by the light of the moon...

There's so much to blog about I don't know where to start, so today you just get links.

John McCain thinks that calling Hilary Clinton a bitch is part of an "excellent question." More discussion here.

Somebody is finally noticing that the majority of animated characters are boys - even when they are worker bees...which are always female.

And finally, in Seattle, a collection of apartments designed to get chronically alcoholic homeless people off the streets that does NOT require them to stop drinking.

Here is another article about it. Here is their official site.

I support this idea wholeheartedly. Yes, take my taxes, please. Alcoholism is a mental illness like any other, and poverty and homelessness are not likely to help anyone quit. Why deny someone the social supports that keep them off the street because they can't cure their illness alone, or because it isn't cured yet? The idea is inhumane and preposterous.

The quote that really got me is this one:

"Finally, he asks, what kind of equation of humanity is this: Since you refuse to stop drinking, since you refuse to address your disease, you must die on the streets."

Posted by Lythande at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Republican Mayor of San Diego has had a change of heart and decided, after years of saying that he supported civil unions but not civil marriage, that "separate but equal" is not acceptable. In a deeply moving speech, he speaks of his decision and mentions his circle of gay and lesbian friends and family, including his daughter.

For as long as Youtube will host it, here's the video. It's truly lovely.

If you want to send him a note of thanks, please do so! His website, with contact info, is here.

This video is even more timely to me because over the last few days I have been tinkering with my thoughts on what would be the most effective and exciting research that I would like to pursue in a PhD program. I've toyed with research that would directly address access to higher education in California (locally practical application of my passions) or developing techniques to increase empathy in loaded situations like the middle east (the dreamer's route).

Over the past few days the latter has been mutating a little, and I've begun to think that perhaps I'd really enjoy researching the tipping points for groups in power.

The question is, when do people with power and privilege finally realize that they are holding untenable positions?
What is it that convinced the mayor?
What is it that finally made it clear to white people, or at least to some of us, that the n-word is never funny, that "Separate but Equal" is not?
When did enough men in America realize that women were entitled to vote?
And how does the "tipping" of a small percentage of people spread to the majority of a society? When can it become policy change?
What is the moment, the "face", of comprehension?

Turning the questions to practical future applications: What would be the tipping point to convince the majority of Israelis that they are holding an untenable and immoral position in terms of the Palestinians? How could I influence straight Americans to accept transgendered children as normal and beautiful?

Is there some collection or conjunction of factors that could be described - and then perhaps created - that can be expected to open the eyes of a majority in power that is committing a crime against humanity to see that their position is immoral?

I wonder what's already been done in this arena...

Posted by Lythande at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today the Bush Supreme Court struck down the rights of school systems to use race in order to determine school attendance rolls. With our nation's schools already segregated, this ruling puts more nails in the coffin.

The New York Times has a good editorial here.

I also have sitting on my desk (but haven't read it yet) this book: Can We Talk About Race?: And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation, by Beverly Daniel Tatum. I hope that it has some inspiring ideas for me to help change things.

Her previous book, "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?": And Other Conversations about Race , is one of my all-time favorites. Buy it at your local bookstore!

In other disturbing news...

I found out today in an e-mail from Equality California (EqCA) that Four anti-LGBT initiatives were recently filed in Sacramento. From their email:

"All four measures would ask California voters to amend the state constitution to ban marriage for same-sex couples. Two of the initiatives go even further and would void all of California's current domestic partnership rights, which lawmakers, EQCA, community activists and our allies fought so hard to earn."

California's offical website on initiative measures is here.

According to EqCA, they still need to collect signatures before they can be voted on. I pray to anyone who's listening that such signatures will not be collectible; but after prop 22, I don't have my hopes too high for the voters of this great state.

Posted by Lythande at 08:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I can be VERY fond of Stephen Colbert. Enjoy!

Posted by Lythande at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Congratulations to all of you on your stellar careers! It is truly exciting to see a woman, a person of color, and a man who dares to speak of poverty as the three top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination. Perhaps in the next election I will see this country returned to the values that I, and a majority of Americans, hold dear: compassion, fiscal health, environmental health, health care and quality of our lives, and America standing as a beacon for international stability, for a start!

However, we have not yet won. I believe we will, if we can convince swing voters of the truth: that we have the best interest of all Americans at heart. With that in mind, I have a radical proposal that I hope you will all consider very carefully:

I beg of you to completely refrain from any negative statements or ads about each other in the coming campaign. You read that right: completely refrain.

Although I'm pretty sure that my political preferences are more progressive than those of any of you, any of you would be better than a Republican. I don't think I need to remind you that the survival of the human species depends on environmental choices in the next five years which the Republican party has shown no interest in making.

I suggest using that as a touchstone: all three of you will be more powerful than any of you alone in swaying popular taste to supporting democratic ideas. Let's work together to say, "It doesn't matter to us which one of us you vote for. What we need is for any one of us to be elected. American needs a Democratic President. We all have varying strengths and resumes which you can see on our websites. But we all believe in each other's abilities to be the next great president, and we trust America to vote for the Democrat that they feel best about."

I ask you to ask yourselves, which would you prefer? Your Democratic opponent as president, or a Republican?

Please, let's use our collective campaign money to change the world, together. Put the good of the country ahead of your individual careers, and leave the name-calling against Democrats to Republicans. I believe that a united, positive front will do a great deal to court voters, and that a negative one will push them away, which we cannot afford. I beg you to test my theory. The fate of our civilization lies in your hands.

Sincerely,

Lythande

Posted by Lythande at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

IMPEACH HIM, Nancy.

We are at the bottom of the exclamation point!! It was a wonderful time! The weather was astoundingly calm and sunny, especially for a beach in Ess Eff. Parkas and hot drinks went untouched. People were passing out pastries and playing guitars.

When we all lay down to spell out the letters it got quiet and restful and I was tempted just to close my eyes and dream. My feet were wrapped around my partner's ears to make a perfectly straight side of the exclamation point; my head on a pile of sweaters in the sand.

A news crew was asking the pointless question, Do you think the country has the stomach for an impeachment? It isn't about whether we have the stomach. In a moral and ethical country, if someone appears to have broken the law, you hold them accountable. It doesn't matter if that's going to be hard. It's what you have to do.

Posted by Lythande at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Lythande at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

WE TOOK THE HOUSE.

Rumsfield has resigned.

We are one seat away from taking the Senate.

7 marriage bans won, but one did not.

South Dakota defeated its abortion ban.

Nancy Pelosi is the first female Speaker of the House.

THANK YOU TO MOVEON.ORG AND EVERYONE WHO HAS GIVEN ME BACK HOPE FOR MY COUNTRY.

I wept last night when I saw we'd won the House; it was the best I have felt in a long, long time.

And in the future when we win the Senate, and the presidency, and the courts, and the hearts and minds of the people who keep voting to take away my rights and your rights, and when the last of the queer marriage bans is overturned...I look forward to feeling this good again. I'm so tired of feeling vulnerable, ignored, devalued, threatened.

We Will Make It Happen.

Posted by Lythande at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We will not forget.

Posted by Lythande at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 17th is the birthday of Chana Szenes.

At the same time, Israel is caught up in yet another bloody escalation.

Save the Children reports that children are bearing the insane brunt of the Israeli bombings and violence, and that a humanitarian crisis is looming fast, especially in Gaza.

I feel so stunned and helpless and deeply angry. How many more innocent people must die, how many lives ruined needlessly, before it is over? The question itself is cliche. It is unbearable.

To give money to help end this madness and suffering:
Middle East Children's Alliance
Save The Children

What is significant about Chana, especially today?

Chana emigrated to Israel before parachuting behind Nazi lines to try and save Hungarian Jews; before being tortured and then executed at the age of 22. By the accounts I've read she was brave, fiery, passionate, a gifted poet. She knew what was worth dying for. I have looked up to her for much of my life.

Yet knowing what is worth dying for is not enough, if the cause is unjust. In Chana's time the cause was just, I think. Today, I don't think it is. Not many people do, outside of the United States and Israel. The blindness of my peoples is terrifying.

I find it a likely, although ugly, truth that as a Zionist who saw the deaths of so many Jews, Chana might in all likelihood have supported Israel's current actions.

But perhaps not everyone would succumb to this madness. Perhaps she would not have. Perhaps she would have the seen the difference between parachuting into Yugoslavia to save European Jews, and killing 200 civilians (as of today, as reported on KPFA as well as the BBC) in Lebanon over two soldiers.

Can we not harness these deep passions for something better?

-----

Found in Chana's cell after her execution:

One - two - three... eight feet long
Two strides across, the rest is dark...
Life is a fleeting question mark
One - two - three... maybe another week.
Or the next month may still find me here,
But death, I feel is very near.
I could have been 23 next July
I gambled on what mattered most, the dice were cast. I lost.

Posted by Lythande at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Al Gore's "An Inconvenient truth" is very moving and motivating.

We CAN stop climate change. I have to believe that because the alternative is despair.

www.climatecrisis.org

See you there...Let me know what you are doing to reduce your emissions!

Posted by Lythande at 09:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I have so many ideas I want to blog about, and no time to do it. Rather than let the site languish without any changes, here are snippets of things that have caught my heart over the past week:

Went to see The Da Vinci Code movie:

* Was reminded of how much I appreciate the alternate media, where women have choices besides whore or wife (which apparently Mary Magdalene does not). It was so sad to see Audrey Tautou (from Amelie) spending a movie getting passively yanked around by Tom Hanks.

* It was also sad to see that Ian McKellen's character conveniently does not mention persecution of the LGBT community when he is describing the ways in which the church oppresses. I am guessing that that omission is a concession to ticket sales. I wonder if that was a painful omission for McKellen, out and proud as he is. It was painful for me.

* In this movie, I noticed that the fat person is evil; the albino is evil; the disabled person is evil; and I was only tracking race consciously for part of the movie, so I may have missed something, but it seems that only one person in all of France is a person of color. In Ron Howard's world, only the pretty white people have lines, and are good. It's the Amelie's Paris phenomenon.

Yet another English-only amendment:
As part of the new immigration reform bill, the US Senate passed an English-only amendment on Thursday, May 18th. If you think this is inappropriate legislation, call your senators.

Not crossing picket lines:
Al Gore, Howard Dean, State Assemblymember Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) and State Senator Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont) have all refused to honor speaking engagements at Cal this month because doing so would require them to cross picket lines.

I am so impressed and thankful! How fabulous to see examples of people in the spotlight valuing workers and social ethics. Thanks you, thank you, Howard, Al, Fabian, and Liz. Thank you so much.

Allowing transgendered children to identify how they need to, and allowing their parents to support them
A five-year old with male genitals identifies as a girl and her parents are supporting her. O goddess, do my eyes deceive me and are my prayers answered? Can this be a trend? Can an increasing number of parents really be supporting their children who don't conform to societal gender expectations? I heartily cheer, cry, and holler for these wonderful people, and pray that their local (or national, for that matter) government does not interfere.

It is not usually so. Said government took Aurora Lipscomb away from her parents in 2000, and I have not been able to find out yet if she was ever able to return home, let alone attend school as the girl she wished to be. I have a call into GPAC; we'll see if they have any news of her.

image is the cover of one of my favorite books on transgender issues, She's Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan.

Posted by Lythande at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

...from NPR to 94.1 KPFA, an independent radio station here in Berkeley.

I've been an NPR junkie for years. Raised on Karl Cassell. And I don't think I'll swear off entirely.

But over the past few years I was spending more and more time annoyed or frustrated with the coverage I was hearing. Most of the voices I was hearing seemed to be American, white, and male. The business stories seemed to lean towards supporting the companies described...who were also sponsors. There was so little coverage of protests and liberal activities...and never, in my experience, an interview with a true left-winger, like Noam Chomsky or Dolores Huerta. And I'm always wondering what stories are not being told due to Republican pressure or corporate funding...

Even Car Talk, my beloved Car Talk...I'm just tired of hearing them quote tired stereotypes of women.

(BTW, FAIR.org has catalogued these phenomena, and more, in their studies of several center-to-right biases on NPR.)

So I'm taking a break and giving my ears, and my pledge money this year, to KPFA. I can get my center-to-right news from so many places, and I get enough of it, by golly! Let's hear what else is going on!

And if you're interested...KPFA's mission statement.

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Laughing while the world burns... Isn't there something else pressing on his agenda? Hmmm...coulda sworn...Iraq or Darfur or...something...
----
Beginnings of reports on what I hope are huge rallies today (and I also hope that they are well-reported in the media, but that's just crazy talk)

New York Times

BBC

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And while I kept thinking all weekend, "What more can I do about Darfur?..I need to look into that..." this happened. Woops. Woulda been nice to be there. I need to keep up better! Thanks to all who were there.

Posted by Lythande at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is Yom Ha-Shoah, the annual day of remembrance for the six million Jews murdered by Hitler.

It's a good day to think about my Jewish roots, about survivor stories, and about what I know of the European Jewish culture that the Nazis nearly exterminated...

...AND, of course, to work to end another genocide that is currently happening.

Please, go to this site to send a quick letter to President Bush asking him to stop the genocide in Darfur NOW.

Thanks.

p.s. I should give credit to my super cool jewish mother for forwarding me this alert. Thanks Mom!

Posted by Lythande at 01:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

FAIR has a summary of their findings that many CNN personalities are making commentary on the immigration protests that is way out of line. Read the report and then e-mail CNN if you agree that these are comments are inappropriate on a news network.

And for anyone who can get out of work and cares to join the protests, there's a march in Oakland on Monday....

Posted by Lythande at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apparently, according to Google maps, Tibet no longer exists. At all.

Go to Google maps and type Nepal into the search bar. Note that while Tibet and Nepal are generally known to be neighbors, there is no mention of Tibet on this map. At all.

Now type in Tibet.

---------
Here's another interesting one...WorldAtlas doesn't allow you pick Tibet from its list of countries.

So, OK. I know it's not recognized as a country, so this is understandable, if transparent. But as far as I can tell, Tibet does not exist on this site at all.

There's even an apologia on this page that explains why you might not find Palestine or Taiwan on the list, but Tibet? Nope, never heard of 'em. Not even on this list of dependencies and territories!

So here's my question. I feel that an atlas should have Tibet in its search terms, even if it is only described with something like "the former name for this disputed chunk of land, which the Chinese Government claims is part of China, and Tibetan people claim should be an independent country."

Am I off? Is it the job of an atlas only to describe government-sponsored entities, and not lands whose governance is disputed? It seems to me that analysis (or at least passing mention!) of cultural and geopolitical conflicts are very rightly placed on an atlas.

How about Taiwan? Is there any salient difference between Taiwan's situation and Tibet's...other than fifty years of memory and resistance to the Chinese Government? Will Taiwan cease to exist in atlases in fifty years?

In case you'd like to actually read about Never Never Land...I mean, Tibet, Wikipedia actually discusses the matter.

Until Google buys them out.

Posted by Lythande at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CODEPINK has just published a report documenting that life for women in Iraq is much, much worse than before, and that Americans are DISTINCTLY making the problem worse...read it all here.

(and keep up on all their great work here.)

from the e-mail I received describing the report:

"The report shows that from 1958 to the 1990s, Iraq provided more rights and freedoms for women and girls than most of its neighbors. Though Saddam Hussein's dictatorial government and 12 years of severe sanctions reduced these opportunities, Iraqi women were active in all aspects of their society. After the occupation, with the exception of women in Iraqi Kurdistan, women's daily lives have been reduced to a mere struggle for survival."

A choice section from the report:

"THE U.S. IS PART OF THE PROBLEM. Some U.S. military personnel have committed crimes of sexual
abuse and physical assault against women. Many women have told stories about rapes and routine sexual humiliation, particularly at detainment centers....U.S. military tactics have also victimized women and their families—displacing them from their homes, subjecting them to aerial assaults, and occasionally using women as bargaining chips in exchange for suspected male insurgents."

Posted by Lythande at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I loved this post in response to an opinion piece in The Advocate.

Nubian blows me away. :)

Posted by Lythande at 09:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)