{"id":1089,"date":"2004-09-18T17:15:46","date_gmt":"2004-09-19T01:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/09\/18\/a-bit-from-around-and-about\/"},"modified":"2004-09-18T17:15:46","modified_gmt":"2004-09-19T01:15:46","slug":"a-bit-from-around-and-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1089","title":{"rendered":"A bit from around and about"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Law professor Richard Thomson looks at the recent debate over <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2106753\/\">who is an &#8220;African American&#8221;<\/a> and very sensibly asks, who cares? Via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msmagazine.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/09\/why_race_doesna.html\">Ms. Musings<\/a>.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.msmagazine.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/09\/survey_says_a.html\">Ms Musings <\/a>is also one of several bloggers to point out the first <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/atus.toc.htm\">American Time-Use Survey<\/a> (and it&#8217;s about time &#8211; the Canadians have been doing a survey like this for years). The unsurprising results: Men spend more time at paid work than women, but not to the extent that women spend more time in unpaid housecleaning and caretaking than men.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/quizilla.com\/users\/grandvizier\/quizzes\/What%20kind%20of%20a%20freaky%20mother%20are%20you%3F\/\">What kind of freaky mother are you?<\/a> A quiz for alt-mommies, which I&#8217;m not, but I&#8217;m posting it here so my friend Kim will see it. Via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.feministe.us\/blog\/archives\/001498.php\">Feministe, punk-rock mommy<\/a>.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/mousewords.blogspot.com\/2004\/09\/thuggery-is-nothing-without-heavy-dose_18.html\">Mousewords<\/a> presents a round-up of some Republican dirty tricks.\n<li>Southwest Airlines is arbitrarily enforcing its &#8220;buy two seats if you&#8217;re fat&#8221; policy even on fat people who can fit in the seat with the armrests down and the belt buckled. So what is the point of this policy, exactly? To generate lawsuits against Southwest, perhaps &#8211; two lawsuits in the last couple of weeks. There&#8217;s also some suspicion that Southwest&#8217;s &#8220;fatsos pay double&#8221; policy is enforced more often against women and people of course. Big Fat Blog has the story, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigfatblog.com\/archives\/001377.php\">here <\/a>and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigfatblog.com\/archives\/001385.php\">here<\/a>.\n<li>You know, when <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigfatblog.com\/archives\/001382.php\">Bigfatblog<\/a> linked to an organization called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fatisthenewblack.com\/\">&#8220;Fat is the New Black,&#8221; <\/a>I figured it would be an analysis along the lines of <a href=\"http:\/\/amptoons.poliblog.com\/blog\/001040.html\">fat suits being the new blackface<\/a>. It turns out I was mistaken &#8211; it&#8217;s a fashion statement. Cool.\n<li>The GOP wants single women to stay home; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prospect.org\/weblog\/archives\/2004\/08\/index.html#003772\">TAPPED reports<\/a>.\n<div class=\"snip\">&#8230;a D.C. Republican operative tells me that this election will come down to the votes of single women. But don&#8217;t take that to mean the GOP is going to be competing for the Planned Parenthood supporter vote any time soon. Single women, in particular, hate negative campaigning, he says, which is one reason the Bush campaign hasn&#8217;t hesitated to go negative this season. Every woman who is repelled from politics by doubts about John Kerry and disgust with George W. Bush &#8212; the &#8220;pox on both your houses&#8221; outcome &#8212; is effectively another vote for Bush.<\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;ve always found <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politicsnj.com\/kornacki021003_Raymond.htm\">attempts to keep the other side&#8217;s voters home <\/a>to be particularly disgusting; it seems to indicate a fundimental contempt for the idea of democracy. Via <a href=\"http:\/\/home.uchicago.edu\/~snbutler\/2004_09_01_diotima_archive.html#109406461972668653\">Diotima<\/a>.<\/p>\n<li>Three posts about three arguments: Positive Liberty discusses the three styles of poliitcal argument Americans use: the argument from democracy, the argument from pluralism, and the argument from justice. Very interesting stuff. Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.positiveliberty.com\/2004\/08\/three-arguments.html\">part one<\/a>, here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.positiveliberty.com\/2004\/08\/three-arguments-continued.html\">part two <\/a>(my favorite &#8211; plus, lots of stuff about gay marriage), and here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.positiveliberty.com\/2004\/09\/three-arguments-last-call.html\">part three<\/a>.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/respectfulofotters.blogspot.com\/2004_09_01_respectfulofotters_archive.html#109484944285268815\">Ricka points out the oddness <\/a>of an administration which bases its theory of government on their ability to understand what 200-years-dead men meant, claiming that it&#8217;s impossible to know what someone who died 10 years ago meant.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/bushvchoice.blogs.com\/bvc\/2004\/09\/update_a_new_th.html\">The scariness of &#8220;concience clauses,&#8221; <\/a>which allows doctors and hospitals to opt out of providing abortions &#8211; even in cases of rape, or a threat to the mother&#8217;s health. Good quote: &#8220;Yes, we need to respect individual freedom of religion. But at what point does it cross the line of not providing essential medical care? At what point is it malpractice? If someone&#8217;s beliefs interfere with practicing their profession, perhaps they should do something else.&#8221;\n<li>From the UN Population Fund&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unfpa.org\/swp\/2004\/pdf\/summary.pdf\">&#8220;State of World Population 2004&#8221;:<\/a> &#8220;Poverty dramatically increases a woman&#8217;s chances of dying. The lifetime risk of a woman dying in pregnancy or childbirth in West Africa is 1 in 12. In developed regions, the comparable risk is 1 in 4,000.&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/bushvchoice.blogs.com\/bvc\/2004\/09\/un_report_calls.html\">Bush v. Choice has more <\/a>on the report, including the unsurprising news that Bush&#8217;s defunding of the UN Pop fund has contributed to countless preventable abortions &#8211; and maternal deaths &#8211; in poor nations. That&#8217;s what &#8220;pro-life&#8221; means, I guess.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.indegayforum.org\/authors\/carpenter\/carpenter55.html\">The Log Cabin Republians <\/a>have officially decided not to endorse Bush in the 2004 election. Meanwhile, Kerry gets the endorsement of virtually every liberal gay-rights organization &#8211; although he&#8217;s done absolutely <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indegayforum.org\/culturewatch\/2004_09_12_archive.shtml#109536167545151676\">nothing <\/a>to earn it.\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/volokh.com\/archives\/archive_2004_09_14.shtml#1095138820\">Eugene Volokh <\/a>comments on a same-sex marriage opponent who is afraid that if same-sexers marry, that&#8217;ll lead down a slippery slope to people who practice S\/M being allowed to marry.\n<p>No, really. Check out the <a href=\"http:\/\/volokh.com\/archives\/archive_2004_09_14.shtml#1095392024\">follow-up<\/a>, as well.<\/p>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/volokh.com\/archives\/archive_2004_09_14.shtml#1095225658\">Also on Volokh<\/a>: it turns out that the CIA unit on Bin Laden is desparately understaffed &#8211; and in fact they&#8217;re assigned fewer experienced officers now than they had before 9\/11. The incompetance continues to stun.\n<li>I am too sickened by the &#8220;my penis is bigger and more macho&#8221; presidential campaign to comment on it, much. Happily, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msmagazine.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/09\/presenting_kerr.html\">Ms Musings <\/a>and<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/doc.mhtml?i=20040927&#038;s=pollitt\"> Katha Pollitt <\/a>have stronger stomachs than I do.<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Law professor Richard Thomson looks at the recent debate over who is an &#8220;African American&#8221; and very sensibly asks, who cares? Via Ms. Musings. Ms Musings is also one of several bloggers to point out the first American Time-Use Survey &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1089\">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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-link-farms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089","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=1089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}