I’m thinking of having a garage finished to be living space. Does anyone know of a contractor whose work they’d recommend, who works in Portland?

* Excellent posts on the appalling UNFPA situation over at the Appalachia Alumni Association blog here and here, including info on how to donate to UNFPA.

From an AAA post:

* There is one bit of good reproductive rights news: Senator Barbara Boxer successfully proposed an amendment to State Department funding which overturned the global gag rule last week. Senator Boxer succeeded in getting six pro-life Senators to vote for her amendment, providing the margin of victory, by emphasizing that the global gag rule is a free speech issue.

Unfortunately, the global gag rule remains operative unless the House of Representatives also votes to overturn it, which I don’t think is likely.

The so-called “pro” lifers and Republicans in congress have succeeded in defunding the UN Population Fund (also called UNFPA). This move will, without any doubt, lead to more women and infants dying; how is favoring the deaths of women and infants pro-life?

The Republicans claim they’re doing this to help women in China, but in fact UNFPA has done more to help women in China than any other western agency I know of - more on this below.

For a clear view of the appalling lies and ignorance that substitute for thought among influential pro-lifers, it’s hard to beat National Review Online. Here’s just a few of the errors Kathryn Jean Lopez makes:

Error number 1. Lopez doesn’t know the difference between a “country” and a “county.”

In a report issued earlier this year, the State Department found that forced abortion and sterilization policies exist in 32 countries where the UNFPA has operations.

Actually, what State Department reports examine are UPFPA’s operations in the 32 counties in China UPFPA runs programs in. This wasn’t just a typo on Lopez’s part; she goes on to complain about UPFPA’s alleged history of cooperating with “tyrannical regimes,” plural.

It’s impossible that anyone who actually read the State Department report, rather than just skimming the first few paragraphs, could make this error.

What’s worse, even if we correct Lopez’s awesomely ignorant mistake, she’s still dead wrong. Which brings us to point two:

Error number 2. Forced abortion and sterilization policies exist in the 32 Chinese counties where the UNFPA has operations.

This is the opposite of the truth. According to the Bush Administration’s own fact-finding team - which not only talked to officials, but spoke to “ordinary Chinese in spontaneous/no-notice encounters” - they found no evidence of coercion in the counties in which UNFPA operates, since UNFPA set up its program. They did find “ample evidence” of coercion - but they’re careful to specify that this is referring to “abusive and coercive practices outside the 32 counties” UNFPA operates in.

Of course, that’s the Bush administration’s version of events, which is spun to avoid making UNPFA look good. They carefully skip over the most important fact about UNFPA’s participation in China - which is that UNFPA negotiated with China to end China’s coercive policies in those 32 counties. If it wasn’t for UNFPA, thousands of Chinese women who have been released from China’s horrible population-control policies would still be suffering under those policies. (UNFPA’s goal is to demonstrate to China that non-coercive policies that empower women work better than China’s past policies do. And it’s working: according to a British fact-finding report, China is considering implementing UNFPA-type programs in another 800 counties).

The Bush administration report carefully avoids talking about the good UNFPA is doing for China. For a less biased view, read the “China Mission Report” (warning: PDF file) co-written by three British members of Parliament - including the right-wing MP Edward Leigh, who before visiting China was UNFPA’s strongest opponent in British government.

The truth is exactly the opposite of what the right-wingers claim - UNFPA is the reason there isn’t coercive family planning in those 32 counties.

Error number 3. Sending the money to a U.S. government program will be just as good.

Lopez and other pro-lifers try to claim that they are not hurting women and children by saying they don’t want to cut off funds, just “divert” them to a different program.

The problem is, the program the money will be diverted to the State Department’s Child Survival and Health Programs Fund. While that’s a worthwhile program, it simply doesn’t have a record of effectiveness that can match UNFPA’s; dollar-for-dollar, the money would do more good with UNFPA.

Just as importantly, the US State Department is a political organization; spending decisions will inevitably be politicized. Spending will be based on what will help George Bush’s re-election, or to reward and punish countries based on irrelevant factors like “did they support Bush in the UN vote?,” rather than basing spending on what will do the most good for women and children in need.

A clear example of this is the China policy. As the British report showed, the UNFPA is actually helping women in China, giving them real reproductive choice and bringing needed reforms to the areas where they operate. Absolutely no help to Chinese women can be funded by the US State Department, however, because George Bush needs the votes of pro-life fanatics who object to such programs.

Error number 4: The pro-lifers are acting for the benefit of oppressed women in China.

Lopez writes, “Do they really believe they have more to fear from George W. Bush and pro-life conservatives than the women of China, or other authoritarian human-rights violators do from their regimes?” But in fact, the UNFPA is helping Chinese women, by getting real concessions from the Chinese government to switch from coercive policies to policies that empower women to make their own reproductive choices.

As far as I know, no other Western organization can show having made concrete improvements in reproductive freedom for Chinese women. No other organization can demonstrate that they’ve successfully negotiated with China to release some women from coercive population control practices. Only UNFPA can make that claim. So why are the pro-lifers against it?

To quote Brian Dixon of Population Control:

In the right-wing, pro-life viewpoint, defunding the only Western program that can be shown to help Chinese women is an example of helping those women. How backwards can they be?

UPDATE: Body and Soul is discussing this, too.

There’s bound to be a lot of discussion of the UN Population Fund, which so-called “pro-life” Republicans in the US House of Representatives have just voted to defund. It might be useful to review what it is the Population Fund, also known as UNFPA, does.

Here’s just a handful of recent headlines:

And from the “China Mission Report” (warning: PDF file) co-written by three British members of Parliament - including the right-wing MP Edward Leigh, who before his trip to China was the British government’s strongest opponent of funding UNFPA. Seeing with his own eyes what UNFPA does in China changed his mind:

Keep in mind that the excuse the “pro” life Republicans give for defunding UNFPA is that they want to help women in China who are oppressed by China’s coercive reproductive planning policies. How, exactly, does defunding one of the strongest forces for positive reform in China help Chinese women?

I’ve often criticized Israel’s partsans for seeing anti-Semitism where it ain’t - fo rinstance, virutally any criticism of Israel in the British press is attributed to anti-Semitism. But that doesn’t mean that there are never legitimate complaints. From Richard Ingrams in this past Sunday’s Observer:

Memo to Mr. Ingrams: Go fuck yourself.

I had never heard of Body Integrity Identity Disorder, or BIID, until I read about it Blueheron’s livejournal.

So what is BIID? From an article in the Atlantic Monthly:

Folks with BIID are folks who want to have healthy limbs chopped off so that their external self can match their internal, idealized self. Some of these folks actually go through with it, cutting of one or more limbs. Although people with BIDD are rare, the condition - at least anecdotally - appears to be becoming more common.

The Atlantic author brings up an interesting question: Does the existence of a diagnosis and treatment (in this case, amputating a limb or limbs) for a condition increase the prevalence of the condition in society?

So the existence of sex reassignment surgery - and of an increasingly active and visible transsexual community - may be increasing the number of people who genuinely and sincerely need to have their sex changed. And a similar dynamic, ten or twenty years from now, may lead to a huge increase in the numbers of people who go to doctors and ask for a limb or two (or four) to be removed.

As blueheron points out, for those of us who are supportive of sex-change operations for transsexuals, it can be hard to find a reason to oppose amputations for folks with BIID:

That’s pretty much where I stand. The Atlantic article quotes a young woman who plans to have both of her arms cut off. That horrifies me, and yet - assuming she is sane - I cannot see a justifiable reason to not allow her to control her own body. Subjectively, I am horrified by the idea of someone choosing to be crippled; but I realize other people are just as horrified by the idea of someone choosing to change sex. My horror is my own problem, not the problem of someone with BIID.

Objectively I don’t think a life lived without arms is any less important, or potentially any less fulfilling, than a life with arms. So if someone feels they need to have a doctor remove their arms to obtain happiness, on what grounds could I disagree?

Thanks to the anonymous reader who emailed it to me….

This is incrediby cool. Or incredibly geeky. Or both.

(Via The Poor Man).

Monsanto, the world’s largest maker of artificial growth hormones for cows, has sued a small milk company in Maine for printing the slogan “Our farmers’ pledge: no artificial growth hormones” on their milk cartons.

Now, personally I couldn’t care less about if my milk was produced from cows who were given artificial growth hormones. But that’s a decision that I, and every individual consumer, should be able to make for ourselves. Monsanto may feel that many consumers are irrational to prefer milk without their product, but shouldn’t consumers have a right to be irrational if they want to be?

To repeat something I posted yesterday, it’s actually a question of if you favor free markets or not. Giving consumers the information they need to make buying choices - and letting consumers decide for themselves what they want or don’t want - is the essence of a free market. And yet it’s likely that many conservatives who claim to favor free markets will side with Monsanto in this case - just as they’ve mostly argued in favor of Nike’s “right” to deceive consumers in the Nike case.

When a free market conflicts with the interests of huge corporations, conservatives favor the corporate interest over the free market almost every time.

Thanks to Alas reader Dan Solomon for the tip.

Well, there’s a first time for everything: I’m apparently an ideological brother to Andrew Sullivan, according to The Poor Man, who seems a bit miffed that I’m not a Patriot.

The Poor Man makes the link by comparing Sullivan’s opposition to affirmative action to this statement I made, in my post on Patriotism:

I phrased that sentence with care, and I stick by it. I’m not ashamed because of all the wrongs that have been done to women, to minorities, to gays in the USA. I didn’t do these things, and if I could I’d reverse them; so why should I feel guilt or shame?

That said, I don’t make the leap Sullivan does, and assume that because I’m not personally guilty I don’t bear any responsibility. As a straight white guy, I’ve been the beneficiary of homophobia, racism and sexism since before my first breath. Starting with my parent’s relative affluence - which was to some degree a product of minorities being unfairly kept out of competition with them for education and for jobs - to my own life, where I’ve always done better than I otherwise would have due to other folks being kept down - racism, sexism and homophobia has helped me to a large degree. And (from my straight white male perspective) it has always done so in a conveniently invisible fashion.

I don’t feel shame for that. I didn’t ask for that, and I don’t want it. What good would my personal shame do anyone, anyhow?

But I do feel responsibility. All my life, in mostly quiet and invisible ways, I’ve benefited from advantages I shouldn’t have and don’t deserve. This is why I support affirmative action, and reparations, and almost every reasonable measure I’ve come across for fighting racism, sexism and homophobia (and classism, and imperialism, etc etc).

It doesn’t matter whether or not I’m personally guilty of anything: my responsibility to my fellow human beings is not a punishment for anything I’ve done. Being in favor of justice - especially where injustice has favored your interests - doesn’t require being ashamed; it’s just a considtion of being a decent human being.

As for the Poor Man’s linkage of responsibility and patriotism, I just don’t see it. Some of the most patriotic people I’ve met seem to feel no responsibility at all for trying to fight bigotry and prejudice. Maybe The Poor Man sees a connection there, but I don’t.

Roz Kaveney, who was acquainted with both Christopher Hitchens and Bill Clinton at Oxford, laments what has become of Hitchens in recent years in this well-written post. Via Long Story; Short Pier.

There’s been a lot of good blogging at The Fifty Minute Hour lately (a blog which I’ve just this week added to the right-wing section of my blogroll). I think my readers will probably enjoy this post about how the US’s war on drug hurts Afghani farmers, and this post criticizing father’s rights radio host Glenn Sacks for spreading around dubious info from a biased father’s rights study.

But she’s utterly wrong about the Nike v. Kasky case.

For those of you unfamiliar with the case, what happened is this: Nike and many activists have been involved in a long dispute over Nike’s labor practices abroad. Nike claimed, in a series of press releases, official letters, and one paid advertisement, that their labor practices were great. Kasky, an activist, decided to sue Nike for false advertising.

Nike responded by saying that the first amendment precludes Kasky’s suit. The appelate court agreed with Nike; the California Supreme Court (pdf file) overruled the appellate court and said that Kasky could sue. Most recently, this has been in the news because of the Supreme Court’s decision to let the California ruling stand (although the Court could choose to revisit the issue at a later date, of course).

Note that what’s at issue in this specific ruling isn’t whether or not Nike lied. (That’ll be determined by a future court case). What’s at issue is - assuming Nike did lie - can Nike can be sued for lying?

The Fifty Minute Hour argues that Nike wasn’t “attesting to a property of a product they were trying to sell; they were responding to claims that the company is morally bad in some way.” But Nike was attesting to a property of their merchandise; how merchandise is made is a property of it.

In fact, The Fifty Minute Hour agrees with me in the next paragraph: ‘If it turns out that they said, “you should buy Nike shoes because they’re made by happy workers who each make six figure salaries,” and the statements of fact are not true, they shouldn’t be protected.’

By saying that, the Fifty Minute Hour is siding against Nike. Nike is arguing that, as a First Amendment matter, they should be protected against lawsuits over false statements like “Nike shoes are made by workers who each make six figure salaries” or (more realistically) “Nike pays average line-workers double-the-minimum wage in Southeast Asia,” so long as those statements are made in press releases and other such outlets, rather than in paid ads. If Nike had won this case, then it wouldn’t be possible to sue them over such false statements.

For the free market to function well, consumers need access to accurate information. Consumers who’d prefer to avoid buying shoes made with virtual slave labor, for example, need accurate information about labor practices in order to be able to express their preferences in the marketplace. Simply to keep the free market running reasonably well, corporations should not be given a right to lie about their products’ characteristics - including how the products were manufactured - in their press releases and public statements.

Reclaim Democracy has a good page of resources concerning this case. (Although they take Kasky’s side in the lawsuit, they also provide links to many pro-Nike arguments.)

B.J. of StoutDem criticizes “Feminists for Kucinich” for failing to distinguish feminism and liberalism. BJ exaggerates to make his (her?) case. For example, B.J. claims the Feminists for Kucinich document “does not say a single thing about feminism until point number four”; he apparently missed point one, which discusses how women are disproportionate victims of the “war on the poor,” and how “women on welfare are forced into low-paid jobs.”

Even ignoring B.J’s inaccuracy, I still disagree; I think B.J. is assuming a clear division between “feminist” and “liberal” issues that doesn’t always exist in real life. For example, most feminists correctly see issues such as (for example) poverty as feminist issues, because the majority of poor folks are women (or children being cared for by a female guardian). There isn’t a single issue “feminists for Kucinich” talk about that I couldn’t recast in terms of how women in particular are especially affected.

Furthermore, from a feminist perspective, Kucinich (despite his too-recent conversion to pro-choice) arguably would be better for women - especially poor women and women of color - then the other Dem candidates. Of the Democratic candidates, for example, Kucinich is the one most likely to be sympathetic to the need for government-funded childcare; for not just keeping abortion legal, but for supporting funding programs to help poor women who cannot afford an abortion; for providing more real reproductive choice to poor women by supporting government aid to single mothers; to support unionization of female-heavy workforces, such as retail workers; to fight to raise the minimum wage (most minimum wage workers are women); etc, etc..

On all of these issues, Kucinich is the most likely candidate to act in a way that - in the view of this feminist, at least - best supports the interests of women’s equality.

Nonetheless, that sort of argument is not, by and large, the approach taken by “Feminists for Kucinich.” Does that mean that they’re wrong to self-identify as feminists? I don’t think so.

B.J. falsely assumes that the only legitimate statement from “Feminists for Kucinich” would focus exclusively on issues that B.J. deems (based on criteria he never explained) to be legitimate feminist issues. But that’s not the approach this statement takes, nor is there any reason it should be required to take that approach.

Instead, this statement says, in effect, “Look, we’re a group of feminists who most feminists find credible. Based on that, we’re asking feminists to consider supporting Kucinich. Here’s why…” The point isn’t that the arguments for Kucinich are particularly feminist, but that the speakers are particularly credible people from a feminist P.O.V.. And despite B.J.’s foolishly mean-sounding rant (when a speaker disparages Barbara Ehrenreich’s commitment to women’s rights, it doesn’t exactly enhance the speaker’s credibility), that’s a perfectly legitimate approach for them to take.

A lot of feminists will take Barbara Ehrenreich’s endorsement seriously - because she’s earned being taken seriously by feminists, with her work and her lifelong feminist commitment. There’s nothing wrong with that.

And, finally, B.J. points out that Kucinich - due to his recent conversion to pro-choice - needs the support of feminists (”cover,” as BJ puts it) more than other candidates do. From a feminist point of view, why on earth should we consider this a bad thing? As far as I’m concerned, the more pressure a candidate feels to court feminist support, the better.

Tyler Cowen at the Volokh Conspiracy argues (in a post whose permalink isn’t working for me - look for a post entitled “Authenticity, affiliation, and self-image” on July 6 2003) takes a pessimistic view of human nature and art appreciation:

While no doubt some people value art for the reasons Cowen suggests, I can think of other reasons to prefer an original even to a very skilled forgery. I’d love to own an original piece of Peanuts art, for instance. But Charles Schultz is not a hard artist to imitate; shouldn’t I be content with a forgery, if the drawing was convincing enough to be just as appealing as the genuine article? (Heck, shouldn’t I just manufacture the forgery myself?)

Well, no. I’m interested in owning a piece of Schultz art not just because I think a particular drawing look attractive on my wall, but because any single Schultz drawing exists as part of the arc of Schultz’s artistic career and development. An original Schultz would be a thought-aid to me; it is a reminder of a very particular point in Schultz’s development. Owing a Schultz drawing (or a Rembrandt painting) is meaningful not just for the individual image but because it is part of a sequence of masterworks.

A forgery, however attractive, isn’t part of that sequence, and can’t tell me anything about the sequence. It fetches less of a price, I think, because from the standpoint of art appreciation it provides less genuine value.

As a leftist, should it embarrass me that if I was stuck on a desert island with only one blog to read, I might choose The Volokh Conspiracy? Written by a bunch of conservative/libertarian law professors, I personally don’t find any other blog as consistently interesting and informative.

A couple of times I’ve been told by lefty friends that they don’t read any right-wing blogs* - and my reaction is always the same - “what, not even Volokh?”

Anyhow, as a public service to any of my left-wing readers, here’s a couple of posts that y’all should enjoy even if the only thing you enjoy about blogs is seeing right-wing viewpoints used to wipe the floor. First, a Volokh reader writes in suggesting that Sodomy laws can be justified as ” a backup to the rape law”; Eugene V. responds with a modest proposal.

Second, Eugene Volokh takes on Pat Buchanan’s defense of the slave south. (It’s a bit like watching Jackie Chan fight with some poor shmuck extra - there’s no suspense about who’ll win, but it’s still worth watching for how nice Jackie’s/Volokh’s moves are).

This odd case (which Volokh found on Is That Legal?) in which President Bush, of all people, says something I’ve thought many times:

And so many more… seriously, everyone (or at least every political-junkie-blog-reader) should read Volokh.

By the way, some academic leftists have set up a group blog, which (fairly or not) I’ve already seen referred to a couple of times as a liberal Volokh. It’s called the Crooked Timber blog, if you want to check it out.

(Footnote: *For folks tempted to say that this post proves that many lefties are intellectually limited and refuse to read contrary opinions… please don’t bother. It’s unwarranted to assume that someone who avoids right-wing bloggers doesn’t read right-wingers at all.)

That’s right, singing horses. As Eugene Volokh implies, this is more entertaining than it really ought to be.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Now first, I’d like to say, “it’s about time!!!” King was far from the first mail-order bride who has been abused and even murdered.

As someone who has been working with abused refugee and immigrant women, I can say that my experience matches up with Miller-Muro’s. To make matters worse, these men often either hide the wife’s papers or never actually file them — making it incredibly difficult for them to get out of the marriage without being deported. Fortunately, VAWA has reduced the number of years a woman has to be married before she can divorce without immediate deportation if she can prove abuse. But it’s still not enough. It’s only reduced it from 7 years to 3 years — better, yes, but not enough.

So, I would like to applaud Cantwell and Larsen for finally stepping up and doing something about this problem.

However, it must be noted that this is nothing more than a band-aid measure. This will not stop the problems inherent in the mail-order bride system. On the most basic level, this will only stop men who have a record of being abusive (either having been convicted of abuse or having had a restraining order placed against them). This will not protect women from abusive men who have either never abused before, or have simply never been caught at it. For another thing, the problems with the mail-order bride system go beyond abuse and murder. The entire system is rife with strict gender role expectations, submission, and oppression. This bill is only a stop-gap on the road to eliminating this “industry” altogether — something that desperately needs to be done.

Now, I know that many women voluntarily sign-up to be mail-order brides in order to obtain a “better life” and/or U.S. citizenship. However, rather than simply condoning one oppressive system to help relieve another oppressive system — we should instead all be working to remove the original oppressive system. Whether that be making immigration easier or helping women in other countries be far less oppressed to begin with.

All that said, I have a few quibbles with the article, itself (or, at least with some of the things written about in the article).

Ridiculous. I’m not going to say that this never happens. But to say that men are more victimized is beyond ridiculous. The injuries these women sustain speak for themselves.

Bullshit. That may not have been his intention — but it sure as hell won’t prevent him from doing it. In fact, the opposite is true. Now he feels he “owns” her. If she doesn’t do exactly what he wants, he feels even more of a “right” to beat the shit out of her.

Right, because Russia is such a backward country. They would never have learned of feminism. There are no Russian feminists. [rolleyes] What fucking bullshit. Try telling that to Marina Pisklakova, Olga Lipovskaya, Alexandra Kollontai, Galina Starovoitova, or any of the other hundreds of Russian feminists past and present. Gah!

Curiously, the two big “anti-feminist feminist” discussion boards have recently been removed by their supporting sites. SheThinks, an astroturf campus organization created by the right-wing Independant Women’s Forum, removed the online discussion board as part of a site redesign - although the rest of SheThinks.org seems to have been left online. Just as well - the SheThinks.org board was dominated by overt misogynists and feminist-haters who mainly used the board as a place for bad-mouthing the much more successful and lively Ms Magazine boards. In essence, the SheThinks board was a spin-off of the Ms. boards, a home for anti-feminist posters who had been booted off of Ms.

Meanwhile, the folks at Ifeminists.com - whose public discussion forum actually had a life of its own, rather than just being a satallite of a pro-feminist board - have taken their boards down. Wendy McElroy says this is because the boards were too successful - she no longer had time to moderate them. (Update: I just came across this livejournal post, talking about hypocripsies in McElroy’s moderation, and just basically trashing McElroy on many other grounds.)

As far as I know, there are no longer any public forums online sponsored by anti-feminist feminists (that is, right wing anti-feminists who self-identify as feminists). (I’m using “right-wing” broadly here; McElroy is a libertarian, not a Republican).

UPDATE: McElroy later reinstated her discussion board.

For folks interested in genuinely feminist discussion boards…
Read the rest of this entry »

Beginning this winter, The Guardian is going to be bringing out an American edition. It’ll be a weekly magazine, not a daily newspaper, but still - cool.

In further good news, MSNBC has fired Michael Savage for his on-air homophobia (he told a gay caller to ” get AIDS and die, you pig”). As the Washington Post’s TV columnist writes, “MSNBC was shocked — shocked, I tell you — to learn that its well-known homophobe host Michael Savage is actually — gasp! — homophobic.”

MSNBC has said the decision to fire Savage was easy. But if they’re so gosh-darned anti-homophobia, then why hire Savage (who makes no secret of his loathing of gays) in the first place? Because they didn’t know, before hiring him, that his ratings would be only so-so. If Savage’s show had been the hit MSNBC was hoping for (like Savage’s hugely popular talk-radio show), then MSNBC probably would have found that they could live with gay-bashing on their network. Fortunately for American television, Savage’s ratings were mediocre.

Best quote from the Post article:

Via Eve Tushnet.