You read it at the Frontiersman first

I laughed out loud when I read this. Talk about confused people! Here's the Frontiersman interviewing doofuses Adam and Kelly Hullin of Wasilla:

F: How do you respond to the criticism the president has had on race issues or that those who take him to task are racist?

A: I’d say that’s a cop-out. That’s ridiculous. He’s not even black. The fact that he’s black is a lie. He’s only 6 percent black. He’s actually 69 percent Muslim.

K: That’s just a way for them to get us to fight with one another. He’s really only 6 percent black.

Yep, you read that right. Apparently former religious affiliation is a racial attribute.

Hoo, boy.

Sex with Ducks

The California Supreme Court, if you haven't noticed, has decided that unequal treatment under the law and oppression of a minority by the majority are just ducky. So to speak.

This musical commentary and video by Garfunkel and Oates puts this stupid attitude in the right perspective. Not sure how to embed it, but believe me, it's worth a look-see.

Hat tip to Monique Musick!

Top 10 most challenged books for 2008

The Office of Intellectual Freedom keeps tabs on challenges to books in libraries.

A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school, requesting that materials be removed or restricted because of content or appropriateness. In 2008, OIF received 513 reports on efforts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves.

From the American Library Association, here is the list of the books most frequently challenged during calendar year 2008:

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell*
Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
* this one is based on true events, about a male couple of chinstrap penguins who successfully raised a chick at the Central Park Zoo
2. His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman*
Reasons: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, violence
* I've read two of the three books in this series; very interesting works. Very good.
3. TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
4. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
Reasons: occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, violence
5. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
Reasons: occult/satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, violence
6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited to age group
7. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
8. Uncle Bobby's Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen
Reasons: homosexuality, unsuited to age group
9. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
10. Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper
Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

W.A.R.: what is it good for?

You know the next line in the song: absolutely nothing. Well, in this case, Mr. Wayne Ross is good for something: creating discord, furthering the fusion of church and state, supporting (not just defending) thugs and bullies, stripping women of their rights, and otherwise being obnoxious. And Sarah, of course, thinks he's just ducky for the state's top legal beagle.

Gag me with a spoon.

If you can't argue with the facts, legislate against them

I Eat Gravel found this lovely little tidbit, courtesy the Oklahoma legislature and Representative Todd Thomsen: bills to ban Richard Dawkins from speaking on the University of Oklahoma campus AND to contest the validity of the theory of evolution. The bits that get me are these (emphasis mine):

WHEREAS, the Department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma has, as evidenced on the departmental homepage, been framing the Darwinian theory of evolution as doctrinal dogmatism rather than a hypothetical construction within the disciplines of the sciences; and

WHEREAS, not only has the Department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma been engaged in one-sided indoctrination of an unproven and unpopular theory but has made an effort to brand all thinking in dissent of this theory as anti-intellectual and backward rather than nurturing such free thinking and allowing a free discussion of all ideas which is the primary purpose of a university;...

Americans United for Separation of Church and State describes Thomsen as "stark raving mad," and adds,

As several critics have pointed out, the resolution contradicts itself. Thomsen wants an open debate on Darwinism – but doesn’t want Dawkins to speak on campus.

I think the only folks faming evolution as doctrinal dogmatism have been the religious folks who want their religious beliefs foisted on the rest of us through legislation.

Vengeance is mine, sayeth Chenault

Ah, yes, in commemoration of our 50th year as a state, Representative Mike Chenault wants to introduce the death penalty to Alaska. As if we didn't have enough stupidity and expense in gummint these days. (Actually, I'm not that generally displeased with Alaska government, but boy, howdy, certain Republicans sure seem to want to muck things up but good.) Sarah Palin, good little bloodthirsty Christian that she is, shares Chenault's absolute faith in the impeccable, color-blind, and utterly error-free operation of our criminal justice system. Ramras evidently also has no qualms about it, either: "Hang 'em high." Or, if they don't think the system is perfect, they're still perfectly willing to sacrifice one or two here and there, or not worry about the disproportionate application of the death penalty depending on the convicted person's race, or the expense before the person even gets to trial.

And to top it off, Chenault is just fine with wasting the legislature's limited time:

It is not my expectation that HB 9 will pass the Legislature and become law this year. In fact, I would be quite surprised if it did.

Nope, Chenault wants us to have a "healthy dialogue" about it. I submit that perhaps the 90-day session is not the best place to do this.

Talk about stupid.

Sarah's convenient hindsight twist

Found this one over at Bent Alaska:

"In my own state, I have voted, along with the vast majority of Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote, to amend our constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman."

That's Sarah Palin, talking with the Christian Broadcasting Network. Now, back in April 2007, we had a little advisory vote on a discriminatory piece of legislation, which passed by 53 to 47% in favor of bigotry. At that time, Ms. Palin said of the vote:

"It's hard to characterize that as a mandate."

In 1998, there was 68% support for a ban on same-sex marriage. That was pretty pathetic, and it's clear that the public, when faced with the reality that this shameful amendment could be used to enshrine all kinds of discriminatory practices, clearly wasn't quite so keen on it the next time.

What a mockery of civil freedoms these people have made of our constitution.

More on ocean acidification

This is the topic of the moment, apparently. The university is hosting a talk on carbon dioxide in the seas, featuring Richard Feely, chemical oceanographer with NOAA. Here's the press release from UAF:

One of the world's preeminent experts on ocean acidification will visit Fairbanks next week and hold a public lecture on the effects of rising carbon dioxide levels in the ocean.

Richard Feely is an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.

The public lecture will be held at 7:00 pm, Wednesday, September 24, at the Princess Riverside Lodge in Fairbanks.

According to Jeremy Mathis, a chemical oceanographer at UAF's School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, Feely has been a leading expert on ocean acidification for at least twenty years.

In his abstract for the talk, Feely says that today's record high carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are the "direct result of the industrial and agricultural activities of humans over the past two centuries."

Feely adds that carbon dioxide levels are "now higher than experienced on Earth for at least the last 800,000 years." Feely believes that these levels will continue to rise.

Feely will discuss the short and long term implications of ocean acidification on marine mammals, fish species and the economies that depend on the world's marine resources.

"Ocean acidification is probably the most imminent threat to the oceans today," said Mathis. He adds that ocean acidification is particularly harmful in Alaska, where cooler waters can speed up the rate of acidification.

Cruising the net, I found a blog all about the problem.

Yup. End times--but only because assholes like Bush won't do anything about it, or, like Palin, sue to prevent protections from being put in place. We HAVE A CHOICE. We can let the world go to hell, or we can clean up after ourselves. Too many religious fruitcakes seem to want to make it go to hell. Don't think the gods, assuming they're out there, will think too kindly of that.

International House of Prayer meets Farenheit 451

No, I am not making this up. There really is a church of the IHOP. And they're really burning books.

Y'know, I always wonder about this book-burning thing. It seems to lead to people-burning. As Austin Cline says, "People don’t burn books simply because they disagree with the message of the books, they burn books because the message of the books is a threat — a serious threat, in fact, not something remote and [hypothetical]." He goes on:

Burning books and burning people are connected because both stem from a desire to eliminate ideas that are a threat to the some group or ideology which is in power. Heinrich Heine recognized that such a connection could exist and perceived that once people could be persuaded to burn books, then at least some of them could be persuaded to take the further step of burning those responsible for the creation of those books.

Book burning keeps happening--but none of it has succeeded in doing in ideas yet. The people who do this are FOOLS--it's pointless, dangerous, and has nothing to do with "humility"--but everything to do with mob violence.

"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." ("Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.")
—Heinrich Heine, from his play Almansor (1821)

More stupidity on the state front: let's just kill a few pregnant women, why don't we?

I obviously have not been paying attention. Just look at this crap that the Legislature is trying to pull! Wingnut Wes is at it again, along with our hometown fave, Crackpot Coghill. I am so mad I could just spit!

The Anchorage Daily News printed this story on Jan. 22:

JUNEAU -- A House committee approved a proposal Monday that would make a medical procedure widely known as a "partial birth abortion" a felony in Alaska. The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill to revise the current law so it conforms to federal standards. A floor vote -- and a spirited debate -- is expected later in the legislative session. No one spoke out against the bill during a brief public comment period.

Committee members debated an amendment that would allow termination of a pregnancy that "poses substantial risk of permanent injury to the pregnant woman's physical or mental health."

But bill proponents say a portion of the law not under revision sufficiently takes into account the mother's welfare if her life is endangered. The proposed amendment failed.

According to Life News, there's no time when this procedure (which is grisly and grueling and ONLY undertaken for serious medical complications) is ever medically necessary. What a load of waffle!

This is simply an attempt to enforce an unscientific, religious worldview upon the bodies of women who are in desperate need of medical help. I wrote about this in an editorial when the Supreme Court decided that women were too fragile to deal with regret and that therefore a ban on this kind of procedure was perfectly acceptable. Conforming to "federal standards" means conforming to sheer nonsense! This is RELIGIOUS WINGNUTTERY!

And you know what? women are going to die because of it. They won't be able to get the medical help they need, and so they'll get to die for some puffed-up self-righteous bastard of a legislator's religion.

So what else is new?

Stupidity on the state front: librarians as nannies

I got around to reading my mail from the Alaska Library Association listserve, and found this ugly little thing under a rock:

HB 353: "An Act relating to the blocking of certain Internet sites at public libraries and to library assistance grants," sponsored by Representative Wes Keller, a twit from Anchorage (there's more--see the next post). Here's their lovely little press release:

House Bill 353 will encourage public libraries to assure that our young people do not have access to adult internet sites. Presently, there is cost effective software that allows responsible adults to prevent access to sites that could be considered objectionable. Parents and guardians of children use this software to prevent access.

While children are prevented from accessing these sites at home, some public libraries do not use this blocking technology and staffing limitations prevent libraries from monitoring. A simple installation of the software will prevent children from reaching adult sites without the need for a monitor.

Because of the concern that denying access might be considered unconstitutional, and because blocking software might block sites that are necessary for research, HB 353 includes language that allows adults to request that the software be disabled. The courts have already ruled this is an acceptable compromise.

HB 353 is also reactive in its approach should a library refuse to purchase and install the software. The bill would restrict state and local grant money to the library for refusal.

Right. Punish the bastions of free speech for daring to allow kids to look up words like "scrotum" on the Internet. Or perhaps even view one without pulling their pants down in the bathroom. Crap. Bludgeon our libraries, why don't you, Wes? It is NOT a librarian's responsibility to censor. Anything. That is completely counter to what libraries are FOR. And to punish them with a big fat stick like this in a regressive way is stupid. Why not simply provide funding for the software instead, and make it available to any library that wishes to use it? Bet you'd have a lot more takers and a lot less resistance that way.

Goddamn retrograde neanderthal wingnut busybodies! I HATE this kind of thing. What a waste of the Legislature's time. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we need to cut the session down to 30 days, so they only deal with what is absolutely necessary. They've obviously got way, way too much time on their hands.

Rex, oh, Rex, where are you? Arise, librarians and freethinkers of Alaska! Unite against the forces of darkness!

2007 in review

Once again, it is time to reflect on the previous year. This makes my 335th post on this blog, which means I'm averaging far less than a post a day, which is what I'd hoped to do when I started it up, but hey, I can't always be inspired. So, as Adam Meahan Olfahrt would say, Onward!

January

In January of 2007 I presented, for the first time, the Mike Kelly Award as a special Publisher's Pick at the Republic's 8th Birthday Bash. David James, also known as Dr. Feelgood, was the lucky winner of this dubious recognition for an article providing a valuable lesson in civics, science, or sex advice (or all three).

The Republic moved from the Old Post Office Espresso Publishing House & Art Gallery (now known as the Old Post Office Ester Library Annex) and the Trial Run to the Clubhouse, across the street and hidden behind the bar, there to start a large and disorganized office mess with dogs, kids, temporary guests, a refrigerator and range, and a VERY comfortable couch.

February

The fourth edition of the Local Et Cetera came out.

Don Young, after spouting a false quote supposedly by Abraham Lincoln that advocated arresting, exiling, or hanging those who damage military morale in wartime, refused to recant after his error was pointed out to him. Lincoln actually advocated strong limits on the power of the president.

"Scrotum" got put on the elementary school censorship list by those who wish to protect us from knowledge of our body parts.

The municipality of Largo, Florida, distinguished itself as a city of bigots, and Alaska gained headway in the discrimination spotlight with the phenomenally obnoxious HJR 9, introduced February 12, 2007, that would deny employee benefits of any sort at any level of government to same-sex OR unmarried couples, AND prevent civil unions. Bastards.

March

Brutus, our Mazda truck, went up in large, explosive, and very noisy flames, burning to a crisp in our driveway and causing rather a bit of excitement in our household.

The Republic was positively reviewed in the Utne Reader!

April

The library held its third Lallapalooza & Book Bash and raised better than $6,000.

Fred Dyson declared, in public no less, and with no apparent shame, that "government has the right to decide which relationships are forbidden and which are approved." And stunningly, the Libertarian party said absolutely nothing about this. So much for standing by their moral principles.

The Republic won awards again at the Alaska Press Club conference, even though we weren't there to stomp and whoop loudly.

The Supreme Court decided that half of the population is worth no more than their reproductive organs, and that we (women) are not mature enough to handle troublesome emotions such as regret, and therefore the menfolk of the reactionary rightwing kind are obligated to make all our most personal decisions for us. Again, I say, with feeling, "Bastards!"

We bought our green Honda Element.

May

The Cartoon North exhibit catalog was printed.

June

Got informally threatened with lawyers by the News-Miner for an article by Dru Heskin on the Newspapers in Education program. Although the newspapers in the dumpster story was mostly correct, there were problems (which I blush to admit I should have spotted). I didn't doublecheck thoroughly enough. So I published a correction and clarification in the next issue. Taught me a good lesson about making sure of all the dots on the i's and crosses on the t's. But ouch.

Don Young (o, that marvelous inspiration for editorial cartoons!) got conked by a coconut of his own pitching.

July

I hosted the 85th Carnival of the Green.

The DC contingent of Alaska's Corrupt Bastards Club started to get their comeuppance.

August

The News-Miner redesigned their paper and started copying, in certain respects, the Republic.

We poured the library gazebo foundation.

We held the Li-Berry Pie Throwdown and Music Festival, and boy was it fun!

September

Not much happened (at least that I wrote about), except for a Friday the Thirteenth, and Tim Easton was briefly back in town.

October

I started carrying around Alaskans for Clean Elections petitions.

Fairbanks discovered just how awkward it can get when the city doesn't use Instant Runoff Voting. Not to mention pricey.

The office refrigerator began barking. I kid you not. And it hasn't stopped yet. Ask me why I'm a nutcase. Ask me.

There was a humongous and hilarious Dumpster-diving fuss, sparked by Charlie Rex's second attempt to ban Dumpster diving. Major turnout by the local recyclers. This time the News-Miner got it right.

November

We finally got our water (and our septic line) running again!

I started begging for short-term, interest-free loans to help with printing Jamie Smith's books. Am still working on it.

I found out that Hans Klint died.

Dumpster diving was saved!

December

Got Like A Tree to the Soil off to the printer (for my day job).

Started working on John Haines' CD.

The United States got booed in Bali during the climate change convention.

Wolves started eating dogs in Fairbanks and Anchorage.

I got Mired in the Health Care Morass off to the printer!


And that was our year, folks!

Recycling rescued once again!

The Dumpster Diving Ruckus, brought to a frothy boil by Charlie Rex for the second time (didn't he learn anything from the reaction the first time?), was once again proof of just how entertaining borough assembly meetings can be. There was one creepy episode, when a self-proclaimed prophet started talking about how his master Yahweh was going to kill the assembly members who were trying to take this opportunity from him and his kids. Otherwise, though, it was very interesting. There were a ton of well-spoken people and some very good suggestions, and over and over the point was made that junk stockpiling is not going to be stopped by preventing recycling via dumpster diving.

Nobody seemed to think that identity theft was an issue the borough should concern itself with in this way, and that people should know better than to toss their private info in a public place in the first place. One person even pointed out that the presence of scavengers at the transfer sites helped remind people that their trash becomes public after they throw it away, and thus acts as a deterrent to unthinking revelation of identity details. Several people talked about the shredders (in working condition!) that they'd found at the recycle platforms or in the dumpsters (a nice little irony).

Many people spoke of how much dumpster divers were removing from the waste stream and thereby saving the borough loads of money. One fellow talked about the business he had making cans from recycled metals. He's going to be able to retire on it.

A few people talked about the junk in their neighbors' yards, and pointed out that the borough wasn't willing or able to do anything about them, and that the dumpster-diving ban wouldn't do anything to change that situation. Junk piles and hoarding will happen, they pointed out, whether people take things from the dumpster or no, and also, one doesn't ordinarily find old cars and trucks in dumpsters.

The News-Miner seems to have its head on straight about this issue this time, and Chris Eschelman, who's been covering it for them, has done a good job in the articles I've seen (although his first sentence in the latest bugs me--"a vocal mob"?). Front page news above the fold in one of them! Lots of Esteroids got quoted, but there was also a lot of support from all over the borough for recycling.

Among the practical suggestions made were:

1. More recycle platforms: have 'em at every transfer site. This makes a ton of sense to me. Ester's probably got a higher per capita population of recyclers than anywhere around here except maybe Goldstream or Two Rivers. Yet, because our population is lower than, say, Chena Pump, we don't have a recycle platform. Whose bright idea was that? If you want to encourage recycling rather than diving, make it easy!
2. Better signage: inform people where stuff might be placed, warn of the risks of diving and the big trucks, etc.
3. Bigger recycle platforms with better spaces for putting things, perhaps a table or something for clothes.
4. Change the time of trash pickup from a high-traffic time (the middle of the day) to a night pickup or early morning, or close the transfer site for an hour while the trash is being hauled away--and post the time so that people can time their recycling pickup or dropoff accordingly.
5. Reconfigure the arrangement of the dumpsters so that drivers can more easily maneuver and thus reduce the danger to pedestrians.

A few people objected to the term "dumpster diving", but I like it, myself. There's an element of humor in it.

At the last, even Rex voted against his own proposal. The alternative proposal was also voted down. Good for the assembly.

The Culture of Control

I've been thinking about the rabidity and internal contradictions I see in this modern-day radicalism/nationalism from the Religious/Republican right, and the common thread that sticks out is the apparent urge to control other people. The dominionists who seem to be running things these days are concerned with domination--and they'll go to ungodly lengths to get control over the rest of us.

Think about it. Women must be kept under control--we have no rights, we are not human beings, we are sexual objects. We are our uterus, our mammaries. We cannot be trusted to make our own decisions about our own bodies, as the New York Times aptly summarizes:

Justice Kennedy actually reasoned that banning the procedure was good for women in that it would protect them from a procedure they might not fully understand in advance and would probably come to regret. This way of thinking, that women are flighty creatures who must be protected by men, reflects notions of a woman’s place in the family and under the Constitution that have long been discredited, said a powerful dissenting opinion by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Stephen Breyer.

Sexuality in general seems to be very theatening to these people, as evidenced by the intense fear and disgust toward homosexuality and transgenderism.

As Fred Dyson (R-Eagle River) puts it, "I think government has the right to decide which relationships are forbidden and which are approved." Fred, old boy, you've got it so massively wrong here it's amazing. First of all, government doesn't have the right to do anything. People have rights. Governments are tools. What you've really said here is that some people have the right to use the tool of government to tell other people who they can hang out with, who they can love, who they should be with. This is a very, very dangerous belief. (I'm still sort of flummoxed that the state's libertarians don't seem to have noticed this. They're griping about smoking bans instead. Woo-hoo.)

But Fred's belief fits right in with the high regard in which corporate institutions are held by these rightwing types. Time Warner gets to write our postal rate plans and regulations. The oil companies get to write our foreign policy and war plans. Institutions such as government and churches and corporate entities are apparently better at directing our lives than we are.

Didn't know that, did you?

There was a country, a democracy, that changed, and used fear to herd the public, used religion to control them, used business to consolidate economic power, used war to keep in control. It became a textbook example of how nationalism develops into facism, of how a country can self-destruct. That country saw women as brood mares for a better future, placed heavy emphasis on the nuclear family, detested gays and intellectuals and peaceniks and people who didn't like to be controlled (like gypsies) or people of minority religions, either. Versteh?