Brava Nancy!

Congratulations to Nancy Pelosi, Italian-American mother, grandmother, and accomplished congressperson; and now, America's first woman Speaker of the House.

We will break open the good Brunello in your honor.

Watch it and Vote

I just watched this for the fourth time. It's a stunningly well-edited film short (about 4.5 minutes) that evokes a sense of seeing one's life flash before one's eyes when facing potential doom.

Only the images are of us, and it is America herself--the idea of her, the principles and soul of her--who confronts the abyss.

Or else Freedom.

Which is the film's title. It's gut-wrenching, then exhilarating. What's more, the images materialize in response to the song's lyrics, similar to the way pictures play in your mind when you listen to a favorite piece of music. Brilliant.

Watch it, share it (here's a permanent link), and of course, keep it in mind when you vote on Tuesday.

(A grand hat-tip to Shakespeare's Sister.)

When Progressives Police Their Own

Wingnuts are fond of throwing out the old equivalency argument: "Oh, both sides have their problem children...both sides have been mudslinging this election season...there is voting fraud on both sides."

As to that last one, I'm sure there are discrepancies, fraud, and outright criminal acts perpetrated by the Right and Left alike. The difference is, progressives not only care about fair, transparent, verifiable elections, they also police their own.

Four people have been indicted on charges of voter fraud in Kansas City, officials said Wednesday.

Investigators said questionable registration forms for new voters were collected by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group that works to improve minority and low-income communities.

The four indicted -- Kwaim A. Stenson, Dale D. Franklin, Stephanie L. Davis and Brian Gardner -- were employed by ACORN as registration recruiters. They were each charged with two counts.

Federal indictments allege the four turned in false voter registration applications. Prosecutors said the indictments are part of a national investigation.

ACORN and Project Vote recruit and assign workers to low-income and minority neighborhoods to register people to vote.

The Kansas City Election Board told KMBC they found suspicious forms, such as seven applications from one person and an application for a dead man.

[.....]

ACORN officials in Kansas City said they turned in the four people who were indicted.

"We're very happy that they were indicted," said Claudie Harris with ACORN.

Harris said ACORN workers are paid by the hour and not by the number of voter registration cards they turn in. "When you fraudulently defraud this, that gives us a bad name and what we're trying to do a bad name," Harris said.

ACORN officials said the four indicted have been fired.

Bravo ACORN. May election workers and officials on both sides follow your example.

On Democracy's Greatest and Least-challenged Threat

"The bottom line of this whole problem is that if we don't have the ability to authenticate our own elections as citizens, we don't live in a democracy."
--Bev Harris
If you or a friendly neighbor get HBO, be sure to watch Hacking Democracy tonight (Thursday, November 2nd) at 9pm EST.

Electronic voting machines count about 87% of the votes cast in America today. But are they reliable? Are they safe from tampering? From a current congressional hearing to persistent media reports that suggest misuse of data and even outright fraud, concerns over the integrity of electronic voting are growing by the day. And if the voting process is not secure, neither is America's democracy. The timely, cautionary documentary HACKING DEMOCRACY exposes gaping holes in the security of America's electronic voting system.

In the 2000 presidential election, an electronic voting machine recorded minus 16,022 votes for Al Gore in Volusia County, Fla. While fraud was never proven, the faulty tally alerted computer scientists, politicians and everyday citizens to the very real possibility of computer hacking during elections.

In 2002, Seattle grandmother and writer Bev Harris asked officials in her county why they had acquired electronic touch screen systems for their elections. Unsatisfied with their explanation, she set out to learn about electronic voting machines on her own. In the course of her research, which unearthed hundreds of reported incidents of mishandled voting information, Harris stumbled across an "online library" of the Diebold Corporation, discovering a treasure trove of information about the inner-workings of the company's voting system.

Harris brought this proprietary "secret" information to computer security expert Dr. Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University, who determined that the software lacked the necessary security features to prevent tampering. Her subsequent investigation took her from the trash cans of Texas to the secretary of state of California and finally to Florida, where a "mini-election" to test the vulnerability of the memory cards used in electronic voting produced alarming results.

Litbrit recommends mixing up a stiff batch of mojitos before settling in to view this important and terrifying documentary.

And yet you can claim that you and you alone can protect us from terrorism?

I am compelled to post Keith Olbermann's latest Special Comment. Its message could not be more timely, its delivery more powerful. Crooks & Liars also has the video along with the transcript in its entirety.

And over this weekend, they have found still more remains. And now this week will be spent looking in places that should have already been looked at a thousand times, five years ago.

For all the victims in New York, Mr. Bush, the living and the dead, it is a touch of 9/11 all over again. And the mayor of this city, who called off this search four and a half years ago, is a Republican. The governor, with whom he conferred, is a Republican. The House of Representatives, Republican. The Senate, Republican. The President, Republican. And yet you can claim that you and you alone can protect us from terrorism?

You can't even recover our dead from the battlefield. The battlefield in an American city. When we've given you five years and unlimited funds to do so.

While citing a Military Commissions Act so monstrous that it has now been criticized by even the John Birch Society, you told us, Mr. Bush, quote, "there is nothing we can do to bring back the men and women lost on September 11th, 2001, yet we'll always honor their memory and we will never forget the way they were taken from us." Except of course, for the ones that have been lying under a manhole cover for five years.

Setting aside the fact that your government has done nothing else for those five years but pat itself on the back about terror, while waging pointless war on the wrong enemy in Iraq and waging war on the cherished freedoms in America, just on this subject of counter-terrorism, sir, yours is the least competent government in time of crisis in this country's history.

Hear, hear.

BREAKING: Obama Considering Presidential Run

On this morning's Meet The Press (NBC), Illinois Senator Barack Obama acknowledged he is considering running for President in 2008.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged Sunday he was considering a run for president in 2008, backing off previous statements that he would not do so.

The Illinois Democrat said he could no longer stand by the statements he made after his 2004 election and earlier this year that he would serve a full six-year term in Congress. He said he would not make a decision until after the Nov. 7 elections.

[...]

On Sunday, Obama dismissed notions that he might not be ready to run for president because of his limited experience in national politics. He agreed the job requires a “certain soberness and seriousness” and “can’t be something you pursue on the basis of vanity and ambition.”

“I’m not sure anyone is ready to be president before they’re president,” Obama said. “I trust the judgment of the American people."

This bit of political news has certainly brightened my day--hell, make that my entire year. When one considers the possibility that an articulate, erudite, and blazingly intelligent person might occupy the White House again, everything is thrown into a different light. Anything seems possible. Human beings are capable of amazing feats when they put their minds to things, and given the magnitude of the chaos, the depth of the disaster, and the far-reaching stench of the squalor into which the next president will be walking come January '09, a brilliant mind is going to be job requirement Number One.

Author, attorney, and fellow Harvard Law alumnus Scott Turow wrote about Sen. Obama when he was running for Senate in 2004:

Having known Obama since the inception of his political career, I have watched his rise closely. We are hardly intimates, but we are certainly warm with each other, and I have been a political contributor and supporter of his. No one in these circumstances would regard himself as unbiased (except perhaps Justice Antonin Scalia). That said, I have many friends whose company I savor whom I would not commend for service in the U.S. Senate. Obama, though, has matured in plain view. He has gone from someone impatient with the legislative process to an effective and respected leader in the Illinois Senate, and from a candidate who once seemed to be getting ahead of himself politically, and whose base in the black community was shaky, to a figure who appeals to voters of all hues.

[...]

Obama's biography is both intriguing and inspiring, an American story for the 21st century. The résumé detail that initially caught wide attention was his election in 1990 as the first African-American president (that is, editor in chief) of the Harvard Law Review, the premier legal academic publication in the United States. Banish any lurking thought of an affirmative-action wind at his back. Exams at Harvard Law School are graded blind, and Obama graduated magna cum laude (also unlike me.) He has taught for many years at the University of Chicago Law School, along with many of the country's preeminent legal scholars.

But academic excellence is only one part of his story. "Dreams From My Father" is a beautifully crafted book, moving and candid, and it belongs on the shelf beside works like James McBride's "The Color of Water" and Greg Williams' "Life on the Color Line" as a tale of living astride America's racial categories. No other figure on the American political scene can claim such broad roots within the human community. Obama is the very face of American diversity.

I am still a die-hard Al Gore fan and I'd love to see him run for--and win--the office that was rightly his in 2000. That said, I am nothing less than thrilled that Sen. Obama might run.

Imagine the bumpersticker: Obama '08--Now can we go with the smart guy?

Taking Arms Against a Sea of Troubles

Ah hell, we've had a bit of a mad week here at Casa Litbrit. I say it's time for a little fun at the expense of the unfairly gorgeous Matthew McConaughey, whom I predict will soon be cast in the next Hollywood remake, which (also predicting here) will be Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

In the Paul Newman role, of course. *BIG sigh*

(Hat tip to Queen Mum 2)

Friday Photoblogging

Recently, we took the boys to Universal Studios Florida to celebrate Son Three's seventh birthday, now a week-long observance that netted him no fewer than three cake-munching/candle-extinguishing experiences this year.

Mr. Litbrit shows the boys one of the many giant black-trunk fishtail palms at Universal that came from his nurseries.

Entering Seuss Landing, my favorite part of the park.

Oh, the thinks you can think...

One Fish, Two Fish, Wheeeeee!

Look! There really is a Mulberry Street.

Mr. Litbrit took this one...hey, isn't this supposed to be a family amusement park?

Ah, they're street lights, not headlights.

Talk to the Bush

What a wonderful--and wonderfully simple--political ad.
(With thanks to Shakespeare's Sister.)

Five Things I've Learned in Forty-six Years

Litbrit right before the smoke alarm went off

1. God is in the details. You mustn't get so bogged down with quotidian concerns, pointless stress, and national crises you cannot possibly control that you fail to appreciate life's small and abundant beauties: the gorgeous smell of coffee as it brews; the perfect form of a curled, sleeping cat; the softness of children's hair; the cool, salt-tinged autumn winds now (finally!) arriving from the north, reminding you of home.


2. There is no such thing as a magic bullet, and there is no such thing as a side-effect-free antidepressant.


3. When your first baby emerges after hours of experiencing what it is to be drawn and quartered, you really do forgive your parents for everything, even the trauma-inducing short haircut at age six and the school with the power-crazed, strap-happy nuns.


4. Anger, sorrow, and fear are as natural as breathing; usually it's best to acknowledge the rogue wave and let it wash over you. Even if it means getting tossed about; even if it means wailing and crying for a while as you sort yourself out and relocate the shoreline.


5. All the new shoes, long-awaited books, and dark chocolate in the world won't make you as happy as the simple act of creating something will. In my case, I must remember this: Bad things happen when writers don't write.

Olbermann on the President Who Makes Things Up

I am in awe of this man, a true patriot and a hell of a journalist. In his most recent Special Comment--brilliant as ever--Keith Olbermann addresses the high-rise scaffold of papery lies upon which BushCo have mounted the authoritarian behemoth that now threatens the American people and our Constitution. Crooks and Liars has the video.

But tonight the stark question we must face is - why?

Why has the ferocity of your venom against the Democrats, now exceeded the ferocity of your venom against the terrorists?

Why have you chosen to go down in history as the President who made things up?

In less than one month you have gone from a flawed call to unity, to this clarion call to hatred of Americans, by Americans.

If this is not simply the most shameless example of the rhetoric of political hackery, then it would have to be the cry of a leader crumbling under the weight of his own lies.

We have, of course, survived all manner of political hackery, of every shape, size, and party.

We will have to suffer it, for as long as the Republic stands.

But the premise of a President who comes across as a compulsive liar — is nothing less than terrifying.

A President who since 9/11 will not listen, is not listening — and thanks to Bob Woodward's most recent account — evidently has never listened.

A President who since 9/11 so hates or fears other Americans, that he accuses them of advocating deliberate inaction in the face of the enemy.

A President who since 9/11 has savaged the very freedoms he claims to be protecting from attack. Attack by terrorists, or by Democrats, or by both — it is now impossible to find a consistent thread of logic as to who Mr. Bush believes the enemy is.

But if we know one thing for certain about Mr. Bush, it is this:

This President — in his bullying of the Senate last month and in his slandering of the Democrats this month — has shown us that he believes whoever the enemies are — they are hiding themselves inside a dangerous cloak, called the Constitution of the United States of America.

(Reminder to self: buy more Thank You notes.)

Never Again. Our Democracy Depends on it.

The film is called American Blackout, and thus far, its awards include the Sundance Film Festival 2006 Special Jury Prize, the Urbanworld Vibe 2006 Special Jury Prize for Best Documentary, and the Independent Film Festival of Boston 2006 Special Jury Prize. The above trailer should pique your interest, if not send chills down your spine (and I'm not exaggerating).

Whatever you think you know about our election systems or Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, this film will make you question further why the news media fails to accurately inform the public. Directed by GNN's Ian Inaba, creator of Eminem's "Mosh" music video, American Blackout critically examines the contemporary tactics used to control our democratic process and silence voices of political dissent.

Many have heard of the alleged voting irregularities that occurred during the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. Until now, these incidents have gone under- reported and are commonly written-off as insignificant rumors or unintentional mishaps resulting from an overburdened election system.

You can go here to locate a screening near you.

I, Too, Am Thankful For This School

A couple of years ago, when my sons began studies at their new school, I was a bit worried about the fitting-in thing. Not worried for the boys, not in that regard--all three are natural-born socializers. Furthermore, they have a penchant for disregarding the status quo and starting their own trends, so I knew it would only be a matter of time until longer hair and Jimmy Hendrix t-shirts at afterschool events were commonplace. No, I was worried about myself. The well-dressed, manicured mommies at Morning Assembly made me feel terribly guilty as I crouched down behind Son Three, hoping no-one noticed my puffy, makeup-free eyes and raggedy jeans or the fact that I'd twisted up my hanging-plant hair with a broken pencil. Manicure? Ha!

Then there was the parking lot full of massive, BUSH/CHENEY-stickered SUV's around which I had to navigate my little sedan, sniffing self-righteously and passing judgment on perfectly nice people, the majority of whom I'd never spoken to beyond Good Morning. If I could fit three boys, three backpacks, and an armload of soccer balls into my decently (if not extraordinarily) fuel-efficient set of wheels, why couldn't they? Hadn't they heard about global warming? Harrumph.

But what do you know? People change. Or, rather, we evolve, and we open our minds. I certainly did--within a month or so, I'd found no small number of kindred spirits at my sons' school: the mother who confessed that she was brutally hungover and wished they'd hurry up and get to the prayer (non-denominational) and pledge of allegiance so she could race home and go back to sleep. The mother who rolled her eyes at my comment that oftentimes the third child is, shall we say, a lovely (if shocking) surprise and said, "Ha! No lie. But you know, he followed me into the laundry room and was so insistent that we do it right there...". The father who said he utterly hated football, and not just because the Bucs suck.

It's now late November 2006, and I've lost count of the number of Priuses and Honda hybrids sharing space with the SUV's. One of the high school dads drives his old daisy-bedecked VW minibus--I swear!--that bears such legends as Peace Is A Family Value and WMNF Community Radio (our local source for the wisdom of Amy Goodman).

And yes, there are even some male ponytails here and there, though not quite everywhere.

This morning, I walked Son Three into his Kindergarten classroom and checked out the terrific Thanksgiving art on the wall, since it would come down today. Son Three's creation was captioned thusly:

I am thankful for this school.

And next to it, his buddy's drawing said:

I am thankful for my Moms.

Who are marvelous women, by the way. And this in what I'd once assumed was an über-conservative parochial school in this very red state.

See--there is hope. I am thankful for that, as well.

This, Our Worst Presidency Since James Buchanan

Keith Olbermann. In the library. With a candlestick--a bright-burning candlestick. Crooks and Liars has the video and transcript up now. His takedown of the Bully-in-Chief is brilliant:

To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been President on September 11th, 2001 — or the nearly eight months that preceded it.

That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the Executive.

But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed, until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now.

Except… for this:

After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts — that he was President on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.

Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.

As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.

[...]

But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it’s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you.

The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton… but by the same people who got you… elected President.

Thus instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it… we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently redd the Orwell playbook too quickly.

Thus instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us "safe" ever since — a statement that might range anywhere from Zero, to One Hundred Percent, true.

We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.

And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush — you got the name of the supposedly targeted Tower in Los Angeles… wrong.

Thus was it left for the previous President to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:

You did not try.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.

Then, you blamed your predecessor.

That would be the textbook definition… Sir, of cowardice.

Honestly, I could quote the whole thing--every single breathtaking sentence. Go and read it, or, if you're still up, watch the midnight rerun on MSNBC.

So They All Trolled Over, and One Fell Out

While reading our favorite blogs and news sites, we've all bumped into commenters like this, from Heard on The Hill columnist Mary Ann Akers via Raw Story:

Liberal bloggers in New Hampshire busted an aide to Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.) who was posing as a liberal blogger on such blogs as Blue Granite, NH-02 Progressive and others. Bass’ office admitted culpability to HOH and said the staffer would be “appropriately disciplined.”

The unnamed aide to Bass — who, like many others in his party, faces a tough re-election fight — was routinely trolling liberal New Hampshire political blogs calling himself “IndyNH” and more commonly IndieNH, pretending to be a progressive.

Finally, after noticing that lots of things he said just didn’t add up, a couple of the bloggers traced IndieNH’s IP address to the House of Representatives.

[...]

The poseur had raised suspicions among liberal bloggers after he pooh-poohed a recent poll showing Bass tied with Hodes and suggested that Democrats should not waste any more time or money on the Hodes race and instead should invest their resources in other races.

“I am going to look at the competitive race list to figure out where to send another mydd.com/netroots donation and maybe help out in other ways,” IndieNH posted. “Maybe CT or NY for me — they are at least close by. Anyone interested in pooling NH efforts for some of those races? Maybe we could even go help out for a few days in buses or something in November?”

After Clawson posted a notice on her site informing IndieNH that he (or she — Clawson wasn’t sure) had been rooted out as a GOP aide in Bass’ office, the postings ceased.

The aide’s job could cease, too. John Billings, a spokesman for Bass, acknowledged that “we have questioned the staff and found that a staffer in this office did indeed post to some blogs under the pseudonym ‘IndieNH.’

Mostly, trolls are an annoyance, a mere irritant; they are bored people possessed of too much free time and too little education as opposed to undercover operatives with nefarious intentions. But sometimes nefarious is exactly what their intentions are, and disinformation spread via blogs and comment threads can fly around the world and back in a few short hours, confusing or outright duping a significant number of readers. The thing is, I can almost always indentify a poseur by his ghastly spelling and grammar. With very few exceptions, real progressives tend to be inordinately well-spoken, erudite souls; wingnuts, on the other hand, harbor a profound disdain for book learnin', and it shows. If in doubt, it's fun to call a suspected troll to the mat on his sub-Kindergarten spelling or boneheaded abuse of the English language. Invariably, he'll say something to the effect of "lefties shuld worry more about there week argumints than good speling and grammer". Busted.

(I know, I'm going straight to Hell along with all the other elitist pedants.)

Stomach This

The strain of spinach-borne E. coli that's currently sickening and killing Americans likely came from the digestive tracts of cattle in nearby industrial farms. The infected manure contaminated the groundwater, and, in turn, neighboring spinach fields.

In her starkly informative NYT opinion piece, Nina Planck, author of Real Food: What to Eat and Why, writes:

First, some basic facts about this usually harmless bacterium: E. coli is abundant in the digestive systems of healthy cattle and humans, and if your potato salad happened to be carrying the average E. coli, the acid in your gut is usually enough to kill it.

But the villain in this outbreak, E. coli O157:H7, is far scarier, at least for humans. Your stomach juices are not strong enough to kill this acid-loving bacterium, which is why it’s more likely than other members of the E. coli family to produce abdominal cramps, diarrhea, fever and, in rare cases, fatal kidney failure.

Where does this particularly virulent strain come from? It’s not found in the intestinal tracts of cattle raised on their natural diet of grass, hay and other fibrous forage. No, O157 thrives in a new — that is, recent in the history of animal diets — biological niche: the unnaturally acidic stomachs of beef and dairy cattle fed on grain, the typical ration on most industrial farms. It’s the infected manure from these grain-fed cattle that contaminates the groundwater and spreads the bacteria to produce, like spinach, growing on neighboring farms.

In 2003, The Journal of Dairy Science noted that up to 80 percent of dairy cattle carry O157. (Fortunately, food safety measures prevent contaminated fecal matter from getting into most of our food most of the time.) Happily, the journal also provided a remedy based on a simple experiment. When cows were switched from a grain diet to hay for only five days, O157 declined 1,000-fold.

This is good news. In a week, we could choke O157 from its favorite home — even if beef cattle were switched to a forage diet just seven days before slaughter, it would greatly reduce cross-contamination by manure of, say, hamburger in meat-packing plants. Such a measure might have prevented the E. coli outbreak that plagued the Jack in the Box fast food chain in 1993.

Unfortunately, it would take more than a week to reduce the contamination of ground water, flood water and rivers — all irrigation sources on spinach farms — by the E-coli-infected manure from cattle farms.

The United States Department of Agriculture does recognize the threat from these huge lagoons of waste, and so pays 75 percent of the cost for a confinement cattle farmer to make manure pits watertight, either by lining them with concrete or building them above ground. But taxpayers are financing a policy that only treats the symptom, not the disease, and at great expense. There remains only one long-term remedy, and it’s still the simplest one: stop feeding grain to cattle.

I also recommend checking out The Meatrix. It's an odd but effective mix of entertaining, horrifying, and educational.

The Argument Wears Thin

There is nothing new about the suggestion that actresses and fashion models are virtual skeletons. Compared to other young women their age, women to whom the movies they make and the clothes and products they promote are usually targeted, these fragile, photogenic freaks of nature have always been at least a good two or three sizes smaller and several inches taller.

Speaking as someone who has loved fashion since girlhood, devouring all the best glossies and eventually doing a little modeling herself before coming to her senses and realizing that--according to prevailing standards at least--twenty-one was too old, and a fighting weight as low as 115 lbs. was still too heavy for my height (five-seven and a half...always remember to mention that important half), I must tell you that eating disorders among the professionally pretty are not just rampant, they are pretty much compulsory if one wants to compete for the lucrative work. Girls who suffer with anorexia, the most lethal of the various syndromes known as eating disorders, are usually so shockingly and heartbreakingly thin, their illness is obvious to anyone with decent vision. But disordered eating can take many (somewhat) less dire forms, and oftentimes its effects not only stop short just this side of Time to Hospitalize but also do not become evident until years later. Sub-normal body fat levels can cause amenorrhea, which in turn causes sub-normal estrogen levels, and this leads to weak, brittle bones. Constant deydration caused by the abuse of diuretics and laxatives can lead to kidney damage and heart problems, to say nothing of dull eyes and skin. Throwing up one's dinner on a regular basis will not only damage the esophagus, but rot dental enamel and wreck electrolyte levels, which can, in turn, lead to cardiac irregularities, and oh yes, death.

Most of the girls (if not all of them) were, and are, well aware of these risks, but the professional rewards of being extremely slender are terribly hard to resist. And as if that weren't enough, there are social benefits too, in the sense that a tall, beautiful, and very thin young woman--one who might be foreign and thus not speak English very well or have the support of friends and family--quickly finds herself the center of attention. In our legendarily image-obsessed culture--hell, in most cultures--everyone loves a pretty girl. Furthermore, adults generally have an instinctual urge to protect and help children (or those our eyes are telling us look like children, what with their lack of womanly characteristics like rounded bottoms or breasts consisting of actual fat tissue as opposed to silicone) and the frail. Being surrounded with people wanting to do everything for you is nothing if not intoxicating.

Knowing that friends and family read this blog and not wanting to horrify them, I won't delve too deeply into my personal history with the thin-at-all-costs mindset. Instead, I'll simply state that it has been both my experience and my observation that disordered eating among young women, especially those who seek work in fashion or film, can mean anything and everything. Substituting lettuce and cigarettes for meals, for example. Living on one or two types of food, like instant oatmeal and grapefruit juice, and eschewing everything else, every day. Going to a "doctor" for one's weight problem and getting amphetamines that not only cause that pesky hunger to evaporate but also help one stay awake for late-night studying. Drinking huge mugs of vile-tasting laxative tea the day before a swimsuit shoot so one's stomach will be nice and flat. And so on.

None of it is new; quite the opposite. There were stick-thin girls in the 1970's, and there are stick-thin girls today. And few, if any, were, or are, naturally thin--not if you define natural as thinness that occurs without engaging in unnatural behavior or taking in unnaturally scant amounts of nutrition. So I'm a bit curious as to what has caused this year's runway uproar.

Last week the organizers of Madrid fashion week, usually an overlooked event in comparison with the major shows in New York, London (this week), Milan and Paris, said they were banning models with a height-to-weight ratio below what the World Health Organization considered normal. In effect, models who weigh less than 125 pounds are prohibited from working the runways. Organizers of the event said they wanted to project “an image of beauty and health.”

Complaints about the idolization of role models who suggest unhealthy lifestyles are culturally endemic. Celebrities like Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Mischa Barton have all been subjects of tabloid headlines asking, “Are they too thin?” In all likelihood, the answer is yes, but that does not stop magazines from displaying their pictures or, likewise, designers from casting thin models in their shows.

And then, according to the website Euronews:

Under pressure from campaigners, certain local authorities in Spain have taken action. In Andalusia, shops are not allowed to display clothes of continental size 36, size 8 in the UK, or smaller. Antonio Pernas, a designer at the Madrid fashion week says: "We have reached an agreement and I think it's the right thing. The models should not have a negative influence with the young."

At which point London was quick to consider following suit:

Britain's premier fashion event has found itself under siege after health experts and Culture Minister Tessa Jowell suggested it should consider following Madrid which last week announced it would ban too-tiny women from its shows.

Madrid's plan, that has already seen some models rejected for its shows -- aims to ban models with a body mass index (BMI) -- a ratio of height to weight -- of less than 18.

In an effort to diffuse the weight row, organisers the British Fashion Council cancelled a photocall on Sunday, where some of Britain's top models were due to showcase London Fashion Week's shows spanning cult 1960s label Biba to a one-off appearance by Giorgio Armani's younger line Emporio Armani.

Yet, the debate continues to simmer among fashionistas and designers at the five-day event. While most agree eating disorders sparked by the industry need to be addressed, they say the Spanish solution is not the way to do it.

This is a topic that's never far from my mind, for the reasons above, and because I dearly wish our culture would widen its definition of what is beautiful and what will sell. The first blog post I ever wrote, for Melissa's fabulous Shakespeare's Sister, concerned my struggle since youth with body image issues; first there was the weight thing, and now there is that as well as the aging thing (I'll be 46 in a few weeks). As a feminist mother, I am often secretly relieved that I had three boys instead of three girls; as much as I lecture my kids now about healthy habits and staying true to one's convictions as opposed to following the crowd, were there scrawny, lettuce-nibbling females at my dining table instead of wild little pizza-scarfing warriors, I imagine I'd be nothing less than The Wicked Witch of the Eats, doling out protein bars and omega-3 fatty acid supplements along with my sermons.

Still. I really don't think government belongs on our runways any more than in our bedrooms, and I can't imagine that magazines, television, and cinema--all of which have a vast audience, unlike fashion shows, which are attended by a relatively small percentage of the population--would stand for one moment of being told what sort of body types they can and cannot depict. What's more, in all the years I've followed fashion, letters to the editor complaining about overly-thin models would seem to have fallen on deaf ears. It's like this: the editor or the advertising agency wants a certain look, and if a girl fits that image in his or her head, she will get the job, regardless of her lettuce-and-cigarettes lunch, regardless of any bad habits (and yes, I'm talking about drugs), regardless of her cell phone throwing, her chronic tardiness, or her penchant for throwing operatic tantrums. When the big Kate Moss cocaine scandal broke last year and large companies whose products Moss helped sell were tearing up her contracts left and right, pop culture pundits and fashion editors alike wondered if she'd ever work again. But this month, you can open any telephone-book-thick Fall Fashion Issue, and Moss is practically on every other advertising page, selling luxury handbags, pricey jewelry, and plenty of haute couture as though nothing had happened. She fit the images that sprung up in the minds of the image-makers, and thus she became the images on the page once more. Not only do the ad agencies, the designers, the editors, and the companies who make the products not care about the general message this sends to impressionable young people--if you're really thin and photogenic, you'll get all sorts of modeling work, attention, money, and fame, and it doesn't even matter if you take dangerous drugs--they don't really care about Ms. Moss herself, or any of the other pretty young things they'll employ as long as they're workable.

They just want that picture.

So perhaps, if we're serious about empowering young women, discouraging unhealthy behavior and eating disorders, and effecting change in the way women are depicted in in advertising, fashion media, television, and movies, we consumers must be the ones to spearhead the sea change. Bearing in mind that advertising = revenue for most media, I wouldn't bother writing to magazines and TV stations to complain about their use of pre-pubesecent wraiths to sell party dresses and cellulite cream. Instead, I'd suggest contacting the companies that advertise therein, telling them you won't buy their products until the media in which they advertise cease and desist with the emaciated mannequins. Conversely, when you come across an ad (or a movie or TV show or magazine feature) with images offering positive role models for young women, send an e-mail of thanks and support.

You never know: by the time my lads have a few daughters, it might be safe to let them read Vogue or even attend the odd runway show with their fashion-obsessed Grand-mère.

It Rhymes With Dire

Watch as a mainstream media journalist--Matt Lauer of NBC's Today show--finally corners George W. Bush on the issue of torture and keeps on pushing for answers. Pay attention to the president's posture, his movements, his snippiness-turning-to-aggression (getting in Matt's face, with his wagging finger mere centimeters away from him), and most of all, his eyes. Andrew Sullivan notes:

Three cheers for Matt Lauer. He's the first mainstream journalist I know of to directly confront the president over what exactly he has authorized in terms of detainee treatment and torture. Watch the president's body-language. Watch his early aggression. And repeat after me the obvious: We Torture.

Boxers aflame. Trunks up in smoke. Slacks combusting. Trousers blazing...

(Hat tip to Jonathan)

Keith Olbermann: We Have Not Forgotten, Mr. President.

This is Keith's finest commentary yet; I cannot recommend it highly enough. And look! Other journalists (Matt Lauer comes immediately to mind) are finally beginning to push for the truth just a tiny bit harder. Who knows--we may yet rebuild the First Amendment's fractured spine and along with it, our nation's brave and legendarily outspoken soul.

Breaking: Senate Panel Says No Link Between Saddam and al-Zarqawi

Well, it isn't as though this is surprising news, but it's nice to know our Congressmen are putting their weight behind that which non-neocons have maintained all along (bolds mine):

WASHINGTON (AP) -- There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al-Qaida associates, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence on Iraq. Democrats said the report undercuts President Bush's justification for going to war.

The declassified document being released Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee also explores the role that inaccurate information supplied by the anti-Saddam exile group the Iraqi National Congress had in the march to war.

It discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government ''did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates.''

Bush and other administration officials have said that the presence of Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a connection between Saddam's government and al-Qaida. Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in June this year.

The long-awaited report, said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a member of the committee, is ''a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration's unrelenting, misleading and deceptive attempts'' to link Saddam to al-Qaida.

This is A Democracy. Still. Sometimes Just Barely.

Most nights, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's pithy commentary is brilliant. Then there are the nights (like yesterday) when it's simply full-on genius. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's recent incendiary comments that people who disagree with the White House (and its agressive warmongering) are disloyal or morally confused bring out the eloquent patriot in Olbermann. Crooks and Liars has the video, which I can't recommend highly enough. An excerpted transcript (italics mine):

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable comments to the Veterans of Foreign Wars yesterday demand the deep analysis--and the sober contemplation--of every American. For they do not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence--indeed, the loyalty--of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land; Worse, still, they credit those same transient occupants--our employees--with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; And not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think "his" troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq. It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile, it is right, and the power to which it speaks is wrong.

[.....]

That about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely. And as such, all voices count--not just his. Had he or his President perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience--about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago--about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago--about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago--we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their omniscience as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact-plus-ego. But to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance and its own hubris.

[.....]

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a "new type of fascism." As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that--though probably not in the way he thought he meant it. This country faces a new type of fascism--indeed.

BRAVO, K.O.

A Storm's Revelation

To much of the country, the flourescent pinwheel that's slowly looping its way up the weatherman's map represents a disturbance of the tropical variety, a threat that limits its victims to those who are foolish enough to live in an endless summer and think there won't be a price to pay.

As for those of us cowering in Ernesto's so-called Cone of Uncertainty, every glowing, glowering monster makes our stomachs knot up. Have we bought enough batteries? Where will we take the cats this time? Will school be closed, and if so, how will we get any work done whatsoever?

But these are just my own everyday ramblings and worries. I can't imagine--or even let myself imagine--some of the quandaries faced by people in New Orleans last year, as Hurricane Katrina bore down on the region and gave rise (and rise and rise) to the lethal floodwaters, marking the fall (and fall and fall) of the Emperor Bush. Escape a flooded building and go looking for help, knowing there might not be anything or anyone left when you return, or stay and try to carry the older and weaker residents out yourself, knowing that in so doing, you might all drown?

Accept the only seat left on the last bus out, knowing that in so doing, you will have abandoned your dog and will likely never see him again? Or defy orders and stay home with your beloved pet, facing floods, disease, starvation, and, quite likely, violence?

Everything about Hurricane Katrina was in a league of its own.

People are fond of saying America lost her innocence on September 11, 2001. But I believe she was truly awakened to reality on August 28, 2005, and during the days that followed.

And it is my deepest hope that she never forgets that day. Because this time last year, a government that many had hoped to shrink to such diminuitiveness as to facilitate "drowning it in a bathtub" was itself party to a drowning--a real one. That was, and is, the reality of our current administration: no government = no governing.

We were not governed.

A Quandary of Decency

I cannot do this brilliant Harpers piece justice by blockquoting any part of it: you must simply read it for yourself. After which you will be impressed beyond measure, as well as further reassured that powerful, passionate voices are indeed speaking out.

(Hat tip to Lisa in Baltimore)

More Propaganda From the Reign of Error

Not that I wasn't fully expecting the White House to make political hay in America while the terrorism sun shone in Britain, but Vice President Cheney's latest barrage of falsehoods and manipulation of the facts were so devious, so craven, I found myself struggling to translate my outrage into words.

Fortunately, a superb opinion piece in The Philadelphia Daily News Friday picked up where my stunned anger left off:

Yesterday, Cheney bashed those who voted for Democrat Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Senate primary, claiming that these votes would encourage "al Qaeda types" to think that "they can break the will of the American people."

The idea is that since 18-year incumbent Joe Lieberman lost based on his support for Iraq, Americans opposing the war are waving a white flag of surrender to terrorists.

This is stunningly ignorant logic, as well as annoyingly consistent with the Bush administration's fundamentalist myth that Iraq had ties to al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden - a claim by now well-discounted, most notably by a presidential commission.

And yet the presidential fog machine has continued to belch out its Iraq-al Qaeda-link fumes to the extent that a recent poll suggests that 64 percent of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links to al Qaeda. More people than ever now believe, according to a new poll, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

[.....]

Cheney's comments came out a day before British intelligence officials announced they had thwarted a major terrorist attack. Surely Cheney was aware of the plot and the work to thwart it, and was no doubt aware of the timing of yesterday's announcement.

To exploit a very real terror threat that could have led to major casualties, and to even indirectly implicate Americans who were exercising their democratic right by going to the polls and making a choice borders on the criminal, to say nothing of the insane.

Has Cheney completely lost it?

The latest terror scare is upsetting enough: It is bound to lead to havoc and chaos both domestically and internationally. It could damage the economy if fears on flying are sustained. It reopens the profound wounds of 9/11, a scab we should figure by now will never completely heal.

But the real terror is this: While our Vacationer- in-Chief and his vice president shut down dissent, and discourage questions about the way our government has directed our intelligence and military resources toward a single target in Iraq, we are no closer to understanding or dismantling the threat of al Qaeda.

Nail's head, meet hammer. Do read the whole thing--if nothing else, it's comforting to know that others out there are seeing through the obfuscation and make-believe finery and saying out loud that the Emperor has no clothes.

The Alaska Oil Pipeline: Corrosion, Corruption, and Pigs

It's simple economics: reduce supply, especially in times of increased demand, and you'll push prices--and profits--higher and higher. So when I heard yesterday's news about British Petroleum shutting down part of the Alaskan Pipeline, causing a significant drop in U.S. light sweet crude oil production, my first comment to the husband was: Oh boy...there go gas prices again. I suppose those record first-quarter profits weren't enough to keep them happy.

I wasn't alone in my cynicism. In fact, these oil business players are even dirtier than I ever imagined. Reporting for The Guardian, Greg Palast writes:

Is the Alaska Pipeline corroded? You bet it is. Has been for more than a decade. Did British Petroleum shut the pipe yesterday to turn a quick buck on its negligence, to profit off the disaster it created? Just ask the “smart pig.”

Years ago, I had the unhappy job of leading an investigation of British Petroleum’s management of the Alaska pipeline system. I was working for the Chugach villages, the Alaskan Natives who own the shoreline slimed by the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker grounding.

Even then, courageous government inspectors and pipeline workers were screaming about corrosion all through the pipeline. I say “courageous” because BP, which owns 46% of the pipe and is supposed to manage the system, had a habit of hunting down and destroying the careers of those who warn of pipeline problems.

[.....]

Why shut the pipe now? The timing of a sudden inspection and fix of a decade-long problem has a suspicious smell. A precipitous shutdown in mid-summer, in the middle of Middle East war(s), is guaranteed to raise prices and reap monster profits for BP. The price of crude jumped $2.22 a barrel on the shutdown news to over $76. How lucky for BP which sells four million barrels of oil a day. Had BP completed its inspection and repairs a couple years back — say, after Dan Lawn’s tenth warning — the oil market would have hardly noticed.

But $2 a barrel is just the beginning of BP’s shut-down bonus. The Alaskan oil was destined for the California market which now faces a supply crisis at the very height of the summer travel season. The big winner is ARCO petroleum, the largest retailer in the Golden State. ARCO is a 100%-owned subsidiary of … British Petroleum.

BP could have fixed the pipeline problem this past winter, after their latest corrosion-caused oil spill. But then ARCO would have lost the summertime supply-squeeze windfall.

Enron Corporation was infamous for deliberately timing repairs to maximize profit. Would BP also manipulate the market in such a crude manner? Some US prosecutors think they did so in the US propane market.

[.....]

BP claims the profitable timing of its Alaska pipe shutdown can be explained because they’ve only now run a “smart pig” through the pipes to locate the corrosion. The “pig” is an electronic drone that BP should have been using continuously, though they had not done so for 14 years. The fact that, in the middle of an oil crisis, they’ve run it through now, forcing the shutdown, reminds me, when I consider Lord Browne’s closeness to George Bush, that the company’s pig is indeed, very, very smart.

Most Americans, and most American businesses, continue to suffer as a result of skyrocketing oil prices. But not all. As Orwell wrote, Some pigs are more equal than others...

The Book Meme

Oh dear. David at Quakeragitator has tagged me with the book meme. He must think I like to read or something.

1: One book that changed your life:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. When I first read it in 1990, this book truly shook me up and forced me to consider the possibility that a world in which a theocracy controls everything, women are merely vessels for producing babies, and dissenters are imprisoned or worse, was a logical extension of certain attitudes and trends that were starting to take hold at the time. And since then, well...hmmmm.

2: One book you have read more than once:

London Fields by Martin Amis. Eerie, disturbing, funny, and brilliant. This was my first exposure to Amis and his acrobatic syntax; I quickly became a fan.

3: One book you would want on a desert island:

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. I know, I know, that's cheating, and I suck.

4: One book that made you laugh:

Money by Martin Amis. A delicious, spot-on slice of American culture as observed by a razor-tongued Brit.

5: One book you wish had been written:

The one that's on pause right now, waiting for the boys to go back to school so its frustrated author can get back to work.

6: One book you wish had never had been written:

Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding. All those poor trees!

7: One book that made you cry:

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. I love Amy's writing; this, her first published novel, is both uplifting and heartbreaking. Amy truly captures the essence of the mother-daughter bond, a universally contentious love; she explores its attendant disappointments as well as its profound joys.

8: One book you are currently reading:

There's a whole stack; currently I'm reading Gary Hart's upcoming The Courage of Our Convictions in order to review it here at The Last Duchess.

9: One book you have been meaning to read:

Atonement by Ian McEwan. He was born in my hometown--Aldershot, England--although that's not the reason I want to read this book; rather, it's been recommended to me by a conservative estimate of a hundred people (well, almost). An aside: it's my greatest and most dearly-cherished pie-in-the-sky dream to one day be referred to as The other well-known writer from Aldershot. (That crashing sound you hear is me coming back to Earth.)

10. One book you wish everyone would read, and why:

(Shameless plug alert) Virtual Vintage: The Insider's Guide to Buying and Selling Fashion Online. Why? Because Linda and I can each think of at least a dozen good uses for the royalties.

11: Now tag five people:

Let's see...I tag Thesaurus Rex, The Minstrel Boy, Paul the Spud, Tart, and Blogenfreude.

Books are wonderful. That is all.

Broken Spirits and Brave Hearts

When reports of actor/director Mel Gibson’s DUI arrest and subsequent anti-Semitic tirade first surfaced, media folk across the world were quick to rightly condemn the hideous, hateful language he is alleged to have used when confronted by police officers. And as is so often the case when a wealthy and well-known person engages in such spectacularly disgraceful behavior, the media coverage is fast and furious. Within a short time, the world was apprised of the incident’s every gory detail, from Gibson’s blood alcohol level (.12%, well over California’s legal limit of .08%) to the speed at which he was driving before being pulled over (87 mph, or nearly twice the posted speed limit of 45 mph). And we were told, over and over, about the expletive-laced epithets he used.

Ugly, hateful, and telling words, those.

I do not, in any way, want to minimize the gravity of hate speech: it is a damaging rot that, sadly, continues to spread across society; it gives rise to violence, resentment, and retaliation; it undermines progress at every turn. And it is that much worse, that much more offensive, when someone like Mel Gibson--a powerful, if contentious, Hollywood icon and a cinematic hero in the eyes of some--expresses anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, or sexist beliefs. Even if, at the time, he was hardly in control of himself by any definition of the term.

Nor do I wish to debate the veracity of the oft-repeated In vino, veritas adage--sufficient voices have weighed in on the subject and consensus seems to be that one’s true beliefs do tend to surface, often in raw and shocking ways, when one is inebriated.

Rather, I’d like to set forth a suggestion that we put the finger-pointing and schadenfreude on pause for a moment and turn our attention to the all-too-real, equal-opportunity killer that seems, in this instance, to have largely eluded the concern of the media, and, therefore the public: alcoholism. Or, if you prefer, substance abuse.

Gibson is certainly not the first or the fastest celebrity speeder to run afoul of the law on the Pacific Coast Highway. Posted limits on that road tend to rise and fall according to the population density of its surroundings. And as Southern Californians will tell you, traffic can often move at an unbearably frustrating slow-crawl, spurring some impatient drivers to make up time by speeding whenever an open stretch of road avails itself. And, of course, there are plenty of people who simply regard laws as restrictions that apply to others, not them. Gibson, however, took it to another level altogether: he was speeding while significantly impaired. In order to sustain a blood alcohol level of .12, and estimating his weight at 180 lbs., he’d have had to consume five or six cocktails per hour.

By driving his Lexus sedan while drunk, Gibson posed a very real, physical threat--not only to himself, but to anyone else driving, bicycling, or walking along the PCH in Malibu that night. And this was not the first time his drinking was excessive to the point of being dangerous.

Drinking excessively to the point of danger. That, sadly, is the other story here, the one to which each of us can relate in some tragic way. Substance abuse, despite well-written public service announcements, well-publicized horror stories, and well-received anti-drug-and-alcohol education programs presented in schools and universities around the nation, continues its ruinous rampage. It destroys families, wrecks bodies, devastates fortunes, and cuts short the lives of innocent non-abusers who happened to be on the wrong road at the wrong time: according to the CDC, an American is killed by a drunk driver every 31 minutes. It is an illness that famously cuts across age and socioeconomic strata; the poor and uninsured cannot afford the professional help they need, and the wealthy carry the double-edged sword of being better able to hide their problem while simultaneously being unmotivated by the fear of income loss that would push some (but not all) of their middle-class counterparts to seek help sooner rather than later.

And in reiterating that substance abuse is an illness, I’m not suggesting that Mel Gibson should not be held accountable for his many moral and legal failings. Indeed, it’s hard to work up as much as a picogram of pity for someone whose wealth and considerable influence might have been put to genuine good use, but who, instead, wielded his fame and fortune like warriors’ instruments, earning him labels like egomaniacal, difficult, and abusive. Gibson, who has already reportedly checked into a treatment center, will receive the best care and counseling money can buy. And even if his foul slurs have offended the film community so much that no-one will ever work with him again, his fortunes are great enough that it’s unlikely he’ll ever find himself sleeping on a park bench, pulling a now-empty brown bag over his face to shield those crazed blue eyes from the morning sun. Gibson and his career may or may not recover from the effects of his substance abuse and outrageous bigotry, but it’s a fair bet that his relationships with the women and children in his life have already sustained irreparable damage.

This isn’t a moral judgment--far from it. Substance abuse--alcoholism in particular, as in Gibson’s case--is an illness. An illness that does tremendous, tangible harm to society at large, this being merely a fact, a conclusion that too many of us have reached after watching people we know and love implode, after hearing the stories of friends who’ve left spouses, or of now-grown children who’ve survived the emotional, verbal, and, yes, physical abuse that an addicted parent often visits on his hapless offspring. And the illness isn’t curable, only manageable--and then, only with great effort, commitment, and support.

At this point in our history, all levels of our government--local, state, and federal--treat substance abuse as a crime, when in fact it is, more accurately, a public health problem. The deleterious effect on the nation’s productivity is incalculable; the damage to the bodies and souls of its people, immeasurable.

Until such time as substance abuse is decriminalized and recognized for what it is--an illness of vast and wide-reaching proportions--treatment for less-affluent addicts will never be fully and properly funded; further, even the fortunate and well-insured, those who can afford detox clinics and ongoing counseling, still face the stigma of admitting their addiction in a culture wherein so many consider it to be a moral failing, if not an outright crime.

-----

Alcohol and drug abuse have touched the lives of virtually everyone I know. A drunk driver killed my cousin once-removed (my father’s cousin) when I was a wee bairn. Richard was riding in the passenger seat alongside a driver who’d had a few too many; he lost control of the car and smashed into a telephone pole, and although this driver survived, my cousin was thrown into the dashboard (this was in the days before seatbelts or airbags), fatally rupturing his aorta. When I was seventeen, a famously upbeat party-girl friend at UF took her own life one Christmas vacation; we never knew the precise reason for her suicide, and even after all these years, I haven't figured out if the alcohol and pills were the cause or effect of what was clearly a severe, profound depression; however, I wish, as hard as I wish anything in this life, that I had been mature and savvy enough to understand what I was looking at and pushed her to get help.

Then there is a dear friend I’ll simply call J. J was a brilliantly creative, quirkily pretty, and pathologically sociable young woman, about four years my senior, whom I met in grad school. She and I shared a love of art, specifically painting, and we frequently went to movies and clubs together, since J loved to go out, but her husband was a hermit and workaholic who shunned all non-office-related activities (suffice it to say I never did understand that marriage, which ended within a few years). J had both a drinking problem and a cocaine addiction, both of which she somehow kept simmering at seemingly manageable levels; she functioned fairly normally--at least it seemed that way to her friends, like me, who only saw her on the weekends. She was also the heir to a sizeable fortune and did not need to work. When her marriage ended, she moved to a northern city, and I only heard from her when she was in town to visit her widowed mother.

Each time J did visit, though, she appeared worse. When she came to town for my wedding, at which she was a bridesmaid, she had all but disappeared, she was so underweight. Her hair was thinning and had lost all its shine; her words were scattershot, a series of illogical ramblings and non-sequitors. The following week, I called a mutual friend in Atlanta, whom she’d visited recently; we spoke for a long time, sharing worries, and agreed that we had no choice but to bring her mother into the picture--this, we knew, would ensure that J got help.

We were also well aware that our action--forcing a confrontation with her remaining family--would mark the end of our respective friendships with J, and we were right. She never spoke to either of us again: phone messages were ignored, and letters and Christmas cards came back marked Return To Sender in angry red pencil. We don’t know if she is still alive, but we are hopeful. We do know that we tried--if we’d done nothing and the worst had happened, we would each have to carry that guilt forever.

And this is what I told my husband when he faced a similar situation a few years ago: “If you do nothing, if you say nothing, he will definitely self-destruct.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.” We were discussing his friend and colleague, G, a designer and contractor we’d known socially and professionally for many years. He had always been a heavy drinker--so much so, his eyes were perennially bloodshot and his nose was starting to get that characteristic ruddy look.

We found out that that G was now drinking an entire 750 ml bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin every day, finishing the last of it before leaving work in the early afternoon, at which point he would head to a local bar. He often worked with power tools and other dangerous equipment, and he always insisted on driving. It was not a question of, Does G have a problem? Rather, it was one of, What on Earth are we going to do to help him?

So my husband wrote to G’s wife, and then had a long talk with her. It was not a pleasant experience, and the conversation concluded with us being painted as the evil party, the trouble-makers, the tattle-tale people who couldn’t leave well enough alone: He doesn’t have a problem; how dare you attack our family?

And it was over a year before he spoke to us again. In the interim, we learned he’d suffered a terrible fall from a ladder and broken several bones. It is symbolically tidy, but I believe he really did hit bottom when he hit that floor, because he was now recovering, in every sense of the word, and when my husband ran into him at the grocery store, they embraced like the old friends they always were.

-----

We readers and watchers and learners of the world would do well to try to walk away from the wreckage (actual as well as metaphorical) that is the Addicted Celebrity Meltdown holding onto something a bit nobler than a souvenir scrap of schadenfreude. Consider that Mel Gibson, to cite just one obvious and recent example, must surely have been surrounded by people who knew he needed help, but valued his attentions, or, at least, his employment, more than his health, his life, and the lives of others he might have hurt last Friday. Perhaps there is someone in our own lives--someone we love, or at least, someone we care about--whose substance abuse goes beyond social drinking or occasional experimentation. Do we need that person’s friendship--or his patronage or approval--so much that we daren’t risk losing it by forcing him to confront what is, after all, a life-threatening problem?

And if so, can we live with the consequences?

Another Scandalicious Soakfest

Yet more Iraq-related lies and cover-ups, the details of which are conveniently released late Friday? What a surprise:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 29 — The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found.

The agency hid construction overruns by listing them as overhead or administrative costs, according to the audit, written by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent office that reports to Congress and the Pentagon.

Called the United States Agency for International Development, or A.I.D., the agency administers foreign aid projects around the world. It has been working in Iraq on reconstruction since shortly after the 2003 invasion.

The report by the inspector general’s office does not give a full accounting of all projects financed by the agency’s $1.4 billion budget, but cites several examples.

The findings appeared in an audit of a children’s hospital in Basra, but they referred to the wider reconstruction activities of the development agency in Iraq. American and Iraqi officials reported this week that the State Department planned to drop Bechtel, its contractor on that project, as signs of budget and scheduling problems began to surface.

The United States Embassy in Baghdad referred questions to the State Department in Washington, which declined to comment immediately.

The Bechtel Group is an enormous multinational building, engineering, and project management conglomerate. According to The Center for Public Integrity:

In April 2003, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced that Bechtel won a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract worth up to $680 million to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure such as schools, roads and sewers, as well as perform "institutional capacity building" to maintain the improvements and create "roadmaps for future longer term needs and investments." The contract had been awarded after Bechtel and five other companies, including Fluor, Louis Berger Group, Parsons and Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root, were privately selected by the agency to bid. The contract also allows indemnification of the company against chemical or biological weapons, mines and other perils, according to the contract, obtained by the Center for Public Integrity through the Freedom of Information Act. In September 2003, USAID announced that, due to the poor infrastructure and deteriorating stability in Iraq, Bechtel would receive an additional $350 million on the contract, raising the contract's potential ceiling to $1.03 billion.

USAID was heavily criticized for conducting the contracting process outside of public view. USAID spokesmen said the agency used an exemption from federal contract procurement regulations that allowed it to limit competition for contracts in cases where open bidding would impair foreign aid by slowing down operations.

$1.03 billion of our taxes to fund Bechtel's Iraq contract alone, and things aren't finished yet--not by a long shot. Hmmm...I wonder how those rebuilding efforts in New Orleans are going?

Deconstructing the Blastocyst

In the past couple of weeks, we've seen and heard a great deal of hand-wringing and emotionally charged rhetoric with regard to the issue of embryonic stem cell research.

Opponents, including President Bush, the Catholic Church, and Fundamentalist Christians, maintain that the human blastocyst--a hollow cluster of about 120 cells at the 5-7 day stage--is a human life, thus the separation and cultivation of these cells for other purposes, even the development of potentially lifesaving stem cell lines, is murder (although in the President's case, it depends on who speaks for him), issues of said blastocysts remaining in cryogenic limbo or simply defrosted and discarded at the IVF clinics' discretion notwithstanding.

Supporters of this important research point to the many potentials of embryonic stem cells, namely, the cultivation of healthy, organ-specific tissue for therapeutic use in all manner of life-threatening illnesses, including diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease.

Missing from most of the media reports is a simple, factual description of that which we are debating: the process of creating stem cells, and the blastocyst itself. To that end, I offer this, from the National Institute of Health's stem cell information page (bolds mine):

Embryonic stem cells, as their name suggests, are derived from embryos. Specifically, embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos that develop from eggs that have been fertilized in vitro—in an in vitro fertilization clinic—and then donated for research purposes with informed consent of the donors. They are not derived from eggs fertilized in a woman's body.

Bearing in mind that an actual blastocyst is about the size of a pinhead, look at the following enlarged photograph, from the Advanced Fertility Center of Chicago site.

The developing fetus itself is the area marked as "ICM" (inner cell mass). The blastocoel cavity in the center is marked as "C". The trophectoderm cells that will form the placenta surround the cavity - one is marked with a "T".

Notice that this cluster of cells is not entirely made up of the very early stages of a baby; rather, some cells are designated for the formation of the placenta, an amazing and temporary, task-specific, unique-to-female-mammals organ, the functions of which--should successful implantation occur--include receiving nutrients and oxygen from the mother's blood and passing out waste and carbon dioxide. Further, there is no nervous system, no brain, and no heart--only multipurpose cells that might, at some point in the future, differentiate and become the beginnings of these organs and systems.

And that is why scientists consider the blastocyst's cells to be truly Jack-of-all-trades in nature. Given the right circumstances and time, they can become brain cells, pancreas cells, placental cells, and so on.

Here is another fact that is, more often than not, conveniently left out of all those mainstream media stem cell sound-bites to which we're treated: when a blastocyst develops within a woman's body, there is an approximately 40% chance that it will not successfully implant itself into the uterine wall--at the same 5-7 day point when its petri dish counterpart would be utilized for stem cell cultivation--and will therefore not develop into a fetus, but rather, will simply be expelled and a normal menstrual period will follow a couple of weeks thereafter.

According to the President's logic, then, as many as 40% of all sexually-active menstruating women could be party to murder every month.

After weighing the President's statements and drawing upon my own logical processes, I came up with this:

Utilizing a 5-day-old American blastocyst for stem cell lines = murder

Killing a 5-year-old Iraqi child while waging an illegal and immoral war = collateral damage

At this point, would it be stating the obvious to assert that the inhabitant of America's highest office is being utterly ridiculous?

Finally, I will submit this Put Your Own DNA Where Your Mouth Is hypothetical: supposing a loved one of mine were suffering from a disease that could be helped or cured by tissue resulting from embroynic stem cells; would my husband and I donate our own sperm and eggs for in vitro creation of blastocysts to be used for stem cell cultivation?

In a New York minute or a London heartbeat. Whichever is fastest.

Senate Approves Renewal of Voting Rights Act

The U.S. Senate voted unanimously today to renew the Voting Rights Act:

WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union applauded the Senate’s swift reauthorization today of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights law first passed in 1965 to prevent voting discrimination. The legislation passed unanimously without any damaging or weakening amendments on a vote of 98 to 0. The measure now heads to the president for his signature.

“Today’s vote is a victory for all Americans,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “The original Voting Rights Act was a promise our government made, and that promise was reaffirmed today. We must look ahead to make sure the promise is as true and strong as it was in 1965. Malicious attempts by lawmakers to derail reauthorization show the continuing need for this law and its enforcement. President Bush needs to sign this legislation as soon as possible.”

98 to 0. Numbers that virtually anyone can, ah, understand. May the Groper-in-Chief sign this into law without hesitation.

House Passes Voting Rights Act Renewal

Need some good news on this unrelentingly steamy-hot Friday? The subhed of this piece--Southern conservative efforts on amendments fail--sets the happy tone:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted Thursday to renew the 1965 Voting Rights Act, rejecting efforts by Southern conservatives to relax federal oversight of their states in a debate haunted by the ghosts of the civil rights movement.

The 390-33 vote sends the measure to the Senate. The act bans discrimination in voting, including through poll taxes and literacy tests, and requires some states, mostly in the South, to clear proposed changes in voting procedures with the Justice Department.

Southern conservatives had complained that the act punishes their states for racist voting histories they say they've overcome.

"By passing this rewrite of the Voting Rights Act, Congress is declaring from on high that states with voting problems 40 years ago can simply never be forgiven," said Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Georgia Republican and one of several lawmakers pressing for changes to the law to ease its requirements on Southern states.

The House overwhelmingly rejected amendments that would have shortened the renewal period from 25 years to a decade and would have struck its requirement that ballots in some states be printed in several languages.

Supporters of the law as written called the amendments "poison pills" designed to kill the renewal because if any were adopted by the full House, the underlying renewal might have failed.

Supporters used stark images and emotional language to make clear that the pain of racial struggle -- and racist voting practices -- still stings.

Please take a few moments to call and/or write to your Senators and let them know you're counting on their support for the renewal of this vital legislation.

UPDATE: You can check out how your Congresspersons voted here. Were they among those 33 who, incredibly, said NAY to The Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act? It's worth a click to find out.
(Hat-tip to David)

On Heading Off Life's Stressful Moments

When it comes to anger management, Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

(Consider this fairly work-safe, unless of course one is an employee of Chanel, Air France, or Moët et Chandon.)

Bellissimo!

An amazingly tight match, a nailbiting shoot-out, and in the end it's Italy.

Won, won.

It's Friday: Let There Be Pussies

Unwed teenage mother Maisy is blissed out as her babies--with Marley in the middle--nurse for the tenth time that morning (from July '05)

Casa Azzuri: Everything but the Blues

You can take the footballer out of Italy, but you'll never, ever be able to separate the Italian from his beloved cuisine and culture:

DUISBURG, Germany - They packed all the important stuff when they traveled to the World Cup: pasta, prosciutto and parmesan.

Italy might be hungry for its first World Cup title in 24 years, but the Azzurri aren’t lacking the comfort food they’re familiar with. As they prepare to face France on Sunday, they have everything they’re used to — drama, delirium and distraction.

[.....]

MSV Arena, the home of MSV Duisburg, has been renamed Casa Azzurri. There are red, white and green banners everywhere, with a gold star in each color — where will they put the fourth star if they win their fourth title?

The salamis hanging are Italian. So is the coffee. Even the beer.

Nearby is the team hotel, Landhaus Milser. It’s co-run by a native of Calabria, and many of the employees are Italian. Apparently to minimize distractions, female waitresses were sent on vacation.

Female waitresses were sent on vacation? Surely the boys in blue are far too focused on winning the World Cup to notice a few pretty girls. And besides, aren't most of them engaged or married?

(Hat-tip to Lisa in Baltimore)

And Now, Fencegate

What a tangled mess of second-rate barbed wire the whole Minutemen Project / Build it And They Will Turn Back border fence endeavor is turning into. John Amato of Crooks and Liars lays out the story:

Glenn Spencer (head of Tanton’s American Patrol) turns on Chris Simcox.

And from the above-linked website:

Chris Simcox is collecting massive amounts of money and not routing it out to the Minuteman Projects. Our only question is why are folks that mean well and want to contribute STILL sending money (lots of money!) to Chris Simcox when there have been many indications in the past of improper distribution of donations submitted to MCDC. Improper as in they get as far as Chris Simcox and promptly vanish.

Apparently, Mr. Simcox solicited donations from passionate devotees of North American isolationism (a.k.a. border-state Republicans) by promoting his plan as an Israeli-style fence when it's actually just a five-strand barbed wire livestock fence--hardly a deterrent to the desperate, hungry, and jobless people who for years have taken far greater risks to enter the United States.

And all those donations? Well, you know what they say: foolish, minute men and their money will soon be parted.

Italy, Finally

From the afternoon fireworks on the field in Dortmund, Germany, a few thousand miles away, to the spectacular nighttime ones that lit up the dark and humid skies over downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, the Fourth of July was an explosively exciting day indeed.

When the thrilling Italy vs. Germany World Cup semi-final went into overtime, we bit our lips and crossed our fingers, knowing all too well that a tight game can literally be kicked out from under you, as it was on Saturday when England lost to Portugal in a heartbreaking shoot-out. Neither England nor Portugal had scored a goal after an entire match, plus two fifteen-minute overtime periods, and the teams had to face off in a dreaded roulette-like finale that ultimately left Britons drained and depressed. A weeping Beckham would resign from his post as captain the following day.

We didn't want to see another shoot-out like that. So when yesterday's first overtime period began, we held our breath and willed the Forza Azzuri to get that bloody ball into the net. And I think we might have shouted, too. Just a little.

Fabio Grosso heard us just in time, scoring a spectacular and twisty goal thanks to a clever assist by teammate Andrea Pirlo. At the 119 minute mark. Then Alessandro Del Piero scored again, as if to show the world that this was no fluke, that Italy was the champion team here.

Point final.

Marley and His Siblings

Clockwise, from top left: Marley, Helena, Lance, Michael, Shaniqua (hiding under Michael's paws) and White Socks
Last fall, my hard drive crashed (probably due to my Powerbook's battery overheating, which was recalled shortly thereafter). With it went a lot of precious photographs, to my endless horror, many of which I was able to recover from Roberto's computer. Not the above shot, though. This morning, my friend Lisa in Baltimore reminded me that she still had the kitties-on-the-condo picture in her email files, and she was kind enough to send it. I thought readers might enjoy seeing Marley and his brothers and sisters as babies.

We have two cats at the nursery/farm (Ally and Giulia) as well as Maisy here in St. Pete, plus several big dogs; it wasn't possible to keep all six kittens indefinitely. Still, it was very, very hard to part with these beauties. Today, they're all healthy and happy--renamed and well-loved--and they're getting the personal attention that cats so adore.

Bon Weekend!