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Author: Ruby Sinreich
Speaking of my phone…
Treo 650:
Oh. My. God.
Peace Vigil
Good turnout at tonight’s Vigil to honor the 1,000 dead in Iraq*. I would call it about 150 people (including a photographer from TIME magazine!). Here’s a lousy picture (by my phone, pardon the lack of fidelity).
I think we challenged a lot of passersby, especially students, who otherwise would have easily avoided the reality of this war.
* What’s up with just counting dead Americans? There must be 10 times as many dead Iraqis, not to mention the countless whose lives will be ruined.
Take The Gloves Off
Sue Estrich kicking booty and telling the Dems to fight back, already:
Will it be the three, or is it four or five, drunken driving arrests that Bush and Cheney, the two most powerful men in the world, managed to rack up? (Bush’s Texas record has been sealed. Now why would that be? Who seals a perfect driving record?)
Just When I Thought My Vote Would Matter…
…I find out Bush and Kerry goddamn cousins. [Via Wonkette]
Bush and Kerry are 10th cousins, meaning they share the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, Henry Herrick and Edith Laskin of Salem, Mass. The Herricks, however, are not their only common ancestors. Bush and Kerry can be traced back to eight different sets of shared relatives, making them alternately 11th cousins once removed, ninth cousins twice removed or 14th cousins.
As someone who has never not voted in any election in which I was eligible (starting with Harvey Gantt for U.S. Senate in 1990), I am sure not missing this one. I’ll just have to remind myself why nothing could be worse than 4 more years. It won’t be hard.
Take The Gloves Off
Sue Estrich kicking booty and telling the Dems to fight back, already:
Will it be the three, or is it four or five, drunken driving arrests that Bush and Cheney, the two most powerful men in the world, managed to rack up? (Bush’s Texas record has been sealed. Now why would that be? Who seals a perfect driving record?)
Ashcroft Strikes Out
Let’s hear it for the judiciary branch! Now What brings good news: three different judges have now found Bush’s abortion ban (on so-called “partial birth abortion“) to be unconstitutional. But it’s not over yet!
While disdain for a Congress indifferent to women’s health – or anyone’s health, for that matter – is easy to come by, it’s the audacity of the DOJ that really gets my goat. Undaunted by new rulings that mirror old rulings, the DOJ filed an appeal in the San Francisco case in August. After all, those who oppose abortion under any circumstance, including the attorney general, don’t just bide their time until a newly configured U.S. Supreme Court reverses a previous Supreme Court ruling on the matter. There are myths to fuel and gross misrepresentations to sell.
The icing on the cake is Ashcroft was also denied his attempt to peek at women’s private medical records. (Perhaps this will satisfy him.)
I heart George Lakoff
I’m mostly writing this post to remind myself of all the good stuff I need to read. I hope you find it helpful as well. George Lakoff is a linguist on the faculty at UC-Berkeley and a founder of the Rockridge Institute. In this Simple Tutorial, he explains the power of framing. He demonstrates how our choice of words frames the debate, and how “Conservatives Know about Framing.”
This was the article that got me started, about how conservatives dominate with their mad framing skillz. For example:
Language always comes with what is called “framing.” Every word is defined relative to a conceptual framework. If you have something like “revolt,” that implies a population that is being ruled unfairly, or assumes it is being ruled unfairly, and that they are throwing off their rulers, which would be considered a good thing. That’s a frame.
If you then add the word “voter” in front of “revolt,” you get a metaphorical meaning saying that the voters are the oppressed people, the governor is the oppressive ruler, that they have ousted him and this is a good thing and all things are good now. All of that comes up when you see a headline like “voter revolt” — something that most people read and never notice. But these things can be affected by reporters and very often, by the campaign people themselves.
In this one he breaks it down about the so-called “war on terror.”
And then when you’re done with that, here’s the whole
George Lakoff archive on AlterNet. When I finish that, I have to start reading his books.
Sick Dick
It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that Dick Cheney is a very confused and/or twisted man.
Here he is in the New York Times saying that if Kerry is elected, we will be “hit again” with a “devastating” terrorist attack. Nevermind the fact that Bush/Cheney’s policies have made more enemies across the globe than friends. This is the same administration that pissed away the world’s symapthy after 9/11, that has angered and radicalized more potential terrorists than Osama Bin Laden could have done in a lifetime. It seems a lot more likely that a serious attack would follow a Bush election than a Kerry election.
And then here he is at a “town hall” meeting in DesMoines trying to describe, uh… not sure who he’s describing, but it sounds more like the Bush Whitehouse to me.
They mean to do everything they can to destroy our way of life. They don’t agree with our view of the world. They’ve got an extremist view in terms of their religion. They have no concept or tolerance for religious freedom. They don’t believe women ought to have any rights. They’ve got a fundamentally different view of the world, and they will slaughter… anybody who stands in their way.
I wonder what it’s like in Dick’s twisted world. Seems like his daughter Mary is inheriting this inverted worldview. Where night is day, lesbians are straight (or invisible), and right is certainly wrong.
Thanks to AMERICAblog for the pointers.
They’ve got issues
Following in the brave footsteps of Bring Them Home Now (which was founded a couple of years ago to organize and speak for military members, their families, and veterans against the war) we now have Operation Truth, an organization “that seeks to educate the American public about the truth of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the perspective of the soldiers who have experienced them first-hand.” Some of Operation Truth’s issues:
Veterans Affairs Budget Cuts
Stop Loss: A “Back-Door Draft”
Weak National Support Systems for Soldiers’ Families
Proper Counseling and Treatment for the Soldiers
Proper Funding and Compensation for Reservists and National Guardsmen
Problematic Role of Private Contractors in Combat Zones
Citizenship for Returning Servicemembers
More power to ’em!