While my own personal preference is for small families--and it's my own, not for thrusting upon anyone else, my own opinion only--no one has mentioned that in my books, the regular families, for the most part, are large ones.

I know why I write them this way, rural agrarian cultures being what they are, but I'm shocked that no one has pulled my nose for it yet! ;-) Are my fans sleeping on the job?

I don't know how many here know this, but kitmf is active in party politics in Virginia on the local and state level, as is her spouse-creature. Some of you may have noticed in past threads that Kit knows quite a bit about the behind-the-scenes workings of peculiarities like superdelegates and who gets seated at conventions.

I suggested that she blog about some of this, and she has. Political Process or How to Become a Local Power is her post on how to get involved in party politics and maybe run for President in the state of Virginia, where she is a party member.

Politics: If You Hold an Election and No One Comes is about what happens when you really, really care about the delegates you send to the district and state conventions but you just can't be bothered to show up for the vote.

I don't know about you, but I'm liking it. Kit's not trying to make you vote for her candidate--she's just making our murky politics a bit clearer. She's bright, she's funny, and she includes the important stuff, like who brings refreshments.

Politics is concocted by real people who take over this woman's living room. Take a look!

Remember Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, they of the 17 children? Mom decided to give the family a Mother's Day present a little early, on this morning's edition of the Today Show. Baby #18 is on the way.

So many of you thanked me for what I said, or for my books. I got caught up in the aspect of the conversation dealing with the treatment women of color have received and my response to it, and now I'm heading off to the first of two conferences within the next week.

Since I probably won't get to say thank you to everyone individually, I'm saying it here. You have no idea how very much what you said--about my thoughts concerning my own feminism, and for some about my books and feminism--meant to me. Or maybe you do.

Thank you so very much.

Tammy

After a hotly debated Wednesday night and a calmer Thursday morning, I responded with erinya's point that I had yet to respond to the most important points she had made. I replied with the following, which she felt answered not only what she wanted to know but what other people were asking of me and were not getting. I am sorry I was obtuse last night: I felt like I was trying to fight a fire with a thimble. I thought if I pulled out what I said to erinya, the other people who thought I'd come down with a case of the stupids would see it, too.
--------------------------

That organized feminism has failed women of color--I didn't answer it because all the evidence you, unusualmusic, kphoebe, and delux_vivens show, what I saw for myself on Feministe, what I saw in the comics blogosphere when Cheryl Lynn ended up abandoning the feminist segment--I am already convinced that it in fact has.

My own experience has taught me that dealing with organized feminism over long periods of time is like dealing with other groups--a clique will rise to the top which will place its agendas over those of anyone else, and will convince the bulk of the membership that theirs is the only way to go. You are frustrated at getting white feminists to listen? I submit this is why. They are on the same track that brought them to power. They don't see that they need to adapt to changing times and changing memberships. And let's face it, the charges of the WOC have been an issue within organized feminism since its conception. The WOC are right.

I can't order the WOC to call themselves feminists, any more than I can order feminist organizations to stop being idiots and look where the future stands. To stop talking white privilege and ignoring the tremendous issues and needs of our sisters of color. I can and do say the WOC are right. They are not being heard. And I certainly can't blame them for quitting.

How can I ask the WOC to stay in organizations that treat them like shit? I didn't. Why should I ask them to? I don't. I would just hope that they would say, sometimes, that the issues they fight for are feminist ones, because it would be nice to keep the banner flying. But if they are so angry with select groups of people that they don't want the word in their mouths . . . ::shrug:: I can't ask them to do something when they have been ignored so badly, even though I hope they remember the principle and not the idiots who claim to represent all of it.
--------------------------

I am not perfect. But I really try not to be an asshole. WOC have serious grievances that aren't being addressed. I have also been reminded that in my list, WOC, transgendered, and gays, I entirely overlooked disabled women, so I am feeling like even more of an asshole. But I am an asshole who still believes that ideally feminism should address the concerns of all of these women, and I will keep working toward that end. I hope all of you will, too.

I have been thinking about feminism lately. Actually, I think about feminism a lot, but some of it is apparent, and some of it is just part of the way I think. Some of it is stirred up by comments like, "I'm not a feminist," or "I don't think of myself as a feminist," uttered by women of all ages. I read a version recently, "I'm not sure if I feel comfortable calling myself a feminist," over on Feministe, from a blogger responding to a chunk of racist folly enacted by Seal Press last week. The blogger of that entry, Holly, felt that her issues with the feminists she has dealt with on race and continuing to call herself a feminist are mutually exclusive. Those people had not responded to issues presented to them by people of color (I've heard this before, particularly in the comics sphere last year and this, resulting in walk-outs by comics critics who were people of color). And so you get women, be they people of color or others, who for one reason want to disassociate themselves from feminism.

Here's how it looks to me.

I have been a feminist since the boys came right for me when we played "Red Rover" (the game in which everyone on each side links hands and the runner called from the other side must break through a linked pair), because I was the girl playing with the boys. I have been a feminist since no boy ever broke through my part of the Red Rover chain.

I have been a feminist since I was forbidden to choose the bass violin in sixth grade. It was a boy's instrument. They offered me the cello, but I didn't want that. I wanted the bass violin, because I liked its sound.

I have been a feminist since I began to write, and what I wrote with my first story and ever since was girl heroes.

I have been a feminist since I told people I wanted to be the first American president, and they laughed at me, because girls can't be president.

I have been a feminist since I sent to the FBI in seventh grade to find out what I had to do to become an agent, and received all the materials, including the list of requirements, one of which was "the Bureau does not accept women applicants."

I have been a feminist ever since I was cut from the eighth grade talent show because my act, a recitation of "The Shooting of Dan McGrew," was deemed "unlady-like."

I have been a feminist ever since my principal clapped me on the shoulder and told a visitor I was "our little women's libber."

I have been a feminist since I fell in love with the comics hero Black Canary.

I have been a feminist since I searched libraries and bookstores all my life for women heroes. I have been a feminist while reading every book I could find on Elizabeth I.

I was a feminist before I ever walked into the Penn Women's Center. I was a feminist even when it was made clear to me that I annoyed some of my fellow feminists because I wasn't serious enough about the work. Because I wrote funny book reviews. Because I made fun of Erica Jong. Because I had a long term relationship with a man. I was a feminist while they called me to long, boring meetings and told me I could represent the apathetic women on campus. I was a feminist while we were all warned to expect to have our homes searched because one of us had taken in one of the people who was traveling with Patricia Hurst. (They never came. So disappointing.)

And I remained a feminist as those who disagreed with the goals of the others, who wanted to have a life beyond meetings, awareness seminars, retreats, stuffing envelopes, and staffing the center, were criticized, and driven away. I remained one when it was made plain to me that I was no longer welcome. A sense of humor and popular writings were no longer welcome. Germaine Greer was out. Andrea Dworkin was in.

I remained a feminist debating St. Augustine and women's rights with an ex-Marymount employer and writing a novel about a girl who really wanted to be a knight. I still remained one in Idaho, while my father told me women had no place as soldiers and men tried to prey upon the girls in my group home. I came to New York City as a feminist, and published books and stories with female and male heroes, and married a man who had peculiar ideas about feminists before he met me.

And I travel, and speak, and write more fantasy books, and live in Syracuse. I do not belong to any organizations, though I am happy to donate to Bitch Magazine, because it is wonderful, feminist, and entertaining, and I look forward to attending Terminus in August, because the same people did The Witching Hour in Salem, MA, where I found out how wonderfully cool Third Wave Feminists are.

I am still a feminist. I will always be a feminist. I am female. I want the women who come after me to have it better than I did, and without so damn many questions and objections. I want to see fewer things on the news that make the vein in my left temple pound. I want to see dealings between the sexes get easier for everyone. I want men to be able to do what they want without fearing those jeers that they are unmanly. I want to see the statistics on sexual violence to go down. I want to see the statistics on femicide go down. I want to see the statistics on child abuse go down, and on teen pregnancy. I want to see literacy rise. I want daycare and health care. I want support for mothers as workers and safe conditions and benefits and health care for sex workers. I want hate crimes to go down.

So you see, I do not understand how anyone can say "I don't want to be a feminist" or "I don't want to call myself a feminist." If you are a woman of color, or a woman transgendered, a gay woman, a straight woman, a celibate woman, you are a woman. How can you not be in favor of some manner of improvement in the lives of other women? How can those of them with brains not be in favor of improvements in your lives?

Who says you have to stay with one group and follow that group's agenda? Their group does not define all feminism, any more than yours does. One person and that person's thinking does not define feminism. Feminism is all of us. All of you. All of our work, our writing, our dreams, our kids, our issues. Groups may help us to focus, but they do not define each of us. The Second Wave of Feminism did not define me, nor does the Third Wave. We are who we are.

People say they don't like to call themselves feminists because of the reaction they get: the rolled eyes, the "oh, you're one of those." If it helps, I have been getting that reception for all of my life: "you're one of those women's libbers/bra burners/feminazis/man haters." I just go on doing/saying whatever I'm there for, and nearly every time I am told, "Hey--you're not like that." My reply is, "Most of us aren't."


edited to remove "bull dykes" from the last paragraph. In no way did I want to imply feminism is exclusive to straight, attractive women. Or white women. My intent is to say that we aren't a cartoon stereotype that doesn't exist in real life. We're people.

because what more can anyone say at this point that wouldn't end in a scream?

One of the Yearn for Zion teen girls gave birth today.

Mother and child are reported to be resting well, except for that whole nasty messy legal part in which the FLDS spokesman says she is 18 and therefore legal and therefore she and her baby belong back at YFZ, and Child Protective Services says, no, she is not 18 and definitely underaged and therefore she and her child belong in care.

Because that's the sort of brouhaha that should attend upon every birth, when doctors aren't sure who you are, the law isn't sure who you are, you're not entirely sure who you are, your rapist and his cohorts don't care who you are but they are sure what you are, and your body is the battleground. Oh, yes, and if the law slips up you are returned to be a brainwashed broodmare popping out more children for the grist mill that is your faith.

Oh, and Sprog? Happy birthday to you, kiddo. You just entered a war. Sorry `bout that. Your mom's faith is take no prisoners and my secular legal faith says let's don't offend anyone with deep pockets, so from where I sit, you're up shit creek. And in 14 years, give or take, if you're not one of the chosen (and your mom's already been tainted by secular medicine and technology), you'll be dumped somewhere with no education, no money, and no home, because you rolled up your sleeves or eyed the Bishop's next wife, who's your age.

Happy faithful birthday.

kitmf posted this CNN link about the teen mothers that have been found--those who have had children or who are now pregnant--among the girls at the Yearn for Zion compound in Texas.

Kit also made a point after looking at the other numbers of the kids that points to something that is bothering me more and more, something about which there seems to be little information at all: the teen boys from these FLDS communities. Here is the point Kit made:

463 children: 250 girls, 213 boys
Children 13 and younger: 197 girls, 196 boys
Teens 14 to 17: 53 girls, 17 boys

Given that sample, it seems very unlikely that in that age group, originally there were only 17 boys to 53 girls. We've heard of boys being thrown away from other FLDS communities--kicked out as teenagers with no skills and nowhere to go, into a world they have been taught was evil, corrupt, and demonic. Is this what happened to the YFZ boys? Where were they dumped? Can they be found? Are they being helped?

Why is no one in Texas asking what happened to those boys? They have the birth certificates. Unless the FLDS hierarchy got rid of them once they got rid of the boys, there is a paper to say "you have a missing kid here."

We've seen mothers let their daughters go to an older man's bed to be raped and to bear children. Are those same mothers letting their sons be thrown away?

Of 53 teenaged girls taken from Yearn For Zion, 31 have had children or are pregnant.

In my world, this is a crime. In their world, it's divine duty.

I can't type any more without saying really blasphemous things. But these people need to remember that they are a part of this country, and they need to hew to the laws of this country. If they want a country where their laws apply, they need to find a new one.

I know we preach freedom of religion. But were John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, & Co. really talking about polygamy, female circumcision, and honor killing?

If you've got a discrepancy between your I.D. and your voter I.D., you may have a problem when you go to vote in Indiana. This one catches those of us who didn't bust our butts getting everything changed over when we got married, say, and it can be invoked to hurt the candidates the women turn out for. So check it out, if you're in Indiana, and don't let them get cute with your papers!

::sigh:: If it isn't one thing, it's another. . . . Oh, yeah. Us broads are just cashing in all over that women's liberation. Yep. We can be who we wanna be, get the jobs we're qualified for, run for office without the PMS and menopause jokes . . . and so on, and so forth.

In a week just chockablock with aggro, on top of the police shooting verdict in New York City, BuzzFlash shares this tidbit from a now speedily backpedaling Rush Limbaugh.

He says, among other things:
"There won't be riots at our convention," Limbaugh said of the Republican National Convention. "We don't riot. We don't burn our cars. We don't burn down our houses. We don't kill our children. We don't do half the things the American left does."

But you do spew hate speech and make irresponsible suggestions like "riot during the Democratic Natoinal Convention." And I have news for you, you whited sepulchre, plenty of Republicans were rioting in 1968. They were called cops. They were the ones with the teargas.

and:
"We do, hopefully, the right thing for the sake of this country. We're the only one in charge of our affairs. We don't farm out our defense if we elect Democrats ... and riots in Denver, at the Democratic Convention will see to it we don't elect Democrats. And that's the best damn thing that can happen to this country, as far as I can think," Limbaugh said.

But he's not calling for riots at the Democratic National Convention, oh, no. He's just dreaming of them.

I saw riots at a national convention in 1968. The country was ripped at the seams over those riots. In some ways we never recovered from them--we never trusted the police again, we never trusted the activist left again, we certainly didn't trust the Democratic leadership that election, but a lot of us just never regained that trust in any leadership again. And this drug-addled clown wants this?

Why is he still on the air? Why do any of these hate mongers still have an audience? They are irresponsible and vicious. They don't give a damn how many real people are hurt as long as they are paid usurious rates to freely dispense hate.

Why bother? The privileged monkeys have control of the zoo--that seems clear.

edited to add: I just realized, it will be 40 years since that memorable riot. At least the convention isn't in Chicago. I just couldn't stand the weirdness if it were.

I was waiting to post about Penguicon before the current uproar because I have sworn to dedicate myself to BLOODHOUND and nothing but this week. I am going to finish it if it kills me. But then came the Open Source BP uproar. I think people are probably wondering why it's taken me so long to say anything (for one thing, I only heard about it yesterday--yes, I've actually been working), given that I was one of the Guests of Honor, so I am going to grab a half hour now to talk about Penguicon and that.

Before I say anything else: I had a wonderful time at Penguicon. I was treated like a goddess. I met many wonderful, intelligent, cool fans and many more wonderful, intelligent, cool, creative people. I got to meet my absolute favorite webcomic writer/artist, Jennie Breeden (how favorite? we both squeed and fangirled for five minutes when we met--she's a fan of mine--and had dinner and lunch and got photos taken and made arrangements to meet at DragonCon) and the very excellent writer Cherie Priest, and got to see the wonderful matociquala, writer Elizabeth Bear. I spoke all too briefly to Jim Hines (whose Goblin War books are popular with teens as well as adults), and then never saw him again, which tells you how mad the con was! I also met writer Sarah Monette, Matthew Keaton, and met writer John Scalzi for the second time, all with excellent results in the brain stimulation and panel discussions department.

I had the best baked goods (baking goddess Deb) and fudge (fudge goddess Kimba) I've had in years. Tim geeked out until he had no words. Or rather, the ones he kept trying to force on me didn't sound like English. I stood fascinated by the Chaos Device for at least 15 minutes as the young man working on it showed me the level of it that he was maintaining (he was about four feet tall, so he had his limits, but he knew how all the parts worked). And I met many strong, intelligent, creative, passionate, geeky, amazing young women.

I saw no one grabbing their breasts. I didn't even hear of this until yesterday. It wasn't an occasion where people were running around grabbing women's breasts. Neither Tim nor I saw or heard of any such behavior. It was limited to a small group, a tiny percentage of the con. I understand the group has since shut down their . . . social experiment.

So here is the post that blew the whole thing open on the Internet (the original is below the updates). tekanji supplies this list of links to discussions:

Badgerbag's comments
the-red-shoes
Sinboy
coffeeandink
littlebutfierce
peaseblossom
ktempest
jfpbookworm
Feminist SF
James Nicoll
Cynthia1960
cynthia1960
springheel-jack
springheel-jack
springheel-jack
brown-betty
misia
petronelle
odditycollector
pleonastic
fengi
fengi
drownedinink
coffeeandink (Different post than linked above)
kate-nepevu
nihilistic-kid
upstart-crow
hahathor
cjouchan
cereta
nestra
scalzi
kadymae
vito-excalibur
jim-smith
cyberpilate
jarodrussell
kadymae
Getofftheinternet.org
vito-excaliibur
coffeeandink
troubleinchina
coffeeandink
brown-betty
Metafilter.com
awelkin
sparkymonster
sinboy
Girl-Wonder.org
The Iris Network
synedochic
--------------------
edited to add synedochic
--------------------
These include other people's reactions and points. If you look at the comments to those links, you'll find still more reactions. As you can see, a lot of feminists are scorching mad, and I can't blame them.

Here's my take. This is something embarked upon by consenting adults. Fine. Although contrary to the ferret's claim that no one was approached randomly in the halls, he himself writes of the woman in the princess outfit who they approached. The women who did this agreed to it, and John Scalzi writes that the woman who first told him about it was a participant and found it wonderful. I'm frankly envious that she is so free within her skin.

But.

I have spent most of my life in the fight to be perceived as a person, not a collection of body parts. "Biology is not destiny" is very important to me for a number of reasons. To read of women offering up their breasts to be fondled like fruit makes me crazy. That's my issue, obviously, not theirs, but it's something a lot of women and men will be thinking about when they observe this behavior, which is taking place in public. I want to ask these women, what message are you sending? You think you are sending the message, I am free in my body; I am proud of my body, but is that the message that people receive?

Most people won't know about the significance of red and green buttons; they will only see people groping other people, in public. Those who see this will be tense, wondering if they will be approached next. They will not feel safe in a space that the con organizers want them to feel safe in. Women who want to have fun and wear the costumes of their superheroes or anime characters will not feel safe. No matter how many times they tell themselves that clothing is not an advertisement for sexual contact, social brainwashing whispers "you're asking for it." They will choose either not to costume, or not to attend a con where they will not feel safe. Their enjoyment and their sense of safety will be destroyed. The con will be hurt when attendance drops, a serious thing when gas and flight prices make congoing more difficult.

Think on: this social experiment can go bad very quickly. All it takes is one woman who thought she'd try it and then feels violated, not liberated, or one man who decides that breast gropage means yes to further gropage. All it takes is outsiders who witness and report it to hotel management, or fans who don't know what's going on to blast what they've seen all over the internet as a SexCon. All it takes is one he said/she said, or worst of all, one rape. One misunderstanding, one person who thinks because the limits are lifted a little, it means they're lifted all the way.

Why was this not done behind closed doors? Why was it done publicly? I don't want to see other women making this kind of choice. To them it's freedom; to me it looks like they are allowing themselves to be treated as objects. Yes, in their own minds they are free, but do they know what is in the minds of those who fondle them, and those who see them fondled? By keeping it private, they have more control over those fondling them being the kind of person who perceives them as free and giving (maybe). But in public they lend themselves to others' perception of women as collections of parts to be handled. Even if they carried big, informative signs or gave PowerPoint demonstrations about their understanding of what they did, they cannot govern the views of others. They perpetuate a perception of women as sex toys, without even meaning to. I wish they had limited the damage.

I had a WONDERFUL time at Penguicon 6. How many people will remember that as the con of the two singing Tesla coils, and the comics artists drawing all over that guy's skull, and the Tron guy and the Ox delivering goodies from Acme? Or will they remember it as the con where guys were grabbing girls' tits?

Tim and I are off to Penguicon this weekend, so I may not be able to reply to many comments about this article, but I wanted to get it up because I think we're all interested in this aspect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints case. I know it presents issues that will have all of us thinking.

I believed at first that it was a good idea to keep the mothers with the 413 kids who were taken from the Yearn For Zion Ranch, so the kids would have someone older and familiar in such crushingly new surroundings. Slowly it occurred to me over the weekend that, what was I, nuts? The adult women are every bit as much part of the culture that create this abusive situation as the men. They rear the children up in this faith, boys to become throwaways or patriarch/rapists in their turn, girls to become wives/victims/mothers in theirs. It is the adult women who sell acceptance of new wives, whatever their age, and acceptance of their own youthful marriage/rape. Sending the mothers with those kids just meant the strongest voices for their education were put in temporary housing with them.

Thankfully, Child Protective Services and the courts in Texas figured it out, too, this last Monday:

SAN ANGELO, Texas - Texas officials who took 416 children from a polygamist retreat into state custody sent many of their mothers away Monday, as a judge and lawyers struggled with a legal and logistical morass in one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history.

Of the 139 women who voluntarily left the compound with their children since an April 3 raid, only those with children 4 or younger were allowed to continue staying with them, said Marissa Gonzales, spokeswoman for the state Children's Protective Services agency. She did not know how many women stayed.

"It is not the normal practice to allow parents to accompany the child when an abuse allegation is made," Gonzales said.

The women were given a choice: Return to the Eldorado ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon sect, or go to another safe location. Some women chose the latter, Gonzales said.

The state is accusing the sect of physically and sexually abusing the youngsters and wants to strip their parents of custody and place the children in foster care or put them up for adoption. The sheer size of the case was an obstacle.

"Quite frankly, I'm not sure what we're going to do," Texas District Judge Barbara Walther said after a conference that included three to four dozen attorneys either representing or hoping to represent youngsters.

The mothers were taken away Monday after they and the children were taken by bus under heavy security out of historic Fort Concho, where they had been staying, to the San Angelo Coliseum, which holds nearly 5,000 people and is used for hockey games, rodeos and concerts. The polygamist retreat is about 45 miles south of San Angelo.

Mothers complain kids getting sick
Authorities ordered the children to be moved after some of the youngsters' mothers complained to Gov. Rick Perry that the children were getting sick in the crowded fort.

About 20 children had a mild case of chicken pox, said Dr. Sandra Guerra-Cantu with the state Health Department.

Perry spokesman Robert Black said the governor did not believe the children were being housed in poor conditions at the West Texas fort. "Let's be honest here, this is not the Ritz," Black said, but he called the accommodations "clean and neat."

Monday's courtroom conference was held to work out the ground rules for a court hearing beginning Thursday on the fate of the children.

This story comes from the McClatchy Washington news bureau:

By Jack Douglas Jr. | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Saturday, April 12, 2008
FT. WORTH, Tex. _American taxpayers have unwittingly helped finance a polygamist sect that is now the focus of a massive child abuse investigation in West Texas, with a business tied to the group receiving a nearly $1 million loan from the federal government and $1.2 million in military contracts.

The ability of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, to operate and grow is largely dependent on huge contributions from its members and revenue from the businesses they control, according to a former accountant for the church, and government officials in Utah and Arizona, where the sect is primarily based.

One of those businesses, NewEra Manufacturing in Las Vegas, has been awarded more than $1.2 million in federal government contracts, with most of the money coming in recent years from the Defense Department for wheel and brake components for military aircraft.

A large portion of the awards were preferential no-bid or "sole source" contracts because of the company's classification as a small business, according to online databases that track federal government appropriations.

NewEra, previously known as Western Precision Inc. and located in Hildale, Utah, also received a $900,000 loan in 2005 from the federal Small Business Administration, the data show.

( more behind cut )Under Jeffs' direction, Wisan said, sect households are required to tithe at least 10 percent of their gross income to the church, plus an extra $1,000 a month.

Tim Bodily, an assistant attorney over the tax division of the Utah attorney general's office, said Wisan has received little cooperation from those within the sect, which has traditionally shown distrust for outsiders.

"He's been provided no records at all, and no one inside the organization has provided any inside knowledge. ... It's a very difficult thing to do," Bodily said. "Progress moves slow when dealing with these people. Texas has its hands full."

Douglas is a staff writer with the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.

McClatchy Newspapers 2008

-----------------------------------------------

So not only have Welfare funds in Texas, Arizona, and Utah been helping these men to maintain their lifestyle and support their harems, but federal funds are going to them, too. I used to work in investment banking, and I remember the raking-over in due diligence the attorneys gave to any kind of loan or lease before they would allow funds to go through. I wonder how much due diligence was done here as to what manner of companies were receiving these funds and just where their ability to repay was rooted.

But hey, as long as the money changed hands, right? Policing these good ol' boys about the way they kept house wasn't the job of due diligence. So what if they saw things that made them uneasy? What mattered was the business, and that business got done.

Courtesy of Daily Kos's Jeff Lieber and Bruce Coville, who sent it to me:

-------------------------------------------------------
It Is So Very Over for Obama Unless He Apologizes Very Soon...

by Jeff Lieber

Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 12:42:35 AM EDT

...for even existing AND THEN...

...for being too black and for not being black enough and for being Barack Obama and for being Barry Obama and for beating Hillary in all those states and for not beating Hillary in those other states and for raising more money than either of the other people who are running for President and for raising too much money and for being too much of a Democrat and for not being enough of a Democrat and for being too much of a liberal and for not being enough of a liberal and for wanting to court Republicans and for not wanting to court Republicans and for talking about religion too much and for not talking about religion enough and for talking about religion in the wrong way and for being charming because its really just being slick and for being a great speaker because speeches are just words and for speaking too often and for not speaking often enough and for talking about race too much and for not talking about race enough and for talking about race in the wrong way and for talking about Reagan and for not talking about Reagan and for being just like JFK and for not being enough like JFK and for not being able to convince the superdelegates and for having the support of so many superdelegates and for being a fighter and for not fighting enough and for winning Texas and for losing Texas and for voting YES on some legislation and for voting NO on some legislation and for voting PRESENT on some legislation and for taking his name off the ballot in Michigan and for not keeping his name on the ballot in Michigan and for inspiring so many young voters and for inspiring too many young voters and for having so much African American support and for having too much African American support and for not having enough white support and for having the support of the wrong whites and for not having enough hispanic support and for having support for the wrong hispanics and for having a strong wife and for having black children and for not having white children and for not having hispanic children and for not having alien children and for wanting to talk with foreign leaders and for not wanting to talk to foreign leaders and for going to church, but the wrong church and for having a muslim father, unless he wasn't a muslim father, but maybe he should've been a muslim father and for not having enough experience and for having too much experience, but not the right kind of experience, and for once starting that joke that he didn't know the punchline to and for eating the last double glazed chocolate donut and for pressing the UP button when he really had to go DOWN and for forgetting to log off his Myspace account on a public computer and for smoking and for stopping smoking and for playing basketball well, but not bowling so well and for having the gall to actually have a shot at being the next President of the United States of America!

---------------------------------------

So there, nyah.

So feminists have achieved their revolution? Women are equal? Our rights have been won in our enlightened country?

Apparently not as far as law enforcement in Texas is concerned.

For weeks we have been hearing about the round-up of women and children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints in west Texas. We've learned that men there have been marrying and having sex with under-aged girls, and until now we were told that the lead which led to the law's move on the compound came from one of those girls, now 15.

It was bad enough that this "lead" was given to law enforcement a year ago. But today it comes out, according to MSNBC.com, that Schleichler Counter Sheriff David Doran has had an informant in the church compound for four years. He has known that underaged girls were being forced into marriage against state and national law for four years. But this upstanding representative of the public's civil rights has this to say:

"We are aware that this group is capable of (sexually abusing young girls)," Doran said. "But there again, this is the United States. We are going to respect them. We're not going to violate their civil rights until we get an outcry. I've said that from day one."

There, you see? Forced marriage is only important if women and girls living in a compound under the control of men complain to outside authorities. Otherwise they should just be left to the control of their men, who today are weeping as the chapel where the marriage beds are is being searched. I would like to give each of those men a red-hot iron handkerchief for their tears.

This is the United States. We are going to respect the rights of adults to force sexual behavior on underaged girls. We are going to respect the rights of men to hold women and girls captive. Have I got that right?

I am too angry to breathe. The next person who tells me we women have it made will be lucky to walk away without my teeth in his/her throat.

Please don't tell me I am too angry, I am too intense. This walking piece of privilege has simply said what far too many people in this world still believe, that civil rights are for citizens--white men--and the rest of us can wait in line.

Enough talk is coming up over this portion of yesterday's BBC article on abortions:
Two attempts to change the law were stopped by conservative women's groups.

They say a change in the law would promote promiscuity, and weaken the moral fibre of Nigeria.

"Making more abortions available is not the answer," says Saudata Sani, a female member of the House of Representatives for Kaduna state, in northern Nigeria.

"Women need to be educated about their rights over their body and given opportunities to plan their families, but it must be done in a way that protects public morality."

that I wanted to break it out here, in part to make my own point (if I can't be grandiose in my own LJ . . .), and in part to keep the discussion about women and girls being made to adhere to other people's ideas of what is proper for the conduct of their lives.

I put up the whole article because I wanted to give younger members an idea of what it was like before Roe v. Wade. But the truth is that much of this stuff is still going on here, not just in developing world countries like Nigeria. It's just less well hidden in developing world countries.

I wanted to re-post luna_the_cat's well-informed post to yesterday's thread here:
This is also a country with a high rate of violence against women, and the idea that a man could/should/would be criminally prosecuted for beating up his wife or girlfriend simply gets laughed at. When the girls say "their boyfriend won't let them use contraception" that may well mean "or they risk a severe beating". Ditto that for even trying to refuse sex. There is, unfortunately, a great culture there of male entitlement. (Have dealt with the spillover of that as we currently have a very large population of Nigerian students where I work.)

Anyway, you can look closer to home for this. Many of the countries in South and Central America are like this, or even worse. Consider, for one example, El Salvador, where abortion is completely illegal even to save the life of the mother; it is considered far less of a sin to let the woman die, of say a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, than it is to abort any developing fetus. After all, all this sort of thing is up to God. (Makes me wonder why they bother with any sort of medical treatment, of anything, if they really go by that argument.)

Or, just for giggles, consider the Philippines, where ANY form of birth control except for the "natural, rhythm method" is illegal, because they don't want to "ruin Filipino values" (that's a quote from Manila City Mayor Jose Atienza, by the way).

Everywhere that bans abortion has the same result: lots more women die, because sometimes taking the chance with your life seems like a better option than being forced to have a child. Aside from that, even more women end up with children they can't afford and the whole family suffers for it.

I have a distinct problem with defining the interests of any entity where it is reasonably possible to debate its personhood, as being more important than the rights and interests of an indubitable person, if you see what I'm saying.

And I'm afraid the usual emotive arguments about "but it's a life!" become just remarkably meaningless once one has been plating cells for a while. Undifferentiated cells turn into heart cells by default, did you know that? If you don't tell a stem cell to be something else, it turns into a heart cell. And they start "beating" as soon as they become mature enough to build up an ion potential. There is nothing freakier than opening a cabinet to find a whole tray of petri dishes full of little, fluttering "hearts". But that's pretty much the point at which one stops equating "has a heartbeat" with "is alive". Sure, they're alive. Just in precisely the same was as kidney cells are alive, and considerably less than the way that baby mice are alive. It doesn't maintain quite the same emotional pull.

As an interesting side note, in my historical perambulations of New England town records of the 17th C., I was startled to realise that the Puritans themselves had an awful lot of pregnancies of unmarried girls...and an awful lot of these were "lost". And, it was considered far more acceptable for an unmarried young woman to lose the pregnancy, than it was to bear a baby and name the father. It's a far more interesting take on "morality" than what makes it into the standard mythologised history.

And to it I want to point out that promiscuity and morality are all too often cited in our own cultures as reasons to rid ourselves of abortion, sex education, and readily available contraception. We can't look down our noses at developing world countries for this, not when "promiscuity" and "public morality" are used by everyone from parents to elected officials to school commissioners to say "our girls and young women have no brains about their lives." This is not just a developing world problem. It is our own as well.

When I did the Blog for Choice Day, I remember there were at least a couple of posts from younger women saying they hadn't known how bad it could be when I was young, or when women who were older than me were young.

Today I found this report on BBC World News online. If you change the national references, and use terms like "knitting needle" or "coat hanger" instead of "stick," and add granny remedies with local materials instead of Alligator chillies, you'll get an even clearer idea of what it was like here, before Roe v. Wade. This is the world we could return to if our courts give in to pressure and decide we are not equipped to make decisions about our bodies and futures.


Saving Nigerians from risky abortions

By Andrew Walker
BBC News website, Abuja

When she discovered she was pregnant, Faith stole a few thousand naira - about $40 - from her mother to pay for a secret abortion.

Women in Nigeria
In Nigeria women can only get an abortion is their life is at risk

The 21-year-old wasn't ready to have a baby, she said.

She doesn't have enough money to look after a child as she earns only 300 naira per day, just over $2.5 (£1.30).

"They put iron inside me, it pains a lot," she said in a written answer to questions from the BBC.

"I was vomiting, and felt sad."

The "doctor" was not trained to perform abortions, and may not have been qualified at all.

Faith is fortunate to be alive.

Figures show that 10,000 women die every year in Nigeria from unsafe abortions, carried out by untrained people in unsanitary conditions.

That is 27 deaths every day.

According to the US-based Guttmacher Institute, that is one sixth of the total number of women who die worldwide from such procedures.

( more behind cut )
"Women need to be educated about their rights over their body and given opportunities to plan their families, but it must be done in a way that protects public morality."

Other medical specialists say that the law is just a part of the picture.

"Even if it was possible to get a legal abortion, many women would not be able to get a safe one," said Dr Francis Ohanyido, the president of the International Public Health Forum.

"Medical facilities vary widely and it is almost impossible to guarantee quality."

Cultural taboos mean even if there was a clinic in their town, it would be impossible for most women to go there, he said.

Among the 12 women the BBC questioned, five said they believed it would be wrong to make abortion more easily available.

Sharle, a 25-year-old university student, who had an abortion so she could continue her education, said she regretted what she did, saying it was against God's commandments.

My friend and fellow writer Bruce Coville posted the following last week on Daily Kos, and I thought it said so much about those of us who grew up at a particular time that I wanted to re-post it here. (Bruce said I could.) You may not feel this way about our candidate, but I think you will still understand the sentiments--I hope you will, anyway.

I remember the Sixties. Even though I was a kid, the time was impossible to forget. Particularly, perhaps, because I was a kid, with a kid's expectations, that the greater world of television and the government would remain steady and sane. Then came the first body blow, with John F. Kennedy's assassination and, to make it worse, the unthinkable murder of his accused killer right before our eyes. Then the period of mourning followed, with his now-dead child saluting his passing cortege. Remember the days after 9/11, that feeling of being lost and adrift in a world gone crazy? It was like that, only quieter. As time passed I felt that growing awareness of civil rights and Vietnam, the sense of the world getting shaky under our feet. Then Martin Luther King was murdered, followed by Robert Kennedy. Those horrible times were followed by the anarchy of the Democratic convention in which it seemed like government itself was being murdered, or committing suicide. So you see, I know and share what Bruce has to say here:
------------------------------------------------------
I've been waiting forty years

Fri Apr 04, 2008 at 01:19:44 AM EDT

It's hard for anyone who wasn't there to understand what 1968 was like. Even harder, perhaps, to understand what it was like to come of age in the late 60's. It was a time of enormous hope, unbelievable possibility, and crushing loss. I was seventeen the night Martin Luther King was assassinated, and I can still remember the pain of hearing that news. (And I was a white kid in the north, so my pain was as nothing compared to that of the folk who were really invested in him.) I remember where I was the morning I heard that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. I remember the insanity of the 1968 democratic convention when Eugene McCarthy, the first politician to whom I gave my heart, was shoved aside so the machine could continue with Hubert Humphrey, a once great man who had been compromised by his loyalty to Lyndon Johnson, a once great man made insane by the trap of the Vietnam War.

I remember the hope, and I remember the loss. I remember the way dreams died at Kent State.

And my heart has been broken for forty years, mourning for the country that I love, and the dreams that I grew up with.

Let me make it clear. I'm a left wing radical who is wildly patriotic, in love with this country because of what I learned in church, the boy scouts, and my public school civics classes. (I know how to fold and care for a flag, which is more than I can say for the right wing assholes who claim to honor the flag but leave it hanging outside, faded and tattered, in all sorts of weather.) All I have ever wanted is for us to be be what I was taught we are: the home of hope and freedom.

Hell, it was believing what I was taught that made me a radical to begin with. I just wanted us to mean what we said.

As a result, I've spent forty years with a broken heart. And now - like the guy who has been dumped a dozen times, but is ready to give love one last chance - I'm filled with hope again. And it scares me. Because I don't know if I can take having my heart broken one more time.

But this time it feels different. It really does.

This time it starts to feel like, after forty years (forty-five, if you mark the start of our long national nightmare with the assassination of John Kennedy) that we may be ready to come home to our own best selves.

I have wept buckets of tears over this campaign, but they are the best tears, the tears of joy, the tears of hope, the tears of "Yes we can."

In Barack Obama,in the gathering that he has inspired of young and old; the gathering of black, white, Latino, Asian, and every other ethnic group imaginable; the gathering of straight and gay; the gathering of old line democrats and republicans ready for something new, I feel a kind of hope that was crushed forty years ago in the streets of Chicago, in the election of Richard Nixon, in the continuation of a crazed, immoral, and illegal war.

I fucking love this country, and I have been waiting forty years for it to come to its senses.

I'm willing to fall in love one more time.

It's the scariest thing I've done in several decades.

Bruce Coville

No, I haven't died--but I am between trips and hammering to finish BLOODHOUND. Jackson Hole was absolutely glorious, and I have to go back when I have more time to spend. The people were very welcoming, the scenery was to die for, and I saw many cool critters. Idaho was also wonderful, because my Ma and step-sibs were there, but also because I saw my beloved Thousand Springs again. This coming weekend isn't the same for scenery, but I will be getting my 4th ever award from the New Jersey Council of Teachers of English, and attending Ad-Astra in Toronto, where I hope to pick up more tips on con running.

In the meantime, to delight your eyes (I hope--this delights the hell out of me every spring), I give you the link to the peregrine webcam at the Rachel Carson Office Building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. So far the female peregrine who has nested there for the last four years has laid two eggs--she's sitting on them right now as I post this, but you'll be able to see them for yourself later (unless she's laying a third?!). It's static images now, refreshed every two minutes, but as it gets closer to hatching time, the feed will go to video for those with the systems to handle it. This is my favorite activity of the spring, and it will be three years of watching the birth and fledging of the "pancakes," as I refer to them. (Once you see them, maybe you'll know why). If you catch the site at the right times, you'll see Mom and Dad checking in, watching over, and feeding (not for those with an urp reflex).

I hope you love it as much as I do!