Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Lines of Questioning for Gonzales

Over at Crooks and Liars, everyone should read the Five Lines of Questioning for Alberto Gonzales. Including Senators.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Here's a Ponderable

I read a particularly interesting comment made to Chris Clarke's "How Not To Be An Asshole: A Guide For Men" post at Pandagon, to wit,

It’s like those who are in a position of oppression, but do not understand it, have something missing inside. It is the sense of an organic, subjective relation to other human beings. Instead of this inside, the oppressor has the conditioned tendency to treat other people (considered to be below him) as mere objects to be used and abused....[read it all]


This combined with the shooting at Virginia Tech today to prompt a question on my part:

Is sociopathy the ultimate manifestation of patriarchy? Its apotheosis, or platonic ideal, so to speak?

A related question to ask might be: why are so many serial killers white men?

[Note, I am not suggesting that the Asian man who committed these murders at Va. Tech is a serial killer. Merely the pondering of violent crime, the hypervigilance so many women have to live under thanks to the patriarchy, and these events at Va. Tech, led to this question.]

Sudan Agrees to Darfur Peacekeepers

Sudan Agrees to Darfur Peacekeepers.

The four-year Darfur conflict between rebels and pro-government Arab militia has seen more than 200,000 deaths and at least 2.4 million displaced.


Does this mean we get to stop with the genocide, now?

Newsflash: Abstinence-Only Ed Doesn't Work

I know we're all overwhelmed with a sense of obviousness here, but note that, once again, the Bush Administration has decided to let us know this little factoid in the Friday Night News Dump, as usual for anything it doesn't really like.

I swear, if aliens contacted the earth and said "we'll give you everything you want or need to clean up this planet, achieve lasting peace, and colonize the solar system, but you have to fire that Bush guy," the Bush Administration would release the news on a Friday.

Anyway. Hey kids, guess what?! Abstinence-only education doesn't work! And we've got the report to prove it -- Impacts for Title V. Section 510, Abstinence Education Programs: Final Report, from Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

Now, can we ship condoms that work to Africa, please? And actually support women's reproductive health in developing countries? Or do we still need to keep pretending that grownups don't have sex?