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The Broad Theater of a Culture War
Sunday, April 08th, 2007 | Author: Moody

They talk without being criticized nearly enough:

“When the Christian majority takes over this country, there will be no satanic churches, no more free distribution of pornography, no more talk of rights for homosexuals. After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism will be seen as immoral and evil and the state will not permit anybody the right to practice evil.” — Gary Potter (Catholics for Christian Political Action)

They get free time on the airwaves and are paid by flocks of the faithful to guide them:

“I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that’s the way it is, period.” — Pat Robertson (Christian Coalition)

They hold positions of governmental authority and have great influence on public policy:

“The ‘wall of separation between church and state’ is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.” — William Rehnquist (Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court)

They would teach our children:

“The Christian community has a golden opportunity to train an army of dedicated teachers who can invade the public school classrooms and use them to influence the nation for Christ.” — James Kennedy (Center for Reclaiming America)

– They are the American Taliban.

Like it or not, we, as Americans, are involved in a culture war as surely as Middle-Eastern nations are involved in one. It is a war of ideas — ideas that make policies — the outcome of which will determine who controls America. Lately the focus has shifted to an especially anti-science tack, but it is still a part of an overall strategy by a vicious core of Dominionists whose goal is nothing less than the theocratic take-over of America.

It’s a long way from my childhood. Sitting here writing this on Easter — a holiday that means nothing to me now — I can’t but be drawn back to my childhood. I was raised as a Catholic during the liberal ’70s. The church that my parents, and therefore I, attended had long-haired twenty-somethings in front of the congregation, sitting there in blouses and flowery skirts, corduroy pants and peasant shirts, playing acoustic guitar and bongos, and singing about the “Unity of All Humankind”, and the most often repeated message was that love, acceptance and compassion were the truest and best characteristics of a great human being. It was as progressive a church as you were likely to find, really. Which is not to say I understood or even knew then about the Roman Catholic message or the history of the Church.

And that’s sort of the point. Had I been a faithful member and grown up believing, never seeking to plumb the depths of its secretive mind, it is not at all unlikely that I’d have accepted whatever moral and political positions the Pope dictated. I would have done what my parents did, or at least done as they ordered. I would have taken for granted the righteousness of my faith and turned scorn on anyone who called it into question. I do in fact gratefully credit my basically liberal education and temperament for brining me to my senses.

America is, to its fortune, filled with a plethora of cultures, ethnicities, faiths and philosophies. Many of the faiths found in America are ostensibly Christian. And quite a few of these Christian faiths are evangelical or fundamentalist. The numbers of adherents they possess gives them a sense of security in their beliefs; the larger the flock, the greater the courage of ease. I think it is fair to say that the average worshiper is not concerned so much with how his or her personal faith interfaces with the political realm; she or he will vote for the person or party that attracts the majority of the flock or the one the shepherd touts as best. This is certainly understandable. But it also sets up a situation where the average worshiper may wind up as a tool used by those whose agenda is essentially at odds with the supposed core tenets of the faith, and given enough time such leaders with ulterior motives can sway entirely the faith of the congregation, perverting or repurposing it to satisfy their own ends while maintaining the illusion that they are serving the community of believers.

The culture war in America is centered around the conflict between the Dominionists’ and (at the risk of sounding glib) non-Dominionists’ opposing Weltanschauungen. Specifically, in America the enemies of the Dominionists are most often pluralists, socialists/Marxists, and secular humanists, but it would be remiss to fail mentioning that Dominionism is also completely opposed to womanism/feminisim, anarchism, and, ultimately, democracy itself. In fact, if there is anything akin to Dominionism, in theory and initiating praxis, it is straightforward fascism (a point that David Neiwert of Orcinus has eloquently driven home a number of times). To that end the Dominionists have campaigned surreptitiously to recast “Jesus” as something of a Billy O’Reilly-Graham hybrid. The “meek and mild” shepherd model is out, the sword-bearing Savior is in. This image better sustains the political fire fueling the Dominionist machine for several reasons, but the most important reason it is useful is that it mobilizes otherwise pacific Christians in a military way. Naturally, the “War on Terror” has helped the cause. Coupled with the particularly bellicose and morbid fantasies of the very popular Left Behind series, the “War on Terror” is a banner to fly over the “Army of Christ” as it marches to apocalyptic war against its adversaries, personified and demonized as “Satan” and “the Anti-Christ”. What is immediately apparent, too, is that the idea of who a ‘terrorist’ is or can be comprises any and all who oppose Dominionism and its politically charged evangelical ideals. A war on terrorists would to some degree require specific geo-locations to serve as “battle fronts”, and this was almost the case early on when the “Axis of Evil” propaganda was in vogue. But a war on terror itself needs no place, no specific location in the world, because terror is a ubiquitous, polymorphic force with a surprisingly plastic definition that can just as easily turn up in the shape of your neighbor as in a plane crashing into a building.

The theocracy envisioned by the Dominionists (and their allies) is deadly to the democracy painstakingly brought into being by our flawed but far-seeing signers of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Theocracy is anathema to anyone who supports the idea that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” (The Declaration of Independence) — a concept that has in fact been attacked by a large number of people both in and outside of governmental offices. In our government’s offices the expected belief in [the Christian] “God” has made the job of the Dominionists easier. Certainly such an expectation of belief has been bolstered by the ridiculous institutionalized act of swearing on the Bible, an act which, like any professed belief itself, has failed to ensure anything in court or in any other circumstances; liars lie regardless of oaths. It might be wryly observed, based on recent history, that those most likely to swear on a Bible are exactly the ones most likely to lie.

In any case, I don’t think that the majority of self-proclaimed Christians in this country want to live under theocratic rule, and I am willing to bet that a great many of them would be more than a little uncomfortable with the goals and methods of the Dominionists. And it should go without saying that thinking Americans will always be, by default, against any form of theocracy, however apparently benevolent in intent, but especially one that is so steeped in arrogant nationalism, misogyny, homophobia, racism and xenophobia. Though faulted a country it was and remains, it was not the American way during this country’s formative years to accept the rule of tyrants, dictators, or kings. I don’t think that that has changed, really. But there is always the danger that — failing the eternal vigilance of those who know better, those educated people who have learned from history — the liberties we as a nation have cherished and striven for will be taken from us by people who in their ignorance, pride, and thirst for power, who in their desire for security and an absolute authority to follow unquestioningly, who in their bitterly rueful naïeveté and all-too-knowing selfishness will sincerely believe they are doing the right thing (if only for themselves and their kin). We have seen it before, and we ourselves have all but done in whole peoples following such desires. Must we do it to ourselves at long last? Are we doing it even now?

We must each remember the parting shot of Patrick Henry — “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” — and we must set them to a purpose better suited to the global village we inhabit but a corner of; we must make it our hue and cry in the name of all people, of any faith or none, regardless of race, creed, color, ethnicity, and irrespective of gender and sexual orientation. We must bring down the Dominionists and their schemes for an American theocracy. It is long past time for leaving behind our childish things, our black-and-white thinking, our selfish sense of superiority and righteousness. There is too much at stake, and there is so much to learn from the world.

. . . . . .

For more information regarding this topic, please see First Freedom First. Please also check out the Blog Against Theocracy.

Category: Atheism, Politics, Society and Culture  | Comments
Tell Dr. Eric Keroack to Hit the Road
Saturday, November 18th, 2006 | Author: Moody

It gets me every time: some fool spouting off — in a more or less straighforward manner — about how sexuality and its myriad expressions must be controlled. As PZ Myers reports, Bush “is appointing a certifiable kook to run the federal program that oversees family planning and reproductive health”. This particular cert-k is one Dr. Eric Keroack, an anti-choice, anti-sex bug who has now been appointed by Bush “to oversee Title X funding—the only federal program devoted entirely to family planning and reproductive health”.

The apparent bee in the bonnet of this mad-as-a-hatter doctor is oxytocin, a chemical that is

released during positive social interaction, massage, hugs, “trust” encounters, and sexual intercourse. “It promotes bonding by reducing fear and anxiety in social settings, increasing trust and trustworthiness, reducing stress and pain, and decreasing social aggression,” he said.

The erstwhile doctor claims, in a nutshell, that pretty much only monogamous, married couples are safe from depleting oxytocin levels to the point where they “diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual”. Never mind that his science is flawed — insofar as it is laughably nonexistent — what is clear is that this idiot has an agenda that is plainly at odds with the position for which he has been appointed. Prof. Myers has already more than adequately laid into the unsoundness of Keroack’s vapid arguments, effectively razing them. What I want to say here has to do with the ethical issues.

Again and again, thanks to the BushCo Pro-Faith Initiative®, we have seen these unsavory religious types of people slipped into positions of governmental authority. Like breeds like. Whether it’s ID/creationism or anti-choice/anti-sex proponents we’re talking about, what remains constant is the religious — specifically, or especially, the evangelical and fundamentalist varieties — bent. Bush keeps trying to ensure that his legacy is a (rather narrowly defined) religious one. Does that not seem problematic in light of the ostensibly non-religious nature of the U.S. government? And isn’t it even more problematic, where the sex lives of human beings are concerned, when such a pinheaded “pro-abstinence” evangelizer who sides with the religious right, is placed in charge of family planning and reproductive health — when it has been shown that “abstinence-only” and similarly unrealistic programs don’t even work?

And Keroack is the medical director of an anti-choice “crisis pregnancy center”, A Woman’s Concern, for crying out loud.

It’s easy to understand: appointing Eric Keroack into any position of authority is a mistake, but appointing him to oversee Title X funding is downright unethical, tantamount to appointing a zealous and hinky furrier as “caretaker for America’s furry animals”. He is simply not fit for the position, in the same way that Bush is not fit to be the POTUS. But of course it’s obvious that Keroack is exactly right for the job so far as Bush is concerned. The doctor oozes that brand of underhanded moralism injected so well by Bush and his religious backers into the mainstream of American politics. He pretends to be an actual scientist when in reality he’s a prude in disguise, a mostly-undercover prig with some power and authority. (Cripes! — but Bush has promoted a lot of them!) And it’s all, in the end, in the name and to the glory of some crushingly dense form of repressive morality, the “necessity” of which is endlessly touted to high heaven (as it were) by a bunch of sexually repressed (undeveloped? malformed? immature?), power-hungry, god-deluded herd animals with a perverse “Father”/penis fixation and ugly self-esteem issues… to mention but a few of their common, uncouth traits.

Understand that it is not healthy, responsible sexual activity that Keroack and his ilk are promoting. Sex for sex’s sake is unwholesome in their book, a hedonistic and sinful flight from what they perceive as the “real purpose” of sex. What they are promoting is the idea that sex ought only to exist for “married couples” who share in “God’s plan”, which, so far as I can tell, involves procreating for the sole purpose of increasing the numbers of people just like them: anti-science, anti-evolution, anti-choice, pro-war, pro-death-penalty, pro-grammed, and “Christian”. And although I don’t doubt that some among them would disagree with my list to some degree or on some point, I assert that they are nonetheless subservient to the heirarchy of those powers who promote them all.

So, you see, the real bee in the bonnet of this mad-as-a-hatter doctor is not oxytocin, it’s the freedom to have sex with whomever you’d like to have sex with (assuming a mature, consensual experience) that vexes him and irritates his moral compass. So just who the hell is he to have authority over such an issue? He’s certainly not the person any sane, rational person would appoint to oversee Title X funding:

The Title X program is the only Federal program devoted solely to the provision of family planning and reproductive health care. The program is designed to provide access to contraceptive supplies and information to all who want and need them with priority given to low-income persons. A broad range of effective and acceptable family planning methods and related preventive health services are available on a voluntary and confidential basis. In addition to contraceptive services and related counseling, Title X supported clinics also provide a number of preventive health services such as: patient education and counseling; breast and pelvic examinations; cervical cancer, STD and HIV screenings; and pregnancy diagnosis and counseling. For many clients, Title X clinics provide the only continuing source of health care and health education.

Do you see? The man will, without a doubt, do his damnedest to subvert and undercut efforts to educate and inform, without a religio-moral bias, those who seek out the answers to their questions about sex-related matters from Title X clinics, and by doing so he will cause unconscionable harm to countless individuals who depend on the assistance of educated professionals — people working for the seekers’ benefit without some agenda that transcends any seeker’s needs as an individual human being.

I urge you to write to your elected representatives and tell them that Dr. Eric Keroack is not merely a bad choice, he is a completely and irrefutably unethical choice for overseeing Title X funding. Also:

The public can file a complaint against him with the American Board of Obsetrics/Gynecology, where he is certified, and the Massachusetts Board of Medicine, where he is licensed. You can reach each at: http://www.abog.org/about/contact.html http://www.massmedboard.org/consumer/complaint.shtm

Thanks to Talk To Action for the two above quoted links.

Category: Ethics, Politics, Religion/Spirituality, Reproductive Rights, Sexuality  | Comments
The Right of Privacy
Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 | Author: Moody

From Congress.org:

Weekly Update August 14, 2006: Your Ideas: Constitutional Amendment: Right to Privacy. As part of our focus on activists and their ideas, we present this proposed idea for legislation from Bonita Springs, Fl. A “Privacy Amendment” to state and the U.S. Constitutions that guarantees a right to privacy in all areas of our lives. This would impact things such as telemarketeing calls, medical records access, gun registration, abortion, gay rights and many other areas of personal behavior and activity. Most of these issues were impacted by courts’ interpretations of a right to privacy and the debate as to whether the U.S. Constitution has an implied right to privacy as was decided for example in Roe v. Wade. By passing an amendment, this issue and others would be decided once and for all. Should your elected officials support or introduce a constitutional amendment that guarantees a right to privacy? Write to President Bush, Congress and your governor and state legislature to let them know your views on this idea.

This is my response:

Honorable Sirs and Mesdames, the Right of Privacy is something that needs to be specifically addressed by the Government of the United States in our Constitution, such that present and future generations shall have a protected right with regard to their personal lives, information, and individual doings (where these may not be legitimately and reasonably construed as supporting the breaking of the already esablished and accepted laws of the country). There is no reason for not ensuring the Right of Privacy, and many reasons to do so.

The 9th, 3rd, 4th, and 5th amendments are not fully adequate to the task, and it seems plain that this is so by reason of the matter being unsettled in the courts (including the court of public opinion). An amendment to the Constitution would settle this by clearly stating what the inherent right of every citizen is in regard to privacy.

Hon. Sirs and Mesdames, the government exists as an extension of both the will of the people of the United States and the wisdom of the country’s founders. To an extent it is clear that the Constitution supercedes the fashions of the day; its core values are effectively immutable. But it is equally clear that its design enjoys the ability to adapt as society changes generationally, indeed it must do so. As Jefferson pointed out, every generation needs a new revolution. Privacy ought to be a protected right, lest some in power divine in the sea change an end to their power (which they were elected to and not given in perpetuity) and seek to throw down the tide. Every wave thrown back to the sea lends itself to the creation of an unconquerable tsunami or to the making of a dead sea. Neither end ought to be thought desireable.

However clear it is to some member of our esteemed government that his or her personal opinion on some important matter is pure and true for all, it is never in his or her purview to surpass the granted authority of the country’s laws or the wise discourse of its founders with regard to the liberty of the country’s citizens.

Privacy is an essential component of liberty, being a support beam in the right of autonomy and self-rule promoted by the founders of our country and sketched out in its Constitution. We are a nation of individuals who — in order to maintain life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — require that our personal lives remain free from trespass. American citizens are not children in need of parenting. American citizents should enjoy the greatest privilege of self-rule and autonomy, free from the untried dictates of those in positions of power who would claim the right to make them.

I hope that you will consider the desire of our nation’s founders, as well as the content and spirit of this humble letter, in supporting an amendment that will make clear the right of privacy for all citizens as part of the nation’s Constitution.

Thank you.

This letter was sent to:

  • George W. Bush (R)
  • Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
  • Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA)
  • Representative Hilda L. Solis (D-CA 32nd)
  • Gloria Romero (D-CA 24th)
  • Carol Liu (D-CA 44th)
Category: Personal, Politics  | Comments off
Movie: Rabbit-Proof Fence
Sunday, July 16th, 2006 | Author: Moody

[image]Drama, Based on a True Story; 2002; Rated “PG” for emotional thematic material; 1h 33m. Recommended.

A beautifully filmed movie of a poignant, difficult, true story, Rabbit-Proof Fence follows three so-called “half-caste” Aboriginal girls — Molly Craig, age 14, Daisy Kadibill, age 10, and Gracie Fields, age eight — as they flee their captors, making their way across 1,500 miles of the Australian Outback to return home and to their family. The movie occasionally cuts to scenes inside the government office where, as the three attempted to make their way home, the “Chief Protector of Aborigines”, the white man behind the policy, A.O. Neville, continued to sell his racist policy of eugenics and attempted to locate and recapture the girls.

Based on the book by Doris Pilkington (who also goes by the name Nugi Garimara), daughter of Molly Craig, the movie mainly takes place in the early 1930s when the government of Western Australia was following what could reasonably be called a genocidal policy designed to “assimilate” the “half-caste” Aboriginies into “white culture”. “Full blood” Aborigines were generally not considered to be the issue. A.O. Neville believed that the “full blood” Aborigines were “dying out”. Neville believed that if a “half-caste” were to breed with a full-blooded “white”, then the “half-caste’s” offspring would be more “white” than “black”. After enough breeding, the descendants of the original “half-caste” would be purely “white” — in other words, they would have been successfully assimilated, their “blackness” would have been bred out of them and destroyed.

Assimilation aimed to absorb mixed-descent Aboriginal people into mainstream Australian society. The report of the 1937 conference stated, ‘the destiny of the natives of aboriginal origin, but not of the full blood, lies in their ultimate absorption by the people of the Commonwealth and it therefore recommends that all efforts be directed to that end.’ Policy-makers expected that mixed-descent Aborigines would assimilate. They thought that the ‘white blood’ in mixed-descent Aborigines enabled them to be educated in European ways. [More: Source]

Although this may not sound like the typcial definition of a genocidal policy — we are not talking about wholesale slaughter, after all — the end results of it are equivalent. The flagrantly racist rationale behind the policy instituted by the government certainly did not favor the long-term survival of the Aboriginies as a unique and historically self-determining group, and, successfully implemented, would very likely have spelled an end to them.

More information about the policy and its results may be found at the HREOC Website: “Bringing them home: The ‘Stolen Children’ report“. See also the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act 2005 and the Apology for further information and links. I hope that you’ll join me in taking some time to read up on what happened in Australia. Like many people who live far from Australia, I imagine, I was not at all fully cognizant of what the indigenous populations of Australia and the Torres Strait suffered at the hands of those of European descent who “colonized” and “settled” their lands. I was dimly aware that there had been a great amount of conflict over the years, and that tensions remained to this day, occasionally acted upon to hurtful consequence. However, I was mostly ignorant of the history, and of that I am ashamed. The full story is so much deeper and so much more difficult. Rabbit-Proof Fence does an excellent job of pointing that out. It is important that such histories are learned, in hopes that they’ll not be repeated… anywhere, by anyone.

Category: Movies, Politics  | Comments
Al Gore’s Message
Sunday, April 30th, 2006 | Author: Moody

If you base it on the plurality, Al Gore should have won the election and become our next president, and G.W. Bush should have gone on his failure’s way without harming the nation. Instead, of course, we have been mistreated by more than a term’s worth of the Texas playboy’s non-stop foolishness, his social and linguistic gaffes, his simpleton’s peevishness and pseudo-messianic chutzpah. Science has been all but blacklisted, the so-called Christian religion has been held up as a governmental foundation, and we’ve found ourselves plunged into a war with Iraq on grounds that, even if you believe that the president and his administration are sincere, are faulted and shaky. As we near 2,500 U.S. dead in Iraq, as religious zealots continue to attempt to gain control of the government, as scientists continue to struggle against a nation largely ignorant of and often hostile to science’s findings, you have to ask yourself: what would it have been like if Al Gore had, based on the plurality and not upon the Electoral College (I will not here discuss the racial issues surrounding the Electoral College, but you might want to know that they’re there), — what if, I ask, Al Gore had won?

Ponder that for a bit.

And now turn your attention to what Gore has done since the election. In particular, turn your attention to his movie, An Inconvenient Truth (see the trailer here), opening in select theaters on May 24th. It is a movie about global warming, about what we as a society are doing to the environment, and about the very real, long-term consequences of our short-sighted behavior. Kottke has a lot to say about the movie, and I recommend reading his post. At the risk of looking like a copycat, I have to say that I, too, could not improve upon the words of David Remnick of the New Yorker, who said:

It is, to be perfectly honest (and there is no way of getting around this), a documentary film about a possibly retired politician giving a slide show about the dangers of melting ice sheets and rising sea levels. It has a few lapses of mise en scène. Sometimes we see Gore gravely talking on his cell phone—or gravely staring out an airplane window, or gravely tapping away on his laptop in a lonely hotel room—for a little longer than is absolutely necessary. And yet, as a means of education, “An Inconvenient Truth” is a brilliantly lucid, often riveting attempt to warn Americans off our hellbent path to global suicide. “An Inconvenient Truth” is not the most entertaining film of the year. But it might be the most important.

There are plenty of attacks on both Al Gore’s position on global warming and climatologists’ findings (witness the stark divide in opinions summoned by a relevant Google search). Indeed, it appears that our fearless leader may well have given his personal blessing to Michael Crichton’s crackpot point of view (see Crichton’s wingnut potboiler State of Fear). However, it’s Al Gore’s position that is backed by legitimate science and real findings. The questions that are still on the table are being assiduously researched, but the basic findings regarding global warming are not in doubt any more than the basic fact of evolution is. That is to say, only naïve, uneducated, or genuinely foolish people think that these are in question as basic premises upon which current theories are being debated by the highly educated scientific community.

Thus Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth arrives on the scene ready to both stir and confront a controversy that is, in reality, a controversy formed of spin and misunderstanding and not a genuine controversy. And so, too, it arrives on the scene in need of a supportive audience. It needs an audience who will talk about it, recommend it, share what they’ve learned from it and promote it’s message to a general American public for whom such movies are usually eschewed in favor of more “entertaining” fare, such as The Day After Tomorrow, the danger of which lies in the commonly faulty hyperbole and slipshod treatments such fare offers an audience. Realistically, a Crichton film, however faulty and politically motivated, will draw a larger audience so long as the general public is unsure of the truth, because a Crichton film will be more “exciting” for a general audience soaked in and blinded by so-called “fair and balanced” reporting that fails to shut out misleading, ill-informed or genuinely deceptive “points of view”. Al Gore’s movie deserves all the help it can get. I hope that you will consider lending your support to it. I hope you will help it reach the eyes and ears of those who, in large enough numbers, could change the world for the better.

Category: Politics, Science  | Comments
Get Involved, Before It’s Too Late
Sunday, April 30th, 2006 | Author: Moody

Saving the Internet

Yes, it’s that time again: it’s time to save the Internet from nefarious schemers (most of them Republicans) and their rotten plots (most of them serving giant businesses) to take over the last, great, free (as in freedom, not beer) medium. But before you complete the eye-roll you just started, you might want to consider exactly what’s up this time around, because this time the threat looks pretty serious. We’re not talking about email postage stamps, all right?

According to the folks over at MoveOn.org,

Congress is now pushing a law that would end the free and open Internet as we know it. Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality, the Internet’s First Amendment. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. So Amazon doesn’t have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.

In an email I received from MoveOn, they informed me that my representative, Hilda Solis, stood up for Network Neutrality “every step of the way”, and they encouraged me to blog about it. So I am. Kudos to her and all the others who stood up and voted for me and you and our rights. Apologies to those of you whose scoundrelly reps attempted unceremoniously to bend you over and spank you….

Anyway, I recognize an important issue when I see one, and this one has the potential to impact all users of the ‘Net. Like much of US policy, it starts here but its effects won’t stay here, because people nearly the whole world over access servers right here in the United States. So this could become everybody’s problem in future, given the size and power of the corporations interested in controlling the ‘Net for profit.

If you’d like to see how your representative voted on the Markey Amendment (which “[contains] enforceable Net Neutrality provisions”) and the COPE act (”the Communications Opportunity Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006, or the COPE Act for short — which marks a dismal overhaul to federal laws concerning media, internet, and telephones in the United States” [source]), the Save the Internet.com Coalition has provided a page that tallies the vote counts for both. The results of the first round were not pretty, and split along partisan lines as you might expect, with Dems for protecting the Internet and Repubs for selling our souls, one ‘Net connection at a time. But the fight is not over.

Please — I urge you to get involved. Understand what the threats could be, learn if your representative is on the committee, sign the MoveOn Petition. More resources for you to peruse are:

  • Statement: SavetheInternet.com Coalition (MoveOn, Gun Owners of America, etc.) after yesterday’s vote.
  • Article: “Panel Vote Shows Rift Over ‘Net Neutrality’” Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2006.
  • COPE: All about the nasty little Communications Opportunity Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006.

Don’t let corporations gain control of the Internet. Don’t let your government ignore you and sell you out. Don’t just sit there: blog, concerned ‘netizen, blog!

Thank you.

Category: Politics, Things on the Web  | Comments off
And Iran… Iran so far away? (ADDENDUM)
Sunday, April 09th, 2006 | Author: Moody

Back in mid-February I posted about a Gallup poll finding that “the American public [is] worried about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and [views] the country as a threat to the United States”. I snarked about the issue of a potential war with Iran, pretty much indicating my belief that the situation is distressing, to say the least.

Well, PZ Myers is also quite worried, as should we all be, wingnut dismissal notwithstanding. Even if you don’t care to visit the linked post, do take a look at the article in today’s Washington Post, which says in part:

According to current and former officials, Pentagon and CIA planners have been exploring possible targets, such as the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. Although a land invasion is not contemplated, military officers are weighing alternatives ranging from a limited airstrike aimed at key nuclear sites, to a more extensive bombing campaign designed to destroy an array of military and political targets.

We should be asking ourselves very seriously what such an attack would result in, what the worldwide consequences could be. Nobody (except Iran and its allies) wants Iran to have nukes, to be sure, but no sane person or country wants to strike at that particular hornets’ nest, either. Still, I don’t honestly believe that you and I have much we can do about this issue; the switches and levers of the “theater” of world politics are completely remote from our daily world. I think it’s important, however, that we pay attention to what’s going on, to what’s developing, however unpleasant it might be to do so, because, one way or another, it is bound to affect our lives by dint of its sheer enormity.

PZ Myers is right when he says, “If [Bush] does this, we are all going to have blood on our hands, and we are all going to be paying the price for generations”.

Category: Politics  | Comments off
The Pernicious Persecution of Dr. Pianka
Saturday, April 08th, 2006 | Author: Moody

You may or may not have heard about Eric Pianka, he’s an apparently eccentric (self-described hermit and “desert rat”) professor of zoology (U of T, Austin) currently under attack for allegedly making some distressing statements about disease and the uncertain future of humanity. Specifically, at a lecture he gave before the Texas Academy of Sciences, he basically said that humans have overbred and are, as a consequence, inexorably sliding toward a global epidemic. He also indicated that, for a variety of reasons, an airborn strain of the ebola virus would be very effective at killing us humans… which is, of course, a long way from advocating that someone release just such a virus, or saying that it would make him happy. He has publicly stated that he meant no such thing, and would never advocate mass murder.

Yet, that is just what a number of people are saying Pianka said or meant. Forrest M. Mims III, editor of The Citizen Scientist and a creationist and the man who started the attack against Pianka, unsurprisingly goes so far as to spout the most abominable hyperbole, suggesting that we might “worry that a Pianka-worshipping former student might someday become a professional biologist or physician with access to the most deadly strains of viruses and bacteria” and attempt to let some super-disease loose on humanity. He has stirred up quite a few reactionaries, like fellow pompous blowhard Shawn Carlson, executive director at The Citizen Scientist. But fellow creationist William Dembski actually went so far as to call the Department of Homeland Security to report Pianka. It has been reported that Pianka is scheduled to be interviewed by the FBI.

Pianka, meanwhile, has been receiving a great deal of bad press, hate mail, even a death threat, despite the fact that he did not say what he was accused of saying. Defense for Pianka may be found over at Pharyngula, The Panda’s Thumb, The Anthropik Network, and numerous other places on the Web. But the damage has been done.

Such are the times we are living through, sadly.

The fact is, because of our large numbers, we human beings have put ourselves at enormous risk for a particularly virulent pandemic to sweep through our midst. We are also seeing the first fruits of global warming, a phenomenon that will see massive upheavals in our way of life within a very few generations. Pianka may be considered to be an alarmist, but I’d like to point out that alarms are what you want to have go off before the big bad takes you by surprise. Pianka is not spouting nonsense any more than scientists concerned with global warming are. There is a solid scientific basis for such concerns. Yet there are many other voices attempting to shout down people like Pianka. The answer to “Why?” is as complex and simple as human nature is. But voices like Mims’, Carlson’s and Dembski’s are easily identified for what they are: they are the voices of petty, myopic trolls with a political agenda and an axe to grind.

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Health and the Wealthy Nation
Thursday, March 02nd, 2006 | Author: Moody

Life can hit pretty hard when it’s of a mind to. I recently spent a solid week carrying on my usual routine depsite one of the worst colds I’ve ever had. It was probably one of the worst because I kept going to work, running errands, doing the usual thing, rather than staying home in bed with hot lemon tea and quiet rest or going to the doctor’s office.

But it has been even worse for my beloved. On top of the cold, she — who is anemic — got her period and a cluster migraine. It has been a painful few days I would do anything to erase for her. She had a prescription for Zomig but was out of it. After talking with her doctor (actually, a receptionist who spoke loudly) he called the local pharmacy and told them to refill her prescription. However, when she called the pharmacy they informed her that her insurance no longer covered it. When she asked how much it would cost if she paid for it, they told her $720 (US) — for a blister pack with six tablets. Needless to say, Zomig was not an option.

She had the pharmacy call her doctor back and ask if she could have another prescription. He gave her a prescription for Imitrex. This her insurance covered, and now she is resting with a scarf covering her eyes as she waits for it to do its job.

Meanwhile, I am sitting here pondering the cost of medicine, especially for those without the benefit of some form of health insurance. It amazes me that we don’t offer universal health coverage here in the US. I have always thought it would be a good idea. However, it’s not so easy an argument to make around here. In other words, a cost-benefit analysis is difficult. According to an article at Reference.com regarding publicly funded medicine:

Cost-benefit analysis of healthcare is extremely difficult to do accurately, or to separate from emotional entanglement. For instance, prevention of smoking or obesity is presented as having the potential to save the costs of treating illnesses arising from those choices. Yet, if those illnesses are fatal or life shortening, they may reduce the eventual cost to the system of treating that person through the rest of their life, possibly dying of an illness every bit as expensive to treat as the ones they avoided by a healthy lifestyle. 

This has to be balanced against the loss of taxation or insurance revenue that might come should a person have a longer productive (i.e. working and tax or insurance-paying) life. The cost-benefit analysis will be very different depending on whether you adopt a whole-life accounting, or consider each month as debits and credits on an insurance system. In a system financed by taxation, the greatest cost benefit comes from preserving the working life of those who are likely to pay the most tax in future, i.e. the young and rich.


Few politicians would dare to present the big picture of costs in this way, because they would be condemned as callous. Nevertheless, behind the scenes, a responsible government must be performing cost analysis in order to balance its budget; it is not likely, however, to take the most purely cost effective route. It may choose to provide the “best” health care according to some other model, but the cost of this still must be estimated and funded, and there is no uncontroversial definition of “best”.


In producing a definition of quality of healthcare there is an implication that quality can be measured. In fact, the effectiveness of healthcare are extremely difficult to measure, not only because of medical uncertainty, but because of intangible quantities like “quality of life”. This is likely to lead to systems that measure only what is easy to measure, such as length of life, waiting times or infection rates, and may reduce the importance within the system of treatment of chronic, but non-fatal, conditions, or of providing the best care for the terminally ill. Thus, it is possible for personal satisfaction with the system to go down, while metrics go up.



Call me a bleeding heart liberal if you must, but the idea that a wealthy nation like America cannot look after the health of all its citizens, regardless of their class or social position, is simply appalling. When you have some ~45 million people who are uninsured, rounding up by an insiginificant fraction enables you to make this observation: ~15 people out of every 100 in the US have no health insurance; a number that includes a majority who work at least part time, and many whose income places them officially above the poverty level. It is my opinion that it is greed that keeps us from universal health coverage. The AMA is interested in protecting doctors’ incomes, the pharmaceutical companies are interested in making money, the government is interested in spending our tax dollars on wars. It’s a sad state of affairs, and one that underscores the disparity between our nation’s so-called humanitarian goals, as expressed (however ineptly) by that yahoo in the Whitehouse, and its everyday treatment of its own citizens (not to mention its treatment of the citizens of other nations).



That yahoo in the Whitehouse, by the way, wants to cut more from health coverage. According to the Washington Post’s Ceci Connolly, the Bush budget would cut popular health programs:



President Bush has requested billions more to prepare for potential disasters such as a biological attack or an influenza epidemic, but his proposed budget for next year would zero out popular health projects that supporters say target more mundane, but more certain, killers.


If enacted, the 2007 budget would eliminate federal programs that support inner-city Indian health clinics, defibrillators in rural areas, an educational campaign about Alzheimer’s disease, centers for traumatic brain injuries, and a nationwide registry for Lou Gehrig’s disease. It would cut close to $1 billion in health care grants to states and would kill the entire budget of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center.



Does this make you feel sick, too?

				

				

				

					Category: Personal,  Politics
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And Iran… Iran so far away?

				

					Thursday, February 16th, 2006 | Author: Moody									

				

					
A recent Gallup poll finds “the American public worried about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and viewing the country as a threat to the United States”. How about that?



Let’s see: we (re-) elect a guy who relishes calling himself a “War President” — a “Skull and Bones” pledge with the intelligence and oratory power of Elmer Fudd, and who is also an AWOL would-be soldier with no military sense, and who (acts of folly following a state of foolishness) takes us to war with Iraq on demonstrably false premises and then botches the job, and who is also inextricably tied up in the oil business and any amount of other shady business, and who also sides with the religious right as easily as he sides with cartels and special interests groups (even when the sides clash), and who also has (at best) the moral compass of Dogville’s Tom Edison Jr. though far less small town charm. Ahem.



Do you think the American public should be worried? I mean, Dubya is spending more time, money and effort on shoring up the booty “American interests” in the Middle-East than on, say, helping fix the mess that Katrina, FEMA and various others made. And Iran is of course in the Middle East — right next door to Iraq, as you may know (it depends on how much you are a product of the American system of education), and relatively close to both Syria and Saudi Arabia, models of stability and great allies both (that being a sarcastic statement). But with all that paper money being piled on the oily fire, I mean to say, surely there’s no reason to worry about what Iran is up to. It’s not like we’re bothering them, right? Yeah, so nobody says Persians are any more sensible than Arabs when it comes to the West’s interests. We’re all stiil members of the good-ol’-boy Abrahamic club, aren’t we? That should count for something, for G-d’s sake. Oh… right; never mind.



But, doubtless, Russia and/or India will find a way to sort things out before things get utterly apocalyptic and, even if they don’t, Our Fearless Leaderâ„¢, our “War President”, is sure to come up with… well, some excuse for why we have to attack them and hasten the “Second Coming”. It will all be over relatively quickly… if looked at on a geological timescale. And, you know, maybe Dubya Dubya Two will really be the war to end all wars.

				

				

				

					Category: Politics
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Dover, PA, Will Evolve

				

					Monday, January 02nd, 2006 | Author: Moody									

				

					
It seems a shame to me that so much of our time as a nation should be wasted on activities so patently contrary to those envisioned by its founders when they spoke of individuals’ liberties and the “pursuit of happiness”. We were never, as a nation of people as varied as autumn leaves, intended to beset one another with litigious conflicts over matters of personal persuasion. The yearly Butter Battles would, in light of their modern extents, confound the senses and pain the hearts of more than a few of our nation’s founders, I’m quite sure.
Although there are certainly issues worthy of intense, extensive and ongoing conversation in the hallowed halls of our government’s branches – universal healthcare, say, or abortion, or dismantling institutionalized racism – we seem all too easily tied up in lesser issues that more than border on the absurd. Perhaps the situation is indicative of slippage in the quality of education in our schools and, causally related, in our homes.



Case in point: Evolution v. “Intelligent Design”. more…

				

				

				

					Category: Politics,  Religion/Spirituality,  Science
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