I’ve heard good things about a new documentary film, Praying with Lior, only opening now in a few cities and playing primarily at Jewish film festivals. From the film’s website:

An engrossing, wrenching and tender documentary film, Praying with Lior introduces Lior Liebling, also called “the little rebbe.” Lior has Down syndrome, and has spent his entire life praying with utter abandon. Is he a “spiritual genius” as many around him say? Or simply the vessel that contains everyone’s unfulfilled wishes and expectations? Lior – whose name means “my light” — lost his mother at age six, and her words and spirit hover over the film. While everyone agrees Lior is closer to God, he’s also a burden, a best friend, an inspiration, and an embarrassment, depending on which family member is speaking. As Lior approaches Bar Mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony different characters provides a window into life spent “praying with Lior.” The movie poses difficult questions such as what is “disability” and who really talks to God? Told with intimacy and humor, Praying with Lior is a family story, a triumph story, a grief story, a divinely-inspired story.

It sounds like this could go either way, right? The stereotyping of a child with Down syndrome as closer to God than the rest of us, an inspiration or a burden are themes on developmental disability we’ve heard many times before.

But filmmaker Ilana Trachtman’s motivations as reported by Devorah Shubowitz at Media Rights reveal complexities behind the intent of the documentary:

As Trachtman struggled to focus during a Rosh Hashanah service at Elat Chayyim, a multi-denominational Jewish retreat center in the Catskills, she was mesmerized by the soulfully attentive off-key voice that came from behind her. When she saw the source, a boy with Down syndrome, she was shocked. Lior’s praying shattered her expectations of what people with disabilities can do. “He amazed me. He could do something that I can’t do — pray with real concentration in Hebrew and in English. So I stalked him because of my own spiritual curiosity.” When Trachtman heard Lior was going to have a Bar Mitzvah, she thought somebody should tell his story on film and shortly after, she decided to be that person….

Audiences may debate whether this photogenic young person’s “star quality” sets him apart from other people with disabilities. Some may argue that Lior’s integration is dependent upon his recognition by and attractiveness to non-disabled society. Others may think his charisma is connected to his disability. The film certainly brings to the foreground issues of the aesthetics of disability, and non-disability, in film.

Another review at Cinematical also suggests that disability is just one (important) facet of this complex family story about love and religious faith.

Cross-posted at The Gimp Parade

Bean pointed out this story to me; an ABC hidden camera “reality” show paid three teenage white boys to “vandalize” a car in a park (a car that was owned by ABC, of course). The boys visibly broke into the car, and then began beating it with a metal tool and spray-painting it. This went on for quite a while.

One person called 911, and one passerby asked the boys what they were doing. Elsewhere in the park, coincidently, some black folks (relatives of an ABC employee, as it turned out) were napping in their car; this also generated a call to 911.

Next day, same park, same situation — but the three actors hired were black. Suddenly, lots of people were asking the boys what they were doing, and lots were calling 911.

What interested me, in light of recent discussions on “Alas,” was the quotes from the various white people who called 911 about the three black “vandals.”

So we asked those who approached the black kids or reported them to police, “Would you have acted any differently if the boys were white?”

Sang said, “I would have done the same thing. Maybe I would have stopped them sooner.”

Joan A. and Martha had a similar response: “I did notice they were African-American young boys in a white neighborhood,” said Joan A. “But if they had been white kids, I mean, I would have done exactly the same thing.”

Martha agreed, “I might have done it quicker if they were white kids.”

“Actually, I probably hesitated because they were black,” said Joan D. “I don’t like to assume that three black kids are up to trouble. But they were clearly up to trouble,” she recalled, laughing. “But had it been three white kids I’d have done the same thing. I might have called quicker.”

ABC’s segment isn’t a legitimate study, of course; but for argument’s sake, assume a social scientist did a well-designed study which replicated ABC’s findings. (In the real world I doubt an academic ethics committee would approve purposely generating false calls to 911).

RonF and others argue that it’s wrong to believe racism is a factor when the individuals involved have a plausible, non-racist motivation for their actions. That means there’s no racism here: Every individual person who called 911 denies that there was any racism in their choice. If anything, they say, they would have been quicker to call 911 if the vandals had been white. And no one denies it’s legitimate to call 911 when one sees a crime being committed, regardless of the criminal’s race.

So, Ron and others: Is it wrong to say that there’s anything racist about a society in which random passerbys are more likely to call the cops on black teens than white teens for identical behavior? Let’s say that having black teens do the crime generates 10 times as many 911 calls, whereas white crimes doing a crime is only as likely to generate a 911 call as black people taking a nap are. But in no case can we prove that any individual making a 911 call had a racial bias.

From your point of view, there’s no racism going on here. Right?

From the AP story:

A wrongly deported U.S. citizen who was missing for months in Mexico sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday.

Pedro Guzman, 30, who is mentally disabled, was deported last May after he was arrested and jailed on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. For nearly three months, his family searched for him in shelters, jails and morgues in Tijuana, Mexico, and the surrounding area.

During that time, he rummaged for food in garbage cans, washed himself in rivers and walked as far south as Ensenada — more than 60 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the lawsuit.

Guzman tried to return to the United States several times, but was turned away. He was found near the Calexico border crossing in August and reunited with his family.

“I will never forget what Peter looked like when he finally returned to the U.S. — exhausted and in terrible shape,” said Guzman’s brother, Michael. “Peter’s life is forever changed by what his government did to him.”

His lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, was filed in federal court in Los Angeles by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Guzman.

“Not only does Peter and his mother want some vindication, they want to make sure immigration officials understand they can’t do this,” said attorney Jim Brosnahan, who represents Guzman. “They should have apologized and said they would take steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

A statement released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of Homeland Security, called the incident a “one-of-a-kind case” and added more than 1 million illegal immigrants have been deported since the agency’s inception.

See other posts on Guzman here and here.

Cross-posted at The Gimp Parade

Through the appeals process, the decision to deny Robert Latimer parole has been overturned:

After seven years in prison for killing his severely disabled daughter, Robert Latimer will be freed on day parole this week.

The appeal division of the National Parole Board this afternoon overturned a parole board decision last December that rejected Mr. Latimer’s bid for parole.

The appeal division, following a month-long review, concluded Mr. Latimer does not in fact pose an undue risk to reoffend.

….

In its decision in December, a three-member panel of the parole board concluded: “You could not or would not describe the feelings or thoughts underlying your actions at the time of the offence…. You appear satisfied with the position that you and only you were able to determine her life or death, describing such decisions as beyond the law.”

The appeal division, however, found that although Mr. Latimer was at times unfocussed, he was not unwilling to answer their questions.

“The Appeal Division finds that the Board’s determinations in this regard are unreasonable and unsupported. Your responses at the hearing reveal that you did in fact demonstrate insight and were able to explain why you decided to end the life of your daughter.

The appeal division has applied two conditions to his parole: Mr. Latimer cannot have responsibility for, or make decisions for, any individuals who are severely disabled.

See previous post on Latimer here.

Cross-posted at The Gimp Parade

Not my teeth — Rachel Nabors’ teeth. Rachel, winner of a Kim Yale award, specializes in girl-friendly comics (not that I think she’s trying — she’s just a naturally girl-friendly person), and her mouth is going kablooey.

Rachel writes:

My surgery and braces will cost between $15,000 and $25,000 dollars. At the encouragement of others, I have set up a special PayPal account that will be used exclusively to pay for the costs of surgery and follow-up care. Leigh Dragoon has kindly agreed to audit. We are hoping to give away shirts with $25+ donations, so please specify your shirt size in men’s or women’s. Also, if you donate $100+, I’m going to send you an art card to a say super-big thank you.

More details and the donate button at the link:

Use this thread to post whatever links you want (self-linking is encouraged), and to discuss whatever you’d like.

Bean sent me this “Subnormality” strip which totally cracked me up. Click through to see the whole thing.

I also liked this story on Boing Boing:

The Star Tribune reports that dozens of bars in the Twin Cities are holding “theater nights” and declaring everyone in the bar to be an actor. By law, performers are allowed to smoke during theatrical performances.

I’m fond of this loophole, and hope it leads to the logical outcome: Vice cops grimly viewing a bar full of “actors” to confirm that they’re all really playing characters, not being themselves enjoying a smoke, while drunk smokers break out into desperately improvised musical numbers.

In another thread, discussing the possibility of systematic efforts by Republican operatives to reduce the Black and Latin@ vote in November, RonF wrote:

And should anything happen, I’d have to evaluate whether the basis of any action is race, or that the people in question are voting Democratic. It seems to me some people are quick to cry “racism” despite the actual motive or basis of an action.

This is one of the primary differences between opposing people hating other people because of the color of their skin, and actually being against racism. For moderate whites — both conservative and liberal — the first concern when an instance of real-world racism comes up is evaluating whether or not white people are to blame. Did the whites involved have race hatred in their hearts? If not, then it’s wrong to cry “racism.”

That’s making racism all about white people’s motives. It’s white-centric behavior.

For someone who genuinely opposes racism, the logical first question should not be “regardless of how this is systematically harming people of color, is there a way I can argue that the white people didn’t intend to be racist?” The logical first question is “regardless of how it was intended, is this creating a systematic, unfair harm to people of color”?

Genuine anti-racism requires being opposed to racist systems, not just racist motivations. That no one meant it to be racist is no excuse for systematic racism.

From a post I wrote several years ago:

From early boyhood, men are taught that their masculinity must be protected above all else, or else it will be lost. Men who have lost their masculinity are objects of contempt, derision and violent abuse, and have lost the right to be loved or respected by their fellow men and by their fathers.

Boys are also taught that masculinity is fragile and high-maintenance; you work to get it and to retain it, and the slightest slip can cause it to be altogether lost. You can slip instantly, with no transition, from the most popular boy in the room to the butt of everyone’s jokes: all it takes is a moment’s lapse in which you say or do anything that can be interpreted as feminine.

This is essential: Masculinity is fragile. The man who has lost his masculinity is, in the eyes of male culture, less than nothing, worse than dead. Therefore, force in defense of masculinity - like beating up a boy who accuses you of being a faggot - can feel to boys and men like self-defense.

I was reminded of that post while reading a news story about Brandon McInerney , a 14 year old boy who murdered his openly gay and gender-anticonformist classmate Larry King:

In the days before the shooting, Brandon was hanging out around Silver Strand with his friends, doing what they always did: sitting on the jetty, hanging around the taco stand.

Brandon’s friend Lauren said the rumors about Larry “hitting on” Brandon were heating up. Kids were joking that Brandon must be gay if Larry was acting that way toward him. […]

Brandon joined the Young Marines — the Marine Corps’ equivalent of a JROTC program — several years ago and became a leader in the group, which disbanded last summer. […] His hours in a martial arts studio helped trim his physique into a lean, muscular one.

I’m not saying this alone drove McInerney to murder — it’s almost certainly significant that McInerney’s family life was disfunctional and one or both of his parents were abusers. And it’s possible that McInerney is just essentially a bad person in some way. Nonetheless, I doubt this murder would have happened if McInerney’s friends hadn’t been teasing McInerney by calling his masculinity into question, making McInerney feel that he had to do anything — anything at all — to defend his masculine image. (His hobbies — Young Marines and martial arts — imply that masculinity is important to McInerney.)

From Holly at Feministe:

Seriously, when you think about this kind of situation in all its disturbing dimensions and possibilities, which is more likely? That one of the school bullies decides to take it a step beyond name-calling and shoving, pulls out a gun, and shoots this kid? Or that the killer felt personally threatened for some reason, to the point of bringing a gun into a middle school classroom and shooting someone in the head, first thing in the morning? With the few details that have emerged, it’s impossible to say.

But I fear the worst — and the worst would not just be that some homophobic asshole killed a child. There’s an even worse worst: that a child is dead, and the other child who pulled the trigger did so because he couldn’t deal with his own feelings. And now that second child will be tried as an adult, and another life destroyed.

From the NY Times story:

The gunman, identified by the police as Brandon McInerney, “is just as much a victim as Lawrence,” said Masen Davis, executive director of the Transgender Law Center. “He’s a victim of homophobia and hate.”

McInerney is being charged as an adult and, if convicted, faces a minimum of 53 years in prison (25 for the murder, 25 for the gun, 3 for the hate crime). The Transgender Law Center is opposing trying McInerney as an adult.

I agree with the TLC. Nonetheless, typing this entry, I kept on having to correct my wording to refer to King in the past tense, and McInerney in the present tense. I feel terrible about McInerney being tried as an adult, and I agree with Masen Davis that McInerney is a victim (although “just as much a victim as Lawrence” is going too far for me). But still.. it’s so fucking unfair that King is the one of them having to be in the past tense.

From Patricia Nell Warren:

The fact is – when school administrators find bullying going on, they often refuse to see the speeding train coming straight at them. Yet they usually get advance warning on a bully or clique of bullies and who the victim is. But they fail to act immediately — to suspend the problem students and get them out of the school without any delay. Why? Because they don’t want to deal with the angry parents of one bullying kid, or the parents of an entire bullying clique, especially parents with political juice. They also don’t want to deal with local church conservatives who insist that protecting LGBT students is equal to saying that homosexuality is OK. Not to mention the fact that every student not in school that day is ADA money that the school doesn’t get. Teachers, too, are often afraid to speak out against bullies, because they know that teachers are assaulted at school as well.

Big Mouth at Big Queer Blog on the non-mysterious way that no journalists ask, in anguish, “why?,” when a gay kid is shot:

Look, I don’t think for a second that music or clothes make a killer. I also realize that there are plenty of bipolar folks in the world that wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s not that I want these connections to be made; it’s just that they always are except when it’s a gay kid getting killed. How can we not see the silent implication here?

Meanwhile, from the insano-Christian Right: Michael, in the comments of California Catholic Daily, wrote:

What an incredible tragedy for all concerned. However, as Bishop Fulton J. Sheen has noted, “Love is not tolerance” and, “a cry for tolerance never induces it to quench its hatred of the evil philosophies that have entered into contest with the Truth.” This situation calls for so much more than “tolerance” . At a time when young people are becoming aware of their own sexuality, a confused, apparent young teen aged boy is allowed to come to the school environment dressed suggestively as a member of the opposite sex. Who allowed this? Was it the home where he was being cared for, the school,etc. Obviously,he was troubled and needed help..indeed his behavior cried out for it. That this behavior was confusing and threatening to other boys, going through the so-called latency period of their own sexuality is not unusual or unexpected. He should never have been allowed into the school environment in the first place. His apparent dress was begging for a confrontation, it appears, and the home and the school allowed this to happen. Why? This situation should not have been “tolerated”. It should have been addressed and stopped before it led to this tragedy.

To be fair, several other comment-writers there scolded Michael for his comment. Then “John L. Sillison” wrote:

I don’t see homosexuals going after the killers of American troops who are fighting and dying while trying to protect the free world. I don’t see homosexuals organizing to keep old people from being euthanized. Where are the homosexual lobbying efforts to stop abortion? There is a kind of political alliance between homosexuals and blacks … but what about alliances between homosexuals and Mexicans, Asians, Indians, Native Americans? Why can’t homosexuals stand up for themselves? Why is it so hard for them to persuade so many other people that they deserve to have greater political power than anyone else?

I found this site via a listserve that I am part of. Many of the articles are reposts of newspaper articles, but there is some original commentary if you scan through the archives.

The song is fun, but what I find most impressive is that it’s not an official Obama commercial — it was put together by an independent pro-Obama organization, www.amigosdeobama.com. (I’ll post a English translation of the lyrics in the comments).

Hat tip: Latinopoliticsblog. If a significant portion of the Latin@ community is moving to support Obama, it’s unlikely Clinton can win.

I’ve seen Obama’s ability to inspire ultra-fervent support used as an argument against him by Clinton supporters — and even by Obama supporters, like Kathleen Geier. I can definitely see that argument; there are a lot of Obama fans expecting way too much of someone who is, in the end, a mostly mainstream Democratic candidate.

At the same time, I just can’t believe that the ability to inspire huge numbers of people is a bad thing, overall; it’s plausible that Obama’s ability to inspire could lead to him sweeping more Democrats into office with him in November than Clinton would be able to. The more Democrats in Congress, the more useful having a Democratic president will be.

What’s disappointing is that the Obama movement probably won’t last beyond getting him elected president, or develop larger goals. Quoting Kathleen Geier:

Don’t get me wrong — inspiration is fine, necessary even, and the impressive grassroots organizing the Obama campaign is doing holds real promise. Ultimately though, neither Barack Obama nor any other leader is going to save us. What progressives achieve or do not achieve during the next presidency is almost completely dependent on how strong progressives are as a political movement.

Just look at our current president. He’s miserably incompetent and widely despised by at least half the country. And yet, he’s gotten much of his agenda passed through Congress. This has little to do with any special talents or abilities George W. Bush possesses has everything to do with the incredible power and discipline of the conservative movement in this country.

That’s why, although I support Barack, I don’t think Clinton would govern in ways that would be much different from him (except perhaps in foreign policy – and even there, there’s some doubt, since their senate votes about Iraq have tended to be similar). Like Obama, Clinton is a savvy pragmatist. If the center of gravity moves to the left, that’s where she’ll be.

I entirely agree.

Remember the movie “Teachers,” with Judd Hirsch as the principle and Nick Nolte as a noble teacher? In the movie, one sign of the principal’s corruption was when he allowed a teacher who had sex with a student to quietly resign.

From The Oregonian:

It would take months for the agency that licenses Oregon teachers to discipline a Salem-area teacher for inappropriately touching at least eight girls.

To get Kenneth John Cushing, then 44, away from Claggett Creek Middle School students immediately, administrators cut him a deal: If Cushing resigned, they would conceal his alleged conduct — clutching students’ waists, touching their buttocks and massaging their shoulders — from the public.

Cushing signed the pact — obtained by The Oregonian through public records requests — with Salem-Keizer Public Schools in 2004, and officials promised not to reveal the teacher’s behavior if potential employers called looking for a reference. They would attribute his departure to “personal reasons,” the document reads, and make “no reference to this agreement.”

Salem’s deal is just one of 47 similar confidential settlement agreements obtained or confirmed by the newspaper.

During the past five years, nearly half of Oregon teachers disciplined for sexual misconduct with a child left their school districts with confidential agreements. Most, like Cushing’s, promised to keep alleged abuse quiet. Some promised cash settlements, health insurance and letters of recommendation as incentives for a resignation.

The practice is so widespread, school officials across the country call it “passing the trash.”

Via Portland Women’s Crisis Line blog.

Here’s the contact information via Media Matters:

Bill O’Reilly
oreilly@foxnews.com

Fox News Radio
Phone: (212) 301-3000
Email: foxnewsradio@foxnews.com

The Radio Factor
Westwood One
Bart Tessler
Sr. VP, Network News / Talk Programming
202.457.7998

When contacting the media, please be polite and professional. Express your specific concerns regarding that particular news report or commentary, and be sure to indicate exactly what you would like the media outlet to do differently in the future.