Same Song, Different Verse

So, friends of Bush allowed him to move into a house he didn't earn. This time, though, the friends aren't on the Supreme Court, and this Bush can actually lead.

Clarification on Purity Balls

Blogging has its share of surprises. From the kind emails somebody sends you, to the occasional acquaintance who figures out that I produce this site, to the spikes in traffic that have no apparent cause, you just never know what will happen next. But the commentary caused by EEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW! ranks way up there. Due to the emotional and spiritual heat generated, I feel like I owe a little bit of clarification. If you want background, please check out the original post, and its links - especially the 'republican fundraiser" link.

1. The symbolism of the locket is just waaaaay too graphic:

The Heart to Heart™ program, created by jeweler Joe Costello, differs from other abstinence programs in some important, unique ways. [...]

First, the “key to her heart.” This beautiful heart has a smaller heart in the front. Behind that heart is a keyhole. When making the covenant with your daughter, you explain that the covenant is between her, you and God. Since God has placed her in your care as a parent, you and only you can hold the “key to her heart.”

You then explain to the child that you will hold the key to her precious heart until the day of her wedding. On that day, you will give her away like at all weddings, BUT in doing so you will also “give away” the key to her heart to her now husband. The key and lock are actually functional and your son-in-law will place the key in the heart to open it.

Inside will be a small note that had been placed in the heart on the day you made the covenant. That note can say something like, “I do not know your name or what you even look like, but this is my promise to save myself for you this day. Love, Melanie.”

If you're comfortable with the thought of holding on to the key some guy will plunge into your daughter's locket on her wedding night, and discussing the symbolism with an 11 year-old, you're a lot less squeamish than I am.

2. The obsession with your daughter's sexuality required to get involved with something like this strikes me as bizarre. Of course, you should raise her to make smart decisions in all aspects of her life. But putting this much emphasis on an 11 year-old's sexuality - taking her to a Purity Ball as her first big date - strikes me as warped. I'm not making any accusations, but I wouldn't let such a man do the family laundry . . .

3. Why would anyone want to put this much emphasis on his daughter's hymen? Why should her "radiant sense of self-worth and identity" be centered on her virginity? It's not exactly an achievement at that stage . . .

4. What happens if she, like an overwhelming majority of Americans, lets a key into her locket before the wedding night? What kind of damage to her self-esteem and parental relationship will result? How will she be able to approach or face a father who has made it clear that her worth and identity are tied to her "purity"?

5. Why does the father hold the key? Does anyone else here see a strain of medieval chattle-status and property rights here? Certainly, telling an 11 year-old that her vagina belongs to her father strikes me as hearkening back to days of yore and jus primae noctis.

6. What about the boys?

7. I asked the smartest and most admirable young woman I know about this. Her reply, via intant message, was "EW". She wasn't even mad at me for missing an opportunity to buy her a piece of jewelry.

Meet Your Legislators - Brad Lager

I was driving back from a visit to St. Louis yesterday, when a gas-guzzling SUV blew my doors off. Blasting down the road at 85 or more, zooming up to within a couple feet of the rear bumper of a car with Iowa plates, the driver could not be bothered with the safety of himself or others.

Brad Lager, if you're going to drive like an arrogant twit, you shouldn't drive with your "R-04" plates.

EEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW!

Purity Balls. I know, it sounds like some kind of vasectomy joke, but, unfortunately, it's a ritual that some Conservative Christians and Republican fundraisers are promoting.

"How can you measure the value of your eleven year old looking up into your eyes (as you clumsily learn the fox-trot together) with innocent, uncontainable joy, saying, 'Daddy, I'm so excited!' wrote Wesley Tullis in a letter describing his grateful participation. 'I have been involved with the Father-Daughter Ball for two years with my daughters, Sarah and Anna. It is impossible to convey what I have seen in their sweet spirits, their delicate, forming souls, as their daddy takes them out for their first, big dance. Their whole being absorbs my loving attention, resulting in a radiant sense of self-worth and identity. Think of it from their perspective: My daddy thinks I'm beautiful in my own unique way. My daddy is treating me with respect and honor. My daddy has taken time to be silly, and even made a fool of himself, learning how to dance. My daddy really loves me!"

I can understand why the little girls would want to do this. It's a chance to dress up and spend time with their father. If it were for another purpose, it might be sweet. But this is what that little girl is reading to her father from that card:

I pledge to remain sexually pure...until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband. ... I know that God requires this of me.. that he loves me. and that he will reward me for my faithfulness.

And this is what Daddy says in turn:

I, (daughter’s name)’s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.

He's the "high priest" in his home. Are we getting the picture?

Read more here if you have a strong stomach.

Let a Smile be Your Umbrella

From a couple friends on a listserve, here are a few new ones, a lot of golden oldies, and, I hope, a bunch of chuckles.

1. Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

2. A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, "I'll serve you, but don't start anything."

3. Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a salted.

4. A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

5. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says:"A beer please, and one for the road."

6. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?"

7. "Doc, I can't stop singing "The Green, Green Grass of Home."
"That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome."
"Is it common?"
"Well, "It's Not Unusual."

8. Two cows are standing next to each other in a field.. Daisy says to Dolly,
"I was artificially inseminated this morning."
"I don't believe you," says Dolly.
"It's true, no bull!" exclaims Daisy.

9. An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.

10. Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.

11. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.

12. A man woke up in a hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, "Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!" The doctor replied, "I know you can't - I've cut off your arms!"

13. I went to a seafood disco last week...and pulled a mussel.

14. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.

15. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says "Dam!"

16. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him..(Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good).. a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

17. Did you hear about the new corduroy pillow cases? They are making headlines everywhere.

18. Why do chicken coops have two doors? Because if they had four doors they would be chicken sedans.

19. A termite walks into a bar and says is the bar tender here?

20. A skeleton walks into a bar and says give me a beer and a mop....

21. A Neutron walks into a bar and asks the bartender, "how much for a beer?" Bartender, "for you, no charge."

22, Two hydrogen atoms were talking, "I lost my electron this morning." "Are you sure?" "Yes. I'm positive."

US to Imprison Chinese Protester

Does the fact that the US is going to try to imprison the woman who heckled Bush and Hu for intimidation strike anyone else as ironic in at least three ways?

1. She was only saying what Bush would say if he had a moral compass.

2. The Chinese come here and get to witness OUR brand of suppression of dissent.

3. The great Chinese nation was intimidated by this tiny woman?

Which irony is your favorite?

Senator Talent Ignored in Outstate

As predicted here, Jim Talent is having a tough time attracting outstate support. It seems that the pale, pampered Washington University Professor just isn't the sort of person that down-to-earth rural Missourians like to have around their senior citizen centers. Left in Missouri captures a sad and lonely day of campaigning for Jim Talent.

Right Wingers Supporting Troops

Sometimes generals need to be told that they're gutless. Sometimes it takes a Yellow Elephant, sitting in his mother's basement, to provide real insight into what is going on in the military, and to demand that the gutless losers who have actually been stupid enough to go over there and fight just shut the heck up.

Bush - the Great "Decider'

In a civilized and compassionate country, somebody who speaks like this:

I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best

would be happily working in a sheltered workshop, and carefully watched.

(Update: Here's a parody to the tune of "I am the Walrus" - "I'm the Decider".)

Is it a Wild Flower if You Plant it?

Want to get outside and do something helpful? Kansas City Wildlands is a great local organization devoted to preserving a few spots in this city where nature consists of more than zoysia and skinny bradford pear trees with plastic pipe around their bottoms. They are hosting a few workdays where you can learn a little and do a lot for Mother Nature.

Kansas City WildLands- Garlic Mustard Pull and Wildflower Hike
Isley Park Woods, Excelsior Spring, Missouri
Saturday, April 29, 2006
9:00 am to 1:00 pm

Come pull exotic, invasive garlic mustard from this stunning woodland, and enjoy a spring wildflower hike as a bonus! KCWL will provide lunch at the end of the workday. More information and directions for this site is available at http://www.kcwildlands.org/isleyparkwoods.htm

For more information about this workday or to register, contact Linda Lehrbaum, Kansas City WildLands Coordinator at 816-561-1061, ext. 116 or linda@bridgingthegap.org.

KCWL Spring Community Restoration Workday
Saturday, May 6th, 2006
9:00 AM - noon

Plant the Prairies! We’ll be planting wild flower seedlings grown from locally harvested seed on 3 sites in the region:

* Ernie Miller Park prairie, Olathe, Kansas, managed by Johnson County Park and Recreation District.

* Jerry Smith Park prairie, Kansas City, Missouri, managed by Kansas City Missouri Parks and Recreation Department.

* Rocky Point Glades, south Kansas City, Missouri, managed by Kansas City Missouri Parks and Recreation

Notable Reading for the ALA

I enjoy reading, and wish I had the time and insomnia to accomplish more of it. By "reading", I mean actually picking up a bound chunk of processed wood and deciphering the meaning of the markings on it - I do plenty of blog and newspaper-scanning. I have decided to read more in 2006, and have already finished around half a dozen books, aside from my assigned school reading.

I bow down to "Alicia", a librarian who has been chosen for a two year appointment to the American Library Association CODES Notable Books Council. At her new blog, So Many Books So Little Time: A Year in Reading, readers can follow along as she cranks through dozens of titles and providing brief commentary on each. She'll be on the panel for the next two years, and will read literally hundreds of books during that time.

This is a huge project for Alicia. She's reading several books a week - and these aren't romance novels. I'm jealous, but also intimidated. It seems like reading that much serious literature could be a lot of fun, but it also sounds like a lot of work. Good luck to her, and I recommend her blog highly.

First Strike Nukes?

Billmon, writing at the Whiskey Bar, has penned a thought-provoking and horrible post about what would happen if we used nukes in Iran, as Bush is currently considering.

His conclusion mirrors my darkest fears - we would accept it.

More to my point, though, I think it's possible that even something as monstrously insane as nuclear war could still be squeezed into the tiny rituals that pass for public debate in this country – the game of dueling TV sound bites that trivializes and then disposes of every issue.

We’ve already seen a lengthy list of war crimes and dictatorial power grabs sink into that electronic compost heap: the WMD disinformation campaign, Abu Ghraib, the torture memos, the de facto repeal of the 4th amendment. Again, why should a nuclear strike be any different? I can easily imagine the same rabid talk show hosts spouting the same jingoistic hate speech, the same bow-tied conservative pundits offering the same recycled talking points, and the same timid Beltway liberals complaining that while nuking Iran was the right thing to do, the White House went about it the wrong way. And I can already hear the same media critics chiding those of us in left Blogostan for blowing the whole thing out of proportion. It’s just a little bunker buster, after all.

Why should anyone or anything change? When a culture is as historically clueless and morally desensitized as this one appears to be, I don’t think it’s absurd to suppose that even an enormous war crime – the worst imaginable, short of outright genocide – could get lost in the endless babble of the talking heads. When everything is just a matter of opinion, anything – literally anything – can be justified. It’s only a matter of framing things so people can believe what they want to believe.

That quotation is just a piece of a longer and deeper meditation than you can find here.

Abstinence Only in Kansas

The Kansas Board of Education is at it again, working hard to live up to every stereotype of narrow-minded theocratic moralists those of us on the left can dream up. Yesterday, they were in the paper for hassling the Blue Valley School District for including Song of Solomon on its approved reading list.

Today, they are in the paper for taking up a requirement that each student take a nine-consecutive-week course on abstinence until marriage at least once in sixth through ninth grades.

Nine weeks?

Nine weeks?!?!

What in the world would those lesson plans look like? What kind of homework would be assigned? What could kids do to earn extra credit?

What if you do poorly? Would a bad grade in "abstinence" help or hurt your college applications? Alternatively, wouldn't ugly kids with bad personalities be the teachers' pets in this class?

Bush Administration Anti-Americanism

I take civil liberties seriously, and I sincerely believe that American democracy is at far greater risk from its own government than it is from terrorism.

Items like this make me feel like chicken little after the sky has actually fallen.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told lawmakers Thursday that warrantless spying on purely domestic phone calls between Americans on U.S. soil is an option in the war against terror.

"I'm not going to rule it out," he said in a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.

Well, guess what, you anti-American totalitiarian Republican? YOU DON'T HAVE TO RULE IT OUT!! That's already been taken care of, by smarter, better people than you or anyone in your corrupt, war-mongering, fear-generating, leaking White House. Here's where the ruling out of warrantless spying on Americans can be found:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Does anybody remember the United States Constitution? Does anybody remember that we have had a pretty good run in this country, and does anybody else resent this Administration's scaredy-cat claims that we can't risk being American anymore because our government knows best?

We can have polite parlor conversation about the gray areas of civil liberties and personal freedom, but our founding fathers had the wisdom to foresee corrupt, immoral anti-Americans like Bush and his sidekick Gonzales, so they drew a few bright lines around the goverment. They said it can't spy on us. Gonzales says it can.

Censure? Sure, as a start. But only as a start.

Help a Brother Out

Those who know me know that I am pretty heavily involved with a few charities, though I rarely mix that part of my life into my blog. Tonight, I have found a cause that I think warrants whatever blog support I can offer. This guy bet his girlfriend that he could make a website that would draw 2,000,000 unique hits. If he loses, he has to wear a t-shirt admitting he's an idiot. If he wins, though, he gets a threesome with his girlfriend and another girl.

Go ahead and give him a click. This is as much participation in a threesome as most of us are ever going to get.

Dalas Foley, Paul Smith, Susan McRill, Retha Balcom and Bob Vandiver, I Salute You

I'll leave the serious analysis of yesterday's election results to the staid and sober websites like Tony's Kansas City. Instead, I focus this morning on the real heroes of democracy - the ones who ran for office and were rewarded with one or no votes. Looking over the election results, my eye cannot help but be drawn to the single digits.

Dalas Foley, for example, ran for Alderman in Northmoor, and got no votes, losing to three write-in votes. What happened? Did Dalas him or herself get into the voting booth, only to be overtaken by self-doubt?

Paul Smith and Susan McRill tied with one vote each for Alderman in Randolph. Are either of them married? Does either have a best friend in the ward? If you live next door to Paul or Susan, you might want to start thinking up some excuses.

Retha Balcom ran for Mayor of Blackburn, but her dreams were dashed 7-0. If she were a football team, her defense would be feeling pretty good about itself. All she needs to do is work on the offense, and next season should be a lot better.

Finally, Bob Vandiver received no votes for Camden Road District. Was he late for voting because of a pothole-induced flat tire?

"No" on the Stadium Taxes

Tomorrow morning, I'll go to the polls and say "no" to the tax proposals on my ballot. As a lifelong knee-jerk liberal tax-and-spend Democrat, it shocks me to finally find a tax I don't like, so I feel like an explanation is in order.

First, I like the Chiefs and Royals, but I'll get by just fine even if there is something to their threats that they will leave. Just like the players themselves, my loyalties can shift for a few dollars. If Jackson County can save a billion dollars by cheering for another team, I'm all for it.

Second, I don't like the idea of imposing an incredibly regressive tax to support a luxury for the upper class. It galls me to think that a minimum wage worker buying store-label soup at an inner-city grocery store will be subsidizing an SUV-driving Johnson Countian who thinks he believes in self-reliance.

Third, I don't like being patronized. The parade of event-candy they have been promising us (Super Bowl, All-Star Game, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Photo-Shoot) is a bunch of cynical hype.

Finally, I reject the notion that professional sports somehow define what is a "major league city". Do the Bills make you want to move to Buffalo? When you consider moving to Portland, is it because of the Trailblazers? Is Santa Fe a shitty place because it doesn't have steroid-gobbling athletes to make it special?

Yes, spending a billion dollars on the stadiums will create a few jobs. Spending a billion dollars on parks or other amenities will create more, though, and we can use those other amenities when other teams are in the post-season.

Bad Cop, Weak Cop?

One of my Saturday morning regular reads is the "How They Voted" on page 2 of the Star. It lists the major role call votes in the House and Senate from the prior week, and lists the legislators from Missouri and Kansas, with a simple "Y" or "N". Something about the bare-bones simplicity of that feature pleases me - stripped of spin, explanation and context, it simply set forths the binary results of the spin, explanation and context.

In a typical week, it sets forth a discouraging display of party unity. The (R)s votes are all the same, and the (D)s also have a strong tendency to follow the party line. Saturday mornings present me with scant evidence of a thinking representative democracy.

This morning, however, we see Jim Talent mixing it up a little. In three votes, he actually cast votes opposite of his senior Senator and dark lord, Kit Bond. Talent voted against secret earmarks, in favor of an ethics watchdog office, and against allowing people to buy senators gifts and meals.

Has Talent, after three and a half years of blandly following orders from Kit Bond's office, suddenly developed a spine and started to stand up for Missourians and taxpayers? (I apologize for all readers who read that line and snorted beverages out of their noses and onto their keyboards. In the future, I will flag outrageously laughable impossibilities with a /fat chance> tag.)

Talent is panicking. Claire McCaskill is running strong on both sides of the state, and eroding his outstate advantage (it turns out that outstate voters don't really cotton to a city boy with Angelina Jolie lips and a position on stem cells that has no conviction deeper than a survey.) So Kit Bond gave Talent permission to vote as if he had a spine, but only on issues where a safe Republican majority assures that corruption will prevail.