{"id":105,"date":"2003-05-10T13:12:23","date_gmt":"2003-05-10T21:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2003\/05\/10\/what-ampersand-is-reading-today\/"},"modified":"2003-05-10T13:12:23","modified_gmt":"2003-05-10T21:12:23","slug":"what-ampersand-is-reading-today-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=105","title":{"rendered":"What Ampersand is reading today"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Via <a href=\"http:\/\/home.uchicago.edu\/~snbutler\/2003_05_01_diotima_archive.html#94069917\">Diotima<\/a>, I came across this amusing article in the <em>National Review<\/em>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/derbyshire\/derbyshire050803.asp\">&#8220;Confessions of a Metropolitan Conservative.&#8221;<\/a> It discusses the odd fact that no one at the <em>Review<\/em> would vote to criminalize sodomy, or believes in creationism. (Hey, &#8220;creationism&#8221; doesn&#8217;t exist in this spell-checker! How annoying and yet appropriately symbolic.)\n<li>While I&#8217;m praising <em>National Review<\/em> folks, let me point out that this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.townhall.com\/columnists\/richlowry\/rl20030509.shtml\">article on prison rape<\/a> (via <a href=\"http:\/\/eve-tushnet.blogspot.com\/\">Eve Tushnet<\/a>, whose <a href=\"http:\/\/eve-tushnet.blogspot.com\/2003_05_01_eve-tushnet_archive.html#94089970\">permalink<\/a> is bloggered) is excellent. It discusses some tiny-steps-in-the-right-direction legislation that is being held up by the Bush administration. (Before any Democrat readers feel superior, recall that the Clinton administration didn&#8217;t do anything about prison rape, either.) The article also makes an interesting point about how Christian conservative and left-wing NGOs have been allying behind some human rights legislation.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.heraldsun.news.com.au\/common\/story_page\/0,5478,6411748%255E1702,00.html\">The Austrailian Democratic<\/a> Party is demanding 14 weeks of paid maternity leave, plus subsidized child care, for Mother&#8217;s Day. I hope they get it.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/communique.portland.or.us\/03\/05\/those_april_unemployment_figures_are_out.html\">The Portland Communique<\/a> reports on Oregon&#8217;s unemployment rate &#8211; at 8%, it looks likely that we&#8217;re still number one in the nation. Here in Portland, it&#8217;s 8.5%. Whoopie.\n<li>Emma at <a href=\"http:\/\/webfeet.blogspot.com\/\">The Oregon Blog<\/a> points out that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pacificgreens.org\/\">Pacific Green Party<\/a> desperately needs a new webmaster &#8211; their site hasn&#8217;t been updated in months. C&#8217;mon, folks, this is embarassing.\n<li>Genuinely excellent post from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kieranhealy.org\/blog\/archives\/000411.html#000411\">Kieran Healy<\/a> on why there are relatively few women in philosophy departments.\n<li>Sometimes I envy the British; wouldn&#8217;t it be cool to have a House of Lords? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.polizeros.com\/2003\/05\/10.html#a1949\">Politics in the Zeros<\/a> quotes from a transcript in which the Lords discuss where the term &#8220;spam&#8221; came from.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/nielsenhayden.com\/makinglight\/archives\/2003_05.html#002610\">Making Light<\/a> links to the very practical <a href=\"http:\/\/golem.plush.org\/\">&#8220;How to Create a Golum from the Comfort of Home&#8221;<\/a> website. A sample, from their FAQ::\n<p><center><\/p>\n<div class=\"snip\"><strong><strong>Can my golem be tried as an adult?<\/strong><\/strong><br \/>\nContact your local authorities for the laws concerning golems. You may be considered liable for any destruction of property caused by the golem should you lose control of it at any point.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Will God be pissed that I&#8217;m creating golems?<\/strong><br \/>\nCreation of a golem is a special case. Only the most righteous of believers are allowed to create them. Some say that only those who are near to God and his wisdom will be able to follow the ritual to completion. So no, God shouldn&#8217;t be pissed.<\/div>\n<p><\/center><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigfatblog.com\/archives\/000451.php\">Big Fat Blog<\/a> links to this story from Detroit &#8211; a fat man was turned away from a hospital because their &#8220;operating tables can only accommodate a maximum weight of 350 pounds.&#8221; He died on route to another hospital. Yeah, <em>that<\/em> makes sense; goodness knows that in America, hospitals can safely assume they&#8217;ll never have to treat very fat patients.\n<li>Also from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigfatblog.com\/archives\/000449.php\">Big Fat Blog<\/a>, a CDC study finds that parents are more likely to think their little girls are too fat than their little boys. No surprise there.\n<li>As <a href=\"http:\/\/users.adelphia.net\/~enitria\/trish_wilson\/blog\/archives\/may_2003.html#000186\">Trish Wilson<\/a> asks, why are the major media so desperate to make it seem that there was a huge crowd of jubilant Iraqis present when the big stone Saddam was toppled? Trish links to this appalling <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thememoryhole.org\/media\/evening-standard-crowd.htm\">Memory Hole<\/a> piece showing how an <em>Evening Standard<\/em> cover photograph was altered to make a crowd larger than it actually was.\n<li>Bouncing off an earlier post of mine, <a href=\"http:\/\/users.adelphia.net\/~enitria\/trish_wilson\/blog\/archives\/week_4_30_2003.html#000182\">Trish points out<\/a> that conservatives routinely say horribly sexist things about men (men are inherently violent, need women&#8217;s &#8220;civilizing&#8221; touch, etc), that &#8211; were feminists to say the same things &#8211; would get feminists branded &#8220;man-bashers&#8221; and the like.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/kenmacleod.blogspot.com\/2003_03_23_kenmacleod_archive.html#91200151\">The Early Days of a Better Nation<\/a> discusses why American politics are so, well, dumb. (Via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.livejournal.com\/users\/heron61\/\">BlueHeron<\/a>).\n<p><center><\/p>\n<div class=\"snip\">America: a country where ridiculous proportions of the population believe they were created by god, abducted by aliens, and attacked by Iraq. Also where some people believe that someone who burns a paper drawing of a US flag is as good as asking to be crushed under a bulldozer. It&#8217;s not just the Right. <em>Every<\/em> political persuasion in the US contains many more stupid people than it or its equivalent does in Europe. <\/div>\n<p><\/center>\n<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><a style=\"text-decoration:none\" href=\"\/index.php?p=viagra-5-10-20\">.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via Diotima, I came across this amusing article in the National Review, &#8220;Confessions of a Metropolitan Conservative.&#8221; It discusses the odd fact that no one at the Review would vote to criminalize sodomy, or believes in creationism. (Hey, &#8220;creationism&#8221; doesn&#8217;t &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=105\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-link-farms","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}