DEMAND AN INVESTIGATION INTO WHAT HAPPENED IN FALLUJA United for Peace with Justice urges you to call the White House (202-456-1111) and your Congressional representatives (Congressional switchboard: 202-225-3121) to demand an investigation into the civilian casualties and humanitarian crisis in Falluja, and to insist that the Red Cross and Red Crescent be allowed to bring relief supplies into the devastated city. For regular updates on the situation in Iraq, they encourage you to sign up for the email bulletins of the Occupation Watch Center at http://www.occupationwatch.org
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Monday, November 15, 2004
Newyorquina Salutes
There is a good article about Bunnatine Greenhouse in today's New York Times. She has been responsible for breaking up the ole boys network in the Army Corps of Engineers and recently brought scrutiny to the military no-bid longterm contracts with Halliburton. The Army Corps of Engineers is currently trying to remove her from her post in which she oversees all contracting. "I pass colleagues in the hall who say, 'We're proud of you,' and 'You go get 'em Bunny,' " she said. "But they say this while keeping their heads straight ahead."
Saturday, November 13, 2004
Oral History
I don't know quite how to explain why I think this is so cool. Its called StoryCorps and its an initiative to support people in doing oral history with their friends and family. You just go to their booth in Grand Central Station in New York City and conduct an interview with someone who you believe has an important story to tell. They are going to be setting up other booths across the country and you can also conduct the interview at home and send them the tape. They send you a cd with the interview and then include the interview in the StoryCorps Archive at the Library of Congress. They charge ten bucks for it, which seems to be well worth it as they assist with facilitating the interviews and provide broadcast quality equipment.
For anyone who has ever spent any time reading primary source historical material, or books that rely on it, you know how oral history serves to validate, challenge, and enrich our understanding of what has gone before us. The idea that anyone can make a contribution to the resources available to historians and social scienctists for years to come is very exciting.
For anyone who has ever spent any time reading primary source historical material, or books that rely on it, you know how oral history serves to validate, challenge, and enrich our understanding of what has gone before us. The idea that anyone can make a contribution to the resources available to historians and social scienctists for years to come is very exciting.
Blogroll in the Works
Oh my gosh, I am so proud of myself! I just now copied my first HTML code from someone elses source code and added my very first link to the blogroll. This is a proud moment for Newyorquina and I would especially like to thank my boyfriend, who is my only regular reader that I am aware of, and my friend Jessica who told me how to do this last Tuesday on the phone. Thanks guys. I would never have been able to come this far without your support. This one is for you.
Friday, November 12, 2004
Doesn't Every Guy Try To Do This At Least Once?
Michael Crowley in Slate discuss the political development of James Dobson from Focus on the Family, who had a definite impact on that election, having told his 7 million radio listeners that it was a sin for them not to vote. It was the gay-marriage debate that finally hurled Dobson into politics wholeheartedly. The subject of homosexuality seems to exert a special power over him, and he has devoted much idiosyncratic thought to it. When discussing gays he spares no detail, no matter how prurient. In Bringing Up Boys, he gleefully reprints a letter he received from a 13-year-old boy who describes wiggling his naked body in front of the mirror to "make my genitals bounce up and down" and admits to having "tried more than once to suck my own penis (to be frank)." Dobson believes that such adolescents suffer from what he calls "pre-homosexuality," a formative stage which results from having a weak father figure. Dobson further contends that homosexuality, especially in such an early stage, can be "cured." His ministry runs a program called Love Won Out that seeks to convert "ex-gays" to heterosexuality. (Alas, the program's director, a self-proclaimed "ex-gay" himself, was spotted at a gay bar in 2000, an episode Dobson downplayed as "a momentary setback.")
Via Talking Points Memo
Via Talking Points Memo
Commentary on Arafat's Death
Juan Cole has a guest editorial from Mark Levine on Israel and Palestine.
In the weeks leading up to Palestinian President Yassir Arafat’s death American politicians and pundits have repeatedly called on the Palestinian people to use the opportunity of his passing to transform the intifada from a violent uprising into a non-violent, democratic and pragmatic program for achieving independence. This is very good advice, needless to say, except for one small problem: Palestinians have been trying to build such a movement for the last two decades, and the Israeli Government, IDF and American policy-makers have done everything possible to make sure it could not be heeded.
In the weeks leading up to Palestinian President Yassir Arafat’s death American politicians and pundits have repeatedly called on the Palestinian people to use the opportunity of his passing to transform the intifada from a violent uprising into a non-violent, democratic and pragmatic program for achieving independence. This is very good advice, needless to say, except for one small problem: Palestinians have been trying to build such a movement for the last two decades, and the Israeli Government, IDF and American policy-makers have done everything possible to make sure it could not be heeded.
Rock and Roll
Yeah, I know he is supposed to be a big dick and I know it got panned mercilessly by the critics but Ryan Adams' Rock and Roll is really good music for the office. It's my taking-care-of-business/getting-things-done cd.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
One Week Out
Well, I didn't post much of anything before the election, mainly because I was much too busy keeping an eye on what everyone else was saying. The night before and the entire day of election day I worked at a phone bank organized by the AFL-CIO and called people from Florida. At six pm when we were getting second wave poll numbers that were favoring Kerry in Pennsylvania and we were given new lists and told to start calling Iowa. So, Florida and Iowa, nice. My efforts pretty much went for naught in those two days, but it made the waiting a bit easier for me. And the nice union people seemed to appreciate me spending ten hours in their phone bank.
But, everyone knows what happened, and since then there has been the forboding and the grieving, and the silver lining talk, and now everyone seems to be on to the critique and what-did-we-do-wrong talk. The first couple days after, I felt dreadful, full of dread. By later in the week, I started to take comfort in the possibility of doing things differently in response to the election. This race was all about dividing us from people who are different from us, all about the Republicans using our differences to gain political control and power for their own malevolent ends. I started thinking about I could do things to counteract that and be supportive of the groundswell of activity this election has engendered. Here is a sampling of measures taken or under consideration
1) I joined the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and made a contribution to the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. Just like Joshua Micah Marshall said I should.
2) All we have been hearing about is the Christian Right, but next time I want to hear the pundits talk about the Christian Left. Thus, I am going to start going to a church. This idea that a particulary subsegment of Christianity has a monopoly of moral values and political engagement makes me crazy. Obviously on the left side of the fence there is no corollary to the Christian right, but I think I can't complain about the absence of religious activism for social justice when I am not supporting and engaging in some faith community. One reason I didn't really go to church was that I wasn't too keen on the contradictions inherent in being active in a church and public about homosexuality. When I think about that now, I really have to admit to myself that this is somethinge of a rationalization. New York is brimming with leftie, progressive, and open-minded congregations who would love to have nice bisexual lady. I think the truth is that I never pursued a congregation or a spiritual home because I really simply never felt compelled to make it a priority. But now I do. Plus, I am going to be praying more, during these next four years. So the search for a congregation is on.
3) Also, I think I am going to do some volunteer work in my neighborhood. I was sort of offended by a frontline community activist type I met with a few weeks ago who told me that I didn't really live in Washington Heights, because it was the white, gentrifying part of Washington Heights. (She said it more nicely that this.) See the thing I said about the race being all about dividing people who are different from us. So, I'd like to do something to help some organization or program out up here close to where I live.
But, everyone knows what happened, and since then there has been the forboding and the grieving, and the silver lining talk, and now everyone seems to be on to the critique and what-did-we-do-wrong talk. The first couple days after, I felt dreadful, full of dread. By later in the week, I started to take comfort in the possibility of doing things differently in response to the election. This race was all about dividing us from people who are different from us, all about the Republicans using our differences to gain political control and power for their own malevolent ends. I started thinking about I could do things to counteract that and be supportive of the groundswell of activity this election has engendered. Here is a sampling of measures taken or under consideration
1) I joined the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and made a contribution to the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. Just like Joshua Micah Marshall said I should.
2) All we have been hearing about is the Christian Right, but next time I want to hear the pundits talk about the Christian Left. Thus, I am going to start going to a church. This idea that a particulary subsegment of Christianity has a monopoly of moral values and political engagement makes me crazy. Obviously on the left side of the fence there is no corollary to the Christian right, but I think I can't complain about the absence of religious activism for social justice when I am not supporting and engaging in some faith community. One reason I didn't really go to church was that I wasn't too keen on the contradictions inherent in being active in a church and public about homosexuality. When I think about that now, I really have to admit to myself that this is somethinge of a rationalization. New York is brimming with leftie, progressive, and open-minded congregations who would love to have nice bisexual lady. I think the truth is that I never pursued a congregation or a spiritual home because I really simply never felt compelled to make it a priority. But now I do. Plus, I am going to be praying more, during these next four years. So the search for a congregation is on.
3) Also, I think I am going to do some volunteer work in my neighborhood. I was sort of offended by a frontline community activist type I met with a few weeks ago who told me that I didn't really live in Washington Heights, because it was the white, gentrifying part of Washington Heights. (She said it more nicely that this.) See the thing I said about the race being all about dividing people who are different from us. So, I'd like to do something to help some organization or program out up here close to where I live.