(Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!)
Thank goodness! Because if there’s one thing that “Lost” has too many of, it’s female protagonists.
Another interesting chart from the Bureau of Justice Statistics:
What intrigues me is that the once-enourmous difference between the sexes, in terms of which sex is more often the victim of violent crime, has gone down to a fairly narrow difference.
(And the difference would be even narrower if rape and intimate partner violence – two mostly-female-victim areas the BJS stats badly undercount – were fully accounted for.)
It’s good news that violent crime is down. Except, perhaps, for men’s rights advocates – for whom one of the principle proofs of male victimhood is that men are used to be vastly more likely to be victims of violent crime.
Crooks and Liars has links to clips of the Daily Show’s recent segment on same-sex marriage, featuring Ed Helms interviewing Massachusetts anti-SSM activist Brian Camenker and a newly married gay couple. As Tom at Family Scholars says, “the juxtaposition of Camenker’s gay-marriage-advocates-are-like-Nazis analogy with the friendly gay couple interviewed is devastating.”
Meanwhile, Back At Gay Headquarters
The Family Scholars thread is hilarious, by the way, because a couple of Family Scholars readers immediately came forward to defend the Nazi analogy. One of them also complains about the environmental harms of pro-SSM activists “driving to gay headquarters everyday” (anti-SSM activists apparently work from home more often). Maybe it’s just me, but the phrase “gay headquarters” is just the funniest thing I’ve read in ages.
The LA Times reports that a politically active, liberal church in California is being threatened with loss of tax-exempt status by the IRS – even though the author of the sermon in question carefully avoided explicit endorsement of either candidate. Meanwhile, literally thousands of right-wing evangelical churches routinely do the same thing to help right-wing candidates and causes, and even coordinate their campaigning with the Republican Party, apparently without the IRS ever saying “boo.”
Disgusting.
(Of course, I have to admit that perhaps the IRS under Bush is more evenhanded than I imagine, and maybe there are many instances of the IRS cracking down on equally political right-wing pulpit activism. I’d welcome being proved wrong on this one, but I don’t expect to be. Hat tips: Seeing the Forest, The Reality Based Community, and
Tonight on PBS at 9pm (check local listings), a program called FRONTLINE: The Last Abortion Clinic will investigate the situation in Mississippi where there is only one abortion clinic left, and why. The answer is obvious. Anti-choice groups and their political allies such as the ones in Mississippi and then all over the country have been successful in eroding Roe v. Wade and reproductive rights with notification and consent laws, waiting periods, forcing physicians to give false information to their patients about abortion (which adds to the cost of an abortion), raising the costs of abortions, passing laws forbidding insurance companies from covering abortions, and so on. And if you’re a woman of lower socioeconomic standing, who resides in a state such as Mississippi, and you don’t want to carry a pregnancy to full term, but you don’t live any where close to this clinic, and you have no way of getting there– too bad. Compliments of the diligent anti-choice groups and politicians who want you to be an incubator against your will. This program will explore these issues, especially in the grand ole state of Mississippi (my ass it is)…
Today, the headlines are filled with speculation about changes in the U.S. Supreme Court and what those changes might mean for abortion — an issue that has divided the country for over 30 years. Heated rhetoric from both sides continues to be heard in courtrooms and on the campaign trail. But while attention is often focused on the arguments, there is another story playing out in local communities. Pro-life advocates have waged a successful campaign to reduce abortions in many places throughout the country. By using state laws to regulate and limit abortion and by creating their own clinics to offer alternatives to women, they have changed the facts on the ground.[…]
And from the site’s press release concerning the issue of anti-choice groups and their political allies gutting Roe, and narrowing reproductive rights…
[…]In the last two years, Mississippi has passed legislation on fetal homicide prosecution, new clinic regulations, requirements to report abortion complications, rights of conscience, and a law that would prohibit the state’s last abortion clinic from offering abortions beyond the first trimester. Americans United for Life (AUL), the nation’s oldest national pro-life organization, refers to this as the “Mississippi Miracle.” “We’re sending a very clear message that we do want to protect the unborn,” says Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck. “That’s why we’ve passed the legislation that we have, and it’s passed overwhelmingly. It’s bipartisan support. It’s Democrats and Republicans. … It’s the House of Representatives and the Senate. Mississippi is truly pro-life.”
[…]In Mississippi, Medicaid offers support for women seeking to continue with an unintended pregnancy, but no state funds or facilities may be used for abortion services. In the last decade, all but one clinic providing pregnancy terminations in the state have closed. The last abortion clinic, in Jackson, is difficult to access for women outside the capital who do not own a car, who have limited funds for gas or who cannot easily take time off from work or child care responsibilities. “It’s like even before Roe v. Wade for these poor women,” says Pat White, a nurse-midwife who has been working in the Mississippi Delta for decades. “We are making decisions for them. These women have no option except to continue with the pregnancy, whether they can afford it, or whether or not it’s wanted, or whether or not they can emotionally provide for the child.”
Not that the anti-choice groups and politicians eroding Roe v. Wade, reproductive rights, and hell–supporting pharmacists who refuse to fill women’s contraception prescriptions along with EC, could give a damn about these women, when they’re confronted with unintentional and unwanted pregnancies. But here’s more from Planned Parenthood on Mississippi’s last abortion clinic.
[…]When the Jackson Women’s Health Clinic (not affiliated with Planned Parenthood) first opened its doors in 1995, there were still four clinics in Mississippi that offered abortion services. But since last August, the Jackson clinic has been the only one to serve the entire state.[…]
Fertile Ground for Restricting Access
—Hill had good reason to be pessimistic. Mississippi has one of the most anti-choice atmospheres of any state in the U.S.:
—The Democratic Party in Mississippi claims itself a “party of life.”
—Eighty-six percent of Mississippi women live in a county without an abortion provider.
—Abortions after 16 weeks are virtually nonexistent, because no facility performs them.
—The state passed legislation last year to stop clinics from performing abortions after 12 weeks. (It was recently struck down by a U.S. district judge as unconstitutional.)
–The state is one of only two in the U.S. that requires a minor to obtain permission from both of her parents to get an abortion.
—Women must endure a 24-hour waiting period before they can have an abortion. During that time they are given state-mandated information that is often distorted or even false, such as the erroneous claim that there is a connection between abortion and breast cancer.
—The state requires that a physician give out this information, which adds to the cost of the abortion, especially for a clinic such as the Jackson Women’s Health Clinic, which flies in two of its three physicians from other states.
—Mississippi also has the nation’s most sweeping so-called “conscience clause,” which allows any health care provider to refuse to provide abortion-related services, including referrals, to those in need.[…]
More Restrictions, Later Abortions
[…]Indeed, a study published in Family Planning Perspectives in 2000 reported that after the 24-hour waiting period was instituted in Mississippi, second-trimester abortions rose by about 53 percent among women closest to an in-state provider.
Hill points out an additional irony that has long been apparent to the pro-choice community. Those opposed to legal abortion also tend to oppose prevention measures that would actually decrease the number of abortions.
No shit. You see, it’s not about decreasing the number of abortions a year with factual information about reproductive health, comprehensive sex-education, encouraging contraception use, making EC over-the-counter, encouraging insurance companies to cover contraception and EC (just as they do with Viagra), and eliminating so called “conscience clauses.” No. It’s about descreasing the number of legal abortions a year by gutting Roe and reproductive rights to the point that women have no other options but to carry the unwanted pregnancy to term, or seek illegal and even fatal means to end the pregnancy.
Nowhere to Run
[…]Larry Rodick, president/CEO of Planned Parenthood of Alabama, Inc., says his staff sees a number of clients from Mississippi at their health centers in Birmingham, Mobile, and Huntsville. Women also visit the health centers of Memphis Regional Planned Parenthood in Tennessee.
But there are no conveniently located options for women living in large areas of Mississippi’s Delta region, the poorest section of Mississippi.
According to Hill, many of these women visit the Jackson clinic, driving a good three or four hours and sleeping in their cars overnight in the parking lot, even in 100-degree weather, because they don’t have enough money to have the surgery and pay for a motel room. Often, they have their children with them, because they can’t afford child care or find someone to care for their children for two days.[…]
Hill also says that the clinic regularly receives phone calls from women asking what they can do to end their pregnancies themselves.[…]
Oh well, I wonder what could have driven them to such desperate measures?
Ignorance Is Bliss
Most women in Mississippi don’t want to discuss their experiences. “We’ve tried to find women who will agree to be interviewed,” says Rodick, “but they are afraid. They worry they may lose their jobs or someone will get punitive with them.”[…]
And perhaps that’s the whole point, says Hill. No matter how many restrictions states put on women seeking abortions, no matter how difficult they make it, she says, we still find that for the last 30 years, an average of 1.3 million American women have had abortions every year. But that number would be considerably lower if lawmakers supported prevention measures that would decrease the number of abortions.[…]
But they won’t. It’s about restricting and even outright eliminating women’s options in regards to their reproductive rights and making them incubators against their will. (Because they were dirty whores and pregnancy should be used as punishment for women having sex, right? Or, women should just shut-up and perform their biological duties to the species, right?) If Roe is overturned, guess which state will become one of the worst states to live in, if you’re a woman who values her ever so tenuous reproductive rights?
(Reuters) – Retailer Abercrombie & Fitch said on Friday it would stop selling some of its T-shirts after a national boycott by teenage girls, who objected to slogans emblazoned across the shirts such as “Who needs brains when you have these?”[…]
Earlier this week, the Women & Girls Foundation of Southwest Pennsylvania launched a “girl-cott” of the store in protest over the T-shirts, launching an e-mail campaign and appearing on NBC’s “Today” show to air their concerns.
Well, that’s certainly cool. Although the corporate drones folded so easily, I wonder if perhaps the initial sales on the retro-sexist tees were dissappointing.
In any case, check out The Countess’s contest for best offensive (or counter-offensive) t-shirt slogan. You could win some fine chocolate shaped like a body part – what could be better?
If you haven’t already read it, check out William Saletan’s fantasy of the questions he’d ask Judge Alito, were he a Senator. I especially liked the last third or half, which shows how an ideological judge can use selective quoting – and selective blindness to the substance of past precedents – to apply his ideology while maintaining a surface of impartiality.
Via Crooked Timber, the BJS (Bureau of Justice Statistics) notes that the US now has nearly 7 million adults either in jail, in prison, on probation, or on parole. “At year-end one in every 31 adults were under correctional supervision, which was 3.2 percent of the U.S. adult population.” Damn!
Of that 7 million, about 2.1 million are behind bars, and the largest portion of those are people in state prisons. When you add up the state and federal prison systems, about a quarter of every American behind bars is in the clink for drug offenses – and drug arrests have been increasing.
(Public order offenses, in contrast, have apparently and quite suddenly dropped way down. Anyone know what that’s about?)
I do drugs, sometimes (not often, because I’m too cheap to spend money on drugs). The vast majority of my friends either do drugs or have done drugs. I bet that’s true of most of the folks in congress, and most cops, as well. What’s wrong with this picture? (That’s the question I’d like to see every politician, every crime policy expert and every pundit answer: have you ever done illegal drugs?)
As bad as the waste of tax dollars is, the injustice of keeping people behind bars for victimless crimes is worse. The “war on drugs” is an expensive failure; a public health approach would be far more sensible, but is politically unthinkable. And as long as the main victims of our drug war are poor urban blacks – a group with no money to give to politicians and no voice in government – change will remain politically unthinkable.
With a few exceptions, I don’t think people should be put in prison for property offenses, either; I’d rather see most of those folks with a band around their ankles, living on their own dime, holding jobs, and having their paychecks garnished to pay restitution to their victims. Sure, monitoring is expensive, but so is keeping people in prison.
However, I do want violent people behind bars – and most of the increase in the US prison population is due to an increase in prisoners convicted of violent crimes. And it’s hard to argue effectively against the “throw ’em in prison” strategy when violent crime has in fact been going down.
LOL, thanks!
I want to put that WORDS poster on a t-shirt!
While Bob Hope was indeed an immigrant, white anglo saxon protestant male immigrants are explicitly welcomed by the current shitocracy…
I bet I.C.E. comes back for them later.
@Avvaa: I'm not sure even WASP male immigrants are welcome. There have been several tourists who have been detained because…