If you are interested in just how slimy, exploitive, and deceptive Karl Rove is, read this. I can't believe this man. Not that I could before, but this is a new low. Very low.
It's time for Dems to play ball. Get your pads on, it's gonna be a long game.
First, let me apologize. I have been a bad blogger. I have been missing in action. I have been ordering an iBook so I can post more often than when I have a good hour to spend at my desk at home. The future is bright, dear readers.
Two things today:
1) With the support of my local Planned Parenthood grassroots organizer, I met with my state representative this week to discuss the special session that our young buck governor has threatened to call this September (read the post below). He is a mixed-choice legislator and I wanted to see where he stood on the issues at hand, and also to make sure that the pro-choice perspective was in front of him as he thinks through the legislation and considers his vote.
It was empowering. I was actually making a small difference. He was honest and admitted that we had given him something to chew on, some new arguments he was not aware of, and exposed some misinformation. He is personally anti-choice, but has a good helping of respect for the Constitution and a refreshing amount of common sense.
I sat there with my coffee and my scone and talked to this man for an hour. Maybe this democracy thing actually works...
2) LET'S HEAR IT FOR NEW YORK!!!
On Wednesday, the New York State Senate passed a bill that will allow pharmacists and nurses to dispense emergency contraception to girls and women of any age without a prescription. Given that emergency contraception is only effective during the first 72 hours after intercourse and most physicians don't work weekends and some physicians might not want to write the controversial prescription, this is a huge victory for girls and women in New York state.
I hope Governor Pataki signs the bill and other states follow suit once they see that girls and women are not running around having rampant and irresponsible sex as a result of the passage of this legislation. This bill is about women taking responsibility, not giving it away.
Missouri Governor Matt Blunt has announced that he will call a special legislative session some time this fall to reconsider some anti-choice legislation.
If you don't have time to read this full article, here is a summary of what Blunt hopes to accomplish, to the tune of somewhere around $50,000 per day of session (while Missouri enacts deep cuts Medicaid due to a severe fund shortage):
1. New "safety" regulations that would, though their excessive and unrealistic expectations, effectively close many clinics across the state. The regulations are unreasonable and intended to close clinics, not to make them more safe.
2. A provision that would require all doctors providing abortion services to have hospital privileges within 30 miles of their clinic. For outstate regions and small communities, this provision would force several rural clinics to shut their doors.
3. A provision that any adult who escorts a minor from Missouri across state lines to have an abortion in a state without parental notification laws (Illinois, for example) could be sued. I wrote about this issue in an earlier post.
Aside from the possible anti-choice outcomes of this special session, I have to stress that it is a blatent waste of time and tax dollars. This is special interest pandering to Missouri Right to Life. Blunt is making nice with the MRTL folks because he stood in the way of the passage of the above items during the regular legislative session.
Under pressure from some big business leaders, Blunt faltered in his support for the bills that carried these anti-choice provisions - they were packaged up with others that would restrict theraputic cloning and stem cell research. He wasn't being a good guy, he was just being a good Republican.
This is a fantastic example of the hypocrisy of the Right. Blunt was hardline anti-choice until something attractive came along that might boost business for the region, might make Missouri a leader in bioscience. Get your ethics off my business, right Matt?
The most likely conclusion of the upcoming fiasco is this: the bills will pass.
What can we do? Make a lot of noise about the waste of money and misplaced priorities. This is not a pressing state issue. It is a great big kiss on the ass for Missouri Right to Life.
Contact Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and ask what you can do to help. I believe they're planning a trip to Jeff City for the special session to make pro-choice voices heard, and you can join them. Ask for Cora or Michelle in the political department. They'll hook you up.
...to my sister. She scooped me on this piece about neo-pseudo-feminist Gwen Stefani. You might think Gwen is a girlie fem, but she's all about the benjamins. It all comes down to the dollar, no matter how low you have to go.
It's been 40 short years since the Supreme Court decision (Griswold vs. Connecticut) that confirmed the right of married couples to use birth control to limit the size of their families and free women from the burden of raising broods of youngsters. Until that day in 1965, it had been considered unlawful to deny God all the little children that would spring into the world through marital bliss (and unregulated sex - gasp! - for pleasure).
It took single women another seven long years to attain the right to regulate their ovaries.
This right of access to birth control is not entirely secure. Anti-choice groups have been describing non-barrier birth control methods as "abortifacient," and recommending their disuse. They are encouraging God-fearing pharmacists to stop dispensing birth control pills.
Recently, a number of pharmacists have refused to fill prescriptions for birth control pills, including emergency contraception. They don't "believe" in birth control.
If you think this is an issue that needs to be addressed before it's too late, sign this petition and call or email your local Planned Parenthood to inquire about what actions they're taking and how you can help.
Another brief hiatus from posting comes to a close. Family in town, job interviews and the related (aggregiously expensive) shopping for suits and hose have kept me from this cushy seat. But I'm back.
Hello again.
I heard Michael Cunningham, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hours, on the Diane Rehm Show today. He has a new book. Diane was asking him about his focus on past literary works in his stories. He was waxing on about how beautiful Walt Whitman's poetry is, how renegade the quiet, subversive Virginia Woolf was. He sounded very typical. He said, "ah, yes" too much. I pictured him leaning back in his studio chair, his stuffy British-type closed-mouth laughter indicating some sort of higher level of understanding he and Diane had reached during the last program break.
This guy is a square, I thought. A square with one hell of a flair for short fiction. But still, a square.
Here is his photo. Hm.
But then (I always write people off too quickly) he said something that caught me. He said that Whitman and Woolf were renegade authors (true) and that some of the best canonical authors and poets began their literary careers as outcasts (also true). He asserted that Dante's Inferno, written in the vernacular of the day, could be comparable to an epic rap today. His implication was that hip-hop is the next renegade literary form. One day, Mos Def may be the next Whitman. A common man writing of the joys and hardships of common people.
This guy isn't square.
This guy, however, is square. He is Brent Staples, an opinion writer for the New York Times.
Here is his photo. Hm.
Just so happens that this piece in today's NYT comments on hip-hop and how "the hip-hop media" and "the hip-hop press" advocate violence and glorify crime. Ah, those poor minority youth, he writes.
First, this is old hash.
Second, Mr. Staples doesn't know the difference between rap and hip-hop (the terms are not interchangable and are not synonymous). Maybe Brent needs to spend some time with the common people, shoot the breeze with the minority youth he's so concerned about. Rap and hip-hop are underground phenomena, created by people who are either angry or hopeful (or both), but who see injustice. Yes, there are bootie songs and drug songs and killing songs, but those won't make it into history. True hip-hop has roots and respect.
People like Brent Staples need to get hip to the notion that poor, angry communities raise poor, angry children. This music speaks to them and their feelings, glorifies what they see around them. If you want the children to have nicer, kinder music to grow up with, let's talk about the reasons gangsta rap has gotten so popular and so violent.
