CBS shuts down online comments to Obama stories

CBS.com has to shut comments down on Obama stories.

Too many racist comments, huh? And CBS doesn't want to look as if they're effectively condoning them, by hosting them on a CBS web board. Hm. Hm, twice.

If you joke about how oppressed you feel about not being able to freely slur minorities (or women or gays) for entertainment’s sake without any impact, you can go ahead and do so to show how you’re sticking it to the PC Man. Look — Don Imus thinks that’s why he was hired — to stoke the fires of bigotry by pushing the race and misogyny envelope — otherwise he wouldn’t be suing CBS for $40 million. His attorney said that in Imus’s contract with CBS, the network specifically implored Imus to cover “extraordinary,” “irreverent” and, most important, “controversial” topics on his syndicated radio show, which was simulcast daily on MSNBC.

. . . .

If you are a New Plausible Deniability Racist and happen to foment racism, misogyny or homophobia among the sheeple in the process, that’s just a side bonus — and you can deny that you really meant what you said, or now say “that’s what I’m paid to do” as a defense.

David Niewart (Orcinus) gets it right, calling it the "new racism", involving,

staking out positions that, if not overtly racist, at least seek to resurrect some of the hoary mythology of the era of white supremacy. As with most of right-wing race rhetoric of the past twenty years, it's all done with a certain level of plausible deniability, couched in "jokes" or abstrations that let the speakers feign indignation when the racism is pointed out; the current trend is only slightly more overt in its racism, but the underlying sentiments aren't hard to read.

It's all about plausible deniability. It's all about the opposite of accountability.

People (trans. right-wing blowhards) like to bitch about "where America went wrong". I'll tell you where: the day any American isn't accountable -- isn't held accountable or doesn't hold themselves accountable -- for their words and deeds. That's where America "went wrong". But it's not past tense, friends and neighbors. Every day, every denial, is America going wrong, right now.

On the Front Lines of Climate Change

On the Front Lines of Climate Change

He doesn't know the term climate change, but he knows what he sees.

Even without television and newspapers, Shahidul can sense that something just isn't right about the weather. "It gets warmer every year, there are more storms and the monsoon doesn't come on time," he says. The water level in front of his house also rises a little every year. "When I moved here, we still had three fields in front of the house. Now there are only two," Shahidul goes on. "I'm afraid the water will take another piece away from me this year." As a precautionary measure, he had the platform for his little barn built half a meter higher. "You never know what will happen."

Kucinich Got Game

and? Supporting documents for his call for impeachment of Cheney.

"Tier 4" Law Schools and Regent University

It's annoying on a certain level to watch clips (d/l'd from CrooksandLiars.com) of Bill Maher slamming tier-4 law schools when talking about Regent University, and Jon Stewart talking about Regent University and "Jiffy Law" (that was a damn funny clip, though), because I attend a tier-4 law school. Maher, in particular, recently painted with a broad, and entirely unfair, brush.

Do I approve of an administration that values loyalty over skill, talent, or diligent service? No. (Does this mean every grad of Regent is a bad lawyer, b/c 150 of them are employed by the Bush Administration? Well, I don't actually *know* that, do I?)

There are nearly 200 law schools split up into these pesky 'tiers'. Tier 1&2 comprise the 'top 100' ABA-accredited schools in nation. (Do I know what the criteria are for a tier? No. This whole thing started thanks to Consumer Reports, or US News and World Report, or some other competitive idiot, however many years ago.) That's not counting the non-ABA-accredited law schools in the country.

That's not counting the rest of the law schools in the country.

Looking at the list, which I don't deign to link to, I see that I was offered a seat at a tier-2 law school, and multiple tier-3 and tier-4 law schools. I chose my school for various reasons, being completely oblivious to this tier business, thankfully. (I was more or less ready to leave California, I liked the strong commitment to public service of this school, the mix of interest areas -- international law and environmental law -- available here, and they offered me a full-tuition scholarship, as opposed to the rest, which only offered me half-tuition scholarships.)

I firmly believe that I attend one of the best law schools in the nation. Any of you reading this who've attended a big university -- you already know the difference between the researcher stuck teaching a class b/c he has to teach one class a year or some such, and doesn't give a damn about you, and the "real teachers". Just about every member of the faculty at my school is the real thing. They come to *teach*. These people are *dedicated*.

I can learn anything, anytime, anywhere. What matters isn't if you're -- and now it's my turn to paint with a broad brush -- a legacy student at Harvard or Yale, what matters is what you do with your education after you walk out the door.

So, Maher was not terribly amusing[*], essentially saying that all tier-4 schools suck. They don't. Pat Robertson founding what seems to be a Dominionist university, with a law school, and those graduates possibly getting preferential treatment b/c of their religion, and presumed perceptions regarding their loyalty to Bush, and worse, if those preconceptions are actually accurate? Very, very, bad. But not the same thing.

[*] Stewart kept it much more on RU.

I knew it was coming

I haven't been able to bear reading Riverbend for a long time now. Riverbend is leaving Iraq.

Pandemic of Lies

I had visited several times and there was something nagging at me. I could not work out what left me uniquely unsettled about the place. It was not the depressing environment; few prisons are inspirational. It was not the occasional intimidation. Eventually it came to me: I could not remember being lied to so often and so consistently. In Guantánamo, lying was a disease that had reached pandemic prpportions.

No Fairytales Allowed, by Clive Stafford Smith, attorney to 36 GTMO inmates.

Lines of Questioning for Gonzales

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

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?

I think I ruptured something laughing

Centrifugal Force, over at the xkcd webcomic.

It begins "How do you like my centrifuge, Mister Bond?..."

It ends the only way it can.

Fascinating Footnote

In a legal journal article I'm editing, to quote

Anthony C. Thompson, Navigating the Hidden Obstacles to Ex-Offender Reentry, 45 Boston College Law Review 255, 285 (2004):

[I]n communities of color, women offenders tend to be stigmatized by their community. Although men who commit crimes are not necessarily seen as good members of the community, they are rarely ostracized. Women who engage in crime are often seen as defying gender roles, which is perceived by communities as deviance of a higher order.

Is it because women are supposed to be pure, good, and morally superior to men, or because we're not supposed to engage in self-help (i.e., turning to crime if that's what it takes to survive)?

Today I Applied

To join the Boston Medical Reserve Corps. You don't have to be a medical professional to get involved.

Tentatively checking out Twitter

Very tentatively. This just seems like a great way to distract myself every few minutes, and I don't really need that. We'll see. Me at twitter.

First Space Quidditch Match

Americans Defeat Russians in First Space Quidditch Match.