Well, just as I’ve finally managed to post something of substance, it seems July is over. And I’m about to commence moving from New South Wales to Arizona, so posting at debitage will be light for the next couple weeks (thus probably losing me any increased readership I might have gained from my stint here on Alas). Huge thanks to Amp for allowing me to prattle on in this space for the past month. See you in the comments section.
As I’ve mentioned a few times, I’m on vacation in New York right now. What I haven’t mentioned is that Sydney and Maddox are also on vacation, visiting their grandparents in Minnesota Maine Michigan.
So I’m not even going to see Sydney or Maddox for another couple of weeks. In the meanwhile, to tide you over, here’s an extremely cute photo of Maddox that Sally, Maddox’s grandma, kindly emailed to me.
(When I get back home, I’ll print a couple of the photos I snapped of my adorable niece and nephew, as well.)
Sheelzebub emails that “The Boston Globe is doing a spotlight report on the abusive practices of debt collectors, which includes seizing the property of people who have already paid their debts.”
One thing I found particularly outrageous, if true, is that some small-claim courts have in effect given up their role as neutral adjudicator, and instead act to rubber-stamp dubious or even blatantly false claims by debt collecting companies. Check out Sheelzebub’s post on Pinko Feminist Hellcat for more information.
Judith at Kesher Talk engages in a little feminist-bashing:
News flash! Saddam Wasn’t a Feminist. Well, duh, you might say. But some on the left have already started to spin Saddam’s Iraq as a time of equal opportunity for women. This includes equal opportunity to be falsely imprisoned, tortured (with the added bonus of guaranteed gang rape), murdered, and having your culture threatened with obliteration (if you were a Kurd or Marsh Arab), but they don’t mention that. [...]
There is no doubt that women in Iraq are threatened by theocratic militancy that Saddam’s regime kept at bay, and that they will need constant support to hold their own in the new government and enforce their right to be secular if they choose. (For that matter, many Iraqi men want a secular civic space as well.) But let’s not paint Saddam’s era with a rosy glow.
Uh-huh.
Who, exactly, are these feminists who are not mentioning atrocities under Saddam, and “paint[ing] Saddam’s era with a rosy glow?” Funnily enough, Judith doesn’t say who she’s criticizing. When I emailed her to ask, she was able to provide just one citation: this Wall Street Journal op-ed which Judith linked in her post, written by A. Yasmine Rassam of the Independent Women’s Forum. The article criticizes this report (pdf link) by the feminist organization Code Pink, accusing Code Pink of “revisionist history-writing,” and implying that Code Pink has called Saddam “a champion of women’s rights.”
Much of the anti-war propagandists’ defense of Saddam as a champion of women’s rights rests on his willingness to allow women to vote (for him), drive cars, own property, get an education and work. What they choose to ignore, however, is the systematic rapes, torture, beheadings, honor killings, forced fertility programs, and declining literacy rates that also characterized Saddam’s regime.
Judith is not alone in linking to this WSJ piece and uncritically repeating its claims. House of the Dog writes:
I don’t see how anyone can call themselves a feminist and not be thrilled that Saddam is out of power. Continue to fight for the rights of current Iraqi women, which are in danger if there is a return to a theocracy, but acknowledge the horrors that they have been freed from.
Jim Lindgren at Volokh says that feminists have been trying to “whitewash” Saddam’s record. This blogger goes further, calling feminists “Saddam enablers” - ironic, since Saddam didn’t depend on feminists to enable his rise to power, whereas the woman-hating theocrats currently running much of Iraq were in fact enabled by right-wing Americans.)
Here’s the problem: The accusations against Code Pink are blatant lies, as any of these bloggers could have easily discovered if they had bothered to read Code Pink’s report. As Blargh Blog points out, Code Pink’s report doesn’t whitewash Saddam’s activities. Here’s some of what Code Pink’s report said about Saddam:
Although a great deal of policy and law continued to women’s advantage when Saddam Hussein became president, his voracious appetite for dictatorial power over the entire population could not but undermine women’s gains. Women, like men, were jailed, tortured, raped, and murdered. [...]
To extract information from dissidents, suspected dissidents, and opposition members abroad, Hussein was fond of sending them video tapes showing their female relatives raped by members of the secret police. [...]
By 1990 Hussein was courting support for his warweary regime from neighboring Islamic states and from religious and tribal leaders. Hussein’s public embrace of Islam’s moral authority changed many of the laws governing divorce, child custody, and inheritance rights so as to limit women’s rights and freedoms. Laws restricted women’s ability to travel abroad without a male relative and reintroduced single-sex education in high school. [...]
Honor killings of women who were suspected of pre-marital sex or victims of rape, thereby “dishonoring” the family name, dramatically increased after Hussein reduced the prison sentences of male perpetrators from 8 years to no more than 6 months—a punishment in any case rarely imposed. [...]
The GFIW stopped promoting women’s rights to work and education and focused primarily on humanitarian aid and health care. … Impoverishment forced families to keep their female children out of school, and illiteracy soared. [...]
By 2000, a militia founded by Hussein’s son, Uday, was beheading women in a campaign against prostitution.
That’s the sort of thing that Judith of Kesher Talk calls “spin[ing] Saddam’s Iraq as a time of equal opportunity for women”; what Lindgren of Volokh calls a “whitewash” of Saddam’s record. These are blatant lies; the only question is if all these conservative bloggers are just mindlessly spreading the IWF slander without having bothered to skim the Code Pink report, or if they read it but are just as willing to lie as the IWF is.
(Alone among all these bloggers, Lindgren later updated his post to begrudgingly admit that the critique of Code Pink’s report was inaccurate. He nonetheless defends the criticism of Code Pink, because they didn’t mention the exact same atrocities he would have mentioned. That seems like pretty weak tea to me; somehow I doubt that Lindgrem would hold right-wing organizations to the same standard).
Blargh Blog’s critique is very well-done, but it doesn’t go far enough. It’s not only that right-wingers have falsely accused Code Pink of whitewashing crimes against women. It’s that right-wingers are themselves guilty of doing what they accuse Code Pink of.
Even when writing about a report on crimes and violence against Iraqi women post-invasion, not one of these right-wing bloggers - nor the IWF article in the Wall Street Journal - mentions the current problems of Iraqi Women - including virtual house arrest, rape (including rape by US military personnel), kidnappings, and honor killings - described in Code Pink’s report.
Judith’s weak, oblique reference to “theocratic militancy” is the most any of these conservatives do to acknowledge current problems for women in Iraq (the vast majority ignored the subject entirely). Apparently they approve of reporting violations of Iraqi women’s rights only when those crimes happen under Saddam; post-Saddam violations are simply not mentioned.
Lindgren was right to say that there’s a “whitewash” going on, but it’s not a whitewash of Saddam. It’s a whitewash of the attacks on Iraqi women that have gone on since the US invaded Iraq. (Actually, the damage to Iraqi men - who have suffered a much higher deathcount than Iraqi women - has also been whitewashed, but that’s not the subject of this post).
Quoting from the Code Pink report again:
Numerous witnesses and victims have testified and investigators have confirmed that coalition forces and U.S. contractors have committed horrific crimes of sexual abuse, torture, and physical assault. There is copious reportage about rapes, including gang rapes, and routine sexual humiliation as well as accounts of women falling prey to honor killings after leaving U.S. detention centers. Amal Kadhim Swadi, an Iraqi lawyer who represented women detainees at Abu Ghraib, claimed that sexualized violence by U.S. forces was “happening all across Iraq” and was not confined to a few isolated cases. [...]
American assaults on Iraqi women have not been confined to sexual abuse. U.S. forces have used Iraqi women as “bargaining chips” to get Iraqi men to turn themselves in or to confess to aiding the resistance. And U.S. personnel have physically assaulted female detainees. [...]
An Iraqi police inspector testified that “Some gangs specialize in kidnapping girls, they sell them to Gulf countries. This happened before the war too, but now it is worse, they can get them in and out without passports.” [...]
Some radical religious groups are using alleged Shari’a principles to justify assaults on women. Freed from Hussein’s vengeful eye and increasingly in control of local and regional governments and local resources, several radical clerics, conservative Shi’a political parties, and paramilitary forces have gained followers and influence in Central and Southern Iraq. As a result, radical religious groups can more openly harass women who defy their interpretations of Shari’a. Many girls and women in urban areas who might have previously worn western clothes will not now leave home without wearing the hijab or the abaya. Although choice of dress does not necessarily mean insecurity or loss of freedom, women’s rights advocate Yanar Mohammed claims, “If you go without the protection of the scarf, [armed men] can stop you and you may get assaulted…Being good and chaste means you put a veil on. They tell you it’s voluntary, but how can it be voluntary when there’s that much pressure on you?” [...]
Radical religious groups are also apparently guilty of more severe crimes against women. A group of men in Mosul threw acid in the face of a Christian female lawyer whom they had previously warned to wear a veil or face death. In 2005, on a highway near Baghdad the body of pharmacist and women’s rights activist Zeena Al-Qushtaini turned up ten days after assailants had abducted her at gunpoint. Al-Qushtaini had two bullet holes close to her eyes and was reportedly dressed in an abaya; she normally wore Western clothes. Pinned to the abaya was a message that read, “She was a collaborator against Islam.” In Latifya, a city south of Baghdad, Sunni radicals have covered walls warning women and girls not to go out in public without covering their heads and faces and threatening death to the violators.
A survey of Iraqi women’s rights groups shows that these groups - who are probably better positioned than anyone to form a judgement - feel that as bad as Saddam was for women, the post-Saddam regime is even worse. From an op-ed by Bonnie Erbe:
A new poll of leaders of Iraqi women’s-rights groups finds that women were treated better and their civil rights were more secure under deposed President Saddam Hussein than under the faltering and increasingly sectarian U.S.-installed government.
This is doubly troubling. It’s troubling first because the Bush administration used the issue of women to justify its now widely criticized invasion of Iraq in part by promising to improve the situation of women.
It’s troubling second because the administration has issued news releases, held public meetings and tried to gain media attention (as well as U.S. public support) for all the “good” it’s supposedly doing the women of Iraq via this invasion.
The poll was released last week by the Integrated Regional Information Networks, a U.N. news agency covering sub-Saharan Africa, eight countries in central Asia, and Iraq.
IRIN reports the survey findings as follows: ” … women’s basic rights under the Hussein regime were guaranteed in the constitution and more importantly respected, with women often occupying important government positions. Now, although their rights are still enshrined in the national constitution, activists complain that, in practice, they have lost almost all of their rights.” [...]
The report says more men are ordering women to “take the veil” (wear coverings from head to toe), and fewer women are working in professional jobs than when Saddam was in power.
I highly recommend reading Code Pink’s report, which is well-organized and thorough. In particular, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Code Pink emphasizes that women in Iraq today are not inactive, any more than they were under Saddam; as bad as things are, women are nonetheless organizing and resisting their oppression in every way they can.
That said, the IWF’s slander of Code Pink in the Wall Street Journal - and the way that right-wing bloggers uncritically repeated the slander, apparently without bothering to read the report they criticized - shows a great deal of what’s wrong with conservative discussion of Iraq women. Conservatives are unable (or, at least, unwilling) to honestly discuss reports of harm to Iraqi women; they reflexively fall back on dishonestly calling anyone who criticizes Bush or the invasion of Iraq pro-Saddam; and they are committed, probably for partisan reasons, to whitewashing current and ongoing crimes and violence against the women of Iraq.
* * *
See also Lawyers, Guns and Money:
I suspect that this particularly silly wrinkle in the “objectively-pro-Saddam” routine is going to become more common among people who care about women’s rights only when they can be used as a pretext to defend hare-brained imperialist schemes…
[Crossposted at Creative Destruction, where moderation is much lighter.]
Today’s the deadline! So if you’ve written any cool feminist posts in the last couple of weeks, please go submit them!
PLACE: Grand Sichuan on St. Mark’s.
TIME: Unless people object, let’s go with 7pm.
I hope to see many of you there!
This post was removed by request of the author.
The proposal for a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain is back in the news, as the Department of Energy moves forward with plans, people turn their attention to nuclear power as an alternative to increasingly expensive oil, and a proposal to make Nevada the second contest of the 2008 Democratic presidential primary gains steam. I don’t have a strong view about the substantive merits of centralized versus dispersed storage of nuclear waste, or the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site on engineering grounds. What I do have an opinion on is whether the current approach to establishing a centralized repository at that site is a good one.
To some degree, the dispute over Yucca Mountain is a technical dispute over what the real level of risk is. But it also goes deeper, so that purely technical debate about milirems and geological stability will not resolve the issue. The deeper dispute arises from the fact that there are two ways of looking at what makes a risk acceptable, which I’ll call the “economic paradigm” and the “social paradigm.” Each paradigm can be treated as a descriptive theory (how actual people actually do think about risks) or as a normative theory (how people should think about risks).
Via Red State Feminist, a pdf file of the court’s ruling can be found here. The court ruled “that the plaintiff’s claim is frivolous, unreasonable, and without foundation.”
Here’s a bit of the ruling:
Read the rest of this entry »
If you haven’t had the chance to read anything from professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, I highly reccomend his books–Racism Without Racists and White Supremacy and Racism in the Post Civil Rights Era. I used his model of colorblind racism in my dissertation to talk about how interracial relationships are viewed in contemporary American (US that is) society. Granny has a post (inspired by this post) discussing some of Bonilla Silva’s views on “race talk” in the colorblind era. I think Dr. Bonilla-Silva added a few more elements in the final draft of the book than he had in the earlier article that Granny cites.
Here are a few quotes from the theory section of my dissertation discussing Bonilla-Silva’s views on colorblind racism. For those who are interested in social theory, I combined a symbolic interactionist (Goffman’s and Blumer) perspective with contemporary racism theory as the foundation for the study research.
Several stylistic and ideological characteristics distinguish the “new racism” from its predecessor. Bobo, et. al. (1997) argue that laissez faire racism involves three key elements– persistent negative stereotyping of African Americans, opposition to policies to improve the conditions of African Americans, and a tendency to blame African Americans for the persistent gap in socio-economic standing. Bonilla-Silva (2001) adds other characteristics, which are particularly helpful at identifying the “style” of contemporary racism—1) increasingly covert racial discourses and practices, 2) avoidance of racial terminology and claims by whites that they experience “reverse discrimination,” 3) a racial agenda in the discussion of political matters that avoids direct racial references, 4) invisibility of the mechanisms of racial inequality, and 5) the rearticulation of some of the elements of Jim Crow racism (pg. 90). One of the most important elements of contemporary racism is the emergence of the “colorblind ideology.” The colorblind ideology asserts that color is not important and should not be the basis for social judgments. The key problem with colorblind ideology is that it is an abstract principle that does not hold true in practice, particularly in the practice of marriage and intimacy (Bonilla Silva 2001). This new racist ideology is often referred to as colorblind or laissez faire racism.
Here is another quote on the specific issues that Granny raises.
Bonilla Silva’s (2003) concept of race talk is particularly useful because he talks about the rhetorical strategies that that Whites use to avoid be labeled as racist. These strategies are very clear examples of the face work used maintain the illusion of antiracism. For example, Bonilla Silva talks about the—“I’m not racist but…” and “Some of my best friends are….” statements that Whites use in discussing racism. These statements are almost immediately followed but negative assessments of racial minority groups. Bonilla Silva identifies several other semantic maneuvers that are common.
1) The “I’m not Black so I wouldn’t know” strategy, in which White respondents claim to not know or understand racism and its effects. 2) The “yes and not, but” strategy, in which Whites claim initially to not have favorable position but then go on to express their actual views. 3) The “anything but race strategy,” in which Whites argue that nonracial factors explain racial outcomes. 4) The “they are the racist ones strategy,” in which Whites try to shift away from their own racism by projecting their views on to Blacks. 5) The dimunitives strategy, which includes statements such as life is “a little harder for interracial couples. 6) The rhetorical incoherence strategy, in which Whites are clearly uncomfortable and make contradictory and incomprehensible statements. These strategies all help Whites save face and avoid the label of “racist” in front of their peers. This is particularly important since front stage discussions of racial issues are less and less candid, and avoiding the impression of racism is important for the maintenance of a positive self image under the system of contemporary racial ideology.
An additional frame not discussed in the above quotes, is what Bonilla-Silva calls the naturalization framework. When people naturalize racism, they see the current racial order as normal or natural. They may use comments such as “it’s just natural to want to be around your own kind.”
I’m a pretty sorry excuse for a blogger, since I’m only just now getting around to commenting on a much-blogged article by Daniel Gilbert about climate change. Gilbert argues that people aren’t concerned about climate change, because people all have certain evolved cognitive biases.
The problem is that it’s not “people” who are unconcerned about climate change, because many people are concerned. Any psychologically worthwhile theory of risk perception must be able to recognize the diversity of views and account for both the skeptics and the alarmists.
By the way, I’m currently on vacation in Ithaca, New York. My computer access is limited, so blogging from me could be even more erratic than usual for the next week or two.
Now, on to the links…
Slant Truth: The Carnival of Hair Politics Is Here!
Pretty Fizzy Paradise presents: The Second Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans!
Niobium presents: The Progressive Faith Carnival!
The Angry Black Woman: Racism in Pirates of the Carribean
And check out her followup post about white liberal guilt, too.
Women of Color Blog: Life Is So Much Slower For Poor People
No Capital: Lose Your Home, Lose Your Rights
Residents of trailer parks set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to house hurricane victims in Louisiana aren’t allowed to talk to the press without an official escort, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate reported. [Via: The Sideshow]
CoffeeAndInk: How To Suppress Discussion of Racism
Via Super Babymama.
…A post-pregnancy body is one of this society’s greatest secrets; all we see of the female body is that which is airbrushed and perfect, and if we look any different, we hide it from the light of day in fear of being seen. [...] It is my dream, then, to create this website where women of all ages, shapes, sizes and nationalities can share images of their bodies so it will no longer be secret.
Long Story Short Pier: Bad Apples Don’t Make Checklists
My Amusement Park: The Other Woman as Rogue Animal Trainer
I think the way we handle The Other Woman as this powerful, almost supernaturally so, dominating presence that compells the man to cheat is just an extension of our infantalizing of men in general.
Blackprof.com: The Poor Still Pay More:The New “Ghetto Tax”
Did I Miss Something?: The Stem Cell Veto And The Word “Cure”
…I dunno about others with impairments, but this disabled person would please ask those who support Stem Cell research to stop intensifying and reinforcing the “poor tragic people” stereotype. [Via The Gimp Parade]
Girls Read Comics (And They’re Pissed): How To Write Nonsexist Comics
Via The F-Word.
NY Times: Forty Percent of Weight Loss Surgery Patients Have Complications
The most common complications included vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal hernias, infections, pneumonia and respiratory failure, as well as the leaking of gastric juices caused by imperfect surgical connections between the stomach and the intestines. … In the cases reviewed by federal researchers, 85 percent of the patients were women. [Via Big Fat Blog]
Family Law Prof Blog: Study Finds That Poor People Age Quicker
Persephone’s Box is back from hiatus!
Punk Ass Blog: I Dreamed I Wrote This Sestina In My Maidenform Bra, by Denise Duhamel
Because all good poems are about Disney films and bras.
New to the blogroll: Equality Loudoun
Good blog focusing on the same-sex marriage debate, both nationally and in Virginia. I thought this post on gender role ideology and opposition to marriage equality was particularly good.
Think Progress: Senator Inhofe Outright Lies About Global Warming
…And then he lies some more.
Scans Daily: Tracing Photos From Porn = Bad Comic Book Art
Notes From The Tundra: The Legend of Steve The Cat
How our household gained a new (but temporary) member. (More photos here).
[Crossposted at Creative Destruction, where the moderation is less heavy-handed.]
From a rather gloating article about the Christian Coalition’s troubles (which include massive unpaid bills, lawsuits, local chapters bailing, etc) in the current issue of Ms Magazine:
In 2001, 10 African American employees filed a racial-discrimination lawsuit alleging that they were forced to enter the office by the back door and eat lunch in a segregated area. The suite was settled for about $300,000, according to several published reports.
Yes, we can’t be absolutely beyond-any-shadow-of-a-sliver-of-doubt sure the accusations were true, since the CC chose to settle out of court. Nonetheless: Holy crap.
Typically, I put these questions on Rachel’s Tavern and not here at Alas, but I think this week’s question would be good for readers over here too.
So here is the question….
Do you have difficulty dialoguing with people of another race? Do you tailor your comments based on the race of the person you are talking?
Be honest please…I won’t allow personal attacks, and I’ll give my own opinion after a few posts.
Well, one Republican, anyway. Yesterday, I received a fundraising letter from Senator Gordon Smith (republican). This short letter (22 paragraphs, many of them consisting of only one sentence) contains:
13 mentions of the word “tax” and variations (taxes, taxed, etc), three in a bold font. (The only other thing that gets a bold font is a request that I send Mr. Smith some money).
12 mentions of “border,” “immigrants,” or variations on those words.
1 mention of the word “terrorism” (in the context of immigration).
Zero mentions of the words “Iraq,” “Iran,” “Afghanistan,” “Middle East,” etc..
Zero mentions of the words “Bush” or “President.”
[Crossposted on Creative Destruction, where moderation is looser.]
I am starting a project over at Rachel’s Tavern that is a visual enthography of the local Farmer’s Market in my town. I am going to put the posts here at Alas as well, but I won’t be including the pictures here, as I always manage to jacked up Amp’s formatting. Although the ethnography starts with the Farmer’s market, what becomes clear is how the market has come to symbolize the changes in this community in particular a phenomenon I call suburban gentrification. You can come over to my blog to look at the pictures, most of which have very detailed captions and you can also look through a even more of the photos that I have posted on a Flickr stream (the link is below).
Ethnography refers to a method of studying and writing about people. Enthographers observe people in their normal settings, take notes and use thick description to explain what is going on in the environment they are observing. Ethnography is considered a qualitative method of analysis, which is just another way to say it focuses more on words than numbers or statistics. For this project, will being using pictures with detailed descriptions to show what is going on in my neighborhood. Thus, this will be a visual ethnography because of the pictures.
Here’s a little background information on the neighborhood. I think the best description of this town would be an urban suburb. I know many people think of cities and suburbs as sort of opposite neighborhoods, but this neighborhood is an older suburb, and it is big enough to have a large downtown and several neighborhoods. Unlike, many other suburbs this town was once it’s own city, and as New York City rapidly expanded it became more of a suburb. The feeling of the downtown is like that of a small city (I lived near Toledo, OH and Hartford, CT this town is a little smaller, but has a somewhat similar feeling.) The town experienced a real downturn in the 1980s, and many people abandoned the downtown, for outlying neighborhoods. The Macy’s department store, which was the anchor of the downtown went out of business, and the downtown was left in ruin. About 5-10 years ago the city decided that it would make a concerted effort to “rebuild” the downtown. Some of the small shops were moved to create an massive entertainment complex, including a movie theater, go cart track, indoor mini-golf, bowling alley, arcade, billiards room, a few restaurants, shops, and a gym. This was the beginning of the gentrification/redevelopment of the town. What many people do not realize is that a lot of these older inner ring suburbs are in similar shape to many cities. Their downtowns are suffering and the infrastructure needs upgrading. However, there may be a cost to this sort of “development.” The character of the town is definitely changing, and this is reflected in the pictures I will show you.
Let me give you a little background on the neighborhood. The median incomes for families and households were just above the average in the US in 2000 ($42,290 for this zip code and $41,994 for the US), and about 25% have a bachelor’s degree or higher and 14% live in poverty, which are also very similar to the US. Economically the neighborhood seems unremarkable, but the extremely high cost of living makes even a typical income seem low.
However, on most other demographic characteristics the town is a bit exceptional. The cost of housing is more than double the US. The area is relatively ethnically diverse. There are also many immigrants, 32% are foreign born (triple that of US average), and 39% speak a language other than English at home (double the US average). The town is also racially diverse. 56% are White, 28% are Black, 3% Asian, 8.7% are some other race, and 4% marked more than one race. Keep in mind that the Census does not consider Latinos a race, so the “Spanish origin” question is separate. About 28% of the people identified as Hispanic/Latino; based on what I know about previous data, most Latinos are identifying as White on the race question and many of the people marking some other race are Latinos.
As promised, I have uploaded pictures of the market and the neighborhood. The pictures have very long captions that help explain the significance of each picture. I’m new to Flickr, so you’ll have to excuse any oddities, including the fact that I haven’t figured out how to edit the captions, which means that have a bunch of typos. Sorry in advance. You can also go over to my site and see the captions under many of the pictures.
You may remember the letter from a few weeks back when we wrote to the executives of Krug-Mondavi Winery. Krug-Mondavi was threatening to fire all of its workers in an attempt to flush out the United Farm Workers union. Despite public pressure, the company went through with the mass firing a couple of weeks ago.
I’m not the kind of persyn who writes a letter then forgets about the campaign. So i’m revisiting the issue again this week to support two letter-writing campaigns of the United Farm Workers. The first is a letter to the offices of Krug-Mondavi Winery regarding the boycott against the company. You can send an email (there is, of course, a form email you can send) from the UFW’s campaign page. The second letter is to Longs Drug Stores, a distributor of Krug-Mondavi wines, asking them to put pressure on Krug-Mondavi to bring back the workers and return to the negotiating table. Longs purports a tradition of “treating others as we, ourselves, would like to be treated.” Take a minute and send the company an email from this page.
You folks know the drill… go ahead and use the comments to post whatever you want, including links to your own stuff that we should see. Meanwhile, here’s some of what I’ve been reading:
Figure presents: The 19th Carnival of the Feminists!
NY Review of Books: Excellent Primer on Global Warming
Readable even for us non-science types, but without insulting readers’ intelligence. Curtsy: Majikthise.
Slant Truth: The Politics of Hair
Vietnam Vet Arrested for Wearing “Veterans For Peace” T-Shirt At VA Center
Curtsy: Green Gabbro.
The Countess: Legal Experts Reject “Parental Alienation Syndrome”
Mixing Memory: Partianship, emotions, and political judgement
But the relationship between emotion and reasoning, and therefore emotion and political judgment, is much more complex than the common view that emotion is detrimental to reasoning. As neuroscientists like Antonio Damasio have shown, individuals with damage in the emotional centers of their brains have a very difficult time making rational choices, largely because they don’t have emotions to make sure they make choices that aren’t harmful.
Feministing: Interview with Blac(k)ademic
TruthDig: Two Weeks in Iraq
One incident described: An innocent family man arrested by the U.S. because he has the same name as the intended target. When we discovered their mistake, they left him in prison for several more days. The actual target? A teenager US intelligence thought was a terrorist because they had evesdropped on him discussing his favorite video games.
Feminist Law Professors: Excerpts from Judge Kent’s opinion in Bradshaw v. Unity Marine Corp., 147 F. Supp. 2d 668
It’s not a hoax, and trust me, this is the funniest thing you’ll read this week.
Granny Gets a Vibrator: The Night-Blooming Cirris Blooms Only One Night A Year
And she’s got photos! Curtsy: Feminist Law Profs.
Listening For Change: Raising Baby Boys to be Nonsexist Men
Washington Post: Somali Women Gave Crucial Support for Islamic Militias
An epidemic of sexual violence during 15 years of lawlessness in Somalia was among the factors that strengthened opposition to this city’s notorious warlords, residents said. The Islamic militias who drove them out in months of recent fighting were embraced as keepers of public order, as a force strong enough and pious enough to keep Mogadishu’s daughters safe.
Super Babymama: Being White and Learning to Deal with People of Color Spaces
Green Gabbro: Yami reads Wifework So We Don’t Have To
Wifework explains the two trends of happily submissive wives, and embittered divorced MRAs, with one fell swoop. Maushart’s crucial observation is that even though most marriages aren’t really very egalitarian, we have a lot invested in the illusion of equality. Actively maintaining the illusion of an equal, happy marriage is part of wifework. If a wife does a good job, her husband has absolutely no idea that their marriage is unequal or unhappy - which means that many men are completely blindsided when their wives decide to stop doing the wifework and get a divorce. Male privilege plays a role in this blindness, of course, but this is one of many cases where women collude in their own oppression.
Pharyngula: Awww! Photo of baby octopus and mother.
Crooked Timber: Is Opposition to Marriage Equality Driven By Homophobia Or By Traditional Sex Roles?
Interesting attempt to look at the question through exit poll data.
Cognitive Daily: Obesity and Discrimination
A much more detailed account of the study which sent women, with and without fat suits, into retail stores and found that they were treated much less well as “fat women.”
Culture Kitchen: Racism at Frontier Airlines
The Use and Abuse of Doctrine
It’s useful to read something like this once in a while, to be reminded that not all evangelical Christians are right-wing poopyheads (no insult to any r.w.p.s who happen to be reading this post). Thanks to “Alas” reader Lee for the tip.
Feminist Law Profs: Critique of anti-equality ruling in NY gay marriage case
Hugo Schwyzer: Male Entitlement, Male Despair, and Mail-Order Brides
Shrub.com: How To Be A Real Nice Guy
This should be xeroxed and handed out to every white person and every man in the world. I’ve linked to it before, but it’s been improved and expanded.
Fanatical Apathy: How Letting Homosexuals Marry Ruined My Marriage
Feministe: Interesting Article about Pros and Cons of Women-Only Subway Cars in Cairo
WaPo: White Candidacy in Black District Sets Off Debate On Race
Thanks to “Alas” reader Lee for the link.
New York Times: Here Illegally, Working Hard and Paying Taxes
Mimi Smartypants: On Hairstyling, Feminism, and Concrete Blocks Wrapped in Colored Foil
Curtsy: Feminist Law Profs.
Cognitive Daily: Chimp Trained To Play Ms. Pac-Man
What an odd thing to train a chimp to do. I wonder if it’s having fun, or just trying to placate a meaningless/bizarre desire of its trainer?
Animation vs. Animator
This flash animation piece is just a load of fun.
Mixing Memories: Gender Essentialism
…People are perfectly willing to make generalizations about an entire gender based on one individual if they believe that a characteristic is associated with a person’s gender. Furthermore, and perhaps most strikingly, they’re willing to believe that a characteristic is associated with a person’s gender simply by learning that one male and one female differ in that characteristic.
Mixing Memories: Homosexuality, Essentialism, and Politics
They found that individuals who believed that homosexuality (male or female) was biologically based, immutable, and fixed early in life were the most “pro-gay,” while those who saw homosexuality as a discrete category with defining characteristics were the most “anti-gay.” This was particularly true of males, and Haslam and Levy argue that males may try to distance themselves from homosexuality by making it a discrete category of which you are either a member or not (with no fuzzy area in the middle).
Pandagon: Why is your femininity fighting with your womanhood?
To keep it simple, it seems to me the conservative notion that the two genders are essentially different and even our best efforts otherwise are betrayed by girls wanting Barbies and boys wanting trucks hits a direct stumbling block when they have to consider the unavoidable reality of homosexuality. On the subject of the color pink and the longing to wash dishes vs. go to a job every day, conservatives argue that men and women have fixed tendencies and there’s nothing we liberals can do about it. But on something so big as your very sexual orientation, all of a sudden they’re swearing it’s a choice, a lifestyle tendency and not fixed at all.
[Cross posted at Creative Destruction, where the days are long and the moderation is easy.]
David Barash thinks that creating human-ape hybrids would be a great way to strike a blow for truth and reason. His main motivation is to disprove creationism — though how designing a new creature will prove evolution escapes me. More interesting to me was his secondary claim that such hybrids would also promote a stronger environmental ethic:
You are currently browsing the Alas, a blog weblog archives for July, 2006.
