I've decided that CNN.com is completely worthless
Current featured article is about a potential serial killer in SC. For the past week it has been MJ stories. No Palin, McNamara, etc.
Dead. To. Me.
Robot Heart: Sex, Religion, and Politics
“ But innocence and guilt are funny things in America. If you are rich and guilty, if you have defrauded banks and customers and investment firms of billions of dollars, as AIG or Citibank has, if you wear fancy suits and have degrees from elite universities that cost more per year than Brown used to make, you get taxpayer money. You get lots of it. You maintain the lavish lifestyle of jets and spas and million-dollar bonuses. You live a life of unchecked greed and have too much in a world where most have too little. If you are moral scum in America we take care of you. But if you are poor, if you are, say, Tearyan Brown and African-American and 39 years old with four kids and no job and you live in the inner city, you are in trouble. No one comes to help you. You don’t get a second chance. This is what being poor means.
Chris Hedges (via azspot)
“ Conservatives have little patience for feminists who argue that the deck is stacked against women of childbearing age, that our assumptions about how work and family life should be organized make it very difficult for women, especially those with kids still at home, to have the kinds of careers ambitious men take for granted. What then do they say about the questions Palin was pressured to answer that none of her male competitors are ever asked, about how she’d balance her public duties with her private ones?
Gov. Palin’s Exit Challenges Ideas About Powerful Women : NPR
“ But see, blaming sexualized women is too easy, too simplistic, too trite. To say only that there’s a pressure to get naked is to ignore the other half – that the “critique” of raunch culture is as patriarchy friendly as the pressure to get nekkid. That half of the culture will encourage you to be sexy, and half will condemn you for it.
Lily Allen is a feminist issue. Here is one of the better readings, by Queen Emily at Feministe. (via tigerbeatdown) (via wannablessedbe)
“ Food, Inc. also explores why for the average working class family in America, buying healthy food isn’t an option. It is far cheaper to buy the cheeseburger from the drive-thru dollar menu than it is to buy fruit or vegetables. That is because everything in that cheeseburger comes from corn which our government subsidizes so much that farmers can sell it below the cost of production. So the poor American eats the extremely unhealthy food because it is cheaper. But the rising epidemic of type 2 diabetes shows the hidden cost of that value meal. The poor in our country - those with no health or job insurance - are getting sick at alarming rates due to the unhealthy cheap food they eat. This is injustice of the highest extreme - but it’s all part of our industrial food system. It’s a complicated system that gives us unhealthy, unsustainable food that disrespects the earth, animals, and people all in the name of making the greatest profit for a handful of corporations. This is the story of the food we eat every day.
Julie Clawson (via azspot)
“ The losses for June brought the tally of jobs shed since the beginning of the recession to 6.5 million — a figure equivalent to the net job gains over the previous nine years. “This is the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all jobs growth from the previous business cycle,” Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute in Washington, said in a research note. She called this fact “a devastating benchmark for the workers of this country and a testament to both the enormity of the current crisis and to the extreme weakness of jobs growth from 2000 to 2007.
467,000 Jobs Lost in June, Far More Than Expected - NYTimes.com (via sexartandpolitics) (via enjoli)
Organization Pays Addicted Women to Undergo Permanent Sterilization
The organization pays women who are drug addicts or alcoholics a one time amount of $300 to get permanent birth control. [viaI was hoping this was going to be about C.R.A.C.K. but I guess we are still pushing forward on this great and totally non racist/misogynist/classist/otherwise discriminatory plan.
Also, Plan B is ‘the abortion pill’ but sterilization is just ‘permanent birth control’? Nice word choice.
I want to say a couple of things as a disclaimer. First, I strongly disagree with any policy or program that pays certain groups of women to be sterilized, particularly those who are in a vulnerable place and might use funds given to them for things that only further hurt them. Second, I strongly disagree with any policy or program whose only concern is preventing pregnancy, not in helping the women who could become pregnant. Treating women like they are no more than their reproductive organs is offensive and degrading and dehumanizing, period.
I think that if such organizations are really interested in helping women and their children, the organizations should do two things: 1) provide free temporary birth control, such as the pill or the shot, to women who request it, and 2) help these women (and their children) receive treatment, counseling, and a safe environment and support group in which rehabilitation can take place.
However, on this comment:
No one thinks that taking drugs or drinking to excess during pregnancy is a good idea — though it is worth repeated reminding that the crack baby myth is just that, a myth.It’s worth noting that children born to addicted parents (that includes both) not only run the risk of higher birth defects (other illegal—and legal—drugs are associated with birth defects), but also get to look forward to a life of coming second to their parents’ addiction. These children are vulnerable to exploitation, multiple kinds of abuse, neglect, and even worse things that I do not even want to talk about here. I’ve seen it firsthand, and it is incredibly tragic to watch what addiction does not only to the people who are addicted, but also to their children who often end up becoming addicts themselves. And while I don’t think enforced sterilization is ever a solution, I don’t want to underplay how bleak a child’s chances are when they are born to an addicted mother and/or father for the sake of making my own argument about reproductive choice look better.
Really, though, the important thing is that enforced sterilization, apart from being beyond wrong, isn’t going to solve the problem of addiction’s negative effects on adults or children. The focus needs to be on providing treatment, counseling, support, and safety…factors which often keep addicts in a cycle of addiction, and keeps their children there with them.
“
“Do you agree with Barack Obama’s decision to close the dentition (sic) center in Guantanamo Bay and move some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists to the United States?”
“Do you believe Barack Obama’s apology tours of Europe and the Middle East has (sic) helped strengthen our national security?”
“Do you approve of the Obama Democrats’ plan to give more than $100 billion in taxpayer funds to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) even though that money is likely to end up in the hands of tyrannical regimes?”
“Obama’s handling of which region of the world worries you the most: (Click up to three choices): Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, Middle East, Central America, North America (Canada & Mexico), South America”
Questions from a recent GOP survey, or “survey”, as CNN describes it.
No, those questions aren’t leading AT ALL. They’re so well balanced that they defy the laws of physics.
(via pandorasmittens)
Californians are sinking themselves
There is an unreal, almost dreamlike quality about this moment. Dreadful things are about to happen: Hundreds of thousands of children will lose their healthcare. Five thousand state workers will be laid off. Massive cuts will decimate education at every level. Social services will be slashed. Two hundred and twenty-nine parks, out of a total of 280, will be shut down. Even some of the state’s landmarks may go on the auction block to raise money.
Yet as their state prepares to go over the cliff, California’s citizens seem weirdly oblivious, or resigned, or numb. Like inhabitants of a corrupt third-world country who have utterly lost faith in their government and in politics itself, or ostriches sticking their heads in the sand, Californians are behaving as if the whole thing is out of their control. Or even that it isn’t happening at all.
Wow.
'There Is No Way I Will Deploy to Afghanistan' -- Seeds of Dissent in the U.S. Military Are Growing
According to Private First Class Clifton Hicks, who served in Iraq with the First Cavalry from October 2003, only six months after Baghdad was occupied by American troops, until July 2004, search and avoid missions began early and always had the backing of a senior non-commissioned officer or a staff sergeant. “Our platoon sergeant was with us and he knew our patrols were bullshit, just riding around to get blown up,” he explained. “We were at Camp Victory at Baghdad International Airport. A lot of the time we’d leave the main gate and come right back in another gate to the base where there’s a big PX with a nice mess hall and a Burger King. We’d leave one guy at the Humvee to call in every hour, while the others stayed at the PX. We were just sick and tired of going out on these stupid patrols.”
Really interesting read.
