This op-ed in the LA Times, by one of the lawyers who was on the winning side in the Ninth Circuit’s decision to delay the recall election, has some pretty good stats explaining why the decision mattered..

Let’s hope this is the start of a trend… it would be bad news for conservatives if ballot machines in minority areas actually counted every vote.

For more on this subject, check out this good American Prospect gloat-fest by Sean Willentz.

Sorry I haven’t been posting much this week - I’m busy with, well, stuff. Including that drawing you see above, which is a rough sketch of a paid illustration I’m working on for a magazine.

Here’s the thing: the cowboys seated at the table are being played by President Truman, Mel Gibson, and President Nixon. I’m planning to redo the Gibson face from scratch, so ignore that one. But do any of y’all have suggestions for what I could do to make Truman or Nixon more recognizable?

One thing that would help, of course, would be if I removed the cowboy hats. But the scene has to be recognizable as a western, and I think the hats help with that.

Ideas?

Tyler Cowen of the Volokh Conspiracy links to the same article I linked to Friday - the one showing that over 99% of the money left over after all expenses and other parties have been paid, goes to the label, and less than 1% of the money goes to the band - and argues that this shows how important copyright is:

Plus $750,000 gets soaked up in pure profit for the record label.

Say what? In the example given, it’s very unlikely the artists will ever see any copyright income. Why? Because they don’t own the copyright to their works - the record label does. Under “work for hire” laws, the label, not the artist, is the legal creator and copyright owner. And decades from now - when the artists might want to make a little pin money rerecording their old songs - they might not be able to, because the copyright owner will still be the record label.

Regarding an industry I’m more familiar with - comics - I can think of several instances in which copyright hurt the interests of creators. Steve Gerber, for instance, ended up being unable to publish works featuring his best creation - Howard the Duck - for years and years, because Howard’s copyright was owned by Marvel Comics. Had Howard the Duck not been copyrighted, Steve Gerber could have done his own version of the comic book - one that would certainly have been a better, more entertaining comic book than Marvel’s version. It seems to me that consumers would have benefited, too.

My point is not to be anti-copyright - I actually agree with Tyler Cowan, who (if I’m reading him correctly) approves of the general idea of copyright law but disagrees with how they’re currently implemented. My point, rather, is that when two negotiating parties are enormously unequal, then copyright (and all the protections copyright entails) will inevitably wind up in the hands of the stronger party - and that party is usually not the artist.

Meanwhile, at Crescat Sententia, Will Baude responds to me about the “deal memo” bands often sign. Just to review things, here’s how Steven Albini describes the “deal memo”:

Will doesn’t believe this could be true, unless there’s a secret cartel:

I didn’t realize that you had so much ready money at hand, Will. Since you do, however, may I suggest that you start your own comic book publishing label as well? I’ve got some stuff I can submit to you.

As for a “secret cartel,” it’s no secret - it’s just capitalism at work. There are a very limited number of labels who can provide access to a national audience (radio play, nationwide distribution of CDs, etc). There is a virtually unlimited number of young bands full of members who are sick of flipping burgers for a living and who are starving for a chance to reach a nationwide audience. Simple supply and demand would suggest that bands will be willing to accept very lousy terms indeed.

Add to that the realities of the situation. On one side, there’s a very wealthy record label, run by smart, business-knowledgeable executives, with its own legal team and decades of experience writing contracts. On the other side is a band of folks desperate not to blow their only chance at making a living creating music instead of flipping burgers, none of whom know anything about contract law, none of whom have any real business experience.

No, they’re asking for access to the nationwide networks that puts songs on the radio and CDs on the store shelves. And they have a better grasp of the reality than you do, Will: they realize that if they don’t take that access on the record labels’ terms, then they won’t get access at all.

Why would the label agree to a different contract, Will? The label isn’t losing anything by waiting. There are a hundred other bands willing to sign the label’s preferred contract, after all. And it’s not like the band insisting on “a different contract” can go sign with the competition - the band gave up that right when they signed the deal memo.

With all due respect, Will, this passage suggests to me - more than anything I’ve read lately - the enormous chasm separating libertarians from reality. There is no such thing as a “symmetric deal memo,” and never will be. A symmetric deal memo would not only forbid the band from working with any other labels until a contract is signed, it would forbid the label from working with any other bands until a contract is signed.

And yes, if that was the case, then certainly signing such a memo would be to the band’s advantage. But that’s not the case and never will be - no record label will ever offer a “symmetric” deal memo. There’s no reason for a record label to agree to terms that bad - only artists are expected to do that.

You ask “why can’t the band use its stand-off bargaining power just as well as the label can in this sort of time-limited standoff equilibrium?” The answer to your question is, the band has no “stand-off bargaining power.” It doesn’t matter to the label if they sign the band or not, because there are a thousand more bands waiting in line.

That’s what so many libertarians seem incapable of understanding - in the real world, contracts are negotiated from very unequal positions, in which the party with the power sets the terms.

Will also brings up an argument about the minimum wage. He’s wrong, of course, but that’s a matter for another post.

Finally, I should point out that Will and I agree on one thing - Napster and similar programs should not be outlawed. They have a perfectly legitimate, legal use - exchanging free music and other files that are either uncopyrighted, or that are intended for free distribution by the copyright owner. The fact that Napster has illegal uses shouldn’t make the existence of Napster illegal. After all, trucks can be used to smuggle - but no one argues that we should therefore outlaw the trucking industry.

• Hey, have you noticed I don’t post much on weekends? That’s because I’m usually at work all weekend. (Have I mentioned I’m a wedding coordinator?)

• There have been a few replies to my recent posts on the RIAA; check out Will Baude and Bitch Has “Word”, who disagree with me, and I Protest, who thinks I don’t go far enough.
• Hopefully I’ll be a homeowner by a week from now. You can view some photos of my I-hope-house-to-be here.
• Sappho’s Breathing has many good posts - I liked Politics and the petty sexism of progressive men, in particular.
• I’ve always thought the Bush family - Nazi connections story was too boring to be worth paying attention to, because it was the sort of thing only folks who babbled about black helicopters and the like care about. I was mistaken. Orcinus has a very sensible four posts on the subject - start here.
• Speaking of Orcinus, it was a question from Orcinus which led Shock and Awe to research this excellent history of the phrase “identity politics.”
• Not content to attack UNFPA, some pro-lifers are now launching an attack on UNICEF. Their basic goal, I think, is to attack and destroy any organization that actually does any good for women and children anywhere in the world.
• Paul Krugman has written an attack on anti-tax politics which you’ll probably find wonderful and enlightening if you’re a lefty, annoying and simplistic if yo’re a righty. I enjoyed it a lot. (via blueheron)

Have a nice weekend, folks.

In an earlier posting, I wrote that one reason I have very little sympathy for the whining of major record producers about how Napster “steals” from artists is that, by and large, the money from record sales never goes to the artists. Instead, the record companies use their overwhelmingly superior bargaining position to force artists to sign recording contracts which overwhelmingly favor the company.

Will Baude responded:

I don’t disagree with Will that the RIAA (or, rather, the labels the RIAA represents) provides benefits to artists. I do think those benefits are ridiculously disproportionate to the value artists provide. Steven Albini, best known for producing Nirvana’s “In Utero,” provides a useful description of both the process and the money.

First, before a contract is ever signed, a “deal memo” is signed, stating that the band members and the label have agreed to sign a contract at some future point. What bands usually don’t realize is that once they’ve signed the deal memo, they have signed away all their options; they must sign a deal with that label, which may or may not bear any resemblance to what was discussed when the “deal memo” was signed. And if they don’t, they will lose all rights to perform and record, potentially forever.

Of course, a band could just refuse to sign the “deal memo” until they talk to a lawyer… but the band knows perfectly well that there are a thousand other bands who would be thrilled to sign the memo without making a fuss. Besides, they think, it’s just a memo - how binding could it be?

But once a band signs with a record company, if they do well, then they’ll make tons of money, right?

Not exactly. As Albini points out - and he provides the detailed numbers - in a typical case, virtually all the money goes to the label, not to the artists. For instance, if the artists grosses $3 million dollars, that translates to $750,000 of profit for the record label. How much does a band member get? $4031.25.

But not really. Because the band is also $14,000 in debt to the record company. So for a deal which gave the label $750,000 profit, the band profits approximately $5,000. Put another way, after all expenses are accounted for, and everyone but the band and the label has been paid, of the remaining money 99.4% is paid to the label; the remainder is paid to the artists.

And that’s if the band did really, really well.

(Remember that, the next time someone tells you that when you illegally download music, the person being hurt is the artist. As David Draiman, lead singer of Disturbed, says, the RIAA is fighting for corporate profits, not to help artists).

And that’s not the end of it. Because the band has signed away ownership of their own work, forever. So in ten or twenty years time, when the band is no longer hot enough for a major label to bother with, maybe the band members could make a little bit of money by selling self-published CDs of their songs. Too bad - the label owns the copyright, and will keep the songs out of print forever rather than letting the artists self-publish.

Do I think that makes it not stealing to illegally download music? No. But if our goal is to increase justice in the recording industry, there are many more important fights than protecting the labels’ right to prevent people from hearing artists’ music.

1. For instance, work-for-hire laws (the legal fiction which allow labels who have never created anything to become the legal “creators” of music) should be abolished entirely. Nothing the labels bring to the negotiation process justifies taking creatorship of the work away from the artists.

2. There should be a legal limit - say, four months - on how long a band can be held in limbo because an agreement cannot be reached - especially before the labels have actually paid out a single cent, but have only signed a “deal memo.” If a band and a label can’t reach agreement, the just thing for them to do is part ways - not for the label to legally push the band out of existence.
3. It should not be legal for labels to use contracts and copyright as a way of keeping music out of print and unavailable to consumers indefinitely. This practice doesn’t benefit consumers, doesn’t encourage creativity, and goes against the original purpose of copyright laws.
4. Exclusive publishing agreements - in which an artist agrees to publish not only a current album, but all future albums, with a particular label - should be abolished. These publishing agreements are anti-competitive; they give the labels the right to negotiate with as many artists as they want, while artists are robbed of the right to shop around and get the best deal the market will offer them.
5. More generally, all of the applicable rights that Scott McCloud proposed for cartoonists ought to be legally secured for all creators working with publishers or labels. By no means will doing this rob labels of their ability to make a profit; but it will rob labels of their ability to take such a disproportionate share of the benefits and profits away from artists.

I’m just spitballing ideas here - perhaps some of the specific proposals wouldn’t be so great in practice. My point is, if our concern is eliminating injustice in the recording industry, the deprivations of Kazaa really shouldn’t be that high up on our priority list. Compared to how labels screw over artists, Kazaa is unimportant.

Isn’t it wrong to use the law to alter the balance of power in negotiations? No, I don’t think so. Minimum wage laws, for example, prevent employers from using their greater negotiating power to force people to work for a dollar an hour (in the US, at least). The recognition that vastly unequal negotiating positions lead to unjust outcomes, and in some cases ought be legislated against, increases fairness in the marketplace.

The Maryland Sun has an interesting profile of Anne Brodsky, an American woman who has spent years studying and working with RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

Brodsky couldn’t find a publisher when she first sent out her book proposal. Then, after 9/11, publishers suddenly became interested in the struggle for women’s rights in Afghanistan. The book, With All Our Strength, was published this past April by Routledge.

Erica,

If you had written this series of posts about nine months ago, I probably would have agreed with a lot of what you said. Over time, though, my opinion has changed drastically (in large part because of this very blog and dicussions in its comment threads), and I’d like to take a moment to write about what made my mind change.

I used to have an idea of male sexuality similar to the one that you seem to have. My theory went that men were biologically “wired’ in a way that is different from the way in which women are “wired”; men, in my way of thinking, were naturally more aggressive, more assertive, less able to control their raging hormones, and more horny. I based this on a lot of things ranging from the fact that I’d never seen a girl play a really aggressive sport like football to the fact that I’d never heard a girl boast about how often she masturbated. The more “masculine” guys I knew, the burly guys who drank a lot and pushed people around and otherwise acted like the “men” on television, were also the ones who were most likely to be accused of rape.

I thought that girls who dressed in a “slutty” way didn’t necessarily deserve to be raped, but they certainly weren’t doing anything to keep it from happening. Another way to put it might be that they weren’t “asking for it,” as the saying goes, but they were raising the subject for the asking. I based this theorum on my own reaction to girls who dressed in “slutty” clothing (I wanted to have sex with them), and my observation that the girls who wore “slutty” clothing were also the girls most likely to say that they’d been raped.

So, the “manly” guys, by my observations, were more likely to be rapists while the “slutty” girls were more likely to be rape victims. Thus, those “manly” men couldn’t help themselves but to rape the women who tempted them. When I factored into my theory that most of those people seemed to be into drinking and taking drugs, I came up with an equation that went a little like: guys who had a lot of testosterone + girls who showed off their bodies + drugs + alcohol = rape.

Then things started to happen… I found myself in the position of being very close friends with a woman who had been raped by her husband. It was an internet friendship, but I was no less effected by it. She spoke to me shortly after he did it and almost none of what she said fit in with my view of rape and rape victims. Eventually a part of my mind fell back on the idea that she’d been drinking, he’d been drinking, and … Something. I don’t know. A fuse was blown the moment she told me that her husband had raped her, but my mind wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge it yet. Just because a significant portion of my mental “house” had ceased to have power, I didn’t think it was necessary to venture into my basement and examine the way things had been strung together.

After that I started meeting more women who had been raped. Curiously enough, almost all of them had been raped while in their late twenties or early thirties, while they were sober, by people they knew and trusted, and when they were in comfortable and safe environments. Many of them were athletic, as well. I stumbled across this weblog (shortly after I stumbled across the entire concept of being a part of the progressive movement after I’d spent so much time being a conservative, but that’s a different topic entirely) and was fairly shortly ripped to shreds by bean (thanks, by the way) for some comments I made, was politely rebutted by Ampersand (also thanks, by the way), and stuck around to find out more about this whole feminism thing. I also started dating a young woman quite seriously.

The most important thing, though, was that I started thinking about myself. Once I had deconstructed the myth of the uncontrolable male, I was able to deconstruct a number of other myths.

The first thing I thought about was that I’d been tempted in the past to kiss a woman or grope a woman or have sex with a woman who didn’t want me to kiss/grope/have sex with her. Because I’d been tempted to commit sexual assault and rape, I reasoned, there must be a part of my male mind that was naturally inclined toward rape.

Um. Uh. What?

I’m also tempted to steal, lie, cheat, hurt, and kill. I don’t get some sort of pass when I do those things, so why would I get a pass if I decided one day to grab a woman’s bottom who didn’t want me touching her there? Because I’m a guy?

Let’s assume for a moment that men really are genetically more inclined to try to force sex with an unwilling partner than are women. Okay. So? People are also inclined to physically assault people who wrong them and defecate whenever they feel the need to. We have a term for not beating up others and not defecating in a hotel lobby because our bowels are full; it’s called being civilized. Children are potty trained, taught to not beat each other up, not to lie, not to steal, not to cheat, and not to interrupt while other people are speaking. I’ve yet to see someone argue that guys should be allowed to urinate in public because people are genetically inclined to urinate when the urge strikes them.

Perhaps, then, sexual urges are different for men, are less controllable than the need to urinate? It doesn’t take too much thought to dismiss this one. When was the last time you saw a man masturbating in the mall corridor? Personally, I’ve never seen it happen but I can guarantee you that there are a very large number of men who have been walking around in the mall and have really wanted to have an orgasm. If it’s not okay to masturbate in public, if the expectation is that men can control their sexual urges long enough to drive home, why is it okay (or at least “understandable”) for men to not control their urges and rape women?

Certainly it has something to do with the woman’s appearance, right? Well, no. If I said that it was a bit more understandable for a man to rape a woman if she was walking around in nothing but a bra and panties, I’d also be saying it was a bit more understandable for a man to masturbate in front of the Victoria’s Secret store display. Because the urge to masturbate and the urge to have sex are the same urge: the urge to have an orgasm. Guys who complain that they “haven’t scored in so long” aren’t having an urge for sex that’s not being fulfilled by their masturbatory habits; they’re wanting companionship, or conquest, or simply a change in the routine.

But hey, even if the masturbatory urge and the sexual urge are two different things, why should the conquering of one urge be considered insurmountable? Toddlers can be potty trained, I don’t see why men can’t learn how to just not have sex if their potential partner doesn’t want to have sex with them.

On a related note: burkhas aren’t exactly the most salacious things in the world, and yet rape is still rampant in parts of the world in which women are required to wear them. So maybe it’s the circumstances the woman puts herself in, or is put in? First of all, those are two different things so I’ll address them in turn.

Take a the proverbial girl wearing a sexy dress in a seedy part of town at midnight. If she gets raped, did she deserve it? No. A sexy woman in a sexy dress at night, or even a stark naked woman drunk in a bar at night, does not deserve to be raped. These situations should not be viewed as extreme circumstances under which the male mind is incapable of controlling itself. Those are not life-or-death situations; people are not insects that will die if they don’t mate so any man who sees a woman in a sexy dress in a seedy part of town and wants to have sex with her is not going to suffer by waiting until he gets home so he can masturbate.

Blueballs? Just to clear that up, just in case it needs clearing up: blueballs is rare, is a result of extremely prolonged stimulation, causes no permanent damage, and the pain caused by it is not alleviated by orgasm (in fact, if I remember correctly, orgasm is impossible).

Okay, so is that woman in the sexy dress doing everything she can to prevent being raped? Yes. Why? Because she shouldn’t have to do anything in order to not be raped. And no, that’s not an unrealistic, utopian view of the world. There is an expectation that people should be able to walk down the street at night without being shot, why is there not an expectation that women should be able to do whatever they want to do without being raped? (Interestingly enough, there’s no feeling that men wearing sexy clothes in seedy parts of town are tempting people to rape them.)

But what’s about your husband who didn’t lock up his bicycles and they ended up stolen? Isn’t he at fault, at least to an extent, for his bikes being stolen? No. Not legally and not morally. Leaving oneself open to attack of any form (theft, assault, etc.) does not make one culpable for said attack.

Morally, the decision to steal your husband’s bike was not a decision your husband made or had a hand in because your husband did not steal the bike. Did he contribute to it through his negligence? Perhaps, but he cannot be faulted for not locking up his bicycle because there was not a guarantee that his bicycle would be stolen.

Legally, your husband isn’t at fault for his bike being stolen because, again, he didn’t steal it. If you left the front door of your house wide open while you were on vacation, it would still be against the law for someone to walk off with your television.

(As I recall, rape is the only law in which mitigating factors between the accused and the victim can result in the charges being dismissed. Even in murder cases where children kill abusive parents, unless it’s in self-defence, the children are, I believe, still convicted of manslaughter.)

But all of this misses the point: a woman wearing a sexy dress is not equivalent to an unlocked bicycle or an open door. It doesn’t matter where she is or what she’s doing or what she’s wearing: there are no acceptable circumstances under which a woman (or a man, for that matter) may have her (or his) body violated against her (or his) will. And yes, I mean that to include circumstances like a super-model giving a lap-dance to a known sex-offender while they’re both on crack and sipping Jack Daniels. If he has sex with her and she says no and resists him, crack, jack, and record be damned: he raped her, and he deserves to be punished for it.

Because men can control their urges. Because women have the right to be women.

I meant this to be rational and well-stated, but I’ve decayed into ranting. There’s a lot more that I’d like to say, especially about the contributions our culture makes toward the high incidence of rape, but I need to take a few no-keyboard minutes first.

…

Just real quick: our society promotes an image of masculinity that encourages men to not control their sexual urges. It creates a mythical other-world in which a lone woman drunkenly dancing in a rural bar is seen as fair game rather than a human being with a right to chose her circumstances. She chose to be in that situation, she should also be able to choose how the situation develops and ends.

Aaaargh. I just lost quite a long response to Amy, of The Fifty Minute Hour. Oh, well…. time to try again.

Amy writes:

First of all, Susan B. Anthony wasn’t a feminist - she was a suffragist. Do I think that Amy (as a feminist) is right to see herself as part of Anthony’s political tradition? Sure. But that doesn’t mean that it makes sense for Amy to call herself a suffragist, because that battle’s long over. There’s no need to advocate for (American) women to get the vote - they already have it.

Similarly, if all women and men are someday made socially, economically and politically equal, then there will be no further need for feminism. People may still identify with the feminists (as Amy still identifies with suffragists), but they won’t themselves be feminists.

This is something of a red herring. Feminism is, as I’ve argued, a political and activist tradition, but surely Amy doesn’t believe that making laws is the only possible way to be political or activist. (One could instead be in favor of overturning unjust laws; or one could organize consumer boycotts; or one could be a media activist; or one could organize community groups; etc, etc, etc).

Amy then brings up an excellent point - what about a woman who (like Amy) think that women have it entirely equal in the USA, but who still thinks that women are unequal in the world at large, and advocates for equality for women everywhere? Shouldn’t that woman be considered a feminist?

Well, in my opinion, yes, she should be.

(Would I agree with that woman about the state of the sexes in the USA today? No, but that’s not news - feminists disagree with each other about things all the time.)

Finally, after a mostly-reasonable post, Amy steps off the deep end:

“…but I’m going to start exactly that pissing match anyway.” And so Amy pisses away, going on to conclude that woman like Amy, who see nothing wrong with the US, do more good for women abroad than liberal/socialist feminists like me who waste time worrying about sexism in the USA.

Since Amy went out of her way to bring up the question, maybe she could point out the extensive programs the right-wing women’s organization CWA has to help women abroad. Since they don’t have to waste time helping women in the USA, I’m sure they’ve done much more to help Afghan women than the Feminist Majority Foundation ever has, right?

It’s ridiculous - and counter to reality - to claim that liberal feminists have ignored what’s going on abroad (unlike those conservatives). The fact is, not a single right-wing womans organization gave a damn about women under Sharia (other than praising those governments for banning abortion) until 9/11 made it fashionable - and there’s no reason to imagine that conservative interest will last after the fashion fades. Until a US conservative woman’s organization has a proven track record showing even half the interest of NOW or FMF in helping women outside America, Amy’s argument has no credibility.

Of course, Amy would never dream of applying the same standards to herself that she condemns feminists by. In the front page of her blog, I see her advocating for marriage rights for North American gays. Isn’t that “a misallocation of resources” - why didn’t she instead write about people thrown in prison for being gay in Egypt? Amy worries about the freedom of speech problems of Americans whose porn is censored - which seems misguided, in a world in which people can have their hands chopped off for supporting the wrong political faction. She even (to use her word) “whines” about the danger to religious liberty represented by a monument to the ten commandments in Alabama - a ridiculous stance when people in Iran and China are thrown in prison and sometimes beaten to death for practicing the “wrong” religion.

Somehow, what Amy criticizes liberal feminists for doing - paying attention to trivial American issues when there are more serious abuses abroad - she finds perfectly acceptable for herself.

Personally, I think Amy’s standards are inane, whether applied to me, to FMF or to Amy herself. It’s human nature for people to be interested in improving their own culture. Furthermore, a nation that never tried to improve its own flaws (or even admitted they existed), but instead concentrated solely on “helping” other people, would be a nation of insufferable busybodies.

There are groups who are too insular - groups like the Concerned Women for American and the IWF, who dedicate themselves entirely to partisan politics and feminist-bashing, and virtually never find time to try and fund girls schools in Afghanistan or advocate for more women in the provisional government of Iraq. I think the NOW and FMF model - groups that, rather than subscribing to Amy’s unrealistic either/or philosophy, attempt to improve the world both at home and abroad - is more admirable.

UPDATE: Corrected a brain-fart by inserting the word “suffragette.” Then, in response to a reader comment, changed it to “suffragist.”

UPDATE THE SECOND: Corrected an even bigger brain-fart by fixing the spelling of Amy’s name, which for some reason I had originally spelled “Stephanie.”

UPDATE THE THIRD: In response to another reader’s comment, changed “suffragist” back to “suffragette.” I’m nothing if not pliable.

UPDATE THE FOURTH: Then again, in light of Bean’s comments, I’ve changed it back to “suffragist.”

For those of you following the RIAA lawsuit, this article notes that one of the evildoers the RIAA is suing for millions is a 12 year old girl.

Seeing the RIAA get robbed by Napsterites is, well, kinda like watching those movies where someone steals millions from the mob. Does anyone feel bad for the mob, watching those flicks? The RIAA has spent years robbing musicians and gouging consumers; they don’t have much moral credibility when they whine about their losses nowadays.

Sure, stealing is wrong, but it’s hard to muster much sympathy for a burglar whose pockets have been picked.

P.S. To cut off a predictable response: No, I don’t download music from the internet. Too much bother for too little reward, or so it seems to me - but then, I’m not 12. When I was 12, the internet didn’t exist yet - but I did have a collection of hundreds of albums tranferred to casette tapes and traded between friends.

P.P.S. I’ve always liked Janis Ian’s articles on the subject: The Internet Debacle and Fallout.

UPDATE: Will” title=”http://baude.blogspot.com/2003_09_01_baude_archive.html#106322164886334783\”>Will”>baude.blogspot.com/2003_09_01_baude_arch… Baude thinks the comparison to the mob is “a little over the top.” With all respect, Will, I think “criticism by way of over-interpreting metaphors” is beneath you. Most folks understand that a metaphor comparing “A” and “B” isn’t the same as saying “A” is identical to “B” in every respect.

Will writes:

Let me ask some different (and I think more relevant) questions, Will.

Do I think it’s immoral for a company to use a vastly superior bargaining position to exploit much poorer people, and thus gain ownership of work that the company didn’t create and doesn’t deserve ownership of? Absolutely. Do I think that music companies have taken advantage of their power and position to take virtually all of the profits from record and CD sales, giving an unfairly low share to creators? Absolutely. Do I think CD prices have been artificially inflated by collusion between music companies? Yes, I do. (And that’s what “gouging” means, Will.)

When two parties negotiate - on one side, corporate music factories, who have a virtual monopoly over music distribution in this country; and on the other side, young, hungry musicians who are desperate to break into the music industry, and who have the choice of doing it the industry way or never doing it at all - the result is going to be vastly one-sided, unfair contracts.

Do I care when the exploiters who have benefited for years from this dreadfully unfair system get robbed? No, I don’t. Frankly, they deserve every bad thing Napster has done to them and more. Given all the horrible things going on in the world, that a bunch of leeches like the RIAA is being robbed isn’t important enough to rate my concern.

I also wrote about these issues a bit over a year ago, and then again in January.

This’ll be kinda a short one - I just want to clear some links I’ve been saving up to blog off my desktop.

• This New York Times article, “The Futile Pursuit of Happiness,” describes the work of some scientists who study happiness. Pretty interesting stuff.
  Gilbert and his collaborator Tim Wilson call the gap between what we predict and what we ultimately experience the ”impact bias” — ”impact” meaning the errors we make in estimating both the intensity and duration of our emotions and ”bias” our tendency to err. The phrase characterizes how we experience the dimming excitement over not just a BMW but also over any object or event that we presume will make us happy. Would a 20 percent raise or winning the lottery result in a contented life? You may predict it will, but almost surely it won’t turn out that way. And a new plasma television? You may have high hopes, but the impact bias suggests that it will almost certainly be less cool, and in a shorter time, than you imagine. Worse, Gilbert has noted that these mistakes of expectation can lead directly to mistakes in choosing what we think will give us pleasure. He calls this ”miswanting.’
• Make sure to read this totally excellent post by Atrios discussing identity politics - and whose politics are never called “identity” politics. Via Kip.
• Speaking of Kip, he has a funny-yet-smart article in the current Comixpedia about being the spouse of a cartoonist. After reading that article, make sure to read Jenn’s rebuttal to her hubby.
• On December first, the NewStandard, an online, daily, progressive newspaper, will debut. Unlike already existing lefty sites like Znet or Common Dreams, the NewStandard will emphasize news reporting, not editorializing and analysis. You can read more about the project on the NewStandard website. If it succeeds, it coudl be invaluable.
• Whoops! There was a false comment about FoxNews here, but I’ve deleted it. Curious readers can read the real story here.
• The Global Women’s Issues Group has released a report card on the Bush administration. Particularly useful about this one is the contrast between Bush administration rhetoric - which has sometimes been excellent - and the follow-through, which is universally awful. Via Feministe.
• I’ve occasionally thought of making this more of a group weblog than it already is, or trying to start a new group weblog. (I’m not sure I could find enough good feminist writers who’d want to do a group log). Anyhow, Electrolite has a good post considering the grouplog phenom, and bringing up some design issues.
• Interesting article on women, convicted for murdering abusive their abusers before California law was altered to make courts consider battered spouse syndrome as a mitigating circumstance, who are seeking parole from Governor Lame Duck in California.
• Hey, did you ever want to know the relative size of anything? If so, check out How Big Are Things?
• The one thing everyone agrees on, it seems, is that if we want to help developing world peasants we must eliminate agricultural subsidies. However, Evan Plath argues that it’s not a cure-all for what ails the developing world, and could even makes things worse for some of the worst-off.
  I stood there and listened to a room full of Campesinos who knew exactly what it was like to be in the third world, working in agriculture for less than $2 a day and they said very clearly that they did NOT want Agricultural Subsidies eliminated. They want economic and political justice. They want an economic system for their country where they can own and control the means of production.

  Reducing Agricultural Subsidies to assist the creation of export oriented corporate industrial agriculture in fact hurts campesinos. It puts more power and wealth in to the domestic oligarchy who rob campesinos of their land and labor. The Ag Subsidies argument today is like arguing that we need to help black slaves in America by increasing the profits of the slave-owning plantations.

• Which weblog is the best? My answer to that changes from day to day, but right now I think Making Light is the best weblog out there. This post, The Fabric of the City, brings us links to sites showing fascinating bits of lost New York, with an emphasis on abandoned subway stations. I was particularly fond of the Masstransiscope, a public animation art piece that is now (alas) more-or-less abandoned, unlit and covered with graffiti.

Sorry there’s been so few entries lately, I’ve been busy (cartoons to draw, a house to buy - the closing is hopefully next week! - , switching to a new computer, and other such stuff).

Speaking of cartoons, anyone got an idea for an illustration to accompany an article which argues that Jews can rely on their kishkas (gut instincts) to recognize anti-semites? I’m stumped. (Hey, isn’t it stealing if I use your idea without paying you? Umm… Maybe. Tell you what, if you submit an idea and I use it and it gets printed, I’ll send you a check for $50.)

Also, if anyone happens to be a reader of Reform Judaism magazine, be sure to note the illustrations on page 89 and the last page of the current issue.

Christine Cupaiuolo’s Ms Musings blog is one of the best blogs out there - and I’m not saying that just because she’s a fellow Buffy fanatic. Here’s just a few good recent posts:

Ms Musings looks at how the media covers women’s sports, and is not impressed - the coverage of talent too often takes a back seat to babes and blondes.

There is some good news - the “participation gap” between girls and boys who participate in high school sports gets narrower every year. Currently, there are about 2.8 million girl athletes and 3.9 million boy athletes in high schools; the gap is almost entirely accounted for by the million or so high school boys who play football.

Ms Musings also has some information and links on the First Music Festival of Iran’s Regional Women - which is not the good news it may at first appear to be.

Finally, in the “depressing but notable” catagory, everyone should read this post of horror stories of how women are abused in China, Uganda and Kenya. The stories have many common links, but for me the big one is the connection between economic power and sexual freedom - if women and girls don’t have the former, too often they won’t have the latter.

The story from Kenya - in the Washington Post - is about the African tradition of “cleansers,” men whose job is to have sex “with women after their husbands die to dispel what villagers believe are evil spirits.”

The good news is, some women are organizing to overturn this deadly tradition.

• Kip at Long Story; Short Pier warms my geeky heart with the best geek-media news I’ve heard in a while: there will be a Firefly movie. If we’re lucky, the movie will be so successful that they’ll make a TV show out of it… Two good links from Kip’s post: An article about Firefly (the TV series) from a cinematography magazine, and Tim Minear’s description of the final days of shooting the TV show.

• Lawrence Solum’s blog has an absolute must-read post about the Democrats’ successful filibuster of Miguel Estrada. I don’t agree with Lawrence politically (in particular, it seems odd how he criticizes the democrats for putting ideology into the nomination process, but mostly ignores how the White House does the same thing), but who cares; his expert discussion of how Senate rules effected the strategy Democrats and Republicans took in the nomination fight is entertaining and educational.
• Julian Sanchez (of the excellent blog Julian’s Lounge) has a good article in Reason magazine explaining that yes, the Patriot Act is something to be frightened of. My favorite line: Lowry’s demand amounts to: “Show me just one classified, top-secret abuse of power!” As such, the request is disingenuous at the very least.
• It turns out I’m the 667,969,152nd richest person in the world - which means that I’m wealthier than 88.87% of humanity. Having that little factoid in the back of my head should make me feel guiltier the next time I whine about not being able to afford… well, anything. On the other hand, it blows enormous chunks in the theory that wealth follows merit, doesn’t it? (Seriously, I’m the laziest, least productive person I know.) Check out Global Rich List to find out where you stand. (Via The Fifty Minute Hour).
• Speaking of The Fifty Minute Hour, check out this post taking down Jonah Goldberg’s latest anti-gay-marriage rationalization. Nicely done.
• Julie Hilden - an novelist and attorney with a specialty in the first amendment - argues that anti-discrimination law should be expanded to cover the hiring of contract workers. So, for example, magazines like The New Yorker (which favor male writers overwhelmingly) might be subject to lawsuits.
• The Oregonian has an article up about a landmark I often stare at out of the bus window on my way home: the gigantic rotating loaf of bread (eight feet high and twenty-five feet long). Best fact about the giant loaf of bread: normally it rotates at a slow, stately 4.5 revolutions per minute. During storms, however, they turn the motor off and just let it whip around in the wind like a weathervane. (Via Aaron in Little Beirut).
• Grim Amusements points out that the recently-signed Prison Rape Elimination Act - whie a step in the right direction - is underfunded and toothless, and thus unlikely to do anyone much good. (Via Crooked Timber).
• Excellent Tapped post - mostly quoted from this David Greenberg article - explains why the press’s wish to appear “objective” makes big, important lies easier for politicians to get away with, while genuinely trivial questions (such as John Kerry allowing folks to assume that he’s Irish) are covered enthusiastically.
• If you’re ever chased by zombies, go run back and forth in the alleyways for a while. It won’t save you in the long run, but it’ll let you survive a bit longer before your brains become a happy meal for zombies. At least, that’s the lesson I learned playing with this simulator. (Via Lumpley).
• I want to put up this link to the audio of the Democratic candidate’s debate, so if I feel like it later I can go listen to it. Haven’t bothered yet, though.
• Forget the ten commandments: the really interesting issue in Alabama is the attempt to raise taxes - especially taxes on the wealthy - in order to improve schools for poor kids. (Currently, Alabama’s tax system is incredibly regressive - poor families pay two or three times as high a percentage of their income into taxes as wealthy families do). What’s fascinating about this is that the movement is being spearheaded by conservative Christians, who are taking seriously Jesus’ instructions to bring justice to the poor and say Alabama’s current tax code is sinful. The American Prospect has a good article on the subject, and PBS has an interview with movement founder Susan Hamill. (Both links via Making Light). From the PBS interview:
  What I develop is that these principles are ironclad — that you can’t abuse the poor or your community is not godly; it’s something else. It’s based on Mammon, based on market values that only value money, based on values that are not Christian. If your community basically has an infrastructure where the child born poor has no chance, you are not consistent with the values in the Scripture.

  The tax referendum on September 9th will probably lose, but Professor Hamill says the fight will go on. Meanwhile, just because the strategy hasn’t worked in Alabama (yet) doesn’t mean it couldn’t work in other, less strongly anti-tax states… Progressives need to watch this carefully. Aligning our desire for social and economic justice with the Bible is one of the most hopeful - and ignored - strategies the left could be using.

• I’ve never read NewsSkim before. It aint’ all PC, but it made me laugh aloud more than a couple of times. (Via Crooked Timber.)
• Conceptual Guerilla has a good suggestion for the next time you hear a Republican deride “big goverment liberals”; start talking about “cheap labor conservatives.” That one concept - cheap labor - is all you need to keep in mind to understand all of right-wing ideology, or so Conceptual Guerilla argues. Check out “Defeat the Right in Three Minutes,” and also CG’s blog.
• Even in cases where DNA evidence proves that an innocent has been wrongly convicted, Prosecutors - whose egos, self-image or career prospects are on the line - often refuse to admit that they prosecuted an innocent person. This FindLaw article proposes that the original prosecutor of a case should not be the prosecutor who decides if the case can be re-opened; instead, independant committees within DAs offices should decide such cases. Seems like a good idea to me.
• Esquire magazine has put up a complete archive of all its covers since the magainze began in 1933. It’s kinda fascinating, watching how the magazine’s cover conventions change from decade to decade. (Via Scrubbles).

So, anyhow - can conservatives be feminists?

My answer is “yes, but.” Yes, in my opinion, conservatives can be feminists. But, in my opinion, most of the conservatives who call themselves feminists aren’t.

Why?

Because feminism is - and always has been - an activist and political movement. Feminists, by definition, think society needs to be changed.

Susan Faludi, in a Slate debate, gets at this - that being a feminist is essentially a political act:

My main problem with “ifeminism” and other conservative brands of feminism is that they seem to be premised on the idea that (at least in this country) feminism has already won. The essential message I see in McElroy’s iFeminist columns and books like Who Stole Feminism? is that women are already equal; there is no need to agitate for change in order to bring women’s equality about.

So, for example, conservative “feminists” argue that we shouldn’t worry about the wage gap, because it’s merely a matter of worker’s individual choices, and has nothing to do with discrimination. They argue that the rape crisis is fiction, a result of feminist exaggerations and morning-after regrets. They argue that domestic violence has nothing to do with sexism because (as Christina Hoff Sommers argued) men are equal victims of spouse abuse.

Note the common theme - in each case, the conclusion of the argument is that sexism against women is no longer a problem, and political, activist solutions - that is, feminism - is no longer necessary.

Well, that’s nice - but it’s not feminism. Feminism is and has always been about activism; feminists are trying to change society. In particular, feminism is about changing society so that women, who are unfairly kept down in our society, can at last experience full equality.

If you don’t believe that sexism is an important problem keeping women down today, then you may be a nice person, and you may believe in equality - but you’re just not a feminist.

* * *

The rest is just detail. Susanna says she has no problem accepting the basic premises of feminism as I define them:

(Please note that this is just how I, personally, define feminism. I am not claiming any special authority to define feminism for anyone other than myself.)

Susanna thinks she’d probably disagree with me regarding “the extent, genesis and solution [to] the inequality and sexism, and most likely would also disagree with at least some of the solutions to the social, political and economic inequality.” Well, yeah, that’s a given - all feminists disagree about that stuff. That’s why there are terms for different schools of feminism - socialist feminism, radical feminism, liberal feminism, cultural feminism and so on. If there was anything like a universal agreement on that stuff in feminism, we’d just have one school of thought instead of dozens. And even within each school, feminists disagree all the time.

Sara at Diotima, who says I’m her favorite lefty blogger (aw, shucks!), has a good point about the Wendy McElroy FoxNews column I blogged about yesterday.

The McElroy column, as you may recall, is premised on the idea that Christian feminism is widely rejected by mainstream feminism (or is about to be - McElroy vacillates on if Christian feminism is a new thing or not). Of course, Christian feminism - like Jewish feminism - has been broadly accepted within feminism for decades. I thought this was a rather staggering error from someone who writes about feminism for a living. But Sara points out that McElroy’s argument actually makes sense, if we assume that by “Christian” McElroy meant “conservative evangelicals”:

Sara’s reading is probably correct - but if so, it’s rather ironic. McElroy, who constantly chastises feminists for our allegedly narrow conception of “feminism,” seems - at least in this column - to have an incredibly narrow conception of who can be called a “Christian.”

Electric Venom has an excellent (although depressing) post compiling reasons pissed-off feminists are needed worldwide. What follows is a sample, but you should go read the whole thing.

Why?

Why?

Meanwhile, Brian Flemming - author of a play I linked to yesterday, Fair & Balanced - reports on the evidence that the Republican choice for leading California simply hates women. Again, I’m reproducing a sample, but read the whole thing.

Finally, read this MEMRI report on how some Islamic intellectuals are trying to defend wife-beating as a valid cultural tradition. The article also includes some information about female Muslim activists resisting and demanding change.

Wendy McElroy, in her latest FoxNews column, is worried that mainstream feminism is going to reject Christian feminism.

Contrast that to what Bean - who would surely qualify as a “politically correct feminist,” in McElroy’s view - wrote on this blog only last month.

McElroy writes as if Christian feminism is something new. But in fact, Christian feminism - like Jewish feminism - has been around for decades. There have been hundreds (thousands?) of books written by Christian and Jewish feminists about combining their religious traditions with feminist beliefs (44 such books are listed in my local library catalog); there are academic journals such as The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion; religious magazines like CrossCurrents frequently carry articles about feminism and by feminists; there’s even a regularly published magazine of Jewish feminism, Lilith, which has run for over a quarter-century.

Of course, there are some feminists who question if Judeo-Christianity and feminism are really compatable - just as there are some feminists who question if the Democratic party and feminism are really compatable. But just as Democratic feminists are broadly accepted, Chirstian feminism and Jewish feminism are broadly accepted withing the feminist mainstream today.

How do I know that? Because I do. Because as someone who regularly writes about feminism, I’ve read enough actual feminists and speak to enough feminists to have an idea of what’s out there. Just as, I assume, people who write about baseball have an idea of who is on which team and what the rules of the game are.

What staggers me is, how could Wendy McElroy - who writes a column a week about feminism for Fox - not have known about Christian feminism? She’s not a run-of-the-mill writer; she is, I think it’s fair to say, one of the conservative movement’s leading experts on feminism. Writing about feminism is what she does for a living. It’s like a baseball writer not being aware that there’s this team down in Florida called the “Marlins.” Maybe you don’t have to be able to know the names of the pitching staff or even who their clean-up batter is - but if you don’t even know that the Marlins exist, and have existed for years, isn’t that a problem?

How on earth could an expert on feminism not know that Christian feminism exists, and is broadly accepted?

The answer, I suspect, is that McElroy rarely reads feminists, beyond skimming NOW press releases looking for attack lines. She probably has few if any feminist friends outside of the echo-chamber of ifeminism, and she’s unwilling to respect feminists who don’t subscribe to a right-wing or at least libertarian ideology. McElroy even refers to schools of feminist thought she disagrees with by made-up names - “PC feminists” - so she can avoid the basic courtesy of referring to schools of feminist thought by their proper names, such as “radical feminism” or “liberal feminism.”

Furthermore, because McElroy mainly writes for the choir, no one ever calls her on it. I’ve seen at least two intelligent conservative bloggers - Sara and Susanna - link to McElroy’s essay. But it wouldn’t occur to either Sara or Susanna to criticize McElroy for not even knowing the most basic, obvious facts about feminism, because (and I’m sorry to say this, since I respect them both) they’re as ignorant as McElroy herself. So they take McElroy’s word for it, and propagate McElroy’s ignorance in their blogs, and the ignorance spreads wider and wider in conservative circles. (This is certainly not the first time McElroy’s column has spread misinformation)

UPDATE: And while I’m on the subject… Judith at Kesher Talk has a justly angry post ripping apart the conservative lie that American feminists haven’t objected to outrages against women abroad. Christine at Ms Musings makes a similar point, and like Judith includes plenty of documentary links. This isn’t a new issue, alas - I’ve written about this sort of counterfactual attack on feminism before, and so has Body and Soul. Sigh.

• First and foremost, go read Nathan Newman on the Minimum Wage: Why the Minimum Wage Beats EITC, the Popularity of Raising the Minimum Wage to $8 an Hour, How the Minimum Wage Increases Employment, Who Pays for the Minimum Wage?, Why Job Losses from the Minimum Wage Don’t Matter, and Politics of the Minimum Wage. Nathan’s one of the best bloggers in the lefty half of blogtopia; reading all these posts will take only a few minutes, and leave you feeling well-armed and ready for your next lunchtable debate about minimum wage laws.

• In an earlier post, I wondered if George Bush has to consciously restrain himself from sneering and spitting every time he’s introduced to a soldier. Reading this snippet from Greg Palast made me wonder that again: the Bush administration is changing the laws for who is considered a “professional” for purposes of calculating eligibility for overtime. One change: if you learned your job skill in the military, you’re now a “professional.” In practice, what that means is that thousands of veterans will suddenly no longer be paid overtime, no matter how many hours their bosses make them work. Way to support the troops, Republicans!
• Whiskey Bar has a good - albeit depressing - series of links and posts about the growing oppression of women in Iraq. Here’s one quote, from Iraqi blogger Riverbend:
  Females can no longer leave their homes alone. Each time I go out, E. and either a father, uncle or cousin has to accompany me. It feels like we?ve gone back 50 years ever since the beginning of the occupation …

  We are seeing an increase of fundamentalism in Iraq which is terrifying.

• Speaking of Riverbend, she’s (or rather her “girl blog from Iraq,” Baghdad Burning) is the newest addition to my blogroll. Go read her blog; she’s a wonderful writer and paints a vivid picture of life in occupied Iraq. For a sample of how good she is, go read Road Trip.
• And speaking of women’s rights in Iraq, check out this interesting Boston Globe article about Iraqi women’s rights activists. (Via Diotima).
• An article on “The Dubious Rewards of Consumption” yields this quote (via Rebecca’s Pocket):
  For decades Lewis Lapham, born into an oil fortune, has been asking people how much money they would need to be happy. “No matter what their income,” he reports, “a depressing number of Americans believe that if only they had twice as much, they would inherit the estate of happiness promised them in the Declaration of Independence. The man who receives $15,000 a year is sure that he could relieve his sorrow if he had only $30,000 a year; the man with $1 million a year knows that all would be well if he had $2 million a year….Nobody,” he concludes, “ever has enough.”
• Mac Diva does a wonderful job attacking neo-Confederate arguments: check out this post defending Lincoln, and then scroll up to this post arguing that the Civil War was too about slavery.
• I love people who resign in protest, don’t you? Seriously - somehow I’ve always found that sort of thing heroic. Anyhow, Susanna at Cut on the Bias has a story of a small-town restaurant reviewer who wouldn’t compromise journalistic ethics. Cool.
• The definitive posts on Bustamante and MEChA have been written. Check out this post on Orcinus, which is valuable not just for the discussion of the at-hand issue but for the discussion of racism generally. And then check out this post, by Ted Barlow at Crooked Timber. Excellent, excellent work, folks. (Via Long Story; Short Pier). But you might also want to read this Volokh Conspiracy post, which begs to differ.
• A couple of months ago, I did a post about my drawing process. Now that post seems embarrassingly primitive, because Jenn Manley Lee has posted a description of her drawing process, which is frankly scary. Jenn’s one of the best cartoonists on the web, and this post makes it clear that a ton of very hard work goes into making her stuff look so good.
• Body and Soul discusses the latest pro-life efforts to make sure that no one who is working in China to reform China’s forced abortion policy will ever receive funding. I’ve blogged about this before, too: the fact is that UNFPA, the organization that some pro-lifers target, has actually reduced forced abortion in China - something that the hypocrites who attack UNFPA have not done. Apparently the idea of Chinese women having choice so infuriates some pro-lifers, they’d rather see them suffer from forced abortions. I’d really like to know how reasonable pro-life bloggers justify these pro-life attacks on UNFPA’s funding. Any comments, Eve? Or Sara?
• I suspect that only a former (or current) comic book geek would enjoy this biography of Ant-Man (probably the lamest superhero ever, although I think Skateman comes a close second) as much as I did. But I enjoyed it a hell of a lot (I never realized just how many new costumes - not to mention nervous breakdowns - the poor guy had over the years). (Via Eve Tushnet).
• Kieran Healy of Crooked Timber writes a terrific post regarding the economics of children and sex. He also discusses what I call the “Father Knows Best” economy - workplaces that assume that employees have a wife at home who will take care of all the necessary family tasks. Even if they don’t discriminate directly against women, workplaces that make this assumption are implicitly designing their jobs around outdated and sexist assumptions. Reforming the “Father Knows Best” workplace - so that all jobs assume that all workers have family responsibilities that must be accommodated - may be the single most important economic issue in the USA, from a feminist point of view.
• The discussion of the study of rape at Air Force Academy continues at Feministe, with many useful (and distressing) links about rape on campus.
• Do you desperately need a cigarette lighter, but all you have on-hand is some disposable silverware and some paper clips? Check out this page of prisoners’ inventions. (Via Boing Boing.)
• An interesting post by an opponent of affirmative action, over at All Facts and Opinions. There’s also a longish post by me in the comments.
• Eugene Volokh has an excellent post comparing anti-gay laws to hypothetical anti-Hindu laws; why is it that (some folks versions of) Christianity requires the former, but not the latter? It’s a mystery.
• Mark Klieman has a good post discussing the economic realities that whoever eventually emerges as governor of California will have to address (even if they’re now desperately avoiding doing just that). And while you’re at Mark’s site, also check out this post on prosecutors who resist DNA evidence showing that innocent people have been imprisoned.
• Playwright Brian Flemming, best known for the musical Bat Boy, has written a new one-act comedy called Fair & Balanced. There are sample pages available to read. Importantly, one of the play’s four characters is named “Ampersand”; it is therefore my opinion that this is the greatest work to hit the American stage since Death of a Salesman had its premiere. (Via Boing Boing.)

Sara at Diotima is criticizing NOW:

Sara then asks what my opinion is. (Although she also says something about the “feminist-on-the-street,” and you know, I don’t think I’m really very “street.”)

First, if NOW thinks that sexism and racism are the reason that Moseley Braun’s campaign has been ignored by the press, then that alone is an excellent reason for NOW to endorse Moseley Braun. Resistance to sexism and racism is, I think most feminists would agree, self-evidently a good course of action to take. Some might object that Moseley Braun “can’t win” - to which NOW could justly reply, only resisting sexism and racism when you’re guaranteed to win is called “cowardice.”

Secondly, what harm is done by endorsing Moseley Braun? Again, critics will say that no one should ever endorse a candidate who “can’t win,” but I disagree.

There is a time, I think, for progressives, leftists and liberals - including progressive feminists - to band together and concentrate on knocking Bush out of the White House. That time is later, after a candidate (hopefully one who is at least marginally acceptable to progressives and feminists) has been selected by Democratic voters. Meanwhile, however, it’s perfectly appropriate to vote our dreams and principles. Maybe later it’ll make sense to vote for something else, but if you can’t vote - and endorse - your dreams in a primary, then when on earth can you?

Third, on what I’d consider mainstream feminist issues - pro-choice, pro-child-care, pro-helping-poor-mothers-and-children, etc etc - Moseley Braun is as good or better than any of the other candidates running. Purely on the issues, she’s a reasonable choice. (Personally, I prefer Kucinich - who is all that, plus stronger on labor issues - but Kucinich’s recent flip-flop into the pro-choice camp is a legitimate reason for NOW and other feminist orgs to resist his campaign).

Finally, I think that it’s fine if NOW prefers Moseley-Braun in part because she’s a woman and because she’s black.

Isn’t that racist and sexist?

No, it isn’t. Having a preference for women of color without regard to their political views would be sexist and racist, but it’s clear that NOW wouldn’t have endorsed Moseley Braun if NOW didn’t agree with Braun’s politics.

But why should NOW consider Moseley Bruan’s race and sex at all? Because a non-racist, non-sexist government should include all sexes and races at every level. To date, 0% of American presidents have been women and 0% have been non-white. All else being more-or-less equal among the candidates, I’d prefer the non-white, non-male candidate - simply because we’d be a better country if the presidency wasn’t a white-male-only office.

As Moseley Braun has said, it’s time to rip the “men only” sign off the oval office’s door. She’s the only candidate whose election will accomplish that. If NOW wants to endorse her for that reason (as well as for her stands on the issues), that seems fine to me.

Which is why (despite what I’ve said in the past) I’m now leaning towards voting for Moseley Braun, rather than for Kucinich, in the primaries.

Sadly, the Walt Disney company is gradually shutting down it’s 2-D animation department. They’ve decided that the reason Treasure Planet failed and Finding Nemo succeeded is that Finding Nemo was animated in 3-D. That Finding Nemo featured a fresh, funny script and brilliant voicework by Ellen DeGeneres, while Disney’s 2-D features lately have had mediocre scripts or worse, apparently has nothing to do with it.

All Disney really needed to do was hire some great writers and then (and this is the crucial part, the part that executives generally mess up) get out of the way. Instead, they’re shutting down one of the best hand-drawn animation studios in the world.

This is the kind of thinking that Michael Eisner is paid millions for.

More details over at MousePlanet.