I hate it when...

I hate it when you really admire someone's work, and then they come out and tell you they're voting Republican, and then that they're voting for Mike Huckabee - a guy who is openly dismissive of church/state separation.

Not like I could have afforded to hire him anyways, but...it's still disappointing.

I asked a designer the other day if he was available to put together a site for me that I knew would conflict with his religiosity - he said, 'no' - that it would compromise the quality of the work he could do for me.

I can respect both situations:
1) declaring where you stand, even if it'll hurt your business, and
2) turning down work because you don't agree with its purpose.

If we had more of 1), then maybe America wouldn't have murdered so many innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. The Dixie Chicks did the right thing.

If we had more of 2), we wouldn't have so many people participating in the building of bombs, etc. This is not an exact parallel, but this person quit the APA because of their unquestioning loyalty to the u.s. military, and all that goes with that (i.e. torture).

Be brave. Take a stand. Even if it hurts your pocketbook.

...Montel takes a stand - loses job.

Bye bye Rudy. Nice knowin' ya. 9/11.

I stole the title from reddit.

One of my favorite comments:

9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11

I thought he was going to be their guy. FAIL. I guess the whole economy disaster thing heated up, and the war thing fell away.

On other topics, I'd like to have a countdown meter that I could easily add to my blog - maybe have it show up somewhere in the upper-right window - just a simple day countdown to when Bush leaves office. Beuller?

9/11.

...well, it's not exactly what i was looking for, but...




...oh, what the heck:

Two Versus One

Barack/Ted vs. Hillary:



whatever works, I guess.

On Ted's support, we should know that it was a Democrat, war criminal, and Kennedy - JFK, who invaded Vietnam. JFK instituted the 'free fire zones' - that is, if it moves, kill it - man, woman, or child. And that's just what his military did. Lots of it.

Try to find a Democrat that thinks of JFK as a war criminal like Bush - it'll take a while.

Another point of view on Camelot.

Calendar of U.S. Government's Crimes

Saw a post on Reddit concerning one of myriad countries the U.S. government has attacked over the years:

It is undeniable that the US government has overthrown Democractic Governments, and put dictators in power, not the other way around. Amazingly… most people still disbelieve it. — Don’t Fear the Truth

Guess I've thought of this for a while, but it'd be nice to have a web service that provided a daily feed of the criminal activities of the U.S. government on that particular day in the past.

So, for instance, recently we had yet another U.S.-supported dictator dying, the previously-quoted blogger recently found out the reasoning behind the term 'Banana Republic', etc. - the list is endless, but not many Americans know it. It'd be nice if you could just look somewhere right quick and find out which crimes the U.S. government had committed on any given day in history. It would include other significant events - not just the murder of civilians, kidnappings, rapes, torture, invasions, bombings and other terrorist activities - it would include everything related to all those things, too.

Maybe a Google Calendar? Though I see several limitations, that might be a good start.

I'm looking for a type of 'On this day...' feature that wikipedia has - here is January 29. But for my list, I'd just want U.S. war crimes - and not just when the U.S. government dropped bombs on its own civilians:

I mentioned in "Lies My Teacher Told Me" possibly the first example of bombing civilians by aircraft, certainly the first example in United States history, came about in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when there was a race riot against the black community in Tulsa, and it even included flying a bi-plane, probably, airplane above the black community and dropping dynamite into it, killing more than 70 people. So these were race riots that actually far outdo the riots that we hear so much about in terms of the Rodney King riot in Los Angeles or the Watts riot.

Thoughts?

...more on the bomb-dropping on civilians. There seems to be some dispute over who actually did the bombing. One thing is for certain, though - Wikipedia is one of the U.S. government's worst nightmares.

Ron Paul in it to win it?

Here's what he says:

So, with you at my side, I am in this effort to win.

And to that, those of us with brains say, 'Bullshit'.

If the dude wanted to win anything, he'd have run as an independent. He would have gotten a lot more support, and had a more realistic shot of making a difference, because at a minimum, he would have siphoned off plenty of votes from both Dems and Rethugs.

Dude is a liar. He was in it for vanity and to rail against the inflation tax for a few months - nothing more.

R. Kelly Trapped in the Closet Sing-Along, 2008

Legit.

I didn't know about Trapped in the Clauset.

It's like going to a self-help meeting. We're all massive Trapped in the Closet fans, and this is the one time each year we can just go all-out.

Previous. Previous.

The security/door people at Mezzanine were complete assholes. It was crazy raining and cold out in SF, and people had been standing in line for 30 or more minutes - most with umbrellas, but most still managing to get plenty cold and get plenty soaked by the rain. I saw some people soaked and shivering. And the Mezzanine dudes were turning people away saying, "Leave. We're all filled up. You're all wasting your time." After fifteen minutes of fucking with us, they finally let those of still still standing there in, and said 'Standing room only.' So the fuck what, assholes? There was so much room in there. So, we had a great time. Fuck the door-losers. I feel bad for all the people that left after the god-complexers starting getting off on their "you're wasting your time" routine.

Hold all the primaries on the same day?

That's what my roomy suggested as we were chatting about the Obama/Clinton SC vote, and the primaries, in general. I couldn't think of why they all shouldn't be held on the same day, except that the incumbent candidate - in this case, Clinton (even if she's not officially an incumbent) - would always win.

Anyhow, got pointed to a couple of orgs that at first glance seem to be at least semi-legit:

http://fairvote.org/

http://fixtheprimaries.com/

The Fix the Primaries site lists some possible solutions:

The American Plan
Starting with small states and working towards large ones, the American Plan also incorporates random order to afford big states the chance to go early as well.

The National Plan
This plan calls for a national primary where voters can vote once between January and June and ballots are counted and tallied at the start of each month.

The Delaware Plan
This plan relies on "backloading" the primary schedule, that is, allowing less populated states to go first and the most populated to go last.

Interregional Primary Plan
Six groups of primaries or caucuses would be scheduled between March and June. On each date, a state or group of smaller states from one of six geographic regions of the country would go together.

Rotating Regional Plan
Under the proposal, the country is divided into four regions - Northeast, Midwest, West, and South, which take their turns voting first, then one region per month from March to June.

Regional Lottery Plan
State order would be decided by lottery on New Year's Day. Two small states would be randomly selected to go first, followed by four regions also determined randomly.

One Day National Primary
This plan simply calls for primaries and caucuses in all states on the same day.

The Texas Plan
States are divided into four rotating groups with equal number of both electoral votes and total number of states per each group to provide an equal number of predominantly Republican states and predominantly Democratic states.

The Liars at Slim's

We managed to get into the sold-out show, and we saw the second half of the Liars' set.

Verdict: They rock.

Two drummers, lead singer has wicked-good and unique voice - interesting music - just legit all the way around.

This blog post helped me find out that the song I most wanted to remember from the show was called 'The Other Side Of Mt Heart Attack'.

There's another song where the singer screams a lot...need to find out which one that was. [Update: The song seems to be "Let's Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack".]

I'd heard 'Houseclouds' before going to the show, but didn't know it was The Liars, and didn't really give it much of a chance - I thought it was decent, but not more than that.

Forbidden love

MSNBC apparently runs this CBC documentary-type flicks sometimes - maybe Sunday nights? Not sure - I don't watch much tv, but this one was interesting.

It's your typical Canadian-Sikh-girl-has-love-marriage-so-is-murdered-by-her-family story.

She's dead, but her parents are still free in Canada, and her widower husband is in jail in India on trumped-up charges.

Support site.

Obama, kickbacks, teleprompters, and 'change'

Not trying to be the chief Obama-hater, but I do want to point out things that I feel are getting lost in the mix of Obama-hype.

One of those things is the Obama-Rezko corruption case, which still hasn't seen close scrutiny yet. $300,000 less than asking price? Next to a yard which went for full price? And on the same day? From your long-time friend/fundraiser who was under indictment at the time? And you later bought a slice of the adjacent property for $100,000? Stuff is all shady. Perfectly normal for a politician to accept bribes - but I think we should really know what Obama is all about, just as we should know what all the candidates are about. If Obama pulls off a miracle and wins the nomination (that's much less than a 1% chance), he's going to go down in flames on this Rezko stuff. You think Bill Clinton has an integrity problem? Wait until Fox and crew get a hold of this case. Fuggedaboutit.

On the matter of his speeches, one article on Truthdig described his SC victory speech as 'transcendent'. That's pretty typical boilerplate for whenever Obama says anything. He could say, "What's for lunch?", and the establishment press would go bonkers painting it as the best lunch speech ever - one that 'transcended hunger' or something. I watched the speech - dubious - and it was pretty good. But 'pretty good' is not 'transcendent'. Not only was it just not transcendent, but it was obvious Obama was reading from teleprompters:

Obama arrived to a thundering response and delivered another storming speech - its impact only slightly dampened by the presence of two TelePrompTer screens.

(Not sure why the Guardian titlecased the word 'teleprompter' like that.)

I guess it's possible for a speech to be transcendent even if it is being read from a teleprompter, but I certainly can't recall ever seeing any instances of it. Maybe some of the old school speeches I've heard just didn't have video with them, so I never saw the teleprompters? Whatever the case, it wasn't a transcendent speech - not sure why the establishment media seems to go there all the time.

I also decided I want to learn how to speak like that. It helps to be good-looking and all that, I'm sure, but I bet even regular people could sufficiently increase their oratory skills to a very high level.

And I still wish they just ran as a Prez/VP combo.

Oh yeah - and change, change, change.

...agreed.

...Botulism and bloodbaths. This is someone with 'ideas' that Obama thinks we should look towards to cross the political aisle. So, the botulism comment was when Reagan saw masses of poor black people from Oakland swarming food trucks - it'd be a nice, quick, easy way to exterminate them, I suppose. And the 'bloodbath' remark came after the National Guard and other terrorist forces murdered some anti-war student protesters on the UC-Berkeley campus. And Obama defenders are still defending his Reagan comments. And Obama is still sticking with his suggestion that we look to Reagan for strategies on how to cross the political aisle. I wonder who the recipients of Obama's Reagan-like murder comments will be. Will Obama start making jokes about killing anti-war protesters in San Francisco, and maybe poisoning peasants in Afghanistan when aid planes drop food pallets? Will Obama next praise Hitler and Stalin for their ideas?

Global Citizen Center

Picked up a brochure card thing at the last Green Festival in SF and it listed this thing called the Global Citizen Center. It looks kinda cool:

Irregular Rhythm Asylum

At one of the previous SF Anarchist Book Fairs, I picked up some propaganda from the Irregular Rhythm Asylum - an anarchist infoshop in Japan. Their blog.

I love knowing that there are other like-minded folks all over the world.

Why did Obama even run?

I can't figure it out. He must've believed that it was actually possible to win the nomination. And who knows - maybe he or his people know something I don't. Theoretically possible, I suppose.

97% of any election is name recognition. That is, people need to know your name. They need to be able to put a face to that name. It's one of the main reasons incumbents do so well - at least people know who they are. Voters would rather stick with the devil they do know rather than go with they devil they don't know.

Clinton. Everybody knows that name.

Obama. A few people now know that name. A few.

Getting name recognition is one of the toughest parts of being the new person - and it's just one of myriad obstacles a new person would need to overcome. You have to spend all this time and money just introducing yourself to people. What a time-sink. Meanwhile, your opponent is out there raising money, making promises, shaking hands.

So, with myriad monumental tasks in front of you that you would need to pull off to gain the nomination of your party, why go for it, anyway?

I just thought it would have been smarter of Obama to take the VP slot. He might have been able to work a deal with Hillary. That way, he's next in line for the Presidency. He's young enough - he can wait. And you have real power as a VP. Just ask Dick Cheney. He runs everything.

Hillary would rather have saved her funds for the general election, and not had to face any risk for the nomination at all.

I'm not suggesting to never go for 'the impossible' - I'm saying, it seems to me that it might have been more wise for Obama to just do his duty in the VP slot - pay his dues - show the people who own this country that he'd do their bidding appropriately, and he'd get his shot in eight years. And when his time came he could do whatever he wanted with the Presidency - whatever they allowed him to do.

I know lots of politicians try to get their parties' nomination and fail often - only to eventually win on the umpteenth try. Ronald Reagan comes to mind. But has anyone ever ran against 'the designated candidate' and won?

I think it's also important to consider how completely the corporations have taken over the process, now. It used to not be as bad as it is today. As an example, Rupert Murdoch has raised money for Hillary. He's officially seen as a bad guy and a member of the opposite team - the Republicans. But the truth of the matter is not quite that simple. He is a member of the opposing team - but it's not the team some people would like to think. He's one of them - one of the elite - one of the rich and powerful - one of the people who owns this country. He is against, by definition, all of us - and 'us' is all the people that work hard trying to make ends meet. We're Democrats, Republicans, and everything else. Do you really think Murdoch and crew are going to let some new guy into the White House without proving himself, first? A couple of years in the Senate won't cut it. You need to prove yourself like Hillary did - by voting to prevent poor people from declaring bankruptcy, while allowing rich people to declare bankruptcy and hold $5 million or more in a secure account, not to be diminished by any bankruptcy proceedings. That, my friends, is some hardcore, gangster shit. When Obama starts spending more time kicking it with his 'slum landlord' friends, that's when he'll see his road to the White House paved with gold.

Favre disappointed Packers didn't get Moss

You think?

Old story, but now that the Packers are out, it's top of mind for Brett Favre and all Packers fans.

The owners of the Packers were so cheap, they didn't want to pick up a spectacular talent because they'd actually have to pay him, you know, money.

Moss wanted to go to Green Bay.
Favre wanted Moss to go to Green Bay.
Green Bay fans wanted Moss to go to Green Bay.
But Packers' owners did not want Moss to go to Green Bay.
So Moss went to New England.

The owners of most sports franchises are criminals, as we've pointed out in previous posts. Green Bay owners are no different.

They thought it was OK to let the Pats have Moss because he'd still be in the AFC, so the Packers wouldn't have to face them if and until they reached the Super Bowl. Now the Packers aren't in the super bowl - they probably would have been if they'd had Moss.

I feel bad for Favre. I've been a Favre-hater for a long time, but he balls, and played a tremendous season, despite ownership throwing him and his teammates under the bus.

...the Packers are owned by some type of public corporation thing - not a single tyrant owner. Needless to say that the fans and Favre did not get their way. I think it's funny that Packers management started lecturing Moss - like he was a little kid or something. Instead, he went to New England and onto the Super Bowl and said 'FU, Packers'. Good for him. He'll have another shot at that elusive Super Bowl championship next year, and the year after that, and the year after that...

Free Lunch

Even if you know a lot about this stuff, you need to watch this.

Book here.

If the sports stuff bothers you, then check out League of Fans. And you might like the writing of Dave Zirin.

We have to keep focused on institutional change - not one-off stuff.

The Cohousing Handbook

Saw this book in the bookstore yesterday. Didn't know that books on this topic existed.

Three U.S. Captives Held in Colombia

Did you know that?

"You cannot let your guard down. Those who stayed behind sent me with that message. We have to continue working. A thousand thanks!" Gonzalez added, apparently referring to the estimated 700 other kidnap victims held by rebels in her country. They include Rojas' presidential running mate, Ingrid Betancourt, and three Pentagon civilian contractors.

They are probably CIA or could be Blackwater mercenaries. Whoever they are, isn't it kinda funny not to hear about this 'hostage crisis' on the news at all? Americans held against their will - 'Pentagon contractors', even. I guess Bush is gonna let them rot.

And isn't it odd that Chavez's dipomatic coup isn't being celebrated on the headline news? No - it's not - not if you know what the Propaganda Model is.

Single, emotional men are dangerous

So, a mom dumps a dad and dad goes crazy:

A fisherman has denied throwing four young children to their deaths from an 80ft coastal bridge in Alabama, saying he confessed to their murders after police pressure.

Lam Luong, 37, was charged with four counts of capital murder after he confessed to throwing the four children, aged four months to three years, from the bridge.

The idea is not to keep repeating 'I told you so' over and over, but to do my part to 'raise the consciousness' about people taking responsibility for their actions.

We know that guys are scary when they're emotionally unstable, so if you are involved with an emotionally unstable guy - whether you just kicked him to the curb or whatever - you have a responsibility to society, as much as you can, to let him down easily so he doesn't injure and kill innocent people. In a different/better society, we wouldn't have to worry about this stuff so much because people would have families and communities to take care of them, but that's just not reality today.

Obviously we know nothing about the mom's responsibility in this situation. Lots of women are battered and can't realistically challenge crazy men because police won't step in until people are dead, etc.

Clinton's 'Iron My Shirt' Fraud

It was an effective tactic, apparently, but when the truth comes out - that Clinton staged these 'protesters' - will her supporters be pissed?

SALEM, N.H. (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign stop was interrupted Monday when two men stood in the crowd and began screaming, "Iron my shirt!" during one of her final appearances before the New Hampshire primary.

Clinton, a former first lady running to become the nation's first female president, laughed at the seemingly sexist protest that suggested a woman's place is doing the laundry and not running the country.

"Ah, the remnants of sexism — alive and well," Clinton said to applause in a school auditorium.

The video suggests what you already knew - it's obviously fraudulent - with the one protester looking comical as he throws up the sign, and then trudges away, face down, not answering reporters' questions about which campaign he was from:


Raw video: Protesters interrupt Clinton

Hilarious.

...I was wrong! At least it seems that way. First time for everything, i guess. Now I'm curious if anyone actually did change their vote because of this. We haven't ruled out coordination with the Clinton campaign, but that seems a bit unlikely. Pretty damn funny prank.

Atrios Calls Chomsky an 'Idiot'

I thought I posted this before, but I could not find it, and I could not find the corresponding link in the Wikipedia page, where I'm certain I found it before - so here it goes again.

Atrios is basically like Chomsky - just not quite as radical. For a lot of what Atrios writes, you'd swear he'd just finished reading Chomsky, himself - and agreed with everything he'd read.

So, why would Atrios call Chomsky 'an idiot' when Atrios admitted several months later that he hadn't 'really read' Chomsky?

Well, the superficial payoff is large for anyone cowardly enough to take it. By dismissing as 'crazy' or 'a fraud' or 'an idiot' anyone who deviates from the Dem vs Rethug party line, you automatically get to include yourself into the 'cool kids club' - the 'serious people' group - the people that Atrios himself is always mocking. This is, of course, ironic, but that's life. Being admitted to this club keeps the blog money rolling in.

Chomsky, of course, is the most clear-headed thinker on U.S. crimes at home and abroad, and he does not toe the party line at all - so both sides dismiss him with extreme prejudice. To be taken seriously in Dem or Rethug blogistan, you have to rip Chomsky. You have to dimiss him. You have to call him a crazy old man. You have to call him an extremist and anti-Semite and America-hater and all the usual. Once you do that, you're in the cool kids club. It's that simple.

Here is Atrios' post from May 12, 2002 - about a year and a half year after 9/11/01:

Crow Blog takes issue with my assertion that everyone ignores Chomsky, arguing he's been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, Post, and Fox News.

Well, I pulled out the old Lex-Nex on this one -- the USA Today piece was a hit-column against him. The NYT is a pretty negative article discussing the fact that his book his sold about 100K copies. The Washington Post does do a broad feature on him, admittedly. And that's about it.

I don't object to people criticizing Chomsky, it's the EMPHASIS that matters His influence over his loyal fan base isn't going to be impacted one bit, and for the rest of the country he's mostly off the radar.

In any case, Chomsky's problem is not that he's anti-War -- this "war" is getting sillier by the minute - the problem is that he's an idiot.

For those of you one the Right - go ahead, pick on Chomsky if you get your jollies out of it, but don't be like Andy Sullivan and claim he speaks for any more than the fringest of the fringe.

For those of you on the Left - hey, if he truly pops up on the radar screen go ahead, knock him down. But, don't play Andy's game and feel that you have to constantly disassociate yourself from him.


[Update - I almost forgot about Fox News. No transcript, but something tells me it wasn't a fawning endorsement...]


-Atrios 15:36

Comment (0) Trackback (0)

The timing is important because Dem bloggers were feeling a lot of heat for being 'anti-American' and all sorts of other stuff. I thought Atrios was better than to just throw Chomsky under a bus like this, but everyone has their limits. It was a coward move - one that Atrios should be very sorry for.

It'll be interesting if he ever admits his mistake or not, and apologize to Chomsky.

I care because I want to live in a more just world, and it's not acceptable to have people with generally good reputations going around throwing leading activists under the bus with ad hominem attacks. I'd rather bloggers like Atrios be a little less cowardly and think for themselves.

It's 2008, now. Is it possible that Atrios still thinks Chomsky is an idiot? And if so, does that mean most of the rest of the world is an idiot? Because most of the rest of the world takes him very seriously. People like Amy Goodman. People like Bill Moyers. Are they idiots, too? Or just severely misguided? Whichever is the case, if we are to believe Atrios' critique of Chomsky as 'an idiot', then there are a lot of people who are either idiots or severely misguided.

Is it possible that Atrios still has not read a single Chomsky book? Even an article? I hear he publishes a lot. I hear a lot of it is online. Just asking...

American Humanist Association Feminist Caucus

Yes, the AHA has a Feminist Caucus:

The Feminist Caucus of the American Humanist Association was established in 1977 as a coalition of both women and men within the AHA to work toward the advancement of women's rights and equality between the sexes in all aspects of society. Originally called the Women's Caucus, the new name was adopted in 1985 as more representative of all the members of the caucus and of the caucus' goals.

The Feminist Caucus continues to be the active feminist arm of the Association. Over the years, members of the Caucus have worked hard fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment and participating in various public demonstrations, including marches for women's and civil rights. In 1982, the Caucus established its annual Humanist Heroine Award, with the initial award being presented to Sonia Johnson. Other Humanist Heroines have been Tish Sommers, Christine Craft, Anne N. Gaylor, Patricia Maginnis, Fran Hosken, Cleo Kocol, Carolyn McDade, Sherry Matulis, and Sally Roesch Wagner. See a full list of Humanist Heroines from 1982 to the present.

I wish it was just a bad joke, but it's not. Just like the Green Party, the Feminists have latched onto a promising organization and managed to stunt its growth, nearly stopping it in its tracks - for decades.

I said my goodbyes, canceled my upcoming meeting(s), made plans to drop off some equipment, made myself available for technical assistance, erased my Humanist email signatures, and removed all my Humanist-related RSS feeds. Over the next couple of weeks I'll make sure any/all control I have over website operations is handed over (email lists and whatnot). I'm going to give my custom Humanist Community sweatshirt to Goodwill, and when I run out of this current batch of business cards I'll make sure my new ones don't mention Humanism - in fact, I will probably just get rid of this current batch.

At least things are starting to make sense. Just like the Green Party, I couldn't understand why this organization wasn't growing like gangbusters. And how had I never heard of it before? Well, now we know at least part of the reason why.

I'm not gonna battle this one. At some future date I might send a note of disapproval to the AHA for their overt and divisive politicization of what could have been a mass popular movement, but that's about it.

Feminists: 2
 humanity: 0


We might get a couple of updates in here as things finish up. I'm genuinely curious to find out if other national Humanist organizations have poisoned their platforms as well. I highly doubt it, because the Feminists wrecking all of these U.S. organizations are based in the U.S.

It seems Feminists based outside of the U.S. are more caring. They seem to actually want to make a positive difference in the world. They're not so concerned with getting their names in print as they are with guaranteeing health care for everyone, and other trivial concerns like that.

...cynical, corrupt, stupid.

...just so we're all sure what the purpose of the Feminist Caucus is:

Robin gave a strong feminist speech at her award ceremony, asking the question, “Why is a Feminist Caucus necessary at the American Humanist Association?” As we all know, patriarchal beliefs and practices have a way of insinuating themselves into any organization that is not specifically created as a feminist organization, and the AHA has had to acknowledge this and work to overcome it.

...one of the myriad questions that arise after we discover that the AHA supports a Feminist caucus and not any other caucus is, why not? I found this result in Google's blog search - the original article appears to have been wiped from the originating site:

Religous Left Better on LGBT Issues Than We Might Admit
4 Jul 2007
I know that the AHA has a Feminist Caucus but there is no LGBT group in the AHA that I'm aware of. How are other other agencies reaching out to the gay and lesbian community? I know that the Human Rights Campaign. ...
Humanist News - http://www.thehumanist.org

So AHA, why don't you have a LGBT Caucus? And why don't you have Caucuses to support the myriad other groups that deserve representation? After all, you can hold a conference and make a big deal about the lack of diversity in your organization and then not support that group with its own Caucus. So what's the answer, AHA?

To make it clear, allowing any group to caucus within the AHA is asinine. It automatically leads to divisiveness. It automatically overpoliticizes the organiation. There are myriad reasons why allowing caucuses within the formal structure of the AHA is an incredibly bad idea.

Allowing a group to Caucus with the tag 'Feminist' is on another level of shallowness and stupidity. I'd go so far as to say it indicates malicious intent - at least among the members of the caucus. I don't know how the Feminists managed to coerce the AHA into approving the Caucus in the first place, but it must have been something damning.

As far as what all is required to form a Caucus within the AHA, I suspect we'll find that out eventually - if anyone actually cares.

No more dog sacrifices in medical schools

JC - did you know that medical schools were sacrificing dogs?

The new year began with a piece of good news. Case Western Reserve School of Medicine will end cardiology lessons wherein students examine the beating heart of a live dog, which results in the animal’s death. This brings an end to the long-standing tradition of using live dogs in all American medical schools.

Unreal. How could I not have known about that?

Well, glad it's over. For now, anyways.