It’s the latest, the greatest, the snappest and the happest!
Anyhow, please leave your comments about anything, and your links about anything, including stuff of your own that you’d like us to see. Link-whoring Blog-shilling is encouraged!
Here’s some stuff I’ve been reading:
The 2006 Black Weblog Award Nominations!
Lots of links to check out. Curtsy: Devious Diva.
Interview with RAWA member about the present state of women in Afghanistan
According to Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) 154 self-immolation cases involving women were reported from the western zone alone and 34 from the southern and eastern parts of the country in 2005. But the actual figures are much higher. Many of these women find all doors closed behind them and can’t think of any other way but to commit suicide to escape the horrible family and social problems they face. [Curtsy: Leiter Reports.]
Cesarean Art
Disturbing, maddening, extremely good series of illustrations by a woman who is infuriated – rightly! – because she was given no option but to have an unwanted second cesarean.
Shiny Ideas: Is Pre-Implantation Screening For Disabilities “Eugenics By Default”?
Interesting debate, in the posts and especially in the comments (including comments by a couple of my favorite bloggers), set off by the Elizabeth Schiltz article I linked to in the last link farm. Read this post and its comments first, and then read the follow-up post and its comments. And if you want still more, there’s some related discussion in the comments at Ballestexistenz, and another post at Shiny Ideas. (Phew, what a lot of links!)
Reappropriate on the Race-Based Survivor
Blackprof.com: Mark Lamont Hill on The Race-Based Survivor
The Debate Link on The Race-Based Survivor
This post features still more links on this subject…
SuperBabyMama: Life is a crippling trial that you have to bear because isn’t that what you do? (On being poor.)
I often see people imply that since some poor people own consumer durables (“cell phones, television, automobiles, etc”), they must not really be poor. It’s amazing how clueless some people are about how poverty works. Anyhow, SuperBabyMama’s post is the opposite of cluenessess.
Right now is the right time to hit SuperBabyMoma’s tip jar, if you’ve got even a few bucks you can spare.
BlackProf.com: New Study Finds Charter Schools No Better Than Regular Public Schools
Liz Conor: A Labour of Life
I like this post (about how difficult it is to work while taking care of young children) so much, I’m linking to it in two consecutive link farms. It’s very long, but the writing is excellent, and it has the best opening to any blog post I’ve ever read. Go, read, and leave Liz love in the comments so she’ll be tempted to return to blogging.
Pinko Feminist Hellcat: Cry Me A River, Rapist Scum
Regarding the “stress” excuse.
Feminist Reprise: The Crip And The Fat Chick
I’ve been meaning to write a post about the connections I see between the disabled rights and size acceptance movements, so when I read the title of this post I thought it would be about that. But it’s much better than that – it’s a biography of a romance, and wonderfully written, a well.
Feminist Reprise: Is Lesbian Land For You? Take the quiz and find out!
WilliamBruceWest.com: A Post About The Black Ghostbuster
Curtsy: Reappropriate.
New York Times: Does Poverty, Rather Than Ethnic Divisions, Cause Civil War?
Curtsy: Blackfeminism.org
Taking Steps: Cultural Appropriation (how to appreciate the fruits of someone else’s labors responsibly)
Again, via Reappropriate.
Hoyden-About-Town: Transparency In Pregnancy Counceling
Pro-Lifers think it would be a horrible imposition if “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” had to admit honestly and up-front what services they do and don’t provide. That these people pat themselves on their backs for their supposed moral superiority over the rest of us, even while wanting to retain the right to lie to and deceive their clients, is yet another example of how genuinely loathsome many enforced-childbirth activists are.
Vigilance: Female Sunday School Teacher Fired For Being Female
How dare she!
Boston Globe: Bush Says “Fuck You” To The Constitution’s Balance Of Powers
President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Pharyngula: No, A Fetus Can’t Feel Pain. Or Anything Else.
Pandagon: Money And Divorce Go Together Like A Horse And Carriage
Family Scholars: Debate About Single Fathers By Choice
In comments, I’m debating several folks on Family Scholars over if it’s inherently bad for children to be raised in motherless households.
[Crossposted at Creative Destruction. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.].
Okay, since they said blog-whoring was okay, I’m going to ask people’s (particularily people of color) oppinion about my latest post at my place. If people wanted to click around for awhile, I wouldn’t mind.
I do not feel comfortable at all with expressions like “blog-whoring” and “link-whoring” (in the present case, it implies that Ampersand is some kind of “blog-pimp”, I guess). It’s a bit like when male writers or artists describe their activity as a form of prostitution, hence trivializing the fate of real prostituted women.
Point well taken, Jimmy.
My new post on the pre-implantation screening debate, or more accurately, a partial book review of Defiant Birth, which carries an essay by Schiltz, the woman who wrote the Business Week article.
Are you serious, Jimmy? Would you prefer Blog/Link-mongering?
What exactly is blog-whoring? I guess I’d be happy if just one little post appeared on my blog. Being that I’m a newby and all. Just saying.
Bean:
You’re welcome! Frankly, I’m glad to see that I am not alone.
Fred:
I would have never expressed my concern if this were not a feminist-friendly blog. English is not my native language, but I am confident that there are more appropriate ways to express the same idea of self-promotion.
graffiti is called “tagging”, right? I”m not that sure about the proper use of the word, but…
My own blog-tagging attempt is here. here.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a post on my blog about a day in the life of a freelancer, similar to Liz Conor’s excellent post. In mine, I recount four hours where I’m doing phone interviews and wrangling a five-year-old and an almost-two-year-old at the same time.
And I agree with Jimmy.
OK, I don’t know why I put “similar,” because they aren’t so much. More correctly, her post reminded me of my old one, and I used that as an excuse to post a link. Whew.
kudos, jimmy.
i’m so over the use of slut and whore as kitsch, post-sexist idiom.
why is it being a whore to want some attention? i call that being human. but that’s not as funny, i suppose.
Oh! I like “tagging”.
Or how about “blog shilling?” It warms the very cockles of my anti-corporate heart with irony. ;)
Regarding the last link, about interpretation of the Constitution, the author makes an assertion that I think is absurd:
Consider that often when the language of a Constitution is relatively abstract or vague, the language chosen is chosen because it is a compromise that many people with different expectations can agree upon. An example would be the words “privileges or immunities” or the words “equal protection of the laws.” Supermajorities [the 3/4 majority needed to amend the Constitution] may rally around these words not because they limit future interpreters, but precisely because the words do not have clear boundaries of application, and they expect that people will fight out their application later on. Indeed, in particularly contested issues like fundamental rights (or federalism) this vagueness is precisely what is necessary to gain assent from a supermajority with very different substantive views.
…
It does not, however, seem to follow from Mike’s argument that judges interpreting the Constitution should be bound by the original understanding of how these abstract or vague words would be applied. Quite the contrary; disagreement about how the words would be applied is precisely what led to the use of vague and abstract language that garnered a supermajority.
It seems to me what the author is saying is that Constitutional language is specificially chosen to be vague so that it’s meaning is not clear, and that the Legislative branch is therefore deliberately leaving the actual meaning to be worked out by the Judicial branch. That’s what I think is absurd. The Legislative branch does not hold lengthy debates on the meaning of specific words in a law and then pass laws in order to shift it’s authority to the Judicial branch. It does this to try to make a specific point and regulate specific behavior on the part of the citizenry. To adopt the author’s viewpoint means that the Legislature is trying to cast as wide a net as possible to get votes from people who might subsequently find that the Judiciary changes the law to quite the opposite view.
One such example of such a clash is the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. In the debate of that amendment in the Congress it was held that “subject to the juristiction” meant “owing undivided allegiance to”, and that while black inhabitants of the United States would thus naturally become citizens under such a law, children of aliens would not. And yet the Supreme Court has decided to ignore that exposition of the meaning of the clause (and the apparent agreement with that by 3/4 of the state legislatures) and change that to mean that aliens’ children born in the U.S. would become citizens.
In fact, the U.S. is supposed to be a democracy, with the laws determined by the will of the people, and the Judiciary should make every attempt to rule based on what a law says and what the people who enacted it intended it to mean. It is up to the Legislature to make law, not the Judiciary.
Thank you so much, Krupskaya, theohzone and Sheelzebub (gotta like that ironic wink!).
And thank you, Ampersand, for taking our collective concern into account. I really appreciate that.
I’ve had some vacation time so I’ve actually done some blogging on the deaths of several African-Americans from incidents with police officers. I had done research but didn’t have any time to write anything! Then I lost my carotid restraint links, involving studies done on their effects on medically ill people. The other incident involves an unarmed man shot by an officer soon after that officer had apparently inadvertantly shot his partner with his taser, which hasn’t been released publicly of course. Also, ignored public information act requests and blocked requests for copies of policies related to what else? Tasers.
Thanks for the links.
“Blog shilling” works for me. Thanks for the suggestion. (And sorry for my initial screw-up, everyone!)
When a Yale professor of Constitutional Law says something about the Constitution, you should at least consider the possibility that he might know something you don’t. I’m not saying that because he’s a famous Constitutional scholar he’s automatically right; obviously, even experts can be wrong.
I am saying that he’s clearly put much more time into studying this matter than anyone else here, and is respected enough in the field of constitutional scholarship to land a high-prestige job. Therefore what he says, even if surprising or counterintuitive, should be carefully considered before being dismissed. Even if he’s wrong, it’s unlikely that whatever he says on this subject is “absurd.”
Your language could be read as saying that Balkin said that this is how all Constitution language is written. But Balkin was clearly referring only to cases “when the language of a Constitution is relatively abstract or vague,” and even then only “often,” not all of the time. So that you provide one example of a case in which (if your description is accurate) things did not work as Balkin describes, does not show that Balkin is wrong.
It seems to me perfectly reasonable to believe that amendment-writers have to write their amendments in such a way as to appeal to a very wide number of constituents. How could it be otherwise, when a 3/4 vote is required?
I was going to comment more, but my browser is acting funky. More later, if there’s time.
I have nothing important to say. Do click on my name for my musings. Lately, I’ve been bitching about the sex wars ad nausem.
I am embarassed for not having checked out Shannon’s blog lately. :o
Also, I’m embarassed for not having brought up the use of “blogwhoring.” Honestly, I’ve just given up. I couldn’t even persuade mr_xeno to stop using the term “pimping” –to talk about my damn art show ! @*%+$&!!
Speaking of attempts at cogent commentary about sex, the whole “truce” thing and its abrupt end is still annoying me weeks after the fact. If somebody on my team wants to list the myriad reasons why, no, there isn’t going to be one in my lifetime, let me know. I want to read it, but I don’t have the time or will to write it. I submit that the primary reason it’s not en route is that women don’t have the power to call for it. We’re not in charge of this “war” and the people who are remain heavily invested in keeping it going. War is always about profit for the few at the expense of the many. Most of the big profiteers remain men, give or take a few high-profile tokens.
Now I have to return to my Photoshop crash course. Talk amongst y’selves.