Shirley Sherrod ...

Impressive lady ... but notice it appears they did not actually offer her HER JOB back. They offered her a different job.

That has the appearance of taking her back, putting her somewhere out of the way and getting her to stop impressing people at their expense.

Today's quote ...

. . . people with privilege treat everyone else as their personal jokes.

-- Disability and feminism: one person's experience by katemoore at feministing.com

At least they are not suggesting it's separate but equal ...

From McClatchy by By Yonat Shimron, Raleigh News & Observer

Learning to swim: For Muslim women in U.S., it's not easy

Culture and religion are intricately entwined. Most women in the US have much more independence, opportunities and freedom than was allowed when I was growing up.

Expect the Christian fundamentalists to use the quasi cultural/religious 'modesty' of Muslim women as a propaganda tactic against women's independence in the United States. Christian, Moslem and Mormon fundamentalists will gang up to impose their shared desire to strip women of all rights and enforce their control over women's bodies and behavior just as we have already witnessed the combined efforts of the ultra right Christian and Mormon fundamentalists combine to lie and scheme to defeat Proposition 8 in California.

As for the segregated bathhouse, well, all precedents seem harmless in the beginning ...

This all makes me uneasy. I'd be much more comfortable if these differences in dress and behavior were attributed to culture and diverse cultures respected in all reasonable aspects. When religion gets involved then the first step is for the minority religion to demand its right to their own specific version of their cultural preferences (which of course come from their own version or God). All fine and good. But once those have been accepted the next step is to suggest, then demand, that everyone else should follow their rules, because, you know, their rules are the right ones, obviously. Their god said so.

How do we keep them in the 'live and let live' stage? The US Constitution was supposed to help with that. But with everyone ignoring it lately it has not counted for much.

---

---

Today's QUOTES:

This development was hailed as a breakthrough by behavioral psychologists studying learned helplessness, who look forward to analyzing Pelosi's recent diet and other environmental influences to see if a similar shift in thinking can be provoked in Senate majority leader Harry Reid. --After 2 Years, Nancy Pelosi Realizes Democrats Have a Majority in the House by Swopa, firedoglake.com Reid and Pelosi are representing the Republican minority view quite well. Complete mission fail from Democratic leadership, once again. --Gaza Attacks Roil Iraq — Where’s The “Debate”? by Jane Hamsher, firedoglake.com

---

---

Women are being singled out for discrimination because of head scarves? ...

Good grief. These 'scarves' are obviously part of their attire. Forget about the religious indoctrination that forces women to hide themselves, there is nothing wrong about these scarves. I can see where the outfits that hide an entire person except for her eyes could be a concern when security is an issue, but other than that who cares. The only people who could possibly care are the ones who buy into having parts of themselves hidden from public view (and we all do to varying degrees) and those who find it a handy excuse to abuse, bully, intimidate and discriminate.

A judge gave a woman 10 days in jail because she refused to take off her scarf because of her religion.

Hall said Valentine, an insurance underwriter, told the bailiff that she had been in courtrooms before with the scarf on and that removing it would be a religious violation. When she turned to leave and uttered an expletive, Hall said a bailiff handcuffed her and took her before the judge.

[Link: Does anyone else see the irony here?]

Notice something peculiar about all this? The woman was leaving when the bailiff decided to detain her (is that the same as arrest?). Then the judge sentenced her to 10 days for contempt. How dare she attempt to enter the court attired in a manner that gave them the ability to vent their prejudices and then turn to leave when told she couldn't enter. First they insist on being the deciders of what she can wear on her head in the courtroom and then when she decides to leave rather than remove the scarf they objected to they jail her anyway.

Eight years of Bush has eliminated even the pretense of justice in the US.

---

---

Today's QUOTES:

Doesn't that look objective and scientific to you: 'the study of gender or sex differences'? I can see the men (and women! there must be a few women!) in their white coats in laboratories all over the country, sincerely and earnestly staring into test tubes or the desperate eyes of monkeys in cages, all studying gender differences without any preconceptions, without any bias. Just a pure-as(s)-snow scientific inquiry into why biology is destiny, but only for women. ... --Penis Envy by echidne, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES ... Indeed, had Obama answered the question affirmatively, he would have broken with a powerful, 40-year-old political tradition that requires government representatives to endorse strictly prohibitionist, punitive drug policies despite mounting evidence of their inefficacy in order to avoid appearing “soft on crime.” [AE: Wouldn't want that kind of CHANGE, would we?] --Calls for Drug Law Reform Top Obama Transition Website at change.gov by Amy Long, The ACLU's Blog of Rights

---

---

Yesterdays' QUOTES ...

... the sunshine-state Republicans have nominated an unrepentant torturer as their candidate for Congress. They view his readiness to torture an innocent Iraqi not as a source of shame, but as his prime qualification for office. This is American conservatism in the dying days of Bush – and it points out the direction that Sarah Palin would like to take it in 2012.

-------------
It's the unspeakable solution to "the unsolved riddle of social justice." It's the unmentionable "ultimate solution" to the problem of full employment. It's the unutterable "preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvement and emancipation must prove abortive."

-------------
Our alien visitor finds all this extremely fascinating. It just pointed to me how this approach is in direct conflict with the fact that 50.7% of all Americans are female. Mostly earthlings think that having one woman on a committee or a couple of women in a movie or television show is plenty! A movie which reflects that 50.7% frequency from real life is at risk for being labeled a chick flick, something for women only. A movie with 100% male cast has a fairly good chance of being seen as mainstream unless it's about porn.

-------------
Curious stuff. Now for the odd paradox of extreme visibility/invisibility: Because women are still often seen as Others, one or two representatives from that group both suffice AND draw our attention! This means that most women are invisible as people, but that the women in the public eye are extremely visible as spoonfuls of that amorphous substance called womanhood.

-------------
... In other words, it was the very embodiment of Glorious Beltway "bipartisan" foreign policy tribunals -- numerous hard-core, right-wing ideologues sprinkled with a couple of like-minded right-wing Democrats and a neutral establishment technocrat or two, all endorsing a pre-ordained, flagrantly extremist, war-loving policy which is then deemed "the harmonious mainstream Center" which no Serious Person opposes.

Hypocrisy, stupidity or ignorance?

Or all of the above?

Isn't it always the way that when bigots are confronted with their actions they claim they are being discriminated against.

It's called hypocrisy, but it's unlikely that the people who involve themselves in the persecution of gays have the capacity to understand such issues. They just know they want to enshrine their beliefs in the law. Being free to follow their beliefs is not enough. They want everyone to suffer their hatred.

Yesterdays' QUOTES ...

Yet even as they obsess over Barack Obama and Bill Ayers -- just as the McCain campaign tells them to --the news media have all but ignored John McCain's close ties to Gordon Liddy. A Nexis search** finds fewer than 100 news reports that have mentioned McCain and Liddy this year.

The idea that truth is merely a social construct, that it's subjective, in other words, first appeared in academia as a corruption of post-modernism, but it’s taken root in our culture without our really realizing it or understanding its implications.

[ ... ]

Although this kind of thinking, relativism and constructivism, started on the left, many conservatives now feel empowered by it, too, and some of them have embraced it with a vengeance on issues ranging from global warming and evolution to the war in Iraq.

We then try to explain to them why the outer shell color of people matters so much on this planet and why those individuals who can lay eggs (sorta) are regarded as second-class quality essentially everywhere while the egg-laying ability itself is lauded to high heavens. The aliens then roll all their eight eyeballs and decide to vacation on Alpha Centaur next time.

Not being "the other" has some great advantages. For instance, when John McCain or Joe Biden do something stupid they only affect their own reputations, because white men are not "the other". They are individuals. When Barack Obama or Sarah Palin do something stupid they affect the reputations of African-Americans or women respectively (at least among all racists and sexists). They serve as embodiments of the groups they represent. This is the case as long as Firsts are necessary, as long as we only have a handful of individuals on which to base our group assessments.

ACLU, and others, suing Sheriff Joe ...

The Feathered Bastard gets to the heart of the class action suit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office [MCSO] by the Arizona ACLU, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, (MALDEF) and the Phoenix law firm Steptoe and Johnson with this terse paraphrase: " ... all Latinos targeted by the MCSO because their skin is brown."

Some of Sheriff Joe's accomplishments:

... A Mexican national in the country legally and with the papers to prove it is arrested and held for nine hours, before finally being released. Hispanic Americans are stopped and subjected to the sort of interrogation and humiliating treatment that their Anglo counterparts escape. In perhaps the most egregious example, a Hispanic American man is arrested and handcuffed in front of his family's auto repair shop, all because his sister was singing along to some Spanish music. A swarm of vindictive Sheriff's deputies surrounded the man with their weapons drawn, even though he's done absolutely nothing wrong. Ultimately, he's released without being cited.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Is this a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face? ... Sen. Barack Obama's top fundraisers have asked his campaign donors to refrain from contributing to liberal independent political organizations in hopes of controlling the tone and message of the general-election campaign. [ ... ] The McCain campaign has been less organized than Obama's in its efforts to counter the groups, but the senator from Arizona has made clear his antipathy toward them -- without much effect. ... anyone think McCain seriously cares about the swift-boating of Obama? Does Obama actually believe McCain cares or would do anything substantive to stop it? Will Democratic politicians really ignore the last eight years and get snookered again?

... As I have pleaded with you to understand, they are dishonest and cruel, they are crafty and deceptive, they aren’t stupid. Like all successful con men, they will deceive those they are robbing and destroying quite successfully. They are far from stupid.

I'd just like to say this to Clinton supporters. The spate of endorsements of Sen. Obama will continue. Every victory of Sen. Clinton's will be followed immediately by high profile endorsements to blunt the impact of that victory - it's called politics. ... Politics it may be, but I find it very disappointing that Edwards chose to endorse the least progressive candidate, the one with no real national health plan.

... The oppressor may inflict unimaginable cruelties on innocent victims -- but the victims may only protest in ways which the oppressor deems "acceptable." The profound injustice is obvious, but not in itself remarkable or unexpected: this is how oppression operates. ...

The media deserves a large share of the blame ... All this might be quite funny if one doesn’t consider the consequences for the Republic. When historians try to figure out how the most powerful nation on earth managed to end up under the control of someone as unfit as George W. Bush for eight years, they will have to take note of this media phenomenon. ... and their destructive role has not been accidental.

It’s an example of how American law enforcement tends to marginalize black discontent by attributing it to more organized external forces. This is a tendency rooted in U.S. tradition: black radicals and civil rights activists of past eras were often linked to communists and other “outside agitators” — as if the progeny of enslaved Africans needed Karl Marx to detail their gripes about life in America. Now, apparently, the government claims the link is with Osama bin Laden.

... now that it's clear Hillary's presidential campaign is all but over, the right is proceeding apace with its attempt to Hillary-ize Michelle Obama. ... [...] ... We know what the right did to Hillary, and we can expect them to do a lot of the same things to Michelle. How do we combat this?

Moyers: “ ... We’re not going to have a discourse in this campaign over the fact that the great American wealth machine is benefiting only those at the top. We’re not going to get to the fact that 10% of the people own 60% of the wealth and 70% of the people have no net worth. We’re not going to get to the issues of how do we rebuild the infrastructure, the sewer, the water, the highways, all that. We’re just going to be constantly in this battle of bumper stickers.”

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Man, I'm sick of reading Pravda in NY Times drag

Elitist finger wagging at members of an oppressed group is not only counter-productive, but it is consistent with how minority groups are dealt with around the world. ...

Rape In The Military: The Other Inbound Wounded

Third rate candidates talk about events.
Second rate candidates talk about issues.
First rate candidates talk about principles.
Can The Press Really Elect McCain?

So I ask again, should these US Attorneys not be suspended while Congress investigates so that they can not further damage the legal system in the interim? Should state legislatures be this afraid of a US Attorney appointed by a President of a different political party, so afraid that they have become (as NYT notes) paranoid and nervous enough that a northern publication, the New York Times, would actually run an article on it and even title it "Fear, Paranoia and, Yes, Some Loathing in Alabama State House?"?

Apparently, Alabama is running toward the Soviet model with open arms and Mississippi is close on its heels, while the Congress has failed to demand something as basic as the temporary removal of these prosecutors while they investigate allegations of corruption against these three US Attorneys.

Is Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio surrounded yet? ...

A mayor of a small town in Arizona tells Sheriff Joe to get out of town:

Last night was a night of high drama as Sheriff Joe brought his illegal immigrant dragnet to the small town of Guadalupe, and the citizens and the mayor of that city demanded Joe leave. Last night around 10:30, Guadalupe Mayor Rebecca Jimenez personally presented Joe a statement to this effect in the parking lot of the Family Dollar where the MCSO was stationed. According to Jimenez, Joe accused her of inciting a riot and informed her she had 90 days to cancel Guadalupe's contract with the MCSO to provide law enforcement to the town. Jimenez and other town council members present said they would be reviewing the MCSO's contract.

This is a brave thing for a small town mayor to do given the increasingly gestapo tactics in use in the US (by police, sheriffs, Federal Agents and specially Federal Prosecutors) in the Age of Bush.

Bravo Mayor Jimenez!

Black Super Delegates being threatened by Obama Supporters ...

“African-American superdelegates are being targeted, harassed and threatened,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.), a superdelegate who has supported Clinton since August. Cleaver said black superdelegates are receiving “nasty letters, phone calls, threats they’ll get an opponent, being called an Uncle Tom. (via The Left Coaster)

Obama needs to come out against this behavior NOW. Or we will have to assume that he is behind it and will do ANYthing to win; even act like a creepy, incompetent, bullying Republican attempting to destroy the Democratic Party.

This is like proposing that Obama should win the nomination BECAUSE he's black. Even I, who strongly believe in quotas to ensure the inclusion of individuals from groups that have been discriminated against into industry, schools and universities, find this repulsive and destructive. Obama needs to address this and stop his followers from using these tactics. This is BushCo/Rove tactics.

Read eriposte's full post. It's very disturbing.

I don't think Hillary Clinton has a RIGHT to the nomination. And if I didn't think she was qualified I wouldn't want her to get the nomination and even though she was not my first choice I DO think she is extremely qualified and would like to see her get elected President.

Neither does Obama have a RIGHT to the nomination. Being black is not a qualification. I don't know if he's qualified. His noise machine is always drowning out any substance before I ever get a chance to make up my mind about him.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

... and so at 11:00 o'clock a.m. on a Tuesday, a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race as though they were adults ...


... But there should be no doubt in anyone's mind five years later that both the coverage and the attitude of the press towards the Bush administration in 2002/03 was disgracefully craven. ...


Is toppling Saddam so important that it warranted a trillion dollars of crippling debt, a busted military, thousands of dead innocents, a new haven for Al Qaeda, and the destruction of an occupied country?

We need to be able to talk about race ...

Steve Soto writes:

... I flatly resent the need for Obama to give a speech on race and politics today.

I agree with him that this is another act of discrimination (against Dems in particular, not just blacks) by the press.

On the other hand I think we, as a nation, need to be able to talk about race. It's impossible to have a conversation about race in this country (just like it's impossible to have a conversation about Israel).

Obama's speech on race was exceptional, needed and hopefully, will not be the last such 'conversation.'

Prejudice from male scientists ...

Female Fickleness May Split a Species by Matt Kaplan

Selection or choice or decision are not usually considered derogatory terms, but fickleness is definitely derogatory. Fickle comes from ficol (Old English) which means deceitful.

So why choose a derogatory term for a decision or choice being made by a female bird when so many other non-derogatory, and more scientific, terms are available?

More of the Red Mind ...

This red-minded guy is talking about Representative Raul Grijalva:

Now, this congress critter involves himself in every little Mexican cause that comes down the pike, whether it's a legitimate issue or not. Illegals are his favorite--as long as they play the downtrodden victim card. He's involved himself in the Catalina protests. When he campaigns, he forgets he has white constituents in his district and panders solely to the illegals. He is truly the Mexican version of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. If it involves illegals, you can rest assured he's there to fan the flames--whether it's a legitimate issue or not, whether he has all the facts or not. He's there, facts be damned.

Certainly a sizable portion of Grijalva's constituency are of Mexican descent (because Republicans engineered this district so it would be so). As of the 2000 census 50.6% of Grijalva's district (Arizona Congressional District 7) describe themselves as Hispanic.

However what the red-minded don't appear to understand, or deliberately ignore, is that

1. only US citizens can vote for him, and
2. US citizens of Mexican descent do not all agree on the solutions to US immigration problems (same as those of us who are not of Mexican descent).

Another RED mind ...

The Red minded and chauvinistic Dwight Leister at 'American Chauvinist' appears to think that most of our taxes are paying for illegal immigrants and wants that stopped.

TAXPAYER REVOLT:NO MORE PROPERTY TAX INCREASES TO PAY FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS IN OUR SCHOOLS,HOSPITALS OR USING SOCIAL SERVICES FORCING THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER OUT OF THERE HOMES! (Note: I've not seen all the details listed about the deported family reported in the news as yet so some of what Leister writes may be his assumptions and not facts.)

Leister is just ecstatic that a Tucson school outed, with the help of a police officer, a family that had been living illegally in this country for some time (and undoubtedly paying all kinds of taxes and fees in the process). The family was deported. But Leister, who does not want a cent of his taxes to go to services that might by chance be used to help an illegal immigrant, does want his taxes used to incarcerate the family rather than deporting them.

Info and opinions about deported student and his family:

Family deported after boy's arrest at school --Immigrant rights concerns raised; police say action was appropriate by Brady McCombs, 11.06.2007

Opinion by Ernesto Portillo Jr. : Deportation stirs backlash --100 march in protest of Border Patrol going on Catalina High campus: Students were right to march, and we can expect to see more like it Opinion by Ernesto Portillo Jr., 11.07.2007

Letters to the Editor at the Arizona Daily Star (note: most letters were against the family)
Deportation is not justified

The suspension of the Catalina High student was justified; however, the student and his family's deportation was not. The Tucson Police Department works for Tucson, not Nogales, not Phoenix and not the Border Patrol.

Suggesting that Tucson police should start identifying possible illegal immigrants for deportation is ridiculous. Enforcing immigration law is a distraction to the police goal of keeping its jurisdiction safe and productive. It also downplays the huge job the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement perform.

The Tucson police should continue to enforce our local and state laws and leave immigration to the proper federal agencies.

Casey Stone

College student, Tucson

Integral Options Cafe

Southern Arizona is a hotspot for illegal immigration. Perhaps more than anywhere else, the battle over illegal aliens has been in the news nearly constantly for years.

Today, the Arizona Daily Star covered a story about a family that was deported last Thursday after their teen son was discovered to have a small amount of marijuana at school. The family had been in Tucson for six years, had a house, and had two kids in the school system.

Border Reporter on same

The RED mind ...

Arizona Republican Representative Jeff Flake voted off the reservation and 'Seeing Red AZ' is concerned Flake's vote would help legitimatize 'life styles' that will invade Arizona's schools and churches -and 'other' places.

The U.S. House has passed HR3685, or “ENDA,” a bill that ostensibly prohibits discrimination against homosexuals. In reality, it puts in place another plank to legitimize that lifestyle. “Legitimizing” ultimately makes it more difficult to keep it out of schools, churches, and other places where one might want to make reasonable exceptions.

A call for invasion and democracy should come next from the RED sector of the State of Arizona ...

Yesterdays's QUOTES ...

In the right direction? ... The agency does not have data on companies pulling call-center services back from overseas but is aware of the trend anecdotally, said Laura Shaw, a spokeswoman for TREO. ... now lets get some manufacturing back. The same cheaply designed and produced product from every retailer is not what I call progress.

Ya don't say ... “The acceptance of sexist humor leads men to believe that sexist behavior falls within the bounds of social acceptability.”
Chuck Schumer, just another Rubberstamp Democrat ... Yes, isn't it appealing for the United States Senate to say unambiguously that that torture is wrong. Wow, what a concept. But apparently not appealing enough for Chuck Schumer.... so Mukasey told Chuckie Cheesie that he, Mukasey, would follow the law. Told Chuckie privately? But would NOT say the same publicly to the nation? So Chuckie is what? Stupid? So gullible he never learns even after 7 long and painful years? Or he is just plain complicit with the illegal goings-on of Bush's corrupt administration.

Driving while brown ...

Hispanic motorists were the most likely to be searched, arrested, cited and to receive multiple citations and the least likely to get off with warnings.

But hey, don't get too upset ... there could be, uh, 'other' factors ... the authorities don't need no stinking laws to hamper them, they just 'know' who's guilty and what everyone else is thinking! Only those laws that facilitate the authorities control of the public apply.

PHOENIX -- A study of traffic stops conducted by Arizona Department of Public Safety officers found evidence of possible racial profiling by officers, although researchers cautioned that other factors may be responsible for high rates of stops and searches of minority drivers.

The University of Cincinnati report mirrors findings by a Northern Arizona University researchers three years ago. The new study shows Highway Patrol officers were more than twice as likely to search vehicles driven by Hispanics and blacks than white drivers during 2006. Minorities also were far more likely to be arrested or to receive multiple traffic citations.

Hispanic motorists were the most likely to be searched, arrested, cited and to receive multiple citations and the least likely to get off with warnings.

The 223-page report was done to satisfy terms of a 2006 settlement of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and criminal defendants that accused officers of targeting minority motorists along interstate highways near Flagstaff.

Here's how I interpret these findings. I've owned at least one vehicle that had recurring tail light problems (that is the turn signals and/or the tail light would just stop working). In all, I was stopped maybe 5 or 6 times over a period of several years. I would get the warning, get the tail light fixed (again) and after some period of time (months or a year) the light would go out again. Sometimes I caught it myself. The way I read these finding is that if I were dark in color and/or non European looking I would stand a very good chance of being arrested and/or having my car searched because of that damned tail light. To me that's harassment, plain and simple. Certainly I need to get the light fixed but to use such an excuse to stop, search, interrogate and arrest people is not the sign of a free country. In addition it leads to corruption. It becomes just too easy to pretend there is a stoppable problem with any vehicle. Lying has just become too easy for our police. Everyone expects them to do it. They never appear to be held accountable when they are caught lying. So much for integrity. So much for justice. So much for a respect for the law. So much for freedom.