an American by birth, but not by choice. If it turns out I live the rest of my life as an American in Canada, then so be it. But if in the future I begin to feel Canadian, I will welcome the change. I identify as many things, but I don't need a nationality to know who I am.

It also shows how little he understands Canada. Canadians are obviously proud of being Canadian. They are low-key about it, of course, not arrogant and pushy like the flag-wavers here. But the perception of Canada as merely "not America" is clearly a fiction. An extremely arrogant fiction at that.

The writer then goes on to defend Bush's Iraq "policy" - and he describes himself as center-right? heaven help me if I ever meet the right-right! - and then brings up another common theme in these silly, sarcastic emails: sharia law. He assumes I don't know what it is and suggests I consult google.

The wingnuts who write me often harp on the legalization of the use of sharia in Ontario. They act like it's mandatory, and I'm about to be forced to wear the veil. Wmtc readers must know that, as an atheist and a feminist, I don't look kindly on any religious practice that oppresses women, be it Hasidic (I'm Jewish, too, remember), Catholic or Muslim. But freedom of religion is an important principle. I'd rather my neighbors have access to sharia courts if they choose. Meanwhile, the US government is increasingly controlled by radical so-called Christians, but he doesn't mention that.

The writer looks with hope to the supposedly resurgent conservative movement in Canada. But from what I've learned, Canadian Conservatives agree with him on precious little. RobfromAlberta can assent or correct me if he feels I'm wrong.

In any event, I hope Joy of Sox readers are not grossly offended by what they find here - especially since we're now on the same team.

new lows

This must be the ultimate in victim blaming. I rarely read New York Times editorials, but this time I'm glad I did, or I might have missed this story altogether.

I agree: it is time to be scared.

++++++

April 6, 2005
Editorial
The Judges Made Them Do It

It was appalling when the House majority leader threatened political retribution against judges who did not toe his extremist political line. But when a second important Republican stands up and excuses murderous violence against judges as an understandable reaction to their decisions, then it is time to get really scared.

It happened on Monday, in a moment that was horrifying even by the rock-bottom standards of the campaign that Republican zealots are conducting against the nation's judiciary. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, rose in the chamber and dared to argue that recent courthouse violence might be explained by distress about judges who "are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public." The frustration "builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in" violence, said Mr. Cornyn, a former member of the Texas Supreme Court who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which supposedly protects the Constitution and its guarantee of an independent judiciary.

Listeners could only cringe at the events behind Mr. Cornyn's fulminating: an Atlanta judge was murdered in his courtroom by a career criminal who wanted only to shoot his way out of a trial, and a Chicago judge's mother and husband were executed by a deranged man who was furious that she had dismissed a wild lawsuit. It was sickening that an elected official would publicly offer these sociopaths as examples of any democratic value, let alone as holders of legitimate concerns about the judiciary.

The need to shield judges from outside threats - including those from elected officials like Senator Cornyn - is a priceless principle of our democracy. Senator Cornyn offered a smarmy proclamation of "great distress" at courthouse thuggery. Then he rationalized it with broadside accusations that judges "make raw political or ideological decisions." He thumbed his nose at the separation of powers, suggesting that the Supreme Court be "an enforcer of political decisions made by elected representatives of the people." Avoiding that nightmare is precisely why the founders made federal judgeships lifetime jobs and created a nomination process that requires presidents to seek bipartisan support.

Echoes of the political hijacking of the Terri Schiavo case hung in the air as Mr. Cornyn spoke, just days after the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, vengefully vowed that "the time will come" to make the judges who resisted the Congressional Republicans' gruesome deathbed intrusion "answer for their behavior." Trying to intimidate judges used to be a crime, not a bombastic cudgel for cynical politicians.

The public's hope must be that Senator Cornyn's shameful outburst gives further pause to Senate moderates about the threats of the majority leader, Senator Bill Frist, to scrap the filibuster to ensure the confirmation of President Bush's most extremist judicial nominees. Dr. Frist tried to distance himself yesterday from Mr. DeLay's attack on the judiciary. But Dr. Frist must carry the militants' baggage if he is ever to run for president, and he complained yesterday of "a real fire lighted by Democrats around judges over the last few days."

By Democrats? The senator should listen to what's being said on his side of the aisle, if he can bear it.

++++++

this oughta help

I'm not at all well versed on the topic of Canadian-American political relations, but Canadians seem to care about it a lot, so it must be more important than I realize. It's probably something I'll understand more after living in Canada for a time.

Meanwhile, ALPF sent me this Globe and Mail story:

The apparent front-runner to be the next U.S. ambassador to Canada knows President George W. Bush extremely well, but relatively little about his neighbour to the north.

David Wilkins, a 58-year-old former lawyer and long-time Speaker of the South Carolina legislature, is the U.S. President's pick to replace the departed Paul Cellucci, according to published reports in his home state.

The job would be a reward for nearly two decades of political spade-work in South Carolina -- first for Mr. Bush's father, George H. W. Bush, and then for the current President.

Mr. Wilkins has spent weekends with his family at Camp David, the U.S. presidential retreat in Thurmont, Md., and attended White House Christmas parties. He has also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Mr. Bush's two presidential runs, and was a key architect of the President's big electoral wins in the state -- in the 2000 primary, the 2000 presidential election and last November as the Bush-Cheney state campaign chairman.

Comments?

****

In a follow-up to the quality of life survey I wrote about earlier, ALPF has pointed out another study showing Canadians to be very happy with their lot:

Many Canadians are content with the current state of affairs, according to a poll by Léger Marketing. 54 per cent of respondents say they are very happy, and 42 per cent are somewhat happy.

In last year’s United Nations (UN) Human Development Survey, Canada was listed as the fourth best country in the world to live in. Norway, Sweden and Australia held the top three spots. Canada currently has the highest life expectancy in the world at 79 years.

I haven't found the US equivalent yet. But I'm looking forward to adding to those Canadian numbers!

goodbye mr bellow

This morning I am shocked and saddened to see that Saul Bellow has died at the age of 89. Bellow, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Literature, was one of the greatest American authors.

Bellow's books are challenging, and I don't recommend them to light or casual readers. But if love language and ideas, and you want to explore the full potential of a novel, The Adventures of Augie March, Mr. Sammler's Planet, The Dean's December, Henderson the Rain King, or my personal favorite, Humboldt's Gift are waiting for you. His novellas and short stories are also brilliant. Of those, my favorite is A Theft. I also loved Ravelstein, Bellow's love poem to his great friend Allan Bloom.

Bellow's work isn't easily summarized; it would take a more experienced literary critic (and a lot more work than I could do this morning) to do him anything resembling justice. The New York Times memoralizes him here.

All I'll say is that Bellow wrote about the human condition, about people grappling with the 20th Century. Dense, thoughtful novels, rich with philosophy, ambiguity and also a wry humor. Though his novels always look at the world with clear and open eyes, he always gives us the gift of hope. His use of language is masterful. When I'm reading Bellow, one sentence, one phrase, will just stop me in my tracks. I'll read it over and over, marveling at the perfect - and original - picture it paints. He was a genius.

It's sometimes difficult to see a contemporary figure with any historical perspective. I saw Bellow read, twice, at venues where many less important - though very good - writers also take the stage. I'm so fortunate for that. I'm very sorry there won't be any new Saul Bellow novels to look forward to.

****

This tribute might underscore the total absence in wmtc of another person who died recently, and whose death has dominated the news. This is not an accident.

more words. more priorities.

Last weekend there was a 24-hour "read-in" to raise money for libraries in Salinas, California. Unless the city can raise $500,000 by June 30, the John Steinbeck, Cesar Chavez and El Gabilan Libraries will close. Salinas, which helped shape one of America's greatest writers, would become the largest US city without a public library.

This story touches me - angers me - in so many ways. In addition to being passionate about books and public access to them, I have a deep personal connection to John Steinbeck. Steinbeck was my earliest writing hero. His books showed me, before I could fully understand or articulate it, the power of fiction to raise awareness and contribute to social change. (He was later joined by Charles Dickens and George Orwell this list, also before I understood the connections among them.)

I've made two Steinbeck pilgrimages, the first when his manuscripts and mementos were housed in ordinary glass cases in the local library bearing his name - the one now facing closure. We saw the hand-written The Grapes Of Wrath - which Steinbeck wrote in order, in one draft. (Oh. My. God.) When we returned many years later to the beautiful, comprehensive National Steinbeck Center, those manuscripts could be viewed by appointment only, so we were more fortunate than we knew.

From the New York Times story: "Sommer Brooke, 11, a sixth grader who spoke at the read-in, questioned how Salinas could close libraries in one breath and ask schools to raise reading test scores in the next. 'It is like feeding someone but giving them no food,' she said, 'teaching children to read but cutting off their access.'"

W just asked for another $82 billion for the war. Libraries may close for the lack of $500,000 - Pentagon chump change. Code Pink, the peace organization, co-sponsored the read-in - because there is a connection.

krugman again

I know, I know, I should just provide a permanent link to Paul Krugman and get it over with. I'm sorry if I over Krugmanize you. He's just so... great.

Today's column is about the "liberal bias" in academia, and those who seek to right this terrible injustice. (New reader hint: that was sarcasm.)

Unlike the invisible liberal media bias, this bias appears to actually exist. Yes, it seems that people who value research, scholarship, study, the exchange of ideas, the search for facts and the sharing of information from a wide variety of cultures and sources tend to be liberals!

Krugman notes that Republicans outnumber Democrats in the military. It's not hiring bias. It's who chooses what field. Social scientists call it self-selection.

Krugman writes:

Consider the statements of Dennis Baxley, a Florida legislator who has sponsored a bill that - like similar bills introduced in almost a dozen states - would give students who think that their conservative views aren't respected the right to sue their professors. Mr. Baxley says that he is taking on "leftists" struggling against "mainstream society," professors who act as "dictators" and turn the classroom into a "totalitarian niche." His prime example of academic totalitarianism? When professors say that evolution is a fact.

Hey, I thought the Repubs wanted to limit all this frivolous litigation, these people who won't take responsibility for themselves running to the courts for everything? What, you say? That doesn't apply here? Funny how that works.

Here's my new slogan: Creationism. One more reason to move to Canada.

Crabletta, thanks for your recent excellent comments. I will reply as soon as Blogger fixes the comment function. BWV, if you're gloating, at least Blogger comments don't ask for three forms of ID before they let you through the door!

words

For those of you who don't read comments - or in any case don't scroll through the whole damn blog every day looking for fresh comments - there's been an interesting, meandering discussion going on here.

When the Crabster suggested I check out Big Brass Blog, we started talking about language, and the distortion of words to mean their opposite. High on my Orwell Was Right list: pro-life, partial-birth abortion, no child left behind, the patriot act, the defense of marriage act. (Please read all with ironic quotes.) This government is all about the manipulation of words until they have no meaning, or mean their opposite. Freedom. Liberation. Security.

Then there my perennial faves. Family values. Pussy as an insult. Balls as a synonym for courage. (Sorry guys, I just find that hilarious.) Forcible rape. Ethnic cleansing.

A librarian among us, the feisty and witty G, remembered another one:

I like "Collateral Damage" best. Possibly the feel-good terminology of the century. Used for justification of the deaths of innocents (in other words, a loophole in Geneva).

Remember the support America had from the Iraqi citizen population when it first arrived under the pretense of dispensing Saddam (WMD issues aside)? Amazing how that support disappears when your unnecessary aerial bombing campaign kills the families of those who support you. Don't forget, women and children are the bulk of the Iraqi casualty list since the invasion. But it's OK: the GOV says they're just collateral damage. [Tell that to the families of 9/11 victims, Junior].

G also says: "RE The Media Add to your Reading List: "A War Against Truth", Paul William Roberts. Brilliant first-hand account of the Iraq invasion and Iraqi history by a journalist who was there. A must-read for all."

Right now, G the Library Bitch (reclaimed word?) is helping an American reader pose as a Canadian. She's made a list, and is soliciting your comments and additions. Please help!

And perhaps "dear reader Julia B," the American who wants to act Canadian, will stop by wmtc to tell us how it went.

P.S. G: You do all say "a-boot". We hear it, ever so slightly, in everyone from Peter Jennings to Alex Trebec to Joni Mitchell. It appears to be the last of the accent to go, long after the speaker "sounds American". Hey folks, am I right?

oh canada. how could you.

The tranquil blue-white ice fields that have served the harp seals as a nursery for the last three weeks have been turned into a Dantean portrait from hell. Streams of blood flow and pool on the ice and the vacant-eyed, cruelly-skinned corpses of thousands of seal pups litter the ice. In the open leads, bleeding bodies bob, many sinking and not recorded in the quotas. The seals are being shot, kicked in the face, and bashed with clubs and spiked clubs called hak-a-piks.

From the blog of Paul Watson, Captain of the Farley Mowat, as quoted by Karyn Strickler.

This is so nauseating.

I hope no one feels obligated to tell me about traditions, ways of life and people earning their living. Apartheid was a tradition, slavery was a way of life, and industries die as their usefulness is extinguished. It's time for the non-essential slaughter of sentient creatures to go the way of the locomotive and the hot metal letter press.

exit strategy

MoveOn.org is now doing the right thing. They are demanding an exit strategy, with a specific timetable, to go along with the additional $82 billion W is requesting for the war (which, by the way, circumvents the normal budget process).

Go here to sign the MoveOn petition and help pressure our representatives. It's the least we can do.

belated obituary

Wow, where has my head been lately. I completely forgot to note the passing of a quintessential New Yorker. The legendary cabaret performer Bobby Short died on March 20 at the age of 80. This brief obit has some good links, and this is a nice tribute, full of insider anecdotes and quotes.

I was never moved to actually see Mr Short at the Carlyle, but it was so good to know he was there.

hypocrisy

Apologies to ALPF! I was running out the door when you posted your last LOTDs. My brain being oatmeal, and I promptly forgot all about them. Today a memory rose from the mush...

In a Toronto Star editorial, several leaders in Canadian women's health urged Canada to get "caught up with the rest of the world when it comes to" emergency contraception. EC - also known as Plan B or the Morning-After Pill - is a safe and relatively effective (80%) method of preventing pregnancy after unprotected sex.

EC is currently available to Canadian women with a prescription. Three provincial governments have improved access by authorizing pharmacists to write prescriptions for it, and it appears that will be the case federally soon as well.

But many Canadian health and women's organizations want Health Canada to go one step further, and make EC available over the counter, without professional intervention.

EC is safe, effective, and - despite what you may have heard - not an abortion pill. It only prevents conception; it cannot interfere with an already established pregnancy.

Which begs the question: Then why does the American anti-abortion movement oppose increased access to EC? Indeed, why do they oppose its use under any circumstances?

When the authors of this Star Op-Ed urge Canada to catch up with the rest of the world, they mention Britain, Morocco, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Israel, France, Belgium, Denmark and Portugal. Hmm, who's not on that list?

In the US, a battle has been raging between the reproductive rights movement and the Food and Drug Administration over making EC available over-the-counter. For a while it appeared that the FDA was going to approve it... A few key Bush appointments later, it was dead in its tracks.

None of the FDA's excuses for failing to approve the Morning After Pill makes any sense. It's obvious that it's a purely political decision. Trust me on this one, or read more here. An excerpt:

The FDA’s own scientific experts have recommended that Plan B be made available without a prescription and without age restrictions. Volumes of scientific research and international experience also prove that the drug is safe and effective for women of all ages. And experts estimate that increased access to emergency contraception could cut the U.S. annual rate of three million unplanned pregnancies in half.

More than anything else I can think of, the resistance to EC underscores the utter hypocrisy of the anti-abortion movement. If they were truly concerned with preventing abortion, they'd urge that EC be as accessible as possible, because that's exactly what it does. But if their goal is to force people to live by their own particular morality, and to punish women for having sex without the consequences of pregnancy, then their opposition to EC makes perfect sense.

On a nauseating side note, American women in the anti-violence movement are still fighting state legislators to require hospitals to offer EC rape survivors at hospitals. (!!) In New York State, for example, up until last year, hospitals were only required to give a woman who had been raped a prescription for EC. Yet 50% of pharmacies in New York City don't even stock the drug. And why put the woman through any more complications than she's already coping with? Why couldn't a hospital just dispense the drug?

I'm happy to report that it's a battle we won. But it took years. Why was it such a struggle? Why does this have to fought state-by-state?

As far as universal, over-the-counter access to EC, I'll be very interested to see where Health Canada will land.

vietnam

From Seymour Hersh's Chain Of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib:

"Just how little we in the United States understood about the nature of the insurgency became clear to me in December 2003, when I spent three days in Syria with Ahmad Sadik, an Iraqi Air Force brigadier general who served in signals intelligence during the Iran-Iraq war. Sadik, whose English is excellent, was reassigned in the early 1990s to work with the United Nations inspectors who, over their seven years in Iraq, we now know, successfully dismantled, destroyed, or otherwise accounted for the Iraqi arsenal of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.

...

Over the next few months, he told me, he learned from former colleagues and internal planning documents - many of the regime's most sensitive offices were ransacked after its collapse and some material was published in the Arabic press - that Saddam had drawn up plans for a widespread insurgency in 2001, soon after George Bush's election brought into office many of the officials who had directed the 1991 Gulf War. Huge amounts of small arms and other weapons were stockpiled around the country for use by insurgents. In January of 2003, as the long-expected Coalition invasion appeared imminent, Saddam issued a four-page document ordering his secret police, the Mukhabarat, to respond to an attack by immediately breaking into key government offices and ministries, destroying documents, and setting buildings on fire. He also ordered the Mukhabarat to arrange for the penetration of the various Iraqi exile groups that would be brought into Iraq, with U.S. help, in the aftermath of the invasion.

One of the war's most critical dates, according to Sadik, was April 7, 2003, as American troops were moving at will on the outskirts of Baghdad and were obviously prepared for rough door-to-door urban warfare. American commanders had feared, and planned for, a drawn-out siege of Baghdad. Instead, the troops, who included members of the Baath Party hierarchy, the Special Republican Guard, the Special Security Organization, and the Mukhabarat, were ordered to return to their homes and initiate the resistance from there. "In my neighborhood," Sadik recalled, "there were roadblocks on every street corner, guarded by well-armed forces. They were there at six p.m. on April 7th and gone by six the next morning. Fighting the U.S. Army head-to-head is useless."

(A former high-level American intelligence official had told me months earlier that the American signal intelligence community had reported that Baghdad had suddenly gone quiet on the evening of April 7th - Saddam loyalists had stopped chatting on satellite phones and other devices and simply melted away overnight. It was only then, the former official said, that it was clear that there would be no bitter fighting in the city.)

Sadik further told me that Saddam, in his 2001 directive, had ordered three insurgency divisions to be set up... The divisions were to contain two to four thousand members, organized in small cells of three to four...

...

In our conversations, Sadik made it clear that Saddam's preplanning was only one of many factors in the growing insurrection. There also were thousands of Iraqi nationalists and religious leaders - people who had struggled against the Saddam regime - who chose within days after the fall of Baghdad to resist the American occupation. The ultimate enemy, Sadik told me, was the occupation itself: the failure of the American occupiers to understand the Iraqis and the increasingly harsh tactics of the American troops as they sought to quell the continuing violence."

happy opening day!

It's officially spring: baseball is back! Since TV rules the world, Opening Day 2005 is actually at night, and it's only one game, but it's the one that counts: Yankees vs. Red Sox.

There's a terrific pre-season wrap up here, at an online magazine called Black Table. For each team, Will Leitch links to one blog:

The team logos are linked to the best weblog about each team, though it's possible we just missed yours, so don't be mad. As much as some might believe weblogs are the exclusive property of New York media rejects, the best use of the medium is by baseball fans, many of whom are professional writers by day and baseball nerds by night. No real fan of a team can survive without checking out these sites on a daily basis. So dig in.

For the Crimson Hose of Boston, Will picks our very own Joy Of Sox. Pretty cool!

Despite my discomfort with my new loyalties, my love of this great game transcends even my most passionate team allegiance. I'm here to enjoy the ride.

most off-topic post ever

Click here for something brilliantly creative.

liberation

You've probably read this elsewhere, but just in case, from this AP story:

Almost twice as many Iraqi children are suffering from malnutrition since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, a U.N. monitor said Monday.

Four percent of Iraqis under age 5 went hungry in the months after Saddam's ouster in April 2003, and the rate nearly doubled to 7.7 percent last year, said Jean Ziegler, the U.N. Human Rights Commission's special expert on the right to food.

The situation is "a result of the war led by coalition forces," he said. . . .

Ziegler also cited an October 2004 U.S. study estimating that as many as 100,000 more Iraqis - many of them women and children - had died since the start of the U.S.-led invasion than would have been expected otherwise, based on the mortality rate before the war.

"Most died as a result of the violence, but many others died as a result of the increasingly difficult living conditions, reflected in increasing child mortality levels," Ziegler said.

I read this here. If only this boy would post more politics and less baseball. (Or just as much baseball, but more politics anyway!)

dear readers

Is there one among you, an American, already living in Canada, somewhere in BC but not Vancouver...? But not Mollie in Victoria. A man. We emailed a while back, you sent me a picture of your visa?

If you are still reading wmtc, could you email me again? I seem to have lost your info. I'd like to have it. Also, there's a Japanese journalist looking for "defectors" to interview. But mostly this is for me.

This is hopeless, I'm sure he's not reading...

Which also makes me wonder, is Eraserhead still here?

listen

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

In the US, one of out of every three women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Of those, one-quarter will be assaulted before her 18th birthday. For boys and young men, the figure varies from one in six to one in nine. Either way, it happens far too frequently, and far more frequently than most people realize.

Chances are high that you know at least one person who has been raped or sexually abused, though you may not know it. Chances are higher still that you know families who have been affected by - and changed by - sexual violence in some way.

In more than half of sexual assaults, the victim knows her or his assailant, who might be a boyfriend, a parent, a coach or the friendly man next door. However, the stereotyped "stranger with a weapon" attack does occur, and much more frequently than you hear on your local TV news.

Our society (strangely, I think), often focuses on the aberrations - the female serial murderer, the ambiguous rape case. Most rape is anything but ambiguous. As Louise said, pointing the gun, "In the future? When a woman is crying like that? She isn't having any fun."

What can you do? Listen. And believe. I took part in this last year. I spoke, and I listened. It's hard, but it's overdue.

what i'm (also) reading: tween lit

Part of my assignment for the new Kids On Wheels magazine is writing serial fiction. I haven't written fiction in many years, and when I did, it was for teenagers; the KOW audience is 8-12 years old. I'm quietly freaking out, wondering how on earth I'm going to meet this challenge. I know I'll come up with something, but will it be anything anyone would ever want to read?

To start my mind working along age-appropriate lines, I've been re-familiarizing myself with classic books for the reading level. I chose five: The Phantom Tollboth by Norton Juster, A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle (one of my favorites when I was that age), the incomparable Harriet The Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, From The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, and the modern classic Holes by Louis Sachar. Everyone should read Holes, it is brilliant. It was also make into an excellent movie, with a screenplay written, thank goodness, by the author.

All this reading is having the effect of making me feel utterly inadequate.

si se puede

Here I was writing about solidarity among all people working for justice, and I neglected to mention Cesar Chavez Day. The United Farm Workers celebrates Chavez's birthday every year. (This year there's a "virtual march" fundraiser.) 2005 also marks the 40th anniversary of the Delano Grape Strike, a landmark in the American labor movement.

Cesar Chavez was a great American and a hero to all working people. He is best known for founding, with Delores Huerta, the United Farm Workers, and for his nonviolent tactics in the fight for the rights of migrant farm workers. The UFW and its predecessors also helped Latinos become citizens and register to vote, exposed and fought police brutality, and advocated for better living conditions in the barrios.

Chavez spent his whole life in The Struggle, and understood that all our struggles are linked. We had the privilege of hearing him speak at a huge gay-rights rally in Washington, DC, the last time the AIDS Quilt was displayed in its entirety.

You can read about Chavez and the history of the UFW on the UFW's site. Unfortunately, you can't link to specific pages! (It's not set up well.) But you can go to the main page, then click on the word "history" on the top banner.

For more information about (and pictures of) the AIDS quilt, visit The Names Project.

what i'm reading: the sweeter the juice, high cotton, what's eating gilbert grape

I'm really enjoying my plan to tidy up my reading list - to either read or delete books that have been on this list, unread, for umpteen years. Sometimes it's only coincidence that kept me from a particular book: it was never in a certain library branch when I happened to be there, and I wasn't moved enough to request it. Now that the New York Public Library has made it so easy to request titles online, I'm on it.

I didn't get very far with the first two books, The Sweeter The Juice by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip and High Cotton by Darryl Pinckney, despite my recommendation of Haizlip's memoirs. They were both interesting - up to a point. But when it comes to what I read, my standards are ridiculously high. There are just too many books, and too little time, to spend my time reading something I don't love, and neither of these made the cut.

At the moment I'm really enjoying What's Eating Gilbert Grape, a comic novel by Peter Hedges. It's funny and sweet, occasionally profound, and very entertaining. Despite being populated by eccentric characters, it's still very credible, which is difficult to pull off. I'm very sensitive to books or movies full of what I call "purposely wacky" characters that don't feel believable to me. I feel like I can see the writer working too hard to make the characters as nutty as possible, like when you see a comedian work too hard for a laugh. The movie "Garden State" was a recent example of that. If you've read John Irving, some of his lesser work felt that way to me.

Gilbert Grape was made into a movie with Johnny Depp and Juliette Lewis. I didn't see it, because I wanted to read the book, but the story would lend itself to that kind of wacky-character treatment. The book, however, feels very authentic. (That's what I always do when a book I want to read is made into a movie - book first, movie later. I must read without the movie in my mind.)

I'm still reading Chain of Command, because I read it on my iPAQ and generally only on the subway. It's a fascinating book, and if you're interested in how and why the US got into Iraq, it's truly a must-read. Among the many insights is just how much blame can be laid at the feet of Donald Rumsfeld. He is an evil, evil man. I knew that, but I didn't know the half of it.