Representative Conyers is Fighting For Our Homes

One last post for the night. Here is a video that Rep. Conyers and David Dayen (of Calitics fame) created to invite people to tell their foreclosure story and explain how Conyers' sponsored legislation is designed to change bankruptcy laws and stop foreclosures. You can read more about it at Brave New Films.

I just passed this link on to a friend. It's via Balloon Juice and it is all kinds of awesome.

Have You Heard? Conservative States are Top Porn Consumers

I just love this.

Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year's presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama.

Gotta love them family values. Well, it seems to me that the more a healthy desire is suppressed, the more in comes out in the form of projection and shadow. So, name it and claim it, conservatives! Adding to this relatively minor tidbit is the more noticeable idiocy pertaining to sex education going on in the Texas public school system. Their abstinence only programs are a dismal failure if your metric is factually informed teens.

The study was published by Texas Freedom Network and they looked at the study materials from over 900 school programs. Not really surprisingly, they found massive factual errors. The report was called "Just Say Know" and it states,

"The overwhelming majority of Texas schools use scare tactics and spread myths in place of teaching basic sex and health information that students can use to protect themselves and others."

As Steven Benen points out, let's not forget that there is more than an ethical and public health cost to this incompetence. Economically, misinformation is really expensive:

Texas, thanks to its taxpayer-financed confusion, has one of the highest teen-pregnancy rates in the nation, costing the state "approximately $1 billion annually for the costs of teen childbearing.

AIG Bailout Further Explained

I'm no economist so I am trying really hard to understand this mess we're in. It's difficult to find well-written articles explaining in simple language who did what to whom and why. This is the best article I've read yet about why AIG was in such bad shape (specific things they did/did not do and how they communicated to other financial entities about risk/return) and why they continue to need the gobs and gobs of taxpayer dollars they're getting. It doesn't look like it's going to end anytime soon.
Also this:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Simple

Check the mouse over at the website. What he says about higher math professors is totally true.

Van Jones Speaks to Congress

I think Van Jones is one of the most important voices for change in our time. Here is a video of him speaking to Congress about how we can create/improve national service.

More Thursday 80's Progressive Rock Blogging

Another music video tonight is of REM from the 80's: Begin the Begin. The lyrics are truly prophetic:

"Life's rich demand creates supply in the hand
Of the powers, the only vote that matters
Silence means security silence means approval
On Zenith, on the TV, tiger run around the tree
Follow the leader, run and turn into butter
Let's begin again like Martin Luther zen
The mythology begins the begin
Answer me a question I can't itemize
I can't think clear, you look to me for reason
It's not there, I can't even rhyme here in the begin"

The photos put to the song are just haunting.

Here's Chrissie. I love her.

Thursday 80's Progressive Rock Blogging

I loved The Mighty Lemon Drops. They were badly underrated. KSJS (local college station) played them and that's how I found most of the great music I enjoyed in high school.

We Must Break The Conservative Majority In Congress

Here is a way that Accountability Now would help ensure our representatives choose policy that is in the interests of everyday people. The cram-downs being considered as part of the housing bill that Obama supports, are being used as a way to hold up the legislation. There is agreement among progressive Dems. Guess who's holding it up? Our moderate and Blue Dog Dems. These are not representatives who are thinking about their constituents. They are thinking about the big cash donations from big corporations that they'll likely lose if they don't tow this ridiculous line. These are not good people and they need to be corrected in their thinking.

What's Accountability Now?

Accountability Now PAC

This is so great. I've been waiting for some sort of coordinated effort that's grassroots in nature and focused on laser beam tracking of Congressional Democrats who vote far more conservatively than their liberal constituencies. Part of what has allowed the Blue Dogs in Congress to wield the power that they do, even when they are out of alignment with their districts' voting trends, is that no one is able to track them and then make sure their respective constituents know about how they are voting/obstructing or whose interests they are representing. This is one important and really effective way to solve that. Also, for all you civil rights lovers out there, Glenn Greenwald is one of the co-founders and he brings good thinking to all his ventures.

Accountability Now has a "single guiding principle," said co-founder Glenn Greenwald, "of challenging the institutional power structures that make it so easy, so consequence-free for Congress to open up the government coffers for looting by corporate America while people across the country are losing their jobs and their basic constitutional rights while unable to afford basic health care."

According to the PAC's Executive Director Jeff Hauser, Accountability Now will "help create the political space needed to enable President Obama to make good on the many progressive policies he campaigned on - such as getting out of Iraq, ensuring access to affordable health care for every man, woman and child, restoring our constitutional liberties and ending torture."

Go. Join. Donate. Get this venture off the ground. Help. If you care about Obama's efforts in progressive policy making, support him in this way. He will be MUCH more likely to make a difference with support in Congress! (h/t)

Finding teh Funny with Mr. Stewart

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Unusual Suspect

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Funny Political News
Joke of the Day

Ellen Tauscher-CA 10 Needs to Hear From CA Residents On HR 200

This is a super easy action item. The House is voting on HR (House Resolution)200 tomorrow. This is Conyers' bill that allows homeowners to renegotiate the terms of their loans in bankruptcy court. As it currently stands, if you own a second home, fancy car, yacht or other such thing, that is something that may be renegotiated during bankruptcy. But not your primary residence. The laws are clearly designed for the wealthy and Conyers is trying to address that massive inequity by allowing those who are in crisis to have flexibility in the courts dealing with their mortgages. These types of modifications are often referred to as "cramdowns" (and if anyone knows why I'd be ever so grateful for an explanation).

Anyway, here is the action item. As Chris Bowers (via Calitics) writes:

Tomorrow, the House will vote on Representative Conyer's bankruptcy cram down. The whip count is unclear right now, but some Blue Dogs and New Democrats, including Melissa Bean (D-IL), Dennis Moore (D-KS), and New Democratic chair Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), are working on behalf of the financial services industry to water down the legislation. Tauscher in particular is problematic, both because of her leadership role in one of the ideological caucuses, and also because rumors are that she has organized up to two dozen members thus far. It is about time that Tauscher, and the Representatives she is organizing, stop listening to industry lobbyists who do not have the public interest in mind.

So, let's make Representative Tauscher listen to someone else right now. Contact Ellen Tauscher, and urge her to stop organizing other Democrats to water down HR 200. She needs to listen to honewoners, not to the financial industry that got us into this economic disaster.

Here is the contact information for Tauscher:

Email form

(California residents only)
D.C. office: 202.225.1880

It's super easy. I just sent an email. Sometimes just 20-30 people sending an email or making a phone call can have an enormous impact. Most of the time, they don't think anyone is watching. Let's make sure Ellen Tauscher knows we're watching.

Monty Python-Philosphers' World Cup

It is indisputable that in order to fully understand the nature of the universe, one must find this funny:

Hotel California Cosmology

More on this later, but for now-does anyone relate to this characterization of the funky spirituality endemic to California? Because I can't believe how much I relate to it. The blog looks really interesting too.

A Bunch o' Stuff

Tab Dump:
For some reason, parents sometimes have a harder time giving up on their own prejudices than their children do. /snark
The problem I have with this is that the parents blame their children for their own prejudices. Not cool. I love the tree analogy.

Britain seems to be having it's own reaction to the global economy meltdown, and it's not pretty.

Earmarks for me but not for thee.

And on the lighter side, Bobby Jindal reminds me of someone...hmmm, who could it be...?

I'll Be Post Feminist in a Post Patriarchy

What the...?!?

Gender Neutrality is in da HOUSE

Some may feel that this is no big deal but I have always felt the inherent disrespect and being made invisible aspect of using the male pronoun in supposedly gender neutral ways. I felt it from the first time I heard god spoken of as male (with a "geez, can't you just read it as gender neutral" kind of response to my feeling left out) and I felt it when I learned that in Spanish (probably in other Romance languages as well) all it took to turn a group of women from feminine to masculine was 1 male. You could have 1 million women, but if there were one male in the group, and he was worth recognizing, the pronouns (and, in Spanish, adjectives and every other word that carries masculine or feminine identifiers) would switch from female to male. I have been told by many women (I think of them as patriarchy enforcers) that it's no big deal. There are bigger fish to fry. If I don't disappear myself then I won't disappear in the language. I'm over sensitive. I shouldn't care so much. Etc...

Given my history of frustration with this issue, I am DELIGHTED to announce that the House has switched to a gender neutral language system. Via Congress Matters:

As part of its Rules change package adopted on its opening day, the House has opted to make its rules and other official language gender neutral.

"Chair" instead of "chairman." Rewriting sentences that use masculine pronouns, etc.

I am thrilled. It's about time. Now, Senators, are you listening?

Another Example of Change We Can Believe In

Via Jack And Jill Politics, this is Marc Ambinder describing the change in our culture in real time:

I was reminded of how President Barack Obama is changing our culture when reading a pool report yesterday on First Lady Michelle Obama’s hosting of 180 students from D.C. elementary schools at the White House. The White House’s Chief Usher (An African-American, the first Black Head Usher of the White House) reminded the children — most of them black — that the nation’s executive mansion was built by slaves. That’s something he couldn’t have said, wouldn’t have said, and would have made headlines if he’d uttered the phrase if the president were white and the first lady wasn’t a direct descendant of those slaves Amid the economic crisis and the daily scrum, one can quite easily lose sight of the importance of this juxtaposition.

Music for Thursday Night - REM on Letterman for the First Time

I will be reposting this video frequently. It was one of my initiations into a lot of my youth progressive rock. I love REM with the white hot intensity of a super nova plus a coupla Nolan's tantrums.

Wikigender

This is cool.

Wikigender is a project initiated by the OECD Development Centre to facilitate the exchange and improve the knowledge on gender-related issues around the world. In particular, Wikigender tries to gather empirical evidence and identify adequate statistics to measure gender equality. In this respect, Wikigender serves as a pilot project for the OECD Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies. Based on the work of the OECD Gender, Institutions and Development Data Base, Wikigender aims to highlight the importance of social institutions such as norms, traditions and cultural practices that impact on gender equality.

As I understand it, it's a place for information sharing (like all Wikis) specifically about gender. I particularly like this part:

aims to highlight the importance of social institutions such as norms, traditions and cultural practices that impact on gender equality.

The call is out to tap the gender knowledge of our greater communities, so if you have anything to share or just want to learn, head on over! (h/t)

Remembering Gene

I don't know about y'all but I used to love watching Siskel and Ebert movie reviews. I was really sad when Gene Siskel died and have continued to read, with pleasure, Roger Ebert's movie musings published every so often in the PD. Here is a wonderful sample of his writing style as he remembers his dear friend who died ten years ago this month.

From President, Please

For Steve...

God I Love The Onion

Wait. Are You Telling Me That Sexist Men Have No Empathy For Women?

Via Pandagon, there was a poorly written story in the British Daily Mail that comes with the confusing title, "Scientist reveals what men REALLY think of when they look at a girlie calendar" which of course sounds like they mean all men. But, if you actually read more details of the study, you discover that they are referring to a specific group of men. Men who hate women.

Fiske also tested the men for levels of sexism and found a surprising effect. Those who scored high on this test, "...the hostile sexists were likely to deactivate the part of the brain that thinks about other people's intentions. The lack of activiation of this social cognition area is really odd, because it hardly ever happens. It's a very reliable effect, that the medial prefrontal cortex comes online when people think about other people, see pictures of them, imagine other people."

The reason this is an important disctinction is that the author of the news piece on the study just conflated the group "men" with the group who actually demonstrated the concerning behavior in the study-"sexist men." When we say that sexist men objectify women, that usually deserves a no duh response.

Another issue I have with this study is that because it is poorly written about and poorly explained (by both the Daily Mail and Dr. Fiske) there is, within the subsequent comment thread, a perfect demonstration of how misreading the research can be used to bolster the fantasies of evoloutionary psychologists.

Based on Dr. Fiske's comment:

Asked if women were likely to view half-dressed men in the same way, she said that women tended to rate age and bank balance over looks.

came this gem:

This, to me, only goes to prove the biological differences between men and women. Men look for "good looking" women to further their line as an evolutionary process, more men are likely to want to impregnate a "good looking" woman. Women on the other hand look for men that can provide the necessary next building materials. These days those materials are experience and money.
I believe Charles Darwin did work in this line. (emphasis mine)

Please. The research didn’t say or show this. In fact, there is loads of evidence to support the notion that women, due to their status in our society, are heavily dependent on men economically. And here is where evo psychs are so damaging: they attribute differences in female and male responses/beliefs/behaviors to biology (or neural science) and disappear the mountains and mountains of evidence of cultural influence on differences between genders. Good gawd. It’s almost as if they wish to JUSTIFY their sexist beliefs. Could it be that simple? Yes, it could. Evolutionary psychology is a field with the same distinction as Intelligent Design. They are wishful thinkers who like sciency sounding truthiness but who have no understanding of how true science works or how to think outside their own sexist wishful thinking. Just as an aside, I am totally curious how they determined the group “hostile sexists” b/c it is really unusual for them to self identify. Most men in that category are blissfully unaware, and often damn certain they love women, so they couldn’t possibly be sexist.

Holy Crap

Wow. Krugman is calling California's economic crisis an "apocalypse."

How It Works

And here is one of my favorite strips from xkcd. I know I'm not up to getting all the math and programming references to some of his stuff, but most of it is decipherable and really, really clever.
(edited to add title)

On the lighter side...

I just found this great site of fabulous jewelry, much of which is food related. Cute stuff. (h/t)

Schwarzenegger's Epic Fail

And it looks like we'll have to go the NYT to learn about what's really happening in California's Sunday drive off a cliff. (h/t)

Dysfunction, thy name is California-TAKE ACTION

California is on the verge of signing a budget that will give millions away to corporations in tax write-offs but will do little to solve our growing deficit. Despite the crappy legislation, it is probably the only way to avoid heading over the cliff at this moment. Instead of caring about that 40 foot drop, we have sociopathic republicans who have no incentive to act in the best interests of the state, but rather will adhere to a strict ideological approach while stomping their little feet. Taking the rest of us over the cliff with them, on principle dontcha know! On top of this incredible drama being played out in Sacramento, we have an utterly impotent political media in CA that leaves the voters in our state completely uninformed. From DDay on Hullabaloo:

It occurs to me that what Steinberg is doing is what progressives have asked Harry Reid to do in the US Senate for years now. When GOP obstructionists threaten to filibuster key legislation, we always say "Make them filibuster! Make them stand up in the well of the Senate and talk endlessly about how we can't afford to provide health care for children, or how we have to offer more tax cuts to the wealthiest 1%. Let the whole country see it!" Well, we're basically doing that. The 15 members of the Yacht Party caucus in the Senate will be locked down and forced to reiterate their arguments indefinitely.

Problem is, the whole country won't be seeing it, the whole state won't be seeing it, in fact almost nobody will be seeing it. This is the true failure of a lack of political awareness in California, and a lack of political media. The pressure points are nearly impossible to hit. A lot of lawmakers will get tired and need to "bring your toothbrush," as Steinberg said, but there's precious little drama outside of Sacramento. And yet the decisions made in that chamber will undoubtedly impact the entire national economy, not just us.

But that is also good, in a sense, because it means that a sliver of opinion makers descending on the phone lines of the legislature can seen like an army. I'm going to reprint the email alert that Calitics sent out last night, which you may have received, because I think he captured the situation perfectly. The leadership is making them filibuster. Now it's up to us to put on the pressure.

What follows is contact information. ACTION ALERT:

The media has now taken notice that the Republicans are trying to bring the state down with them. But the media has little power if we aren't watching and if our leaders don't know we are watching them. So, here is what we need to do:

Call Senator Abel Maldanado (R-Monterey County, 916-651-4015) and tell him to give up his list of demands and end this hostage situation.

Call Senator Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks, 916-651-4001) and tell him that the state deserves better than a Senator who goes back on a deal when threatened by his own party's extremists.

Tell as many people to do the same thing. Use every tool at your disposal, Twitter, facebook, or just word of mouth. The more people that know about this Republican extremism threatening our state, the better.

The Senate is set to once again resume session, and we might be in for another all-nighter. However, keep at it, because this is simply too important to let Republicans play their dangerous games with the lives of Californians.

Please consider letting as many people as possible know about the sociopaths who are gambling with our state's solvency! This affects the lives of real people.

Woohoo! We're number 40! We're number 40!

California now ranks 40th in the nation in the rate of high school students going directly to college. I don't know about you, but I think we just need to spend our money more wisely and trim the fat from our schools. I mean, clearly this trend is a result of money being overspent and mispent.

California's Economy on the Precipice

In my previous post, I mentioned somewhat glibly, the sociopathic tendencies of our CA republicans wrt our state budget. And I linked to Calitics. This website is INDISPENSABLE. It is a group blog with several extremely well-informed and capable bloggers (one of my personal favorites is David Dayen or DDay) who are doing the massive job of chronicling and contextualizing the state of economic emergency specific to CA. We are so bereft of a useful and functioning media in CA and Calitics is filling that need to the best of their collective ability. PLEASE consider reading them regularly. They are, bar none, the best source for understanding what's happening to our state in the political/economic realm. This is serious, serious stuff and, frankly, if CA goes down it's taking a good portion of the country with it. They are in my blog roll but I want to plug them with post as well.

California Budget Crisis

So basically, our home state tyrannical republicans are about to spend a bunch of money we don't have to shut down a whole host of state public works projects and then turn around and spend a whole bunch more to start them back up again. Because they can. Sociopaths, anyone? (h/t Atrios)

Gender Essentialism Explained

I've decided I need to explain what I mean by "gender essentialism" to those of you who haven't heard the term before. Gender essentialism is simply the idea that there are certain personality traits/behavioral traits that are essential to one sex or the other. This belief system often inspires binary ideas about gender (either/or instead of both/and) and disappears any information that doesn't support it. It is the belief system that supports the notion that "girls are bad at math and science" or that "boys aren't interested in emotional connection". These are great big sweeping generalizations that:
1. might have some truth with some individuals but don't capture the vast range of diversity within the group "girls" or "boys"
and
2. are often credited to biological and nuerological differences, instead of the mountain of gender programming we all receive from in utero
Here is a link that discusses this issue with a keener eye turned toward challenging gender essentialism. To be sure, when we practice gender essentialism, we are enforcing strict gender rules. When we break these gender rules there are often varying degrees of punishment in the form of shunning, teasing, shaming and violence (depending on the rule that's been broken and who is witnessing the infraction). Whenever a person feels a "boys are X" observation coming on (or "girls do Y") they might practice putting that statement in the context of race. When we generalize along race lines, we call that racism. Leave comments with examples you've seen of gender essentialism in your life (either as a recipient of such gross over generalizations or as a rules enforcer).
Here's one (of many) of mine:
Back when I was first a mom and J was a wee 3 years old, I was in Sebastopol Hardware looking for a pair of winter rainboots for him. Now, I considered myself a total feminist and planned to raise J with that consciousness. He picked out a pair of purple boots. I balked. I was worried what "others" would think (boys shouldn't like X, the punishment for that will be teasing etc.). I told him there were none in his size. I came home stunned at my fear. I never realized how internalized those gender norms had become. Insidious, they were.

For moms of boys, (and really anyone could benefit from reading it) there is a book that transformed my feeling about gender rules and how they affect our boys. It's called "The Courage to Raise Good Men" and it's fabulous.
Edited to add a title

Why I hate Gender Essentialism

I'm not going to say anything earth shattering. It's just been more than two months since my last post and I'm still trying to figure out why I'm writing and who my audience is. Since this blog is listed on my Facebook page now, I find myself wondering who might happen by.

Here's what's really been occupying my thoughts recently. I live in a small town with a greater community of good hearted people who are so committed to gender essentialism it's driving me batsh*t insane.

A story:

My 12 year old son just got his cast off (a minor hairline fracture in his wrist from a scooter accident). It was wonderful to hear that it was healed up just perfectly! As the cast came off, the nurse (who was a lovely woman, nice as can be and very good at her job) offered J a wet cloth to wipe off his arm (which had grown quite grungy over the last few weeks, natch). But as she turned back to the counter, she said offhandedly, "Oh, I know boys hate to wash off...I hand them the cloth and they look at it like, "What do I do with this?". I looked at J and thought about it for a minute, what it might be like to constantly hear observations by complete strangers, presented as "truth" that boys are "X" . If he isn't "X" (like, he actually DID want to wash his arm off...sort of desperately, and had been talking of nothing else for days) then he suddenly is presented with the idea that maybe he's not a REAL boy. His very gender must be earned by doing the proper things that boys are clearly observed to do. I don't think many people even REALIZE the degree of the gender essentialism they practice. Nor do they realize how shaming and damaging it can be. Once? No problem. Twice? Noticeable, but whatever. Daily??? It becomes a drum beat and my voice (of REASON AND SANITY) becomes more and more quiet when compared with the contrasting volume. Sorry for the rant. UGH. I just hate it.