Silence is Betrayal: A Feminist Blog

My Lyme Journal: Volume 9

2011-08-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

It has been over a year since I've blogged about my experience with lyme disease. I wish I could say that this was for positive reasons, but the truth is that I've been frustrated and haven't wanted to spend any more energy thinking about it than I had to.

A little over a year ago I found out babesiosis had finally been killed. It was a time when the disease was at its last stage -- attacking my heart -- and all I could do was hope that my 23-year-old heart could continue to hold up. There would be times when I'd get that squeezing pain in my chest with a sharp intensity that would radiate out, the shortness of breath, the cold sweat, and the light-headedness, and I'd beg my body to not give out on me. It became routine that I'd let out a desperate plea asking to not lose consciousness because i this was the end, I didn't want to test and see if my unconsciousness had as much fight to survive. There were times when I was just absolutely terrified of what might happen. There was a time when I used to sleep just to have a short reprieve from the pain, but I'd keep myself awake as long as I could because I was too fearful that something would happen in my sleep.

So when babesiosis was finally killed at the end of spring, I felt like a whole new person. Instead of feeling like I was on death's doorstep living one day at a time, I had hope for the future. The idea of returning to school and finishing my degree was no longer a dream outside my grasp. Even though lyme disease was still there, I felt like my triumph over it was within reach.

A few months after that, I had moved out of my parents' house and was back at Oregon State to finish my degree. It started off so good. I was functioning at a level I hadn't been at in years and felt relatively normal for the first time in years. It used to be that I'd have to abide very closely to spoon theory just to do anything each day, but I could go out with friends without feeling like something would compromise my spoon levels for the rest of the week. I was dutifully taking my medications and keeping myself healthy, but I wasn't thinking much about being sick. I avoided the lyme communities online to break from hearing about the deaths of others and the sadness of desperate people trying out the new pseudo-scientific cure in attempt to put their hope in something. But I had hope that he would prescribe something that would cure in me in a few rounds. He was hopeful and I was ready to see that finish line. Everything just felt like it was getting better.

But then it was like I hit a wall during winter term. Some of old symptoms were returning and I felt like there was nothing I could do to slow it down. It turned out that for six months my antibiotics were doing nothing to stop the lyme from spreading. I went from having a relatively good number of t-cells for a sick person to one that so dangerously low that I had to worry about catching an opportunistic infection. And I was on a campus with 25,000 people! At this point, my doctor switched my medication to something that was supposed to be very effective at beating back the lyme, but it ended up having a decent defense with no offense. But at least it was keeping it mostly at bay. Despite this, I was feeling progressive worse.

A few weeks ago, my latest test results came back showing that my t-cell count was up by 10, but the lyme was noticeably worsened and overall everything else was worse. As hard as it was to hear, I saw it coming. The last half of spring term was absolutely brutal and I didn't even seem to feel any better after graduation when I made time for a few weeks of pure relaxation. I was beginning to feel totally helpless about the situation. I've been so careful about taking my medications at the right times, taking a variety of supplements, eating healthy, sleeping, and reducing stress -- which can be really hard to manage as a busy college student -- but I was trying so hard to make sure I brought something to the fight. I felt like I was doing my best to do the right things, but it just isn't enough. This disease is too powerful and my body is too overrun. I'm tired. And frustrated. And a bit angry. I'm coming up on the three year anniversary of treatment and I can't help but wonder how much longer it will take. I want my life back, and right now I feel like I'm light years away.

I picked up my old basketball today and it was as if that tactile sensation unleashed this rush of intense emotion and memories that had been previously locked away. I remember the countless hours I used to spend shooting at the hoop in by driveway. Rain or shine, I was out there every night perfecting my shot and running myself into exhaustion. At a time when my home and school life wasn't where I wanted them to be, there was something very therapeutic about being on a basketball court and working out the issues in my game. I remember my freshman year of high school when I was first basketball player on the court and the last to leave. And that often meant staying for a second practice as I would workout with the varsity coach and fill in on scrimmages. For years of my adolescence, everything was measured as a countdown until I could go to practice or go to a game; this was all that I lived for. I remember a teammate and I comparing bruises at the end the week like they were war wounds representing who fought the hardest. I remember the open appointments my doctor always had for me for x-rays and other tests since I never believed I was giving enough unless I was diving on the floor after loose balls, taking charges, or flying through the lane to get to foul line. I remember that intense high that came in a game where I'd feel absolutely invincible. Everything would get quiet -- no noisy fans, no fears or nervousness -- and I felt this burst of power coming out of me. I wouldn't even have to touch the ball before knowing that this play was mine and I was about to do something amazing. I remember the classmates and strangers who would come up after a game to tell me how inspiring it was to see someone like me playing so well.

And I remember being the varsity soccer player who was supposed to take the team to a new level. I was supposed to ride that expected success into the college game. But of course, that never came. So many people seemed so hopeful for me, but I never got to be the player I was supposed to be. My greatest skill and my greatest joy in the world was taken from me by lyme disease, babesiosis, and ehrlichiosis. As I was sitting there running my hand across the basketball, I remember the emotional toll of losing all that -- and that left the normally strong and stoic person in me break down and cry for hours.

And now I'm a 24-year-old writing a blog at 4am because I pushed it too hard on Wii Tennis and am in too much pain to sleep. Is this really what has become of my life? I can't help but think of what the 15-year-old me would think if she could see me now. Nine years ago I was spending seemingly every waking moment practicing a sport or working out in some way. And now, my muscles have atrophied and I barely have the strength to go for 10 minutes on an elliptical machine. The 15-year-old me would have rather died than to live like I do now. Sometimes it feels like the ultimate cruelty to take a person who lived such an active lifestyle and put them in a body like this. It feels like a prison that I desperately want to break out of. To some degree, I think I needed to let a part of me die in order to go on. The me that I was couldn't bear to live like this, so I had to let her go and grow again. I still feel her sometimes, but she feels like a past life at this point.

This disease has taken a toll on me. It has robbed me of so much and I don't know what I can get back. I still wake up every day in overwhelming pain all the while knowing that it won't get any better, so I better pull myself together if I want to make it through the day. Sometimes I feel like I'd be less exhausted if I didn't have to work so hard to zone out and distract my mind enough to keep me from crying all day. But I'm sure that effort is helping to maintain my sanity.

There are times when I wish I could wake up and realize that this whole experience was just a nightmare. I'm just so ready for this to be done. I want this disease out of me. NOW. I want to be able to go to graduate school and not have to worry about how the disease will affect my ability to succeed. I want to be able to wake up and not feel like every part of my body has beaten with a heavy object. I want to be able to able to hang out with friends and not get exhausted or hurt doing the most mundane of things. I want a life without chronic pain. I just want to deal with normal 24-year-old things. So I asked my doctor to put me on toughest treatment he could. I'm ready to kick this thing and am willing take some additional short term pain if that's what it will cost to get it done. I desperately want to see a glimpse of that finish line and I really hope this latest round of treatment will move me closer to that point.

Mass Incarceration, the War on Drugs, and the Prison Industrial Complex

2011-06-18T03:37:00.000-07:00

References and further information are here. It might have been even more interesting to expand upon the incarceration of non-violent offenders, particularly non-violent drug offenders. According to a 2010 study by the Center for Economic Policy Research:

"Non-violent offenders make up over 60 percent of the prison and jail population. Non-violent drug offenders now account for about one-fourth of all offenders behind bars, up from less than 10 percent in 1980."

As demonstrated by the ACLU infographic, people of color are over-represented throughout the prison system, particularly when it comes to drug law violations. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, "[a]lthough rates of drug use and selling are comparable across racial lines, people of color are far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated for drug law violations than are whites."A 2011 report by the organization noted that:

"Mass arrests and incarceration of people of color – largely due to drug law violations – have hobbled families and communities by stigmatizing and removing substantial numbers of men and women. In the late 1990s, nearly one in three African-American men aged 20-29 were under criminal justice supervision, while more than two out of five had been incarcerated – substantially more than had been incarcerated a decade earlier and orders of magnitudes higher than that for the general population. Today, 1 in 15 African-American children and 1 in 42 Latino children have a parent in prison, compared to 1 in 111 white children. In some areas, a large majority of African-American men – 55 percent in Chicago, for example – are labeled felons for life, and, as a result, may be prevented from voting and accessing public housing, student loans and other public assistance."

A common defense of our disastrous prison system is that it is safer for our communities to lock up those who are a threat to others -- but non-violent drug users are more of a threat to themselves than anyone else. Here's a radical thought: We should treat drug use as a health problem and not a criminal problem. I'd much rather see a portion of my tax dollars go to free or low-cost drug treatment facilities available to all and for community-based programs designed to tackle the reasons why individuals abuse drugs or engage in different kinds of criminal activities.

Whether society is ready to hear it or not, it is a waste of our tax dollars to continue to pour money into this bloated and ineffective industry. In reality, prisons are less about keeping citizens safe and more about the impact of the growing influence of privately-owned prisons and corporations using inmates as slave laborers in a system coined the prison-industrial complex. As Angela Davis describes:

"Prisons thus perform a feat of magic. Or rather the people who continually vote in new prison bonds and tacitly assent to a proliferating network of prisons and jails have been tricked into believing in the magic of imprisonment. But prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant, and racially marginalized communities has literally become big business.
The seeming effortlessness of magic always conceals an enormous amount of behind-the-scenes work. When prisons disappear human beings in order to convey the illusion of solving social problems, penal infrastructures must be created to accommodate a rapidly swelling population of caged people. Goods and services must be provided to keep imprisoned populations alive. Sometimes these populations must be kept busy and at other times — particularly in repressive super-maximum prisons and in INS detention centers — they must be deprived of virtually all meaningful activity. Vast numbers of handcuffed and shackled people are moved across state borders as they are transferred from one state or federal prison to another.

All this work, which used to be the primary province of government, is now also performed by private corporations, whose links to government in the field of what is euphemistically called “corrections” resonate dangerously with the military industrial complex. The dividends that accrue from investment in the punishment industry, like those that accrue from investment in weapons production, only amount to social destruction. Taking into account the structural similarities and profitability of business-government linkages in the realms of military production and public punishment, the expanding penal system can now be characterized as a 'prison industrial complex.'

... "Many corporations whose products we consume on a daily basis have learned that prison labor power can be as profitable as third world labor power exploited by U.S.-based global corporations. Both relegate formerly unionized workers to joblessness and many even wind up in prison. Some of the companies that use prison labor are IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Microsoft, and Boeing. But it is not only the hi-tech industries that reap the profits of prison labor. Nordstrom department stores sell jeans that are marketed as “Prison Blues,” as well as t-shirts and jackets made in Oregon prisons. The advertising slogan for these clothes is “made on the inside to be worn on the outside.” Maryland prisoners inspect glass bottles and jars used by Revlon and Pierre Cardin, and schools throughout the world buy graduation caps and gowns made by South Carolina prisoners.

'For private business,' write Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans (a political prisoner inside the Federal Correctional Institution at Dublin, California) 'prison labor is like a pot of gold. No strikes. No union organizing. No health benefits, unemployment insurance, or workers’ compensation to pay. No language barriers, as in foreign countries. New leviathan prisons are being built on thousands of eerie acres of factories inside the walls. Prisoners do data entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations for TWA, raise hogs, shovel manure, make circuit boards, limousines, waterbeds, and lingerie for Victoria’s Secret — all at a fraction of the cost of ‘free labor.’"

Our prison system is in serious need of reform, but it seems we are far from recognizing it. How many more of our neighbors have to be locked up before we realize it isn't working as intended?

The Phoenix Mercury's Male Practice Squad

2011-04-21T03:52:00.000-07:00

OK, I've officially been awakened from my blogging coma. With the GOP's legislative assault on women, the Wisconsin union-busting law, the inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning, and countless other stories that have come out recently, I've been on outrage-overload barely able to muster snarky or WTF comments on facebook links. But I read something today that made me so angry that I can't finish my homework until I write out my feelings.

I've always been a fan of the WNBA. I followed the Portland Fire for the short time they existed and transitioned my team loyalty to the Seattle Storm soon after. But I've long enjoyed seeing Diana Taurasi play since the days she dominated the college game at UConn and I've followed her WNBA career after she was drafted by Phoenix in 2004. And by the time Phoenix moved to the Paul Westhead-style in which she flourished, I had found my new favorite team. Since then, they've won three conference championships and two WNBA championships, several All-Star selections, including Diana Taurasi, Candice Dupree and Penny Taylor last year while Taurasi won both the league MVP and finals MVP in 2009.

What ignited my outrage was a link posted on the Mercury Facebook fan page which stated: "Join the Mercury Male Practice Squad." I was already a bit irked by it but decided to withhold judgement until further review, but I was fuming when I followed the link to the online form to tryout. This is all they ask: Name, age, home phone, email address, t-shirt size, best time to tryout, and if they've ever been to a Mercury game. There was no question asking whether applicants have ever played at the college or professional level and not even a mention of desiring someone with some kind of basketball experience.

Seriously, WTF?! It's no secret that women's professional sports have struggled to attract a male audience, particularly in sports many deem to be too-masculine for women to be truly competitive in. There's a reason why the WNBA requires players to wear makeup when they don't play, why players pose for Playboy* [intentionally not linking], and why there's such a thing as a lingerie football league [wikipedia]. In these kinds of sports, the mainstream notion is that women will never be able to play at the level of men because their genetics preclude them from reaching the same level. This is bullshit and we shouldn't continue perpetuating it. While it may certainly be true that the best NBA players could beat the best WNBA players (size differences themselves would make matchups difficult), it doesn't mean that men overall are better. This is often the same confusion with IQ scores that claim men are smarter than women because there are a higher number of men at the top. Taken from the opposite angle, one could say men have less intelligence because the have higher numbers on the other end. WNBA players are better than the majority of men -- and that should not be a controversial statement.

This reminds me of a misogynist prick back in high school who couldn't bear to watch women's sports at any level because he believed he could beat any one of them. He also happened to be a JV benchwarmer with a laughably-bad jump shot. I don't care how genetically superior you think your XY genes are, their presence alone isn't enough to best the hard work and skill of those with XX genes.

Anyway, the point of this lead-up is that this open tryout for a male practice squads reeks of the men-are-always-better-at-sports stereotype. It sends the creepy message that what it will take for this team to get back to another WNBA championship (they won in 2007 and 2009) is to be challenged by men. I wouldn't be offended if, for example, 7'2" Margo Dydek came back to the WNBA and started tearing up the league and teams needed 7 foot tall ex-college and professional players to practice against.

Besides, a man would have to have some solid college or professional experience to provide worthy competition for someone like Taurasi. Let's be honest here: She's undoubtedly one of the greatest women's college basketball players ever -- if not the best -- and is one of the most dominant players in the WNBA. Her size, athleticism, and ability to shoot the ball are extraordinary -- I dare say that she could hold her own against some NBA players. She also has some great teammates as well. Penny Taylor, for example, is a fascinating player to watch because she is incredibly well-rounded and has such a high basketball IQ. She knows how to tear apart defenses and has an uncanny ability score points any way she can get them. She's fearless and relentless, and her ability to maintain composure in tough situations reflects her long history on the Australian Olympic team and time in the EuroLeague and WNBA. The Mercury coaching staff might have to look further than an open tryout to find worthy competitors.

Now I don't mean to say that practice squads with men are terrible and have no place in women's basketball, but I think they have to marketed and employed much differently to avoid playing into harmful and dead-wrong stereotypes about women. For instance, the Seattle Storm employ a male practice squad mainly for athletic bodies to scrimmage against (the WNBA recently cut squads to 11 players) who aren't there to teach, but for fair competition. Unlike the Mercury and other teams like the Los Angeles Sparks and the New York Liberty, the Storm set themselves apart because they don't hold open tryouts. Their players are chosen after recommendations from select people and all of them have experience at the highest levels.

For the Mercury to host open tryouts -- and worse, without even recommending that potential players have college and professional experience -- they are playing into the sexist and incredibly offensive notion that men are always better than women and that these incredibly talented professional athletes could learn something from playing with men. Google "Phoenix Mercury male practice squad" and take a gander at the rank misogyny that permeates the pages. KB at JockPost [I'd rather not actually link to it] has this to say about the male practice squad:

"What happens if the girls play these 15 guys and get smoked every practice? That is sure-fire way to boost the confidence of a team that was successful last season. [/sarcasm]... How many guys want to go play ball and get run off the floor by a bunch of women? The potential for humiliation is unparalleled. Un-f**king-paralleled. I think I would rather take a swift kick in the nuts every night. On a good note, attendance should go up by 10-15 people since all the men get free tickets."

As he believes there are two scenarios: the "~~girls~~," women, could get run off the court by men with more athletic prowess, thus reducing their confidence throughout the season or the men could risk humiliation by being beaten by women at a sport. The author also points out that he would rather risk daily impaling of his testicles than deal with the humiliation/shame of losing to a woman who is a professional basketball player. Here's a sign that masculinity is in crisis. Todd Dewey at the Las Vegas-Review Journal also let out his seething sexism: "We were set to try out until we realized we'd have to watch a Mercury game if selected." A Celtics NBA forum noted that it was "a great idea" for women to play men and that they will "prbably [sic] become the best team in the league pretty soon." For a team that won it all in 2009 and lost the conference finals to the league-best Storm, their chances to win it all *totally* depend on a male practice squad to get them to that next level. Riiight. Later it was stated that the "Mercury will be investing heavily in long-haired wigs..." because surely they can't succeed without men on the team carrying them. What a steaming pile of bullshit written by someone who has probably never watched a game.

To the Mercury marketing people (not that they'd ever actually stumble upon my little blog), I recommend changing the press release to something like this:

Join the Mercury Practice Squad

Have you played college or professional level basketball? If so, want to play competitively against some of the best players in the world? Coach Gaines is recruiting for a practice squad that will scrimmage against the Mercury throughout the upcoming season. We're looking for players of either sex, particularly taller players (6'4+) who are already in basketball shape. Please send resumes and a skills tape and we'll invite the best candidates to come in for a tryout.

It's depressing to me that the WNBA struggles to stay afloat and the talented players in the league don't receive the respect they should. The WNBA can't fix the misogynist culture we function under that would rather see women as sex objects than human beings judged by something other than looks, but these practice squads required a more careful PR because their not-so-explained existence helps fuel sexist drivel.

*Just to expand upon this a bit more, I'm not saying that it is always wrong for women to pose nude. Nude photos can be beautiful and artistic, and its something I have no interest in wanting to stop someone from participating in. The difficulty is that I remember the discussions, especially back when I was in high school (I graduated in 2005), about whether WNBA players appearing nude would bring much-needed male attention -- and subsequently, legitimacy -- to the struggling league. There's the debate about whether the league should just be happy men are drawn in no matter what the reason, but this debate leaves out a crucial component: in a patriarchal culture in which women can be reduced to sex objects instead of full-fledged human beings, the focus on selling attractive players and the closeting of lesbians to draw in (heterosexual) male viewers obscures the fact that this is an athletic competition. I would much rather see players marketed by showcasing their superior talent -- their basketball skills -- not their looks.

Quick Note: I've left the Daily Barometer

2011-01-26T16:18:00.000-08:00

After several weeks of being frustrated by the sloppy editing of my columns, I've left the Daily Barometer. The editor-in-chief decided he'd rather lose me than address the problems that continued to reflect poorly on the paper.

It's so depressing to be done with it all. I've truly enjoyed my time there and I know I've grown immensely as a writer because of it. I'll miss all the responses -- both positive and negative -- from fellow students, faculty, and the greater community which helped me better formulate my arguments and inspire me to keep going. But it got to the point where I'd feel embarrassed every week over what errors the copy editors would slip in. Sometimes they were dumb errors as if I'd forgotten to check for typos, while others compromised the integrity of my pieces. As much as I enjoyed the big audience, I just couldn't allow to continue to let my credibility be damaged.

Now this means I'll have more time for this poorly-neglected blog. With schoolwork, applying to graduate school, volunteering, clubs, and continuing the not-so-fun lyme disease treatment, I've trading blogging for sleep and a bit of relaxation (not that I've gotten much of either). But I'm making an effort to write more (I do enjoy it) and to make sure that snarky one-liners of micro-blogging on twitter and facebook won't be my only contribution to the internet. And hopefully I'll have the opportunity to write a few other places in the future.

-- Sara

Is polygamy a crime when dealing with consenting adults?

2011-01-04T07:48:00.000-08:00

Over winter break, I caught up with TLC's newest hit reality show, “Sister Wives,” which follows the lives of a fundamentalist Mormon polygynist family living in Utah consisting of patriarch, Kody Brown, his four wives, Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn, and their 16 children.

To get around bigamy laws, Kody is only legally married to Meri, while the other three wives took part in a commitment ceremony with Kody that presumably coincided with some sort of contract. Despite this, the Brown family was under investigation by the Lehi police in September and the case has since been turned over to Utah County Attorney, Jeff Buhman, who noted that it could take months to decide whether or not to prosecute.

According to Utah state penal code 76-7-101, “A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.” Bigamy is considered a third degree felony that can result in a five year prison sentence if convicted.

While I understand the legal reasons for differentiating between relationships and common law marriages (for example, a common law partner can seek spousal support), I was upset that the investigation could lead to the prosecution of freely consenting adults. All five were over the age of 18 and each consented to enter into this kind of relationship. With so many larger issues affecting society, why should the State care about what happens between consenting adults? By maintaining the ban on polygamous marriage, we are continuing to force these families to be closeted and to leave non-legally married spouses without important rights and protections that come with marriage.

I often hear that bigamy should remain a prosecutable offense because, in the case of fundamentalist Mormons, women have been brainwashed to believe this type of relationship will exalt them into the highest celestial kingdom in the Mormon presupposition of the afterlife. There are members of my family who would shun the idea of the Browns' marriage while believing that their marriages tie them to their partner for eternity in the Christian heaven. And if they practice complementarianism, the belief that men and women have different roles which include the subservience of wives to their husbands and other males, they will be fulfilling God's requirement of them and be rewarded in the afterlife.

As an egalitarian-minded person, both of these models aren't appealing to me. I wouldn't want to share my husband or wife if I didn't get to have other sexual partners as well. I also wouldn't want to enter into a marriage where I would be infantilized by abdicating all decision-making to my husband. In fact, I'm rather disgusted by that prospect even though I know some of my cousins aspire to have that kind of relationship. If fundamentalist Mormon polygynist marriage or fundamentalist Protestant marriage were my only two options, I'd abstain. I may not like either one of these, but I acknowledge that there are different kinds of relationships that work for different kinds of people and that consenting adults should be free to choose the relationship that works best for them. I may slip a cousin a book on feminism and model an alternative type of relationship, but I wouldn't actively protest to illegalize their marriages.

Lately, I hear so much about the need to protect “traditional marriage” from gay and lesbian couples seeking the rights, responsibilities and the status that come with marriage, but many overlook just how diverse the institution of marriage already is. For the majority of states, a marriage license can be given to any male and female couple over the age of 18. This marriage license acts as a contract between the couple and the State which grants 1,138 rights and responsibilities.

People may bring different religious beliefs (or lack thereof) and cultural values to this institution, but the point is that by law, all are treated the same. There are marriages between Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Pagans, Scientologists, non-believers and countless others that may share religious, ethnic and/or cultural backgrounds. While some married people may believe that divorce isn't allowed due to their specific religious beliefs, by law they are entitled to it because the State doesn't issue separate marriage licenses for different religious or cultural groups or uphold particular rules for each. There are members of my family who believe that divorce isn't allowable for any reason, but by law, they are entitled to one because the State doesn't have a fundamentalist Christian marriage contract to uphold. While we may think of marriage as a religiously-bound institution, there is no requirement to profess a certain kind of faith nor does the State enforce any kind of religious rules about marriage.

People marry for myriad reasons and consequently, marriages can look quite diverse. While some may pledge fidelity and solely practice monogamy, others may enter into open or polyamorous marriages. If we maintain and enforce bigamy laws on all couples (not just fundamentalist Mormons) do we really want to say that the State will sanction extra-marital affairs so long as they don't take place in one particular home for an extended period of time? With underfunded police forces and actual crime happening, it would seem outrageous to investigate people believed to cohabitate too soon with another during a separation. With such high numbers of infidelity in supposedly monogamous relationships and increased awareness of open and polyamorous couples, can we really sustain the belief that is only criminally wrong if a person makes a long-term commitment to more than one person? There have previously been sodomy laws and even adultery laws used to prosecute the behavior of consenting adults, but over time we've matured to see these as personal matters and not matters for the State to intervene on. So why can't we extend that to all sexual minorities?

Marriage is a diverse, ever-changing institution. Throughout human history, polygyny has been the most practiced form of marriage, even largely popular in biblical times (sorry, Christians). But there has also been polyandry, gay and lesbian marriages, group marriages, and numerous societies with open and polyamorous marriages. To believe that a monogamous one man, one woman “traditional marriage” has been the predominate form throughout human history is to believe a fictionalized account. It would be unreasonable and ahistorical to believe that this institution cannot withstand allowing gay and lesbian couples or polygamous partners to enter in. Human history has shown that the institution is malleable and can sustain itself even with all the diversity expressed in it over time. Allowing all unions of consenting adults to marry would ensure that all are afforded the same treatment and protection under the law that is already afforded to married straight couples. And it's not like these relationships don't exist already, they just often exist without the legal protection of marriage.

Allowing polygamous partners to marry may be more complicated to establish than gay and lesbian marriages as it would require certain rights and responsibilities to be split (for example, perhaps a primary wife would be the only one given permission to make medical decisions for the husband in a polygynist marriage). However, allowing polygamist marriages would make the relationship more equitable for those who aren't the first wife or husband with legal marriage rights. While divorce may be unlikely for fundamentalist Mormon marriages like the one depicted on “Sister Wives,” and it also may also be equally unlikely that the patriarch would deny financial support to an ex-wife to avoid unwanted attention on the family, a legal polygamous marriage would guarantee equal treatment for everyone involved through the duration of the relationship and in the event that it ends.

Until then, the State should stop playing morality police. Utah and other states should leave alone what consenting adults choose to do and focus their time and money on more important issues. There are an estimated 38,000 fundamentalist Mormon polygynist marriages currently in Utah today, many who are closeted and live in fear of being outed. We don't have to necessarily like these kinds of relationships or choose to enter into one ourselves, but we should let them live freely.

Column: DC climate change ruckus

2010-12-01T22:45:00.000-08:00

DC climate change ruckus

By: Sara Gwin

Posted: 12/1/10

Earlier this month, Rep. John Shimkus submitted a letter to his Republican colleagues asking for their blessing to chair the Energy and Commerce Committee for which he is "uniquely qualified" on account of being on the committee since 1997, and because of his more recent subcommittee leadership.

I'd like to believe that he didn't attach the video of his speech at the House subcommittee on Energy and the Environment on March 25, 2009, as an example of what his leadership might look like, but with the Republican party increasingly polluted by anti-intellectual fervor and authority worship, perhaps that will be the difference between denying the current chair, recent BP-apologist Rep. Joe Barton, a waiver to run again and to kick out another contender, Rep. Fred Upton, who is widely considered to not be conservative enough.

In the video from a committee meeting addressing climate change and possible legislation to mitigate it, Shimkus pulled out his Bible and read from Genesis 8: 21-22, where God gave Noah a promise:

"Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though all inclinations of his heart are evil from childhood and never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease."

"I believe that's the infallible word of God, and that's the way it's going to be for his creation," Shimkus said. He went on to read from Matthew 24: 31 where it is announced that God will take all the believers up to heaven with him before he destroys the Earth in seven years of tribulation: "And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other."

"The earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood," Shimkus asserted. "I do believe that God's word is infallible, unchanging, perfect."

In an interview with Politico's Darren Samuelsohn on Nov. 10, Shimkus reiterated that his belief that government shouldn't address rising greenhouse gas emissions is formed by what he has read in the Bible. "I do believe in the Bible as the final word of God," Shimkus said. "And I do believe that God said the earth would not be destroyed by a flood. Now, do I believe in climate change? In my trip to Greenland, the answer is yes. The climate is changing. The question is more about the costs and benefits and trying to spend taxpayer dollars on something that you cannot stop versus the changes that have been occurring forever. That's the real debate."

He admits that climate change is real, but doesn't believe that we should do anything to address it because the deity he worships and the book supposedly influenced by its divine hand didn't address climate change or the possibility of humans destroying the earth before the Apocalypse.

I'm glad Shimkus can sleep at night with his belief that his friends and family won't have to deal with the disastrous effects of climate change, but I don't find comfort in his deity or it's "infallible word" from a book with no original documents and thousands upon thousands of known errors. Shimkus may not have been laughed out of that subcommittee hearing because he happens to believe in the same deity as the majority of Americans, but how might this situation have been different if he replaced his Christian God with Poseidon, Xenu, Krishna or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Why is Shimkus' belief in God given time along with that of scientists and other researchers in regard to climate change? There is no evidence for a supernatural being, let alone one who controls the weather and who would start Armageddon before we pillage our world into nothingness. This argument has no merit and hinders progress when it coincides with actual adult discussion consisting of reason and facts that can be tested, corroborated, or refuted.

There is a point where we have to acknowledge that not every opinion is equally valid. I'm open to debate about the best ways to combat climate change and how big of a role the government should have in regulating industry to achieve some of those goals, but if we are to allow someone to say that we should put no effort into fighting climate change, I'm going to need better evidence than particular lines from religious texts from the Bronze Age. We do need a diversity of studies from researchers of various backgrounds to formulate comprehensive legislation, but we don't need to bring in the supernatural to stop discussion.

People certainly have every right to believe in and find comfort in whatever supernatural force they wish, but there is a difference between the choices Shimkus makes at home and the choices he makes at work. As the potential head of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Shimkus has incredible power to shape climate change legislation, or lack thereof, in his tenure. Many environmentalists believe that the Republican takeover of the House means that any hope for addressing climate change would be discarded and left for Democrats to take up in the future, if they could ever get a big enough majority to tackle it again. I don't know if the growing number of Republican Congressmen who partake in climate change denialism do so with sincerity or because of enough financial backing from the coal, oil and gas industry lobby to buy off their beliefs. Perhaps it is an attempt to appeal to the ignorant masses who put more faith in authority figures like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, whose opinions seem to carry more weight than the vast majority of scientists who have credibility on the subject.

The problem with this growing climate change denialism is that we don't have the luxury of time to continue fighting about whether or not it is real. The evidence for it is overwhelming and we are reaching points in time where we may not be able to undo damage that has been done. While Shimkus' and his fellow Republicans' denialism may benefit them politically, it doesn't benefit the American people and the people across the world who will pay for the inaction. This is a serious situation where the consequences are increasingly dire. We can't just hope that the supernatural will save us in the end.

Sara Gwin is a senior in psychology and women studies. The opinions expressed in her columns do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Barometer staff. Gwin can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.

Veganism Column

2010-11-16T00:26:00.000-08:00

Why beef shouldn't have to be 'what's for dinner'

By: Sara Gwin

Posted: 11/16/10

Last weekend, I went to the Beavers game with a friend who also brought me out tailgating with her family. Because it was an early game, omelets stuffed with meat and cheese were being offered to me right and left, and I had to politely refuse multiple times. As we were leaving for the game after being wooed again with a parting omelet, my friend asked me, "Why didn't you just say you were vegan?" I responded, "People tend to get defensive and angry when I bring that up." She laughed and couldn't believe I'd worry about such a thing.

She has a point. After all, I'm the kind of person who wears a "This is what a feminist looks like" T-shirt because I love the reactions I get. Depending on who I meet, it should really say "Why yes, I'd love to engage in a conversation about feminism with you" or "Please scream obscenities at me and blame me for every ill of society." Whether I admit that I'm a feminist, atheist, democratic socialist, a somewhat stereotypical hippie with aspirations to live "off the grid" and grow my own food or even state my preference for Ubuntu's operating system over Windows, I know I'm bound to offend or upset someone who doesn't like one of the beliefs or positions that I hold because it subverts the dominant paradigm. I'm used to animosity, rude comments and threats of violence and have become quite adept at staying calm in stressful situations. I'm also used to having debates and discussions, and passing along facts and further references on a number of things I'm already pretty outspoken about, so why do I clam up during an opportunity to just say I don't eat animals?

Part of it may be how new this all is for me. Up until a year and a half ago, I was the typical meat-eating American, keeping myself ignorant of what it took to get that slab of meat on my plate. I knew the animals weren't raised how the pictures on the packages or in the advertisements suggested, but I didn't allow myself to think about what was really happening. I knew that animals weren't raised on small farms like my grandfather's with the freedom to roam and make friends with fellow farm animals and humans alike, but I just couldn't allow myself to think about how most farm animals truly lived. I let myself believe that the meat industry wasn't as bad as my vegetarian and vegan friends believed, and I continued to do mental backflips to avoid justifying my eating habits with my beliefs about animal welfare and preservation of the environment.

I finally reached a point where I realized I really couldn't remain willfully ignorant anymore. I got over my sexist reservations about the work of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) long enough to peruse their website for information and videos about the lives of animals on factory farms, also known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, where 99 percent of the meat we eat comes from, as well as their experiences in slaughterhouses. I may have been a lifelong meat eater up until that point, but it only took a few videos to make me lose my craving for it entirely.

The industry standards for chickens and turkeys allow them to be housed by the tens of thousands in dark sheds, wading in their own excrement with hardly enough room to turn around. They've been selectively bred to grow so large and so fast that many become crippled when their legs break under their own massive weight. Hens raised for egg production are crammed into cages so small that they have no ability to move or even open their wings. This lack of movement causes their muscles to weaken and their bones to deteriorate. Their beaks are cut off to limit the fighting that can occur in such close quarters and under such duress, which affects their ability to eat and function as a chicken.

Pigs, like their poultry counterparts, are crammed together in filthy quarters with limited space to move. Many will go insane from the lack of mental stimulation, movement, and the widespread abuse inflicted on them by the human workers. Breeding sows are housed in metal crates where they can't turn around or turn over. Like chickens, they are bred to grow faster and bigger than normal, which causes sickness and chronic pain. The pain is intensified by the atrophying of muscles and the deterioration of their bones. Those who live long enough to reach the slaughterhouse have to hope the ill-effective stun method knocks them out or they will be conscious through the throat-slitting, or burned alive in the scalding water used to soften their hides for skinning. I'll forever be haunted by the screams of tortured pigs from slaughterhouse videos.

Cows, which evolved to eat grass, are fed an unnatural diet of grain and sometimes diseased animal meat, feathers, hair, skin, hooves, blood and manure. Because their stomachs can't handle this kind of diet, they are given antibiotics to keep them alive long enough to reach slaughter. Also, because cows live in such close quarters with other cows, they need a second antibiotic to compensate for the crowded and unsanitary conditions that are a hotbed for a variety of diseases. Much like pigs, cows don't always lose consciousness after a hit with the stun gun, so they sometimes experience torturous deaths.

In these operations, 16 billion animals are killed each year for our food without legal protections on the federal level, though some states have laws banning certain kinds of practices. Oregon, for example, passed a law in 2007 that will require by 2016 that 4,000 breeding sows won't be housed in gestation crates too small for them to turn around in. According to the USDA website, the Animal Welfare Act only covers farm animals when used in biomedical research, testing, teaching and exhibition. When they are used for food production, these animals aren't even considered animals. Because of our increased demand for meat at the cheapest of prices, we've been complicit in these horrendous practices. Paul McCartney was certainly on to something when he said, "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian." I wouldn't go that far, but I bet there would be far more vegetarians and far more omnivores willing to pay more for meat that was ethically raised and slaughtered.

But animal rights aren't the only reason for me to not eat meat. Dr. T. Colin Campbell's book, "The China Study," based upon his extensive longitudinal study of diet in China, found that people lived longer when less than 5 percent of their diet (if any) was meat and dairy. The problems of heart disease, cancers, and stroke - diseases of affluence - were only seen in people who ate a diet like that common in the U.S., where at least 20 percent of the diet consists of meat and dairy. As wealthier Chinese began eating like Americans, those diseases of affluence increased. There are also serious health concerns to consider from eating animals that were pumped with antibiotics to the tune of 25 million pounds a year (70 percent of the total used) in the U.S., which has caused a rise in antibiotic-resistant superbugs. This is an epidemic waiting to happen and we seem to be sweeping the problem under the rug in the hopes that it will never actually happen.

On the environmental side, factory farmed animals produce 130 times the amount of excrement as the entire U.S. population - all without waste treatment systems. There are no federal guidelines for how to handle this issue, so it is often left in large lagoons or spread on crops, which both contribute to runoff that contaminates the soil and kills wildlife. This abundance of excrement also becomes a hotbed for parasites and bacteria. Agriculture is responsible for an estimated 14 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, including a significant portion from methane, which is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide and is set to increase 60 percent by 2030 because of the increased demand for beef. Through belching and flatulence, cows let out enough methane to release more greenhouse gases than cars, planes, and all forms of transportation combined.

The way we currently raise animals for meat in this country is unethical, in our treatment of them and for our own health and the health of the environment around us. It isn't a sustainable practice and we will be faced with some serious issues in the future if we don't start addressing it today. For these reasons (among many others), I'm a vegan. I cannot in good conscience contribute to such an abhorrent industry. I may not want to be a vegetarian or vegan evangelist (though if prompted, I could talk about the wonderful reasons to eat less meat and about more ethical ways to produce and consume meat), but I'm certainly proud to say that I don't eat meat.

And perhaps the next time I attend a tailgater with Tillamook dairy farmers, I won't chicken out of merely mentioning that I'm a vegan.

Sara Gwin is a senior in psychology and women studies. The opinions expressed in her columns do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Barometer staff. Gwin can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.

Some Food for Thought on Election Day...

2010-11-02T12:59:00.000-07:00

There's been a push to empower frustrated and disappointed Democratic voters to turn out and vote anyway, but we don't always hear about the voters who are literally disenfranchised for archaic reasons.

Via Colorlines:

It’s Election Day, which means millions of voters are headed to the polls. But there’s a sizable number of people who aren’t permitted to cast ballots because they’ve been caught up in the criminal justice system. An estimated 5.3 million Americans have currently or permanently lost their right to vote because of felony convictions—and given the country’s ever-expanding prison system, that number will likely increase. At least four million of those people have completed their sentences or are on probation or parole, according to NPR.

Republican Economic Policies Are Bullshit. Vote Democrat!

2010-11-01T23:22:00.000-07:00

Does Dudley have a better direction for Oregon?

By: Sara Gwin

Posted: 11/2/10

This week, our country finally takes part in the much-hyped event of the past several months: the midterm elections. Pundits have talked endlessly about the sorry fate of the Democrats who will inevitably lose seats and could end up losing big, especially in the House.

But the problem I'm having is that Republicans are running on the energy of the Tea Party and the lucky position of being in the minority in a down economy while campaigning on the exact same policies that got us into this mess to begin with. Voters just shouldn't be buying it.

Take, for example, the Republican mantra about Democrats and their job-killing taxes. Republicans have long touted the benefits of "trickle-down economics," but with the presidencies of Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr., we haven't seen the wealth and prosperity created for the majority of Americans by cutting taxes for the super-rich. In fact, we've seen the exact opposite; we're experiencing the greatest divide between the rich and the poor since the height of the robber baron days of the 1920s. According to a report by The Nation titled "Plutocracy Reborn," in 1928 (the year before the global economic collapse), the wealthiest 0.001 percent of the U.S. population possessed 892 times more wealth than the bottom 90 percent of the population. In 2007, the top 0.001 percent owned more than 976 times that of the bottom 90 percent.

"Trickle-down" economic theory posits that by extending tax cuts to the richest, they will in turn use that money to hire additional workers and grow their businesses. But one doesn't need a degree in economics to know that this doesn't really add up. Businesses work on supply and demand; if there are enough customers demanding a product, the business will make more of the product. But if customers aren't buying the product, it wouldn't make sense for a business to hire more workers and increase the output of a product. If anything, "trickle-up" economics feels more plausible. And yet, Republicans have been ranting about the need for more tax cuts to stimulate the economy. The Tea Party has already been actively protesting against the supposedly high taxes under President Obama, despite the fact that they are lower now than they were under their favorite anti-tax crusader, President Ronald Reagan. While most (if not all) of the Tea Party protesters are low-to-middle class Americans, they are vocal in their opposition to President Obama allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2011 for the top 2 percent of earners, which would prevent an additional $4 trillion added to the deficit. The bottom 98 percent, where these Tea Partiers presumably reside, would benefit from the extension of tax cuts for themselves. Somehow the Koch brothers, the exorbitantly rich oil company owners who are major financial backers of this astroturfed group, have convinced people that big tax cuts for the elite will benefit everyone, even if history proves otherwise.

Carly Fiorina, the Republican Senate candidate running against Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer, supports the extension of Bush's tax cuts for the top 2 percent. In an interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday, Fiorina was grilled about how she planned to reduce the deficit while simultaneously extending the Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent and adding an additional $4 trillion to the deficit. Part of the entertainment of this segment was watching a man with a penchant for softball interviews with Republicans take Fiorina to task - watching her flail when she ran out of talking points and trying to dodge the question multiple times. Like so many other Republican candidates this year, Fiorina has been running on the "no more job-killing taxes" mantra. She may rail against Democratic policies that supposedly have killed jobs, but while CEO of Hewlett-Packard, she actually killed jobs by laying off 18,000 workers and shipping those jobs overseas. Even though she had a disastrous tenure that resulted in her being fired, she was offered a $21 million golden parachute send-off. I'm guessing that the 18,000 she laid off didn't receive quite so generous of a parting gift.

Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay and current Republican gubernatorial candidate in California has been chanting the same mantra while touting her own ability to grow jobs in the state. She may talk a big game, but her tenure at eBay shouldn't give hope to unemployed or underemployed voters looking for help. The California Labor Federation called her a "serial outsourcer" for the 40 percent of eBay's jobs that she eliminated here and shipped abroad. They added, "Whitman is a career corporate executive who built a personal fortune by eliminating and outsourcing jobs and slashing workers' benefits. Everywhere she's been, she's made out with lucrative bonuses, stock options and other compensation. And workers have suffered hardships as a result … it's evident that she would bring the same corporate agenda she's advocated throughout her career to the governor's office."

Rand Paul, the Tea Party-backed Senate candidate from Kentucky, told the Daily Beast's Benjamin Sarlin that he would "vote against and filibuster any unbalanced budget proposal in the Senate." I'll set aside his ignorance of Senate rules (budgets cannot be filibustered) and move onto where he contradicts himself: When asked by the Lexington Herald-Leader if he'd support the extension of all the Bush tax cuts, he stated, "Absolutely." Clearly, it's fine to add to the deficit as long as it benefits Republican policies.

In our state, Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley proposed a 20-point plan to create jobs which relies on the overused and nonsensical page from the Republican playbook of cut-taxes-and-pray-for-jobs. He can dress it up in whatever language he thinks will sell to Oregonians, but none of the insipid Republican talking points can mask the damage that stripping $400 million for a reduction in capital gains taxes from the 2011-13 state budget will do.

The truth is, Republicans don't actually care about reducing the deficit now. They care that the deficit is bad enough that they can capitalize on the American public's fear and anger over our future, and they can direct this emotion toward Democratic demise in order to take more seats in Congress and eventually regain the presidency. They care about the state of the deficit because they know an ill-informed public may allow them to go back to giving tax cuts to the rich and slashing social services while claiming that they are simultaneously stimulating the economy and reducing the deficit. Aside from Medicare and Social Security, which Republicans are afraid to touch even with all the hand-wringing about those evil "entitlements" and its slippery-slope to "socialism," there are not enough social programs to cut to make up for the $4 trillion that could be added by extending the Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent and nowhere near enough to tackle the massive $13 trillion deficit we currently have.

Dudley and other Republicans may want to believe that what works for themselves and their wealthy cronies will be good for the rest of us, but our state and our country cannot handle the continued attempt to test this failed hypothesis. President Obama and the Democrats in control of Congress may not have been able to turn around the economy in two years, but that doesn't mean we should go back to the Republican policies that turned a surplus into a deficit through tax cuts, the expensive (not to mention unjust) foreign occupations and the kowtowing to corporate interests. Republicans may like to believe that tax cuts will create jobs and stimulate the economy, but they face the same problem as Fox News and their famous "fair and balanced" tagline: Saying it enough times and at a high enough volume won't make it any more true. The evidence speaks for itself.

Sara Gwin is a senior in psychology and women studies. The opinions expressed in her columns do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Barometer staff. Gwin can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.

Column on Rape Culture and Yale's DKE Controversy

2010-10-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

What 'rape culture' does to college women

By: Sara Gwin

Posted: 10/26/10

Last week, Yale's Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity started making national headlines when a video surfaced of its members and pledges chanting, "No means yes! Yes means anal! F**king sl**s!" in Old Campus - home to the majority of freshmen women.

An anonymous 20-year-old member of DKE told Tracy Clark-Flory of Salon.com that this particular pledging event was carried out by "approximately 15 brothers and 30 pledges," and admitted that the chant itself is "a carry-over from previous years."

The fraternity has since apologized twice. The first amounted to what Dr. Michael Kimmel at the Ms. Magazine blog described as "a cover-your-ass smirking apology for offending people's feelings (read: you feminists can't take a joke)" while the second was far more sincere. DKE president Jordan Forney called it "inappropriate, disrespectful and very hurtful to others." He also noted that it was the result of "a lapse in judgment" and was "in poor taste."

This isn't the first time Yale fraternities have made national headlines for their rank misogyny. In 2006, fraternity members picketed outside of the campus Women's Center using the aforementioned "No means yes! Yes means anal!" chant, and in 2008, it was picketed again as fraternity members screamed out about the "sl**s" who spent time there.

It was certainly "inappropriate, disrespectful, and very hurtful to others" to chant these words, but it goes far deeper than this. There is a reason why this fraternity thought they could get away with making light of sexual assault. They could have done a variety of other offensive activities, but they knew this was something they could feign ignorance for and use their good ol' frat boy image of perpetual adolescence to mask. Because rape culture is deeply embedded within our society, rape is often tolerated, and in some cases, encouraged.

In the U.S., 17.6 percent of women - almost one in five - will be survivors of an attempted or completed rape. For women on college campuses, that number jumps up to one in four. The U.S. Dept. of Justice estimates that only 26 percent of sexual assaults are reported to the police, while less than five percent of sexual assaults on college campuses are reported to law enforcement or to campus authorities. The U.S. Dept. of Justice also notes that contrary to widespread beliefs about stranger rape, between 80 and 90 percent of survivors know their attackers.

Research by Robin Warsaw found that one in 12 men admitted to committing acts that met the legal definition of rape or attempted rape, but 84 percent of these men believed what they did was definitely not rape. Sixty percent admitted that they'd commit rape if they believed they could get away with it. Factoring unreported rapes into the equation, it is estimated that only one-in-20 rapists will spend a day in jail for their crimes while the other 19 will walk free.

As a consequence of living within a rape culture, it isn't typically the survivors who are rallied around and supported, but the rapists. From a young age, women are told to not go out alone, to be careful of what they drink and to not dress or act suggestively in order to minimize their chances of being sexually assaulted. Because of this, it is common to hear friends, family, community members and others blame the victim by asking things like: What was she doing out alone? Why did she drink so much? Why did she wear such a short dress? She must have been asking for it. But the reality is, it takes a rapist in these situations to take action.

It is rape culture that puts the onus on women to prevent sexual assault by avoiding certain situations and certain kinds of people, and to dress in such a way that doesn't entice men to rape. This way, women can be blamed for the actions of men, and men are not admonished. Rape culture perpetuates the idea that sexual assault only occurs when it is a sexually-repressed stranger who attacks, not by someone we know who uses rape to dominate and control. This gives cover to average men who rape, even though the majority of men who rape are those we don't think of as criminals or all that deviant. And if rapists can be viewed as upstanding citizens in other aspects of their lives, it can be much easier to justify the victim-blaming that perpetuates rape culture.

Rape culture makes reporting a sexual assault an arduous task that can re-victimize the survivor. On top of the wide-ranging physical and emotional pain that survivors may experience, reporting or even admitting what happened can feel like one is being thrown into a lion's den, where the pervasiveness of victim-blaming can make one afraid to speak out in the first place or to give up when the task is just too much to handle.

Rape culture is also perpetuated by the widespread objectification of women. This leads some men to see women's bodies as public property that they feel entitled to to touch, and to see the women they have consensual sex with, or those they sexually assault, as trophies to exemplify their masculinity.

Sexual assault is an epidemic, especially on college campuses. One in four women will experience an attempted or completed sexual assault before they graduate. Statistically speaking, freshmen women are the most vulnerable, particularly during their first term in college. A series of reports by the Center for Public Integrity found that sexual assaults on campuses are widespread and often committed by repeat offenders who face few consequences, if any at all. The CPI has called on colleges and universities to address this culture of indifference that often allows perpetrators to go unpunished while re-traumatizing survivors. Colleges and universities that don't take sexual assaults seriously allow campuses to remain an unsafe environment for women.

So what is the effect of a fraternity marching by the freshman dormitories, chanting words that encourage sexual assault? It's an eerie reminder that women are not safe. And with the protests outside of the campus Women's Center in 2006 and 2008, they are telling women that even a place designed to be safe for them isn't. While the Women's Center is used in a variety of ways to promote gender equity and offer resources to men and women alike, it is a place where women are often referred to for information about sexual assault. For some survivors, the Women's Center is a sanctuary, a place where they can go for a brief reprieve from the rape culture that minimizes and trivializes the heinous act committed upon them. It can be deeply traumatic to walk around the same campus as one's rapist, to see those who look like him, or to see those who have minimized or disregarded the attack. Safe spaces are desperately needed.

I don't know if sexual assaults were committed by DKE members, but their disgusting actions play into our rape culture that tolerates and encourages sexual assault. By joking about sexual assault and making light of such a horrible crime, rapists are given cover while survivors' experiences are ignored. DKE might want to believe that this was all in innocent fun, but their ignorance shouldn't excuse their actions. If we don't speak out and hold people accountable, we allow rape culture to flourish and continue to hurt past and future survivors.

Sara Gwin is a senior in psychology and women's studies. The opinions expressed in her columns do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Barometer staff. Gwin can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.

Column: A closer look at the new Tea Party

2010-10-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

A closer look at the new Tea Party

By: Sara Gwin

Posted: 10/19/10

One of the interesting after effects of the election of a new president is seeing what the losing party does to rebuild itself as a contender for the midterms and to eventually retake the presidency.

In the age of President Obama, Republicans have jumped on board with the Tea Party in a desperate attempt to follow some kind of momentum. The Tea Party has been making headlines and dominating the political discourse as pundit after pundit has pontificated on whether they are a groundswelling of rage that can be generalized to represent the general populace, or if they're an extremist group representative of the xenophobic, anti-intellectual, ideological and fear-driven base of the Republican party.

Over the past couple years, so-called "tea baggers" have been harassing elected officials at town halls to prevent or limit discussion on Democratic proposals. They've hosted rallies against health care reform and climate change legislation, rallies over tax rage (despite the fact that we're paying less under Obama than their beloved Ronald Reagan), and other generic opposition rallies. Obama has been painted as a Nazi-inspired socialist, a Muslim (and by extension of Islamaphobia, a terrorist-sympathizer), a Kenyan citizen which makes him ineligible to be president, the Antichrist who will signal the beginning of Armageddon - all four of these add to the process of otherization that weaves paranoia, ignorance, racism, and fear into a depiction of our leader that exists far outside reality. He's also been described as a tyrannical leader, driven by the desire to take away our right to own guns. This irrational fear led to an ammunition shortage in the first year of Obama's presidency and inspired a number of Tea Party ralliers to bring guns under the banner of the Thomas Jefferson quote that reads, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

The Tea Party rage has yet to lead to an armed insurrection or serious attacks on elected officials, but that rage has lead tea baggers to come out and vote for a chance at bringing far-right candidates into the House and Senate. While the worship of Glenn Beck and its celebration of ignorance and revisionist history may make great fodder for left-leaning writers and pundits, the chance that one of these Tea Party-backed candidates gets elected is a cause for worry, especially if Democrats are too disillusioned or disenfranchised to vote in the midterms.

Sharron Angle, the Tea Party-backed candidate in Nevada trying to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, wants to eliminate the Department of Education, supports the privatization of Social Security and Medicare, as well as the withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations, is opposed to women working outside the home (she's an exception, apparently), and to regulations on offshore oil drilling. She even voted against fluoridation of water in two Nevada counties stating that it contains substances that are "considered hazardous to human health." Angle's fear over what she sees as tyrannical government in the making has led to her suggesting that "second amendment remedies" may be necessary. One of the harshest positions she has, which is shared by many, if not all of the Tea Party-backed candidates this year, is her belief that abortion should be outlawed even in cases of rape, incest and the health of the woman. She stated that these may be a way to turn "a lemon situation into lemonade" because "God has a plan ... and we need to have a little faith." To her, government is evil and should stay out of people's lives - unless there's a woman with an unwanted pregnancy. Then she wants a government big enough to prevent her from obtaining a legal abortion and to punish her with prison time if she obtains one.

Carl Paladino, the Tea Party-backed candidate for Governor of New York, has already made headlines after he spoke out against marriage equality by stating, "we must stop pandering to the pornographers and the perverts, who seek to target our children and destroy their lives," which was followed by the release of e-mails he forwarded which contained pornography, including bestiality. He also made headlines when additional e-mails showed he had passed along an Obama-as-African-tribesman video and one comparing our president to a monkey. When it comes to policy positions, Paladino isn't far from Angle. He's opposed to abortion in all cases and believes the gay rights movement has "brainwashed [some] into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option." He has vowed to cut the state's Medicaid budget by 30 percent and wants to amend the state constitution to cut back on laws he believes create a welfare state. He has also proposed housing welfare recipients in state prisons. To further add to his Tea Party credibility, he's a proponent for expanding gun ownership rights and repealing the New York State Assault Weapon Ban. He also opposes health care reform and believes "'Obamacare' will be so horrific that it will kill more Americans through deteriorating health care than were lost on 9/11."

Kentucky resident Rand Paul, another Tea Party-backed candidate for Senate, has been riding the coattails of his faux-libertarian policies to mask his far-right Republican beliefs. Like Angle and Paladino, Paul opposes abortion without exceptions and would be in support of personhood legislation that would designate the fetus at conception as a live person. He supports the elimination of the Department of Education, opposes regulation of industry in favor of free market approaches, and ultimately wants to repeal Medicare - although 50 percent of his ophthalmology practice is paid through Medicare, so he's certainly reaping the benefits of a program he's opposed to. He's spoken out against parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because he believes private business should have the right to discriminate against whomever they please, and has called for a review of the 14th Amendment out of the belief that children born here from undocumented immigrants should be denied birthright citizenship.

The latest Tea Party-backed candidate on the scene, Christine O'Donnell of Delaware, looms behind Democrat Chris Coons despite the huge financial backing of national Tea Party groups. She's well-known for her work in promoting abstinence, including abstinence from masturbation, through her organization, Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth, which also advocates for reparative therapies to turn gay people straight. She supports the teaching of creationism in schools, arguing that evolution is "a myth" and that "there is just as much, if not more, evidence supporting [creationism]." O'Donnell opposes abortions, but believes that if the woman is dying, her family can choose which life they'd like to save. Notice that O'Donnell leaves no room for the dying woman to decide if she wants to save her own life. To some of these anti-choice zealots, women would become walking wombs stripped of all human rights upon conception; they'd have to depend on the grace of their family to allow her to live if carrying the fetus was killing her.

Elsewhere, Tea Party-backed candidates like Marco Rubio in Florida, Ken Buck in Colorado, Joe Miller in Alaska, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania and Art Robinson in Oregon are looking to ride this wave of discontent and fear over the economy into Republican wins. While these candidates can worry Democrats about the possibility of an even more strident Republican opposition, it is the Republicans who have the most to lose from riding along with the Tea Party. Delaware should have been an easy Republican pickup, but now the Republican National Committee and others have to spend countless millions in that state if they wish to pull out another surprise win for O'Donnell. These Tea Party candidates may excite the Republican base, but Independents and Democrats aren't likely to be swayed to vote for candidates this far to the right. If Republicans want to work so hard to hold onto that xenophobic, ignorant, delusional base, they just might lose out on retaking the House and lose out on having any shot at reclaiming the presidency in 2012.

Sara Gwin is a senior in psychology and women's studies. The opinions expressed in her columns do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Barometer staff. Gwin can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.

Why do we still celebrate Columbus Day?

2010-10-12T00:41:00.000-07:00

To learn more about the project, visit reconsidercolumbusday.org. Also, sign a petition for the recognition of an Indigenous Persons Holiday.

The homophobia epidemic and how to avoid it

2010-10-10T22:47:00.000-07:00

In an example of cruel irony, nine high profile stories of suicides by gay teenagers came to light during September – Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

Tyler Clementi, a 19-year-old Rutgers freshman jumped from the George Washington Bridge after discovering his roommate secretly taped his sexual encounter with another man and shared it online. Other high profile suicides include: 15-year-old Billy Lucas from Indiana, 17-year-old Cody J. Barker from Wisconsin, 13-year old Seth Walsh from California, 13-year-old Asher Brown of Texas, 15-year-old Harrison Chase Brown from Colorado, 19-year-old Raymond Chase from Rhode Island, 17-year-old Felix Sacco of Massachusetts and 14-year-old Caleb Nolt of Indiana. These nine teenagers were mercilessly tormented both physically and emotionally for being gay or being perceived as such.

Suicides happen for myriad reasons that leave individuals hopeless and desperate to put an end to their pain, but there was a common thread through these recent deaths that we cannot ignore: homophobia.

As a society, we'd be remiss to think that these suicides occurred in a vacuum outside of the influence of family, community members, religious leaders, politicians, or the media. They took place in a deeply homophobic society that routinely demonstrates that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are different and unworthy of full civil rights. Even worse, they are sometimes seen as disgusting and deserving of hate and violence.

Our own supposedly secular government continues to treat the LGBT community as second-class citizens. Only five states have marriage equality; but because of the Defense of Marriage Act, married gay and lesbian couples are still denied the 1,138 federal benefits and responsibilities given to their married straight counterparts. Some other states offer domestic partnerships or civil unions with differing amounts of state rights that may or may not be comparable to the state rights given to straight couples. For bi-national couples, the Immigration and Nationality Act’s current definition of family does not include same-sex partners, so couples and families can be torn apart for not having an opposite-sex union. Under the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” military policy, 13,000-plus gay and lesbian servicemen have been kicked out for something completely unrelated to their ability to serve – but for their professed or presumed attraction to members of the same sex.

In 1974 on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Representatives Bella Abzug and Ed Koch introduced H.R. 1472, the “gay rights bill,” which would have added sexual orientation to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but it failed to pass. In the 1990s, the focus moved from full civil rights to smaller steps on the road to equality. Because the Employee Non-Discrimination Act has yet to pass despite being introduced every year since 1994, LGBT individuals can still be fired or discriminated against in the workplace for their sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBT individuals and couples are also not protected under The Fair Housing Act (Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968), but 12 states prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity while another six prohibit discrimination for sexual orientation only.

In 2008, renowned homophobe Rep. Sally Kern of Oklahoma stated that gays have a “deadly lifestyle” that was such a threat to our society that they are “worse than terrorists.” Rev. Pat Robertson, like countless others, routinely perpetuate the idea that there is something evil about being gay: “Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals – the two things seem to go together.” Nevermind the fact that Hitler was Catholic and the Catholic Church remained complicit during his pogrom that included the persecution of the LGBT community. While reclaimed today, the pink triangle was the symbol used to mark LGBT people in concentration camps. Organizations like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council often talk of the “radical homosexual agenda” to recruit young children, destroy “traditional marriage,” and take away Christian's religious “freedom” to preach hate. Numerous anti-gay religious leaders from Fred Phelps to James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Rick Warren, Lou Engle, and the late Jerry Falwell have spewed enough vitriol to inspire hordes of God-fearing individuals into forcing children and shaming adults into “pray the gay away” camps or witnessing to the LGBT community by detailing the damnation and painful experiences that await them in Hell which their supposedly loving deity would condemn gays to. Others find it necessary to ostracize LGBT family and community members and some use passages in the Bible to justify hate-speech, violence, and murder. The anti-gay current in certain conservative churches can make for a very hostile environment for LGBT individuals and communities.

For some, coming out can be an incredibly fearful time. Some of us grow up in conservative religious families and communities where our different sexual orientation or gender identity is viewed as an affront to God. Others are experiencing alienation from the backlash against feminism that pressures men into a hegemonic masculinity that is defined and perpetuated by what it is not: female or gay. Denigration, hate, and violence can be viewed as appropriate ways to reinforce masculinity. By treating gay as evil or disgusting and by calling gay men “pussies,” “sissies,” or whatever sexist term elucidates the idea that being feminine is wrong, hyper-masculinity is reinforced as the ideal.

By looking at the effects of a government that treats the LGBT community as second-class citizens or the effects of religious leaders and other leaders at the local, state, national, and global levels, should we really be surprised that gay teenagers are routinely harassed and assaulted in our communities? Is it any wonder that, according to a 10-year study by the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, 9 out of 10 LGBT students face harassment at school? Or that two-thirds feel unsafe at school and another one-third had skipped school in the past month out of fear for their safety? According to the Trevor Project, LGBT kids are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight counterparts and one-third of LGBT kids have attempted suicide – an average of one every five hours. In light of the recent suicides, comedian Kathy Griffin noted that anti-gay public figures “have blood on their hands” for their “trickle-down homophobia.” Ellen DeGeneres also stated that “there are messages everywhere that validate this sort of bullying and taunting and we need to make it stop. We can't let intolerance and ignorance take another kids life.”

These suicides demonstrate that these aren't just a tragedy; they are an epidemic in which we all play a role. Whether we take part in bullying or not, our ignorance and silence can be used as acceptance of homophobia. Our silence fuels hate, bigotry and violence. Quite simply, silence is betrayal. As Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel stated, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Speaking out against homophobia can be a difficult task. But as long as we allow discrimination, hate-speech and bullying in our families, communities, the media and from our elected officials, we are allowing hostile environments to flourish. In honor of today, National Coming Out Day, I hope we'll take some time to reflect on what can be done to fight homophobia. It isn't easy, but we just may have a hand in helping someone feel safe, and perhaps save a life.

For my LGBT brothers and sisters, know that you are never alone. You may have been rejected by your families and communities and have had to listen to virulent attacks on your character by religious leaders and public figures, but it does get better. We know that coming out isn't just the moment when we come out to ourselves or our friends and family, but sometimes a recurring daily process in which we assess whether it may lead to discrimination, hateful rhetoric or violence. It isn't fair and sometimes we may wish to run back in the closet with some semblance of heterosexual privilege, but you will find community, love, and that wonderful feeling that comes from being true to yourself and your desires. And while you may feel alone, there are organizations and community groups in various places offering support, resources and vital connections. Don't lose hope; it really does get better.

Sara Gwin is a senior in psychology and women's studies. The opinions expressed in her columns do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Barometer staff. Gwin can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.

Column: My reponse to Obama attacking progressives

2010-10-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

For those who'd like to keep Washington blue

By: Sara Gwin

Posted: 10/5/10

With midterm elections coming up and Democrats struggling to hold onto Congressional seats, the Obama administration has been hard at work trying to minimize that enthusiasm gap between Democratic and Republican voters that has given Republicans hope to reclaim control of Congress. While the Obama administration could capitalize on the recent Republican obstructionism in the Senate, their race-baiting and anti-gay agenda, or the fact that they continue to run on the same economic platform that got us into this mess, the Obama administration instead seems to be trying to push reluctant voters by chastising progressives for daring to be critical of their leadership.

In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, President Obama made a point to argue that his supporters should "buck up" and come out to vote in November because "[I]t is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election," adding that it was "just irresponsible" that some in his liberal base were lacking enthusiasm. "If people now want to take their ball and go home that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place," he said. "If you're serious, now's exactly the time that people have to step up." At an event in Greenwich, Conn., he mocked public option supporters by laughing about Democrats' tendency "to see the glass as half empty" and "not appreciate that an historic healthcare bill passed."

Speaking at a fundraiser in New Hampshire, Vice President Joe Biden told Democrats to "stop whining." On Sept. 15, Biden talked along similar lines while on the Rachel Maddow Show. "One of the reasons I wanna be on your show is to tell the progressives out there, you know, get in gear, man. First of all, there's a great deal at stake...[y]ou better get energized because the consequences are serious for the outcome of the things we care most about."

Back in January, Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emmanuel used the ableist slur, "F-ing retarded," to describe his disdain for progressive groups like MoveOn.org, who were supporting progressive-minded candidates over the establishment "Blue Dog" (a kind way of saying corporate shill) Democrats. And on Aug. 10 in an interview with The Hill, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated that, "I hear these people saying he's like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested. I mean, it's crazy."

It's true that on many of the issues that matter to progressives, like environmental concerns including climate change, marriage equality and other civil rights for the LGBT community or bringing an end to the War on Terror, it is the Democrats who are the closest thing we've got to achieving those goals. So the prospect of not turning out to vote hurts our own self-interests. But that's the downside to having a two-party system, where any non-vote or vote for a third-party candidate can effectively be a vote for the other side.

But with the kind of rhetoric coming out of the Obama administration, you'd think progressives were acting like petulant teenagers disappointed that our parents purchased us a used Honda instead of the desired BMW. However, there are plenty of reasons to be angered and depressed with what has happened.

With the stimulus, the weak healthcare and financial reforms and the failure to pass a substantial climate bill, progressives have had to sit back and watch important pieces of legislation whittled down into lackluster bills in the vain attempt of acquiring Republican votes. Bipartisanship is a two-way street, but President Obama and the rest of the Democratic leadership seem to have missed the memo that Republicans are taking a page from the Newt Gingrich playbook of the 1990s: Slow down, if not fully stop, Congress in order to make Democrats and the administration look incompetent. They aren't standing up for Republican principles or offering solutions, they are obstructing anything and everything and jumping on whatever bandwagon seems to be moving in their direction - even if that means riding the coattails of astro-turfed movements like the racist and protofacist Tea Party. The Democratic leadership seems so hell-bent on courting Republicans that they are bending-over-backwards trying to entice them with bills chock-full of Republican ideas, compromising their own ideas and values.

Republicans have even found a way to stoke the fears brought out by the otherization of President Obama. He's been painted as "the most radical president in history," as Gingrich has asserted, or as one of those evil Nazi-inspired "socialists," a term that seems synonymous with Obama in every Republican talking point or campaign literature of late. The idea seems to be that if they repeat it enough times, it'll be true; or true enough to carry them to campaign victories in the midterms and ultimately in 2012. Nevermind the fact that President Obama ran as a centrist, and could hardly be called liberal with the policies he has supported since taking office. As documented by the ACLU's report, "Establishing a New Normal," he's continued the worst of the Bush-era policies such as military commissions and indefinite detention. He has expanded Bush's targeted killing program and has taken it a step further by calling for the assassination of a U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, without due process. He escalated the war in Afghanistan, has been using drones to bomb Pakistan and uses the mercenary army Blackwater (now Xe) in various aspects the war effort who can work outside of the military code of justice, which is best-evidenced by the Nissour Square massacre in Baghdad.

As a supposed "fierce advocate" for gay rights, President Obama seems to think we should be happy with the status quo because it could be worse under a Republican president. According to Gallup, nearly 70 percent of Americans (a very rare consensus) support the ending of the wretched "don't ask don't tell" policy that has kicked out 13,000-plus servicemen and women solely for audacity to love someone of the same gender. With the flick of a pen, President Obama could have signed an executive order stopping the enforcement of DADT (and instead keep the average of two soldiers kicked out per day) until a repeal could take place, but as Gibbs announced after Senate Republicans filibustered the entire Defense Authorization bill in order to stop the repeal, President Obama cut a backroom deal with Republicans to not sign an executive order for their support. We're already taking part in the longest war in U.S. history, one that has helped tarnish our reputation in the global community, spiraled us into a trillion-dollar deficit and has cost the lives of thousands of our soldiers and injured countless more; you'd think we'd want to hold onto perfectly capable soldiers who are already ready and willing to risk their lives.

While Gibbs may think progressives are "crazy" to criticize the president, the administration needs to understand that there are legitimate reasons why progressives are upset. We don't swear any allegiance to the Democratic party, but many of us haven't completely lost hope and jumped ship because we believe in the values supposedly represented by the party. If I wanted to support the military industrial complex and continue an unjust war, treat health-care as a privilege, continue to treat gays and lesbians as second class citizens and serve the needs of corporations and the super-rich over the poor and middle classes - I would have voted Republican. We can, and should, do better to fight for more than just the status quo. Stop attacking progressives for demanding more out of our party and we may put in the time and effort to keep Democrats in office instead of just reluctantly voting.

Sara Gwin is a senior in psychology and women's studies. The opinions expressed in her columns do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Barometer staff. Gwin can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.

Column: Beware of CPCs

2010-09-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

Beware of crisis pregnancy centers

By: Sara Gwin

Posted: 9/27/10

Whether I'm listening to the radio, driving past billboards or noticing the advertisements on the side of my facebook wall, I seem to hear a lot about organizations offering free pregnancy tests, counseling and options for women dealing with unplanned pregnancies.

While I'd normally be excited to hear that women have more resources and support systems in our communities, I've done enough research to know these are not what they seem. Every time I hear or see one of those advertisements, I'm left feeling worried for the women tricked into going under the assumption that they will receive accurate information and support for whatever decision they make.

For over 40 years, there have been organizations fighting in communities across the country to limit - if not fully eliminate - access to abortion through the work of fake clinics called Crisis Pregnancy Centers. They pose as women's health clinics in the hopes of persuading women out of an abortion - sometimes by any means necessary. CPCs are set up by religious groups that primarily belong to large affiliated networks who share resources, including funding from various churches, and are often linked with large Christian organizations, like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. With the increased focus on lobbying and networking, many also receive money through state funding (like from "Choose Life" license plates) and federal funding (like abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that were greatly expanded under President George W. Bush and gave an estimated $60 million to CPCs).

CPCs use deceptive tactics to lure in women. In 1998, research conducted by the Family Research Council found that women typically look for information and options for dealing with unplanned pregnancies with the keywords "pregnancy," "women's centers" and "clinics," so CPCs advertise under "abortion services" or "women's clinics" in newspapers. They also choose neutral sounding names, often using words like "options," "choice" or "resource" in their titles to hide their anti-choice agenda, or call themselves a clinic even if the only piece of medical equipment they own is an ultrasound.

CPCs are designed to look like clinics - often placed near hospitals and clinics to look professional - and specifically near women's health clinics to draw in women headed there. They advertise for free pregnancy tests, which hardly seem free when the two to five minute test is delayed for an hour or longer to give time to show disturbing anti-abortion and anti-contraceptive videos and literature. An investigative report from Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., in 2006 titled "False and Misleading Health Information Provided by Federally Funded Pregnancy Resource Centers," concluded that 87 percent of federally funded centers provided false or misleading information about abortion, even that oft-repeated but thoroughly debunked link between abortion and breast cancer.

Many CPCs are believed to have followed the advice of the handbook "How to Start and Operate a Pro-Life Outreach Pregnancy Service Center," first published by the Pearson Foundation in 1989, which offers advice such as:

•The importance of renting a space near a clinic that provides abortions: "the abortion chamber is paying for advertising to bring that girl to you...[and if] she sees your office first with a similar name, she will probably come into your center."

•Lie if a woman calls or drops in asking if it is a pro-life center: "say, 'We are a pregnancy center...[we] have many ways to help a woman and will answer any and all questions regarding pregnancy and anything she needs to know about abortion.'"

•If the misleading and false information regarding abortion doesn't seem to be doing the trick: "Keep a few baby items hidden away in your Center, so that you are not advertising your pro-life views. But sometimes the gift of a little baby outfit before she leaves is the very thing that will clinch the mother's decision for life."

•For women wishing to prevent a future unplanned pregnancy: "Never counsel for contraception or refer to agencies making contraceptives available. Fornication is still a sin no matter what the circumstances."

Countless stories exist of women who were mislead, harassed, threatened, had their confidentiality violated (unlike actual clinics, CPCs aren't required by law to be confidential) and were stalked by CPC staff. Other CPCs sometimes take it a step further, not only shaming women into carrying a fetus to term, but shaming them further into giving it up to certain kinds of couples or affiliated Christian adoption agencies. In September of 2009, investigative journalist Kathryn Joyce wrote an exposé for The Nation titled "Shotgun Adoption" that described the insidious ways some CPCs prey upon women to coerce them into choosing adoption.

The National Abortion Federation estimates 4,000 CPCs exist across the nation compared to just 2,000 clinics that provide abortions and other healthcare. CPCwatch.org, a grassroots CPC watchdog group, lists 55 CPCs in Oregon, including one in Corvallis: Options Pregnancy Resource Center. While CPCs often like to position themselves near actual clinics, some also position themselves near college campuses and advertise in school papers (I found one in our back-to-school issue), where they believe they will have access to a larger group of women looking for resources regarding an unplanned pregnancy. They specifically target young, poor, working-class women because they believe these types of women are the easiest to reach and manipulate. To the credit of the Options Pregnancy Resource Center here, they do not refer for abortions, as stated on possiblypregnant.org, a CPC referral website (Women would have to travel to Salem or the Portland area for the nearest clinics that provide abortions.)

While CPCs are growing in numbers and boasting high percentages of "conversions," lawmakers are becoming more aware of their deceptive practices. In January of 2009, Baltimore, Md., forced CPCs under penalty of a fine to post a sign clearly stating that they do not provide information or referrals for contraception and abortion. Similar laws have been enacted in Montgomery County, Md., and Austin, Texas. In Congress, House bill H.R. 5652: Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services Act and its Senate counterpart, S. 3552, have been re-introduced and recommended to committee (step one of the bill passage process).

In the past couple months, I've watched the possiblypregnant.org website go from a stockpile of misleading and sometimes wildly inaccurate statements regarding abortion and contraception to a simple clinic reference page. Gone are statements chastising women for sex outside of marriage, or for trying to control their own fertility. Gone are the insipid assertions about abortion and its supposed link to cancer and infertility, as well as the warnings against illnesses like "post-abortion stress syndrome," which the American Psychological Association has found to be fabricated and without merit. Also gone are the easily debunked statements regarding contraception, like the idea that condoms are "designed to fail," that hormonal birth control increases the risk of STDs or that emergency contraception is the abortion pill. (Mifipristone, or as it is commonly known, RU-486, can be prescribed to women to terminate an early pregnancy while emergency contraception prevents a pregnancy from occurring if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.)

The scrubbing down of the website suggests that increased attention has caused CPCs to be more cautious and to leave their deception and anti-choice agenda to the "clinics" themselves.

Religious-based organizations have every right to exist and provide whatever services they wish, but they should be held accountable for their deceptive tactics and use of misleading and inaccurate information - especially when given state and federal funding. Regardless of the wide-ranging and often deeply held opinions on abortion, there are ways to promote contraceptive use, promote parenthood and adoption and reduce abortion - all without resorting to tricking and manipulating women who may already be in a desperate situation.

Sara Gwin is a senior in psychology and women's studies. The opinions expressed in her columns do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Barometer staff. Gwin can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.

My Comeback Column!

2010-09-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

Lyme disease, unsilenced

By: Sara Gwin

Posted: 9/20/10

In the last column I wrote, "Discovering meaning in my life," in January 2009, I vaguely reflected on how it felt to be diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. I was afraid, however, to be completely honest and couldn't even bring myself to name the disease because of the stigma and controversy attached to it.

Since then, I've heard about fellow patients who have died from the disease or from treatment itself, as well as those who have committed suicide when they just couldn't fight anymore. Like many other patients, I was denied treatment by my doctor and by specialists who saw my positive test result as something more indicative of my insanity than proof of an infection.

But no one benefits from silence and obfuscation, especially my fellow sufferers who feel ostracized from the greater medical community and from a society who knows next to nothing of our battle. As someone who feels very lucky to be alive, it only seems right to speak out for those who lost their lives or are too sick to speak themselves.

I have been fighting Lyme disease and two co-infections, babesiosis and ehrlichiosis, which all came from a tick bite at least 12 years ago.

After a decade of misdiagnoses that ranged from sports-related injuries to auto-immune disorders and diseases, it still took seven months after my Lyme diagnosis to find a doctor willing to treat me. Some patients spend years visiting countless specialists before finding what we in the Lyme community call Lyme-literate doctors. I was lucky enough to get in touch with a fellow sufferer who realized how dire my situation was and connected me with her doctor. Every three months I travel to visit him in California, one of the few states that protect doctors who treat Lyme. Current guidelines restrict the treatment of Lyme disease with antibiotics to two to four weeks (it is predominately believed that Lyme is easy to treat and any residual symptoms are from something else), so doctors can lose their licenses for treating patients for longer periods of time. Because of the controversy, many doctors refuse to treat it and many insurance companies refuse to pay for treatments.

In the time since high school, I went from an overly-active athlete spending six hours a day working out to a college student who needed to cut down on excess walking just to make it through the day. By the time I had to drop out of college, I was unable to walk for several days at a time; if I could walk, I'd have an awkward gait and nervous tics that made my sickness hard to hide.

I've spent the better part of the past two years bedridden and unable to care for myself, plagued with the kind of scream-inducing, mind-numbing pain that could only be compared to Hell - the sadistic devil's playground of my family's fundamentalist Christianity.

There was no painkiller strong enough to give me a reprieve from the unrelenting pain that seemed to affect every inch of my body. At any given moment, I'd experience dull aches, stabbing pain, and/or burning pain that worsened throughout the day. If I had the strength or energy to walk, I might only make it to the TV room or the kitchen before needing a long break. To push my frail body to do more than one or two things would cause me to be unable to walk for days and to endure an even more intense level of pain.

The disease was breaking me. Even when I'd reach points when I didn't think the pain could get any worse, I would always reach a new level that would feel completely unbearable. Even during treatment, my symptoms continued to worsen. My cocktail of medications made me nauseous and I had a hard time keeping food down. It didn't take long before I went vegetarian and then vegan as a way to eat simpler, healthier foods that were easier for my body to process and use.

Like many other late-stage Lyme sufferers, I could feel my mind slipping. I wouldn't recognize things I had seen a million times and I felt like my brain was struggling to access stored information. I was frightened that I'd lose the knowledge I had gained and that my brain would be too damaged to allow me to become a successful student again.

I read voraciously in an attempt to force my mind to hang on, but too often I felt like I wasn't processing the information. The swelling of my brain was affecting my eyesight and I had to deal with daily headaches that no medications could calm. About a year into treatment my heart felt like it was taking a tough beating.

Several times a day I'd experience heart attack symptoms: increased or irregular heartbeat; intense chest pressure that spread to my neck, shoulders and arms; anxiety; cold, sweaty skin; and lightheadedness, fainting, nausea and shortness of breath. If I was walking, I'd faint and I'd usually be too short of breath to call out for help. I was barely alive.

I have about six months left of treatment, but I already feel like a brand new person. Not only do I have the energy to do several activities a day without excess pain or weakness, but I can also run and lift weights - two things I haven't been able to do since high school. Instead of living in the short-term, merely focusing on staying alive, I finally get to come back to school and make plans for the future.

I know I have no authority to criticize the mainstream scientific community nor do I believe that my own dramatic recovery is anything more than anecdotal evidence for a chronic bacterial infection. But while physicians, scientists and others fight out whether or not chronic Lyme disease is real, it is the patients who suffer. Too many feel betrayed by the scientific community and some are so desperate for help that they fall prey to whatever a snake oil peddler can come up with that can be dressed up in enough scientific language to sound legit.

I hope we can use the controversy to push the debate into more research instead of political or economic arguments of division that leave patients out of the equation. No one should have to face the fight with the disease - and with the doctors - that past and current Lyme patients have had to.

Sara Gwin is a senior in psychology and women studies. The opinions expressed in her columns do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Barometer staff. Gwin can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.

Apparently I'm elderly and angry...

2010-09-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

This website analyzes text on blogs and guesses what type of person writes it. Here's my analysis:

silence-is-betrayal.blogspot.com is probably written by a female somewhere between 66-100 years old. The writing style is personal and upset most of the time.

Gender

Age

Mood

Tonality

My Lyme Journal: Volume 8

2010-08-20T23:05:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I had my latest lyme appointment. There's nothing new or exciting to report...I still have lyme (as expected) and I'm probably 6 months or more from totally killing it off. I've switched one of my antibiotics to something that might work better and continuing on with everything else. The difference this time around is that I'm actually getting a lot better. I was really sick when I first started treatment and I continued to get worse as babesiosis and lyme seemed to be immune to the first several rounds of treatment (ehrlichiosis was done after one round). But at this point, I'm feeling mostly functional and healthy, so I'm really ready to be done with this and move on with my life.

It's odd to think that a few months ago I was panicked because I just wanted to stay alive. I wasn't looking to the future, but focusing on living another day. Today, I'm impatient and ready to move on. I took two classes this summer with relative ease and have been working out daily without the increased pain and diminished mobility that used to come with it. I feel like a new person! I can't remember ever feeling this good and I'll only continue to be getting better! It's a wonderful feeling and I'm so excited to experience life post-lyme.

In a little more than a month, I will back at Oregon State restarting my senior year which I had to drop out of two years previously. I'm so excited to be going back! I've applied as the Forum Editor at the Barometer and will at least be returning as a columnist (yay!!!!!). I plan on writing about lyme disease for my comeback column, which should be interesting since my last column was about it but I was too scared to actually admit exactly what I was dealing with. I had been a pretty honest columnist up to that point, so this will give the opportunity to make up for it and speak out for those with lyme whose voices cannot be heard. Because I only have 20 credits left to graduate, I can have lighter terms, take some graduate classes early, and have time to volunteer at the Women's Center and/or do more within the Women Studies department. I have my first grad class this fall, Feminism and the Bible, with one of my all-time favorite professors and people in general, Dr. Susan Shaw, who is probably the only person who really understands where I've come from and how that has affected who I am today. It should be really fascinating and thought-provoking class. And I'm taking it with one of my closest friends! What could be better?

In a lot of ways, I feel very lucky to still be alive and to have maintained relative sanity through all this. I'm always deeply saddened when I hear that fellow lymies die from it or from the difficulty of treatment or from suicide. It's a horrible disease with the kind of symptoms I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. Few doctors are willing to treat it and there is so little that is known about its long term effects. But lyme disease doesn't have to be death sentence. Hopefully with what some of us have had to deal with, the next generation of lyme patients will be able to have the disease diagnosed earlier and have better access to more effective treatment options. Or even better, perhaps they might be more educated about how to avoid getting the disease altogether.

Formspring.me: If you could date any celebrity, who would it be?

2010-07-22T23:55:00.001-07:00

As of today, Christina Hendricks. Other possible answers: Angelina Jolie, Jillian Michaels, Cathy DeBuono, Channing Tatum or a younger Brad Pitt.

Ask me anything

Finding Direction In Life

2010-07-15T19:02:00.000-07:00

How do we find out what to do with our lives? I feel like I've been asking myself that question most of my life. I used to think that our greatest strength would point us to our most well-suited career path, but what if you can't find it? Or what if you don't have one? Since middle school I've felt like I'm good at a lot of things but not great at anything. I've been a good athlete, good student, good writer, but none of those reach the level of stepping beyond the ordinary. What's the direction for the perfectly average individual?

In a lot of ways I'm jealous of my friends who are still majoring in what they decided on before college. It suits them and they feel totally comfortable with their choices. I, on the other hand, must have explored every major in the College of Liberal Arts after a brief foray in the College of Science. I came into college with sophomore standing, but my own ambivalence stretched my undergraduate years into a little over four years, not counting the year-and-a-half that I've been out of school for lyme disease, babesiosis, and ehrlichiosis treatment. I'm also a bit jealous of my religious friend who sees signs from god and the invisible hand of "fate" since she believes that nothing is coincidence and god is pointing out the directions for each of us to take in life. The staunch atheist in me can hardly take this belief seriously, but I do see how calming and comforting it can be to believe that we are "designed" for something (aren't we the narcissistic species!) and have to figure out what direction god specifically laid out for us. I've spent countless hours soul-searching and researching various graduate programs and organizations trying to figure out what exactly I should do with my life. However, this exploration mostly came to a screeching halt after my diagnosis.

Much of this time of late has been spent in the short term. I've been focused on just staying alive and learning to take pleasure in the small things: good chocolate, books to maintain some level of sanity, and Rachel Maddow. (Seriously, Maddow became like a drug. I needed my weekday fix or I wasn't OK!) If I learned anything from this time (aside from knowing I never want to experience that level of pain or fearfulness again), it is that I need to live in the moment and take time for myself. When I was last at OSU, I was that stereotypical overly-involved student who didn't take time for herself. There was so much I wanted to be a part of and so little time to fit it all into. Psychologically, this type of living served me well -- or at least it felt like it at the time.

My life dramatically changed during college and I was trying to make sense of who I was and what I was becoming. In a few short years I went from being a quiet, self-hating and incredibly-confused woman from a fundamentalist Christian background to an outspoken secular feminist unafraid of being different. However, this relatively short but major transition made me feel like I had partitioned off parts of my life and completely remade them. So I've since spent a lot of time re-discovering myself and redefining who I am presently. In some ways, I totally loved what I was becoming. I felt like I was coming into my own and ]finally comfortable in my own skin. On the other hand, I was scared of what was happening. The first acknowledgement of my atheism totally freaked me out. I just thought I was a non-churchgoer who was distant from god. I felt like I had inadvertently jumped out of the proverbial closet and saw the world in a way I wasn't ready for. I ran back inside and only started to carefully inch out seemingly after easing into each step by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens' books and lectures. I was also becoming more and more aware of how different I was than members of my family and I wasn't sure if I was ready to take on being the black sheep for the rest of my life. It was a lot to process.

Suffice to say, being out of school gave me a lot of time to find myself and make sense of it all. Though I don't actually recommend to others to live like they're dying. I recommend learning to take pleasure in the small things and living for today and not putting it off for tomorrow, but I wouldn't wish my circumstances on anyone. The extreme physical pain and crippled extremities on top of the rough treatment and the fear and helplessness isn't fun. But I am at a point where I'm in a really healthy place psychologically and emotionally. Which I thought would have been a great stepping stone to figuring out what I should be doing with my life. Logically it seemed like if I could figure out me, then I could discover what I wanted.

Wrong. I feel like I'm in the same place I've been for years. Even with all that has changed, I'm still completely lost as to what I want for a career. I'm in a major that I absolutely love (women studies) and would totally continue on to study it in graduate school, but what would I do after?

Lately, I've spent some time focusing on organizations I'd like to work for and then perusing their websites to see what kinds of jobs people do and what kinds of educational backgrounds they come from. So far I've learned that I'd love to work for Planned Parenthood. I really appreciate the work that they do and I've noticed that I seem to have a pretty strong passion for reproductive rights. But doing what? Communications? Policy analyst? Health educator? Even if I narrowed it down to one of these, I still have six months or so to figure out if I should be studying women studies/sexuality, public health, public policy, or journalism, if not something else entirely.

I want to find that career path that suits me and feels right even if I don't believe in a divine puppeteer pulling on my strings and walking me in certain directions. I really do want that comfort of certainty. I want to to feel like when I wake up tomorrow that I won't find myself on yet another tangent in whole new direction. I want the kind of direction that my friends can agree suits me. So why is it so hard to discover? What am I overlooking? Or where should I be looking instead? I really hope this will all begin to make sense sometime soon.

Short Book Review: Dispatches from the Abortion Wars

2010-07-15T05:06:00.000-07:00

Carole Joffe -- Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients, and the Rest of Us

If you aren't already angry, this book will certainly piss you off. Even though we are living in the time of legal abortion, the antiabortion zealots have worked to shape public policy by getting bills passed to restrict abortion through mandatory wait periods, parental consent laws, and the denial of federal funds stemming from the Hyde Amendment. Many states require the reading of ideologically-derived "facts" with no basis in science under the guise of "informed consent." If a woman needs an abortion from a hospital, perhaps due to a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, she better hope that she doesn't get taken to one of the 1-in-6 hospitals in the U.S. that are Catholic owned or affiliated because they are under no obligation to perform abortions or offer emergency contraception or contraception in general. Some may have liberal ethics committees or doctors willing to risk their careers for their patients, but its sad to think a woman would have to hope for one of those outcomes to save her life. The intimidation, stalking, damage to property, and the threat of violence or actual violence has made some doctors forgo performing abortions, which is especially troublesome in rural areas where one may have to go several hours or out of state to seek this legal procedure. And with 87 percent of counties without an abortion provider, abortion has become a privilege for those with money and time with the ability to travel and jump through hoops to get one. This is already such a sad state of affairs, but it makes me even more fearful for what's to come.

I highly recommend this book for those well-versed in abortion rights issues and especially for those who are not.

Analysis of An Abstinence-Only Program

2010-07-04T06:53:00.000-07:00

My good friend Jessica, the writer behind the Design of Gender blog, found something from high school that she knew would be of particular interest to me: a bookmark with "9 Reasons to Wait" from an abstinence-until-marriage lecturer that came to her public high school.

While she noted the lack of religious context in the bookmark and what she remembers from the lecture, I noticed some coded language and seriously problematic pieces. Unlike her, I grew up in fundamentalist Christianity and know that "Life" in the title of the speaker's company, "Life Resources" is a code word for an evangelical organization that stands in opposition to abortion, and often against contraception of any kind.

For starters, I'd like to go through the "9 Reasons to Wait." (Note the lack of "until marriage." This gives the illusion that it is not just about marriage.)

So that you can know the whole person
So that you can build and test your trust
So that you can build and test your relationship
So there is no guilt or fear later
So best sex is not destroyed
So you're not faced with abortions and pregnancies
So you'll never have an STD
So you won't have to fight a bad reputation
So you won't be stealing from someone else's marriage

Now, I'd like to make it clear that I am not against abstinence and I have no desire to push people into having sex before they are ready. There are wonderful reasons to be abstinent for a certain period of time just as there are normal, healthy, and wonderful reason to have sex. We should be empowering and encouraging people to have sex when it is best for them.

#1. I really don't have a problem with this one. I understand the merit of getting to know a partner emotionally before engaging in anything physical. Sex can be awkward and confusing, especially the first time, so it can beneficial to have a certain comfort level with that person. But I'd also add that it is more than just feeling comfortable with the other person, but being comfortable with oneself. It's important to discover oneself both emotionally and physically. Do you believe in sex outside of marriage? Or sex outside of a relationship? Or without an expressed affirmation of love? Does your partner share and/or respect your views? You may not know exactly what you want, so take time to reflect. And its OK if your opinions change over time. Also, do you know your own body? Have you explored your body to figure out what kinds of touch you like? Have you figured out that a partner isn't required for an orgasm? One of the great things about knowing your body is that you can show or tell a partner what you like or don't like. So yes, it is great to wait for sex until you are comfortable with yourself and your partner(s), to whatever extent is necessary for you.

#2. I'm not sure what exactly this one means. Do you build trust by stopping yourself or your partner from going farther than you want to go? Obviously, this would mean that a partner cares about your well-being if they stop when they know you wouldn't feel comfortable going farther. And if a person pressures you to go beyond your boundaries that you've expressed, then that person doesn't respect you. Find someone who treats you better.

#3. It's true, some people have had sex that they've since regretted or have had sex only to fear pregnancy or fear the consequences of what would happen with that particular relationship. But part of avoiding guilt or fear is to prepare beforehand. If you aren't comfortable with having sex, don't. If you are worried about how you might feel, take time to reflect on that with yourself, your partner, or someone else you feel comfortable sharing with. If you fear STDs or a pregnancy, make sure you understand what types of protection are available. And make sure you understand that STDs can be transmitted through activities that not everyone views as "sex." If you define sex solely as penis-in-vagina penetration, you may have to accept that protection still may be necessary for oral sex and other "third-base" activities. Make sure that you and your partner have contraception available and make sure you know how to use it. Also, you can prevent pregnancy with various birth control methods. If you don't know your options, visit your doctor or your friendly neighborhood Planned Parenthood. And if you have unprotected sex and fear a pregnancy, don't fear. Emergency contraception is available over the counter and works up to 72 hours after. There are a lot of ways to be safe when having sex. Take time to understand these before choosing to have sex and you may avoid that guilt and fear that some have felt.

#4. What is meant by "best sex" and how can it be "destroyed?" When I think of the word destroyed, I think of something that is fractured beyond repair. While I can imagine this with a totaled car after a bad wreck or the blown pieces of a demolished building, the word makes no sense in terms of sex. Abstinence-only programs like to talk of sex as something that is only special within the confines of a marriage. In this view, sex outside of marriage takes away from what is special about sex within marriage. To start with, not everyone has the right to marry. Gay and lesbian couples are still denied the right to marry; even if they want to save sex for marriage, they have no right to. And not everyone wants to marry, so why would sex only be special within marriage? I remember Jessica Valenti discussing the concept of a rewrapped licked lollipop in her book, The Purity Myth. This was taken from an abstinence-only exercise in which a young girl's body was described as a lollipop. When she shares her "lollipop" with another, this person would leave remnants of his saliva, dirt, whatever, and a poorly wrapped wrapper that would be visible to the next partner. I hope I don't need to go into great detail about why this is problematic. Sex isn't a tangible object. It isn't something that can be destroyed or damaged. Previous sexual experiences can affect future experiences if you've dealt with physical or emotional abuse from a partner or someone else. But this isn't something that you necessarily have to carry with you the rest of your life. You can take time for self reflection or talk with your partner, a counselor, or a friend. And if a partner judges you for your past sexual experiences, they don't deserve to spend time with you.

#5. I answered this with #3. Yes, abstinence can be 100% effective at preventing STDs and pregnancies when practiced correctly. But as we've seen numerous times, abstaining from sex can mean different things to different people. I've known abstinent people who engage in oral, anal, and digital sex (finger play!) who also abstain from protection because they aren't having "sex." If you wish to abstain from sex, make sure to know what exactly "sex" means to you and prepare accordingly. And obviously, there are very effective means of preventing STDs and pregnancies if you choose to have sex. Abstinence-only programs like to teach that contraceptives fail all the time and are risky; but when used correctly, they are very effective.

# 6. Again, this is answered earlier. Yes, abstinence can be 100% effective at preventing STDs when used correctly. But it is not like you only have two options: no sex and 100% protection or sex with no protection. Depending on a person's definition of "sex," one could get an STD when he or she thinks one is being abstinent. Also, never having an STD presumes that when you marry, you end up with someone who practiced the same degree of abstinence as you. If you are ready for sex, there is also a variety of inexpensive or free contraceptive options that are very effective when used correctly. Also, STD testing is available through your doctor, at Planned Parenthood, the Health Department, and several other locations. Routine testing should be part of a healthy and responsible sex life. STDs can sound scary, but they are quite common and many are easy to treat. If you choose to have sex, don't be afraid to talk with a potential partner about their sexual history and possibility of STDs. Research types of STDs and know your own body so you can be aware of any changes that may suggest you've been infected.

#7. Imagine if we said this about other things: never hug a unmarried partner so you'll never have that partner compare you with previous huggers. What about abstaining from dating, all forms of touching, or discussions before one's wedding day? Believe me, I get this viewpoint. I knew people who've abstained from dating opting instead for "courting" and who've saved their first kiss for their wedding day. The premise of these decisions is to save all these special moments for that one person who saved them for you as well. You will be the best they've had and have no worry that someone previous was better. But is it really practical or realistic to want to escape the potential of being compared? Comparison doesn't have to be a bad thing and experiences (sexual or not) can give us context for what we like and don't like. Understanding what we need can make us better partners and lovers. And insecurities can affect our relationships as well.

#8. I get that no one wants to have a bad reputation. It isn't fun to be called names or judged for assumptions people make about your actions or character. But a bad reputation isn't exactly something you have control over. Reputations can exist regardless of actions and the severity of it depends on the observer at the time. Should you abstain from sex just so no one will call you a slut or a whore? I've known plenty of virgins called those things. You shouldn't be having sex to fit in or to please anyone else but yourself. I can't promise that no one will ever judge you or call you names, but I think it is important to be true to yourself. Remain abstinent if that is your choice, or have sex if you wish. What matters is how you perceive yourself. If you are comfortable with your sex life or lack of it, ignore others who are trying to make you feel bad for it. Often their comments are the result of their own insecurities.

#9. So this gets back to the idea of destroying the "best sex" from #3. The premise is that sex is only special within a marriage where each person saved sexual activity for the other person. As a child, I was taught that pre-marital sex was adultery since it was essentially cheating on the husband God had designed for me. And as a woman, my virginity was seen as even more important than my future husband's because anything aside from absolute purity could make me damaged goods and undeserving of his love. Some may never feel comfortable having sex outside of marriage, others may have no qualms about it. What's important is that you figure out for yourself what feels best. We aren't possessions with a particular amount of sex to give out. We also aren't ever damaged or unworthy of love because we've engaged in sex with someone we don't want to spend the rest of our lives with. Marriage isn't the ideal relationship for everyone, and that's OK. Marriage doesn't have a monopoly on happy and healthy sexual relationships.

********************
Now here are a few responses I have after perusing the associated website:

For Guys: This section gives creative ideas for dates and proposals. I don't understand why this couldn't just be a part of the generic student section. Oh yeah, this is a religious-based program with a particular focus on gender roles. It would be too masculine for a girl to ask out and plan a date with a boy, let alone another girl.

For Girls: This section is all focused on FAQs about boys: Why are guys so afraid to commit to a relationship? How can you tell if a guy likes you? Most seem pretty generic, but these are definitely questions that many, if not all of us have wondered about. I could nitpick about what I did and did not like, but I'd rather just move to what I found to be really problematic.

"Why are guys so horny?"

"...[God] had to make the desire for sex so pleasurable that most guys would do just about anything to have sex, baby or no baby. That way the generations would go on and on. But the problem is, what if he made both men and women with the same desire? What if all men and women had the same intensity sexually as men? What would happen to our society? We'd never get anything done. We'd have so many babies it would overrun the earth's capacity. It would be terrible...So God made us different. A man has such a strong desire for his wife that it brings him home after work every night to the place he can rightfully fulfill his sexual desires. The women can give to her man only if she is secure in his love and commitment. If he is selfish, uncommitted, and unfaithful, she will not give him what he so desperately wants, and he knows it. So, he is forced to grow up. He has to learn to focus on her as a whole person, not just on her body and looks. In that process, he learns to love and be loved. He learns how to win her heart. He learns self-discipline and responsibility, he maintains a job, and becomes productive.

The girls who give sex to their boyfriends outside of marriage are undermining the maturing process guys need so badly. If she will wait for marriage to fulfill his sexual desire, he will have to learn to understand her, listen to her, communicate with her, and not take her for granted. He has to discover that it's not his "right" to act on his impulses, and that sex is not the ultimate value. Instead of spending his whole life standing back and admiring his many options from afar (Look at all those girls, man!?), he begins to grow up and become close with one person. Learning to be focused on a relationship brings purpose to the rest of his life, including his career and his children."

Yikes. Yet again, this isn't new for me. In the form of Christianity I grew up in, this belief in the specified gender roles were taken as facts and important roles to keep for the preservation of society. God had created men and women to fulfill different roles, and thus, compliment each other fully when paired in matrimony. The problem is, many of us even without a background in feminism can see that we cannot evenly divide men and women. I have a number of masculine characteristics as well as feminine. How many of us fit exactly with the sex we were born with and the gender characteristics associated with it?

This passage on the gender roles associated with relationships and sex are incredibly problematic. To start with, there is the notion that men want sex and women want love. Women trade sex for love and men love for sex. (After marriage, of course!) This is offensive to both men and women. It suggests that men can only fall in love and settle down if a woman dangles the promise of sex after he commits to her for life in marriage. It also suggests that women aren't interested in sex, but use it as a bargaining chip to get what they want: a husband to care for them and children to make a family. This type of thinking disregards female sexuality and can make women feel like it is wrong to feel sexual before marriage.

It sets up a situation where men are thought to have these uncontrollable urges that women are supposed to stop. This type of thinking is often used to justify rape. How often have we heard that her skirt was too short or her blouse too low and he just couldn't help himself? Not only are women the gatekeepers of sexuality, this also suggests that if women "give sex" before marriage, they'll be "undermining the maturing process guys need so badly." That's an awful lot of responsibility for women! And how depressing is it to think that men need women to withhold sex until marriage so they can grow up? Men are rational and emotional creatures just like women. They are more than sex-obsessed automatons who need "a good woman" to make them grow up. This way of thinking is demeaning and cruel.

I'm also bothered by the idea that women "give sex." This type of thinking reduces sex to a man's access to a woman's vagina, which again plays into the idea that sex is about enjoyment for men and treats sex like a commodity. The idea is that if men fulfill their duties of marrying a woman and caring for her throughout the marriage, she'll repay him by allowing him access to her body. Sex is the shared sexual experience between two or more people that is far more than the giving and taking of access to another's genitals.

"How do you know when it is the right time (or guy) to have sex?"

"[W]hen you are married and committed to that person for the rest of your life and have declared the same before God and the world that you mean what you said, that you are willing to be responsible for the consequences of your sexual behavior and are willing to prove that responsibility by getting a job and creating a home to raise your family in."

I'd be pissed if my future children were told this at a public school. So sex is only right in a marriage where you pledge commitment to a partner and God? What about atheists or believers of different faiths? What about those who cannot marry or choose not to? I like the idea that the right time to have sex is when you are "willing to be responsible for the consequences of sex," but why does that responsibility have to mean marriage? You should be willing to take the initiative to educate yourself about safe sex practices and learn about how to take control of your emotional well-being. If you are too scared to buy condoms or talk with a partner about what you need emotionally and sexually, perhaps you should postpone sex a bit longer. People have loving, healthy relationships in and out of marriages and in a wide variety of relationships and situations. It's disingenuous to suggest that marriage is the only mature place to start a sexual relationship.

If it hasn't been made clear from this post or previous ones, I am very critical of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. I acknowledge the merits of abstinence, but I think it is dangerous to only teach abstinence until marriage as the ideal for every person. Numerous studies have demonstrated the ill-effects of these programs on students. Many have sex anyway, and with less understanding about the consequences. Abstinence-only proponents turn this into a black-and-white issue: treating abstinence and marriage as good and sex with different types of commitment (or lack of) as bad. This false dichotomy is simplistic and dangerous. What would be so wrong with educating and empowering teenagers to have sex when they are ready? Comprehensive sex education rejects the religious-derived gender differences that lack science-based credibility and the expectation of abstinence until marriage for everyone. Abstinence is taught, along with safe-sex education and information on communication, masturbation, violence prevention, and much more.

There really shouldn't even be a debate about what to teach in our public schools.

Sharron Angle: Against Abortion Because "God Has a Plan"

2010-07-04T01:23:00.000-07:00

(This turned into quite the rant. Skim over it if you just want the facts. Clearly my mind wasn't just on Sharron Angle, but irrational Republican beliefs in general.)

Sharron Angle, the Nevada "Tea Party" candidate who won the Republican nomination for Senate to face Majority Leader Harry Reid in November, has several policy positions that have become great fodder for Democrats. Since winning the nomination, Angle's website has been cleaned up in an attempt to transition her from a far-right, tea partier to a mainstream Republican. Some of her kooky beliefs include:

support for the elimination of the Department of Education;
support of the withdraw of the U.S. from the United Nations over its supposed liberal ideology,
opposed to women working outside of the home in favor of traditional, patriarchal families where women play a supportive role;
support for the privatization of Social Security and Medicare;
once voted against the fluoridation of water in two Nevada counties because of fears that it may contain "lead, arsenic, mercury, or any other substance that may be considered hazardous to human health...;"
opposed to regulations on offshore oil drilling and supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge;
has also stated that "second amendment remedies" may be necessary to defend against tyrannical government;
opposes unemployment benefits because she views it as a "system of entitlements" that has "spoiled the citizenry."

I could go on, but I'll leave Rachel Maddow to fill in the rest:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Angle's latest controversy comes from an interview on the Bill Manders show regarding her staunchly anti-choice positions. Her is a portion of the exchange:

Manders: I, too, am pro life but I'm also pro choice, do you understand what I mean when I say that.

Angle: I'm pro responsible choice. There is choice to abstain, choice to do contraception. There are all kind of good choices.

Manders: Is there any reason at all for an abortion?

Angle: Not in my book.

Manders: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something?

Angle: You know, I'm a Christian and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.

Her views aren't out of the ordinary for the Republican party or for a large number of Christians (very few members of my immediate and extended family would disagree with her), but I still find it incredibly problematic.

Because Angle believes in a supernatural creator that specially designs each individual person that enters our world (and that deity would be angered by women preventing pregnancies or terminating one), she would want to prevent any woman from deciding for herself if an abortion is necessary. For her, this isn't a just a personal belief that she holds herself and would teach her family; she believes that governmental policy should be dictated by her own unscientific-based religious ideology.

Now this idea of God being hurt or angered by abortion or other things is fairly common. Christianity is the dominate religion in the United States, so when politicians and political candidates speak out for and push religious-derived policy, the American public hardly bats an eye. I still remember John Shimkus' climate change denialism on full display during a committee meeting when he announced that only God can decide "when the world can end," and therefore believed the government should do nothing to preserve the environment because that would mean we were questioning God. I remember wondering at the time, why is he even allowed to participate on a committee like this? Why wasn't his claim dismissed and treated like a childish remark during an adult conversation? Would I only see outrage if Angle or Shimkus would have replaced the Christian God with Poseidon, Xenu, Krishna or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Why is Shimkus' God belief given time along with that of scientists and other researchers in regard to climate change? There is no evidence for a supernatural being, let alone one that controls the weather and who would start Armageddon before we pillage our world into nothingness. This argument has no merit and hinders progress when it is allowed time alongside actual discussion with reason and facts that can be tested, corroborated, or refuted.

Don't get me wrong, people have every right to believe in whatever supernatural forces they want and attribute all sorts of opinions about the world to their/his/her/it's influence; and I have every right to question, refute, and mock their statements. That is how the marketplace of ideas works. But there is a point where we have to acknowledge that not every opinion is equally valid. To change current policy we need solid evidence to back it up. We need studies to demonstrate how a change in policy would change something and we need researchers with a variety of viewpoints to take part. If something we "feel" is right cannot be backed up, it has no merit.

What if a elected official decided that government should support a Scientology-based drug rehabilitation treatment in prisons that includes saunas and massages as an alternative to science-based programs? Oh right, Angle already did that. What next? Will we see Poseidon-believing elected officials writing legislation to pray and sacrifice certain animals to persuade Poseidon into cleaning up the oil spill? Will we have Congressmen voting to fund homeopathy because they "feel" like it works? What about exorcisms and prayer? Well, Bachmann's husband already gets federal funding for the latter

Oppose marriage equality? God hates gays and would be angered by equal rights. Opposed to women' rights? God made women property. If we treat them like human beings, God will be angered. Oppose tax dollars going to social programs for the poor? Jesus actually hates poor people. He meant to say the rich will inherit the Earth!

I doubt Angle has much of a shot at taking Reid's Senate seat. But if she did, I'd have serious worries about the work she'd be doing. While serving in the Nevada assembly, Angle proposed a bill that "would have required doctors to inform women seeking abortions about a controversial theory linking an increased risk of breast cancer with abortion." "Controversial," I assume, is used as a kind replacement for "thoroughly and completely discredited."

This abortion-cancer link is nothing new for anti-choice zealots who try to draw mainstream support by masking their belief that God and men have dominion over women's bodies. The Genocide Awareness Project (GAP), the anti-choice group who brings giant pictures of bloody fetuses juxtaposed with photos of actual genocide to campuses across the U.S., usually trot out paperwork on this 1950's era debunked study on the abortion-cancer link. By continuing to claim this, they try to suggest that they care about the health of women, and at the same time, use science to try and persuade those who aren't convinced by their religious claims. Sadly, sometimes this can be a distressing example of how scientifically-illiterate people can be. Without training in skepticism and the ability to distinguish good science from bad science, some are easily fooled by reports dressed up in enough science-sounding language to mask the bullshit.

While Angle's bill didn't pass, it wouldn't have been the only bill in the nation that would require doctors to tell abortion-seeking women non-science based "facts" regarding women's health or fetal health. There has to be a point where we have to be able to separate what we think a supernatural force thinks about our policies and actual research that reinforces or goes against current policy. Angle's views may sway members of her family, her church community or tea partiers to live their lives differently, but there is a major difference between having the choice to have an abortion and choosing against it for whatever reason, and not having the choice available to you because of someone else's opinion. Angle has every right to tell herself that if she were raped and impregnated that God had a plan for that, but its disgusting to say that to anyone else. Not everyone believes in her God and not everyone sees a particular personal deity behind heinous acts like that. Her hard line views on abortion may discourage those who support choice and moderate pro-lifers, but she's hardly leaving behind her far-right positions. Her website may be cleaned up, but her series of conservative talk show interviews suggest that she really isn't hiding from her tea party credentials and isn't afraid to pander to that base.

I'm bothered by the idea of having more people like her representing citizens of this country. Washington is problematic enough already without another Michele Bachmann, Virginia Foxx, Jim DeMint, or Jeff Sessions to lead more crusades against rationality. Like most leftists, I get a good laugh out of Bachmann quotes and enjoy poking fun at my Minnesota friend for having her mostly-liberal state look like it belongs in a lower region. Until of course I think about what a Republican majority would feel like with some of these people in positions with more power, which makes me want to flee to Sweden or Denmark and never look back.

Japan Bribes Countries for Whaling Votes with Prostitutes and Cash

2010-06-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

On June 13th, the Sunday Times reported they had uncovered proof of Japan bribing nations for votes on ending the commercial whaling moratorium that has been in place for 24 years. Two undercover reporters posed as lobbyists for a fake billionaire who wanted to prevent the moratorium from being overturned. They offered £25m in aid over 10 years to six nations: St Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Ivory Coast and Guinea, in return for a vote against the whaling quotas at the Morocco meeting. They indicated they were willing to consider the offer.

Ibrahima Sory Sylla, the national director of fisheries for Guinea opened up about his dealings with Japan:

Sylla, a veteran of his fisheries department, explained his country had little interest in whales but had been persuaded to become a member of the IWC by Japan 10 years ago.

He said Guinea voted with Japan partly because of fears that whales were consuming fish, a dubious argument that is promoted by Japanese scientists.

An equally important reason for his country’s support was financial. “Japan supports our position commercially,” he said. He was not just referring to the millions in fisheries aid that Japan has given Guinea over the years.

The reporters asked Sylla what other payments they would have to make to match the financial assistance offered by Japan. There were several.

Japan, Sylla revealed, pays Guinea’s £7,900 annual IWC membership fee as well as funding his country’s attendance at the meetings. Travel, hotels and meals were all paid for and each delegate receives up to $300 a day spending money. The average annual wage in Guinea is $1,000.

On the occasions that Guinea’s minister attends as the IWC commissioner, he or she is provided with a car by Japan and spending money. “Minimum, you understand minimum? Maybe one thousand [dollars] a day,” Sylla said.

The cash is handed over by Japanese officials at meetings in envelopes. Sylla said that at some meetings he was given the money for the minister.

Reporter: And then you give it to the minister?

Sylla: Yes. Not straight to the minister.

Reporter: Why not?

Sylla: You know, you know, the minister is a political man.

Reporter: So they don’t want it to seem like they are corrupting the minister.

Sylla: C’est ça. Exactly.

Michael Bootii, deputy director for the ministry of fisheries at Kiribati, a tiny Pacific island with a long history of voting Japan, also opened up about the backroom deals:

He, too, confirmed that Japan pays for hotels, business class flights, subsistence and even a “transit allowance” for his country’s delegates at the IWC. They had already offered to pay for Kiribati’s IWC commissioner at Morocco.

Tanzania officials also admitted to cash gifts and offers of prostitutes.

It's a stunning report, though hardly surprising since these kinds of rumors have been floating around for years. Even the documentary, "The Cove" uncovered evidence for what seemed to be clear-cut bribery by Japan to buy votes.

For those familiar with the show "Whale Wars" and the work of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, we have been exposed to to how Japan has been getting around the moratorium on whaling by hiding behind the clause allowing for whales to killed for scientific research. Thus far, they are not held accountable for their actions by the International Whaling Commission, and the only semblance of justice seems to be the obstruction and pirate behavior that the Sea Shepherd activists take part in to reduce Japan's whaling numbers.

Since there is so little regulation during this moratorium on whaling, I worry that there would still be a lack of oversight that would make the 1,800 whale quota meaningless. And with Japan working so hard to overturn the moratorium, it suggests they are counting on the IWC to stand back and allow them to continue their activities.

Take action and tell President Obama to say NO to commercial whaling.

HHS Advisory Committee Upholds Ban on Blood from Gay Male Donors

2010-06-12T11:34:00.000-07:00

In a 6-9 vote by the HHS Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability, the committee upheld the lifetime ban on donor blood from any man who has had sex with another man since 1977.

Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force sums up my outrage:

"This decision is outrageous, irresponsible and archaic. We expect more out of this advisory committee and this administration than to uphold an unnecessarily discriminatory policy from another era.

We've said it before: The most critical issue is to ensure that the blood supply is safe and abundant, and this means maximizing the potential donor pool and making sure all donors are screened appropriately and assessed based on actual behavioral risk independent of their sexual orientation. The committee's decision today not only leaves a discriminatory practice in place, it also puts lives at risk."

This just seems so unnecessary. Why not switch to a rule that says you cannot donate blood for six months (or some other appropriate period of time) if you've recently had unprotected sex? This ban feels like it is based on the fear that all gay men have HIV, which doesn't line up with reality. Every time I hear about blood shortages I feel so saddened that a whole group of people are banned from helping.
H/T Pam's House Blend

When BP Spills Coffee...

2010-06-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

Our Environmental Catastrophe

2010-06-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

I wasn't happy when President Obama decided to open up off-shore oil drilling. I thought it was a risky gift to give Republicans who weren't going to support even the weakest of climate legislation anyway. (Their entire strategy is to obstruct: Say 'no' and slow down Congress to make the Democratic party look incompetent. Why are Democrats trying so hard to appease them?) Nevertheless, on April 20th, the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig caused an oil leak -- more realistically, an oil volcano -- that continues to flood the Gulf of Mexico and destroying everything in its path. Everyday I've had to see the depressing pictures of oil-drenched animals unable to fly or swim away and I've had to hear about another previously untested attempt to stop the oil leak that unsurprising fail.

But the worst part about this disaster is that this really shouldn't have happened. This isn't a story about an oil disaster that happened in spite of safest precautions. No, this is a story of deregulation and corruption at its worst.

We've been constantly told that we need to drill in the U.S. because our demand for oil far outweighs the alternative energy technology we have today. Perhaps I'm just one of those "extreme greenies," to use a phrase from half-term Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, but we already have wind and solar energy that could be effectively utilized now and take on a bigger role with the right investment in these technologies. Plus, I don't think it would all that impractical to ask Americans to be more smart about our energy consumption. Nevertheless, we are left with a president who doesn't see the future like I do and who thinks off-shore drilling could be a reasonable transition, whenever that will be.

Let's leave alone the volcano of oil spewing into the Gulf, the dead, oil-soaked animals, the decimated ecosystem that may have irreversible damage or the use of toxic dispersant that may be doing more harm than good, instead, let's look at what paved the way for this kind of disaster.

At this point, the Mineral Management Service effectively stands as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Oil. In 2008, the Inspector General for the United States Department of the Interior, Earl Devaney, found what he described as "a culture of ethical failure" in a series of reports for Congress, which included wide-ranging ethics violations such as allegations of financial self-dealing (money and lobbying/other Big Oil jobs), accepting gifts from Big Oil (sporting events, vacations, etc), cocaine/crystal methamphetamine use and sexual misconduct -- literally sleeping with the industry. The NY Times summarized the reports as "[portraying] a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch."

It gets worse.

Further reports describe a predicament where the MMS defined 'oversight' as merely writing over in ink over what the industry would pencil in on their own inspection reports. In addition to lavish personal gifts and its cozy fraternization with the industry it was supposed to be overseeing, it was also reported that in mid-2008, an MMS employee had four investigations on a drilling platform at the same time he was negotiating a job with that particular drilling company. This is corruption at its finest.

But these serious ethical problems weren't the only factors that led up this catastrophe. Unlike other major oil-producing countries like Norway or Brazil, MMS listened to Big Oil's concerns over "cost-effectiveness" of a $500,000 remote-control shut-off switch and decided not to require it. (BP made an average of $45 million a day last, according to Bloomberg. $500,000 would have been chump-change.) It was also recommended in 2002 that the MMS require a second ram shear in case the first failed (much like what happened in the Deepwater Horizon blowout); but this was ignored, presumably because of "cost-effectiveness" again.

These examples exemplify our government's complete lack of oversight and the complicity of MMS to consider Big Oil's bottom line over safety. The WSJ reported that in the past five years, U.S. off-shore oil workers were four-times more likely to be killed than their European counterparts. It certainly makes one wonder if the eleven lives taken during the rig explosion could have been spared with adequate safety precautions.

Another aspect of this story is the lack of research and preparation to handle a spill. While billions of dollars have been spent on technology to drill into deeper and deeper waters, there is a remarkable lack of money spent on tools for potential cleanup. What has been tried thus far are the same options that were tried in the Exxon-Valdez spill in 1989, and even those weren't new tools. For at least three decades we've been stagnant on research and development of cleanup options while we continue to drill deeper and deeper than we ever have before. That alone sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Rachel Maddow has extensively covered this aspect (with great coverage of this oil spill disaster in general). Here is a brief recap:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

We shouldn't be surprised that BP bought off the MMS and did everything they could to skirt whatever limited safety regulations that were in place. This is dark side of capitalism, the kind of capitalism that prioritizes obscene profits over everything else. It treats humans as merely poorly-paid, replaceable cogs in the machine that funnels profits to the top and pillages and decimates our Earth without repercussions. Our government is supposed to have the authority to mitigate this kind of power, but instead it has bought into this idea of crony capitalism that priorities short-term obscene wealth for the few at the expense of the many. This way of life isn't sustainable for us or for our increasingly abused Earth.

If the Obama Administration really wants us to take seriously the notion that off-shore drilling is a necessity, they will have do a better job of proving they can minimize the damage. Whether it is enforcing strict safety precautions and actual researched and studied backup plans, we cannot afford to try this experiment again without great preparation. BP is certainly at fault and deserves to pay for whatever damages and criminal charges we can enforce, but we have to also accept the fact that out government failed at holding BP accountable. The little bit of oversight that remained did manage to force BP to pay US government $485 million in fines and settlements for "willful neglect of worker safety rules and penalties for manipulating energy markets." But for a company who makes $45 million a day, these minimal charges never deterred their actions. To me, "willfull neglect of worker safety rules" should mean that BP executives should be held on manslaughter charges in the death of off-shore oil workers and they should be blocked from drilling off our coasts for such egregious violations of the rules. But is our government really willing to hold them accountable this time?

As I've somewhat briefly laid out above, there are numerous pieces that led to this horrific disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. It may never be truly disaster-proof to drill off-shore, but this disaster didn't happen in spite of the best preventative methods. Quite the contrary, this disaster happened because of gratuitous greed and carelessness, as well a complicit government willing to gamble with human lives, the lives of our animal brethren and the health of natural world. If we don't seriously overhaul the way we drill, we'll just be asking for another disaster to happen on our watch.

I really hope this will be a lesson learned.

The Pictures BP Doesn't Want You to See

2010-06-05T07:08:00.000-07:00

Each day there seems to be yet another reason to hate BP. Here is one of the latest infuriating stories.

BP has prevented cleanup workers from taking pictures of dead animals and is actively working to keep the media away from following stories.

From the NY Daily News:

“When we found this dolphin it was filled with oil. Oil was just pouring out of it. It was the saddest darn thing to look at,” said a BP contract worker who took the Daily News on a surreptitious tour of the wildlife disaster unfolding in Louisiana.
His motive: simple outrage.
“There is a lot of coverup for BP. They specifically informed us that they don’t want these pictures of the dead animals. They know the ocean will wipe away most of the evidence. It’s important to me that people know the truth about what’s going on here,” the contractor said.

Mother Jones' Mac McClelland called this a "press lockdown." When McClelland tried to talk with cleanup workers she was told by one woman:

"'I can't talk to you,' and then another worker ran up to her and grabbed her arm and said, 'Just ignore her, ignore her,' and the whole interaction was unsettlingly rude and sort of sad. The workers who were staying next to me in my Grand Isle motel last week told me that when BP (not, in this case, and for the record, a subcontractor) had instructed them that they couldn't talk to the press, it'd involved a warning that media organizations would go so far as to dub audio propaganda over their videotaped commentary, putting unflattering words in their mouths. "

Why is BP even allowed to have this kind of authority? Their lack of safety precautions resulted in the death of 11 people and paved the way for the greatest environmental disaster the U.S. has ever known. They should have no right to keep their workers in silence or even be allowed to keep journalists away. Can't they face sanctions for blocking the freedom of the press?

Here's one of the devastating pictures they don't want you to see. If you can stomach it, there are several more here.

Live feed of the SpillCam:

Thoughts on Veganism

2010-06-05T00:49:00.000-07:00

I've been a vegan for the past couple months and a vegetarian for the previous year, but I really haven't written about it aside from a post about giving up meat to begin with. To some degree going vegan was both a long time coming and a bit surprising as well.

I grew up in a typical meat and potatoes family that relied far too much on fast food and heavily processed frozen and boxed food that felt like the only option for a busy family. In terms of the standard American diet that I was eating, I was relatively healthy. I understood the importance of daily physical activity and the need to eat more fruits and vegetables. But in a lot of ways, it was such a simplistic understanding. I knew that (lean) meats, dairy, vegetables, fruit and bread (but not too much) were good for you while sugar and fats were bad. As a physically active person, I bought into the idea that I needed lots of protein and calcium, both presumably only available from meat and dairy products. I bought into the idea that if my government was telling me what was good to eat and what wasn't, who was I to question it?

For several years I ignorantly believed a vegetarian or vegan diet was unsustainable and unhealthy even as I was becoming increasingly aware and bothered by the fact that I was eating creatures capable of thinking and feeling. I knew I would be disturbed by the process that turned those living creatures into the unassuming slab of meat on my plate, so I became quite adept at disassociating myself from what I was eating and doing mental acrobatics to avoid any information that would cause me to reevaluate my eating habits.

By the time I was finally diagnosed with lyme disease (and later babesiosis and ehrlichiosis), I lost all ability to care for myself and subsequently dropped out of school and moved back in with my parents to go through treatment. At this point, my immune system was completely compromised and I was barely alive. I was taking heavy doses of antibiotics and wanted to find a way to be more active in my fight, so I visited a naturopath who set me up with a vitamin regimen and a better diet to help my body function in its poor state. He also briefly addressed the virtues of cutting out meat. He wasn't necessarily asking me to go full-on vegetarian, but it was the impetus to start looking more into that kind of diet. I read about the studies showing that vegetarians can be perfectly healthy without meat; and on average, they were slimmer and had a reduced risk for heart disease, cancers and stroke.

But could I really give up the main staple of my diet? I knew that my cravings would be the toughest hurdle to cross, so I decided to look for the one thing that would make me lose my appetite for meat: videos of factory farm abuses of animals. I perused the extensive list of videos from PETA until I couldn't bear it anymore. I was able to quit cold turkey and never looked back.

I still remember how tough it was during my first week as a vegetarian. I had grown so accustomed to picking out a type of meat and building a meal around it that I was so confused on what there was left to eat. I must have ate salads for seven days straight before it finally hit me that there was actually so many options to consider. I explored different kinds of food and gained a new appreciation for foods I once thought of as merely a side dish for meat. I discovered Amy's Kitchen and other healthy frozen food alternatives and I got over my fear of cooking and realized I could make some scrumptious dishes.

While the catalyst for cutting out meat was out of health concerns, I've realized I couldn't go back to being a meat eater because of my concerns over animal rights and environmental impact. Before this journey, I had no idea that ninety-nine percent of our meat is from factory farms with abysmal conditions and violent deaths with little (if any) regulation. I used to think of abuse as isolated incidents, but it became more and more obvious that it is simply commonplace.

I've also learned that there are important health concerns tied to meat aside from the increased risk of obesity and other diet related problems like heart disease and certain kinds of cancer (diseases of affluence). Even though cows evolved to eat grass, the meat industry feeds them corn (which heavily-subsidized by the government), to fatten them up quicker. Since they aren't accustomed to eating this, they get sick and require large amounts of antibiotics -- 25 million pounds or seventy percent of the total used in the U.S. to live long enough to make it to the slaughterhouse. This has also been linked to the rise of antibiotic resistant superbugs.

I'm also alarmed by the environmental impact of the meat production. A 2006 study by the United Nations found that the meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the cars, trucks, planes, and ships combined. It has also been estimated that the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed every minute to create more room for animals. 260 million acres of U.S. forests have been cleared for animal agriculture, which has caused soil erosion and desertification that renders once fertile lands barren. This process is also the number one cause of species extinction in the world.

How we farm animals is also polluting the environment in ways that are often overlooked. Farmed animals produce 130 times the amount of excrement than the U.S. population (roughly 20 tons per household, per year) without waste treatment systems. There are no federal guidelines for how to handle this, so excrement is often placed in large lagoons or sprayed on crops, which both contribute to run-off that contaminates soil and water and kills off wildlife. It also creates a hotbed for parasites, bacteria, and chemicals that have made humans and other animals very sick.

The government also subsidizes crops like corn, soy and wheat that predominately make up junk and processed food, which is why they are so much cheaper than healthier options. This impacts the kinds of food consumers can afford to buy and illustrates why class can determine obesity rates and other diet-related health problems.

Suffice to say, the way we produce meat isn't sustainable and is already causing damage that we are dealing with now and is setting up a number of problems for the future. Some people, like Michael Pollan, try to make the most of this problem by only eating grass-fed animals raised outside of factory farms. But this gets into issues of ethical meat eating, which at this point, have more questions than definitive answers. How much more are people willing to pay for meat that has been raised and slaughtered as humanely as possible? Are we as society willing to eat less meat? And is it actually ethical to eat meat when we don't need it to survive? Also, can legislative changes happen with the meat industry lobby is as powerful and far-reaching as it is?

No matter where we stand on the issues raised above, we will eventually have to accept that we need to reform the meat industry to better feed the world and to minimize impact on the environment. The meat industry is making a killing (no pun intended) in a system that prioritizes profits above ethics and sustainability. Like any other major industry, they thrive on a lack of regulation that we overlook because costs are so low. But this lack of forward thinking will come back to bite us all if we don't adjust the way we do things.

I'm a vegan because I don't want to give money to this abhorrent industry. I don't want to support animal abuse or take part in the destruction of the environment to fill a craving for a food product that my body doesn't need to thrive. Veganism may not work for everyone, but it works for me.

****

Are you curious about vegetarianism/veganism or just healthier eating in general? Here are a few resources that have influenced me:

Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Food, Inc documentary

Jonathon Safron Foer's Eating Animals

Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin's Skinny Bitch

Dr. John A. McDougall's The McDougall Program: 12 Days to Dynamic Health

Rip Esselstyn's The Engine 2 Diet: The Texas Firefighter's 28-Day Save-Your-Life Plan that Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds

T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II's The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health

Websites: GoVeg, The Post Punk Kitchen, PETA and PETA2, Vegan Outreach, Happy Cow restaurant guide, Vegetarian Resource Group, Vegan Bodybuilding, and Northwest Veg

Family Research Counsel Supports Uganda's Kill the Gays Bill

2010-06-04T09:09:00.001-07:00

The Family Research Counsel, who I like to think of as the White Christian Patriarchy Propaganda Counsel, is well-known for their hate-mongering and anti-gay drivel, but while they've fought to deny the LGBT community the same rights afforded to straight people and want government to enforce "criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior," they at least seemed to publicly draw the line at the death penalty. Until now.

Joe Jervis at Joe.My.God. has discovered that the FRC paid two men $25,000 to lobby Congress against a resolution denouncing a bill in Uganda that called for execution of gay people. Jervis has uncovered the proof of their lobbying agenda listed on official United States government stationary.

It was bad enough when we learned of the influence that evangelical leaders from the U.S. had in inspiring anti-gay fervor in Uganda and to listen to some of those leaders tip-toe around the issue of the virulently anti-gay bill that grew out their impact. In some ways it felt like Uganda became a haven for far-right Christians who felt like their power and reach was diminishing as the U.S. is slowly becoming more accepting of the LGBT community and civil union/marriage rights. In Uganda, hordes of parishioners have been flocking to see the leaders who were helping to shape a new Christian nation that more closely reflected those far-right values.

Jervis was right to suggest that the Southern Poverty Law Center should upgrade the FRC from merely an anti-gay group to an official hate group. If advocating for a law requiring a government to execute a group of people isn't considered a qualifier for hate group status, I just don't know what would be.

Update: FRC has finally commented on the matter now that the story has been picked up by Dave Weigel at the Washington Post. I don't buy it.

Kick-Ass Wedding Announcement

2010-06-02T01:01:00.001-07:00

If I ever decide to get married, I'd totally love to send out something like this:

Hopefully my future partner would share a similar sense of humor!

(Via Friendly Atheist)

What Would You Do With a Trillion Dollars?

2010-05-31T18:51:00.000-07:00

The people that brought us the thought-provoking documentary, Rethink Afghanistan, have started a project asking people what they would do with a trillion dollars in light of the milestone we reached on May 30th: $1 trillion spent on fighting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. While this is undoubtedly a very low estimate, it is such a large amount of money that it makes you wonder how many jobs we could create, how many uninsured people could have health care or if we could save our floundering education system. There are plenty of reasons to get out of Afghanistan that have nothing to do with money, but a discussion like this has to get at the root of what is problematic with the logic of small government conservatives who have no problem denying health care to the poor and underfunding education and welfare programs while they are willing to spend endlessly on money for wars. As this application shows, we can do a lot with a trillion dollars, and with a whole lot of money left over.

For more on the cost of wars, check out the counter put together from the National Priorities Project. And this doesn't even take into account the long term effects that these wars have cost. Consider a few examples:

These wars are largely financed by other countries that we will be paying back with interest.
Jeremy Scahill reports that 69 percent of the total workforce for the Department of Defense is now private contractors which is “the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in US history...” according to this memo released from Senator McCaskill, who serves as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight. Scahill has also found that "[t]wenty-five to 40 cents of every dollar spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- $2.5 billion a week -- that money goes directly to war corporations." These include the mercenaries of Blackwater who function outside of the law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice and companies like Halliburton and KBR who are marred with war-profiteering scandals.
Currently, an analysis by the Chicago Tribune has found that a "dramatic spike in disability claims during the last seven years has overwhelmed the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and nearly doubled the cost of compensating wounded veterans." This not only includes short-term disabilities but long-term/lifelong disabilities that may limit or prevent veterans from returning to the workforce and require varying degrees of medical care for physical and psychological issues.
We are not just paying for the cost of war, but for the rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan for the damage we have caused as well as for creating democracy. And as this is a "war on terror" we have to consider the costs of the covert airstrikes in Pakistan and Yemen and whether or not we will escalating into full-on wars in those countries or others.

Chely Wright on Oprah

2010-05-23T01:57:00.000-07:00

I don't often watch Oprah, but I couldn't miss hearing more from Chely Wright, the first openly gay country music star. She wasn't someone I had heard of since I'm not particularly a fan of country, but I knew how important her coming out is for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and queer/other specified non-straight people trying to understand their sexuality as well as for straight people who may not know (or realize they know) a gay person. For all the progress that has been made, coming out can still be a very difficult and dangerous endeavor. For people to become more accepting of homosexuality, it is important to know others who are gay whether it is a friend, family member, or a celebrity.

I remember how eye-opening it was to have a gay friend in middle school because who he was contradicted everything I was told about gay people from my church and religious family members. I watched him struggle to come to terms with his attraction to men as he tried to reconcile with a faith that told him his desires and actions were abhorrent and against God's will. It was painful to know that he was bullied and faced such emotional torment. Like him, Wright struggled to reconcile her sexuality with what she was taught in church and from religious leaders. Her story is sad but incredibly moving.

Below is the first of three clips.

**Trigger Warning** She discusses a suicide attempt. Tissues might be necessary!

Part 2 and Part 3.

Update:

Here is Wright speaking on Ellen's show:

My Lyme Journal: Volume 7

2010-05-14T17:59:00.000-07:00

I recently had my latest lyme appointment and for the first time in several months, I finally received some good news. My last co-infection, babesia, which seemed to be holding old for dear life, has been killed off. Now there is nothing in the way to block antibiotics from attacking the lyme and I could be finished will this whole nasty treatment process in a few more months.

Lately it has felt like I couldn't buy positive news from my lyme appointments. Whether it was the lingering babesia or my shocking levels of inflammation, I felt like I wasn't progressing in the right direction. I felt stagnate. Some symptoms had improved while more serious ones kept getting worse. And after years of getting progressively worse, I didn't notice much of a change when the first co-infection, ehrlichia, was killed off over 6 months ago. And each level of treatment in this past year and a half has been a rough transition.

While I've known from my initial diagnosis that I could die from lyme disease and its co-infections, numerous incidents in these past few months left me feeling fearful that these could be my last days. Some days were absolutely terrifying. While the brain fog, tremors, profound fatigue and mind-numbingly intense pain were tough to deal with, it was the chest pains, shortness of breath and fainting spells that left me worried about the state of my heart. Several times day I would have heart attack symptoms that would last for hours on end. For just about anyone else, these symptoms would be a cause for worry; but for those with babesia, this was just the last phase for the progression of the disease. I was faced with the fact that I had no idea just how strong my heart was. I felt completely helpless as I could only hope this latest combination of drugs could finally get to the disease that had worked so effectively with lyme to cripple me in a matter of a few short years and seemed hellbent on shutting down my heart for its magnum opus.

Some days I'd be absolutely terrified by what was happening. Is my heart withstanding the attacks or is it wearing down? Should I risk being alone? Do I really want my friends and family to deal with seeing a 23-year-old have a heart attack? What if that was the last image they had of me? There would be times when I'd start to blackout, feel sharp chest pain/pressure, and feel short of breath and wonder if I should call out to my parents or hold out just a bit longer to see if it would stop so I wouldn't have to scare them unnecessarily. Earlier on in treatment I'd want to sleep to escape from the pain, but at this point, I was too scared that if I'd fall asleep I wouldn't wake up.

But then there was a day when I woke up without the intense burning pain that I'd been so accustomed to these past few years. That same day I was without those heart problems and I noticed I could walk up a flight of stairs feeling like my knees weren't going to collapse on me. I remember being so startled that I took several trips up and down the stairs awaiting the inevitable pain and weakness that never came. I tried to contain my excitement as best I could for I knew this could just be a brief reprieve. Luckily for me, this was the beginning of a moderately functional existence. For the first time I noticed I could visit friends, go to a store, or cook something without completely wiping myself out for the day and/or the next several days. While this level of functioning isn't comparable to a normal healthy person, it feels like a giant step forward for me.

For the first time I feel like I can see a light at the end of this long, dark tunnel. I always had hope that I'd get through this, but the end felt too out of range for my mind to visualize. After years of getting progressively worse and trading in more and more activities to cope with the loss of energy and function, I can't believe this nightmare could be over in a matter of months. Not only will I be able to go back to school and finish my degree, but I'll be able to get back some of those activities I had to give up years ago. Just the thought of going running and playing sports has me crying tears of joy. Instead of just preventing my life from ending, I'll be able to get it back and start a new beginning to a (hopefully) long and happy existence. The end of this nightmare is in sight and I can't wait to get there.

Pedophilia and the Catholic Church

2010-04-26T02:33:00.000-07:00

This whole story is just absolutely disturbing. Somehow we've allowed this church to live above the law and continue to harbor child rapists and continue to put other children in danger as accused priests are often just moved to another location. What other organization would be allowed this kind of immunity? Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have called on British authorities to arrest the Pope when he visits again. It would be nice to show that no one -- no matter how rich or powerful -- can be above the law. This crime is absolutely reprehensible and has to meet the definition for a crime against humanity. But does any country have the guts to stand up for justice?

Plutocracy Reborn: 15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality

2010-04-22T22:10:00.000-07:00

Business Insider has put together 15 charts depicting mind-boggling facts about wealth and inequality in the United States. I've added the first three below, but you can check out the rest here.

The following image shows that the gap between the top 1% and everyone else hasn't been this bad since the Roaring Twenties:

Bigger image available at The Nation.

While all of the following parts of this pie chart are shocking, I was particularly disturbed by the fact that the bottom 50% only own 2.5 % of the wealth:

Like the previous, this one shows that the bottom 50% only own 0.5% of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds:

Yikes.

McMillen: I Was Sent to Fake Prom

2010-04-06T14:30:00.001-07:00

This story just gets more and more sad with each passing week. Constance McMillen, the high school senior in Mississippi whose prom was cancelled by a homophobic school board who didn't want to allow McMillen her request to bring her girlfriend. (Apparently this school still had an opposite-sex date rule. What century are we in?!)

The ACLU sued the school district and won; however, the judge didn't force the school to have a prom since a private prom was being organized (with McMillen supposedly invited). Prom was held, but McMillen, her date, and five other classmates (two with learning disabilities) were directed to a different location.

Was there no one to speak out against this? No one in the student body willing to tell McMillen and the other five students where the real prom was? And no one from the community planning the event thought to question how cruel this was?

This town seems to be exemplifying the worst stereotypes of Mississippi: backwards, bigoted, and hate-filled. I hope McMillen takes her scholarship money and goes to a school with a diverse, welcoming community. She deserves so much better.

Take Action: The Human Rights Campaign has put together a petition to condemn the school district. Sign here.

Happy Zombie Jesus Day!

2010-04-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

...otherwise known as Easter. The creators behind Zombie Jesus Day explain:

Many people have been celebrating Zombie Jesus Day for years without even realizing it. Honestly, let's face a few facts:

Everything that rises from the dead is a zombie.

Easter is touted as the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So let's call a spade a spade...

...eat lots of chocolate...

...and celebrate Zombie Jesus Day!

My Political Compass

2010-04-03T07:45:00.001-07:00

Economic Left/Right: -8.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.95

If my radical leftist politics weren't all that apparent before, here is a handy little visual. One of the more interesting parts was the difference between where I stood and the 2008 presidential candidates:

I'm farther left than Ralph Nader! The Political Compass website notes that while Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich may be "extreme left" in the United States, they would be mainstream social democrats in Europe. Clearly I need to vote Green or move somewhere more progressive.

Where do you stand?

Rachel Maddow Takes on Koch Industries' Funding of Climate Change Denialism

2010-04-02T05:19:00.000-07:00

This is the perfect example of why we should be following the money on all sorts of issues. Maddow has demonstrated this kind of research numerous times in her coverage of the astroturfed FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity groups, as well as for the C Street "church" controversy. Money can buy a lot of things: politicians, people within the FDA, EPA or other government agencies, television time, media coverage or spin, "grassroots" organizations, and many, many more things. Funding things that promote climate change denialism is good business for Koch Industries because their very existence relies on our dependence on a finite fossil fuel that contributes to global warming. But of course, it is dangerous for us all to blindly ignore extensive scientific research and to listen to those with ulterior motives.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Gunn High School Sings Away Hate Group

2010-04-02T02:42:00.000-07:00

I counter-protested the Westboro Baptist Church last year and have been fascinated by the different ways communities have handled them. This time, Gunn High School from the Bay Area counter-protested with happy music. I wish I would have gone to a high school this open and accepting!

Transcript available here.

The Republicans Scary Embrace of the Tea Party

2010-03-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

On both my mother and father's sides of the family, I come from a long line of Republicans (with only a tiny minority of closet Democrats) who really represent the full gamut of beliefs: those who advocate for very small government; those who are swayed by Pro-gun, pro-Christian God, anti-woman and anti-gay policies; those who are 'birthers' and who also believe President Obama is the Antichrist (and a socialist turning us into Nazi Germany with our health care reform à la death panels; those who are anti-immigrant/anti-non-white persons, etc. Suffice to say, I've heard a lot of disturbing things. I've seen enough of the Biblical and historical quotes advocating and condoning violence to know that there is a grave danger with inciting this movement. The majority of tea partiers may just be fearful citizens using protests as a civil way to express discontent, but that shouldn't lead us to overlook the dangerous rhetoric and actions that inspires the few who are a part of the dramatic growth of hate groups and militias connected with this movement.

At this point it is hard to tell just how small this supposed "fringe" group really is. In some ways, it may not matter just how small or insignificant that number really is when Republican leadership's support lends mainstream credibility to it. This show that the Republican party is willing to play with fire and gamble on where this frustration may lead. And it makes me wonder, how much more will Republicans be willing tolerate to score political points? If throwing bricks through windows and death threats to elected officials can't merit a comment in opposition, what will? And what does that say about the power behind this fringe group if it can elicit strong support from some Republican leaders and silence others?

As Frank Rich recently argued in his latest NYT column, this rage isn't really about health care reform, or even the bank bailouts for that matter. This seething rage was beginning to rear its ugly head back when it seemed obvious that Obama was going to be our next president. And this kind of anger is really nothing new. We've seen it with Social Security and with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but even the anger expressed during and after the passage of both of those wasn't wholeheartedly embraced by Republican leadership. Representatives of both the Republican and Democratic parties spoke out against some of the more harmful rhetoric and violence that was taking place. But where is this opposition now? Rich writes:

"Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too."

Republicans are looking to gain from drumming up this anti-government fear that has deep roots in the racist sentiments of white Americans afraid of losing that power and privilege white skin has afforded us in our history. I don't want to see where this seething fear will lead, but Republicans are making it very clear that they are willing to add their names to the cause and ride it out.

The Female Factor

2010-03-14T09:46:00.000-07:00

When I think about why feminism matters, I often think about this advertisement that was shown in one of my women studies classes:

Gender matters. Gender can dictate whether or not you will have access to food, medicine or education, whether or not you are owned by your male relatives, whether or not your genitals will be mutilated or if you will be raped or battered. Being born a girl can lead to a life without the opportunities typically afforded to boys. And with the privilege that comes with patriarchy, we've seen where education and opportunities for men don't always translate into education and opportunities for women. But we are seeing the opposite: when women are educated, they educate their families (boys and girls) and communities. Take the African proverb famously quoted by author Greg Mortenson in Three Cups of Tea, "educate a boy, and you educate and individual. Educate a girl, and you educate a community." Clearly there is something revolutionary about educating and empowering women worldwide.

One of the things that most jumped out at me while reading Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn was just how far a few dollars can go when you talk about education and opportunities for girls and women; which in turn, can dramatically change the lives of their families and communities. Lawrence Summers said this as chief economist of the World Bank,"Investment in girls' education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world. The question is not whether countries can afford this investment, but whether countries can afford not to education more girls." We're beginning to see that the empowerment of women can be a great strategy in fighting poverty. and even the empowerment of women has been linked with the disempowerment of terrorism. Healthy societies have robust female participation in the economy, government, and in communities. There is so much that we can do as individuals, communities and nations to foster empowerment in our own countries and around the world.

How will the empowerment of women worldwide change the world in the 21st century? The International Herald Tribune is taking a year to explore this question in a series called "The Female Factor." From women who live in heavily subjugated countries like Iraq and Afghanistan to women in more liberated countries like Germany and Norway, there are stories about the positive effects of women's empowerment on society.

Check out this video advertising the great year-long project and follow the series here.

Why Does a Salad Cost More Than a Hamburger?

2010-03-14T06:36:00.000-07:00

It doesn't take much to link the standard American diet of heavily processed foods and obscene amounts of meat and dairy to increases in obesity, heart disease, and other chronic diseases that are affecting more and more of our fellow citizens. To say that Americans eat bad food is certainly true, but we also have to take into account that we eat this way because it is so much cheaper. Federal agricultural policy subsidizes the corn and soy that makes chips, soda and cookies so cheap, but it also goes to feeding the animals responsible for our meat and dairy. While this saves on money to feed cows corn over grass (and subsequently the cost of having them graze because its cheaper to stack them in factory farms), cows are actually evolved to eat grass, so feeding them corn leads to a number of issues. Corn is used to fatten them up faster, but because their digestive system cannot handle the corn (and their bodies can't bet away from disease in such close quarters) cows are pumped with antibiotics.

So we have a system set up to maximize profits by raising animals in such deplorable conditions that preventative antibiotics are needed to prevent diseases. For those who could care less about the conditions of animals, one might consider the effects of these antibiotics on us. It is estimated that 70 percent of all antibiotics used in the United States are for these animals and these antibiotics are linked with the growth of drug-resistant superbugs that are becoming more and more lethal. A study at Tufts University found that these antibiotic-resistant infections cost the health care industry $50 billion a year.

The image above illustrates the problem we face today. The types of foods we are supposed to be eating don't line up with what is subsidized. Can we really be surprised that people are eating more cheap food, the same food that comes from the parts of the food industry that have the extra money to dominate advertising and buy up enough lobbyists to write policy? While these subsidies may be great for capitalism, they don't benefit the average citizens.

How can we tax junk food when the system is set up to benefit those companies who produce it? How can we continue to criticize low-income people who eat poorly solely because it is more cost effective? Along those same lines, these are the people who are predominately without health insurance or who are under-insured and may not have access to the kind of treatment that can reverse some of these diet-related diseases. At this point in time, the discussion can't be limited to the debate of whether taxing junk food is enough. There are a lot of changes that need to be made to reverse this tide of problems which hardly seems possible at this point. Here are some ideas to consider:

Actual comprehensive health reform, like a single-payer system:

This would enable everyone to have access to the the same healthcare system. The super-rich and the very poor (and that ever-shrinking concept of a middle class) wouldn't have to worry about whether a particular ill or concern was worth seeking medical condition for. And the decision to take medication wouldn't have to depend on whether or not one could afford it, but if that medication is necessary and helpful. A single-payer system doesn't privilege one class of people over another and doesn't force people to rely on the decision making of an insurance company who decides whether a patient or treatment is good for its own bottom line. A business model designed on making a profit by denying care is something we shouldn't continue to allow because it hurts too many of our fellow citizens.

Subsidies for fruits, vegetables, and whole grain foods

This could work by expanding the Farm Bill with or without cutting some subsidies for corn and soy. By subsidizes good foods, consumers may be more likely to add them to their grocery lists. And perhaps for those on food stamps, there could be an extra subsidy so a dollar on food stamps may be worth two with the purchase of fruits and vegetables.

Fix the school lunch system

School children are often fed heavily processed food that is high in meat, dairy, salt, etc, and low in fruits, vegetables, and other healthy alternatives (13% of food lies in this category, with 1/2 consisting of potatoes). While this may be most cost effective in the short-term, we should be able to look at the future costs and find ways to minimize costs without minimizing nutrition.

Get money out of politics

It's shameful how much power corporations have over the decision-making of our government. When the food industry has a hand in rewriting the food pyramid and nutritional recommendations, we see the same problems that we see with the health insurance industry influencing health policy, or the banking industry influencing oversight and regulation, or the oil industry influencing global warming and other environmental policies: it benefits business at the expense of citizens and our planet. If we are really going to continue this system of crony capitalism and corporate welfare, we need some protections for citizens who are the ones who really pay in the end.

Promote farmers markets and community gardens

This benefits local farmers and helps citizens take an active role in finding foods that nourish their bodies. Imagine what it would look like to have places set aside in communities -- whether rich or poor -- where people can grow their own fruits and vegetables. They can eat better for a smaller price and supplement income buy selling off the excess. Or even adding gardens at schools where children can help grow some of the food they'll be eating.

Now these are merely ideas from a lowly social science undergraduate with a few hours to spare on a Sunday morning. I have no doubt that if we got enough people talking, citizens and members of our government could implement big and small changes that could radically change the food that we eat. I have no idea what it would take for a food revolution, but perhaps President Obama should bring in Michael Pollan and like-minded folks to implement some much needed changes. But with the recent Supreme Court decision granting even more power to corporations to influence politics, it may get even harder to make meaningful improvements.

(image and inspiration via Tara Lohan at AlterNet)