Lesbiatopia

The drug Gardasil--a vaccine from Merck & Co. Inc. manufactured to inoculate women against HPV and cervical cancer--is possibly killing women instead.

According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) website, the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) "is a national program of CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that monitors the safety of vaccines after they are licensed." This department has received 7,802 complaints about adverse effects resulting from Gardasil.

Of these complaints, the CDC website maintains that only 7% were complaints of serious adverse side effects, defined "by the Code of Federal Regulations as adverse events involving hospitalization, death, permanent disability, and life-threatening illness."

Oh, well, never mind, only 7% . . . but wait a minute, 7% of 7,802 is 546! 546 women who were maybe hospitalized, permanently disabled, or killed as a result of this drug! That seems like kind of a lot, though according to the CDC website, 12 million women received this vaccine between 2006 and 2007. 546 out of 12 million might be statistically a very small percentage, but it still seems to me like too many, so I want to know more.

The CDC's website offers that it received 15 reports of death and 31 reports of something called Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), "a severe neurological disorder [that] causes increasing weakness in the legs and arms that can be severe and require hospitalization" (Citation). Okay, that's 46 reports that we know about now; so what were those other 500 out of 546 serious adverse side effects complaints about? Hm, no mention of those anywhere on the CDC's site.

Merck's website says, "Merck has analyzed the adverse events reported for GARDASIL relating to the recent reports of death and paralysis, and based on the data available to Merck, believes that no safety issue related to the vaccine has been identified." Well, are they looking at the same totally meaningless and spotty data as I am on this CDC website? If they have a better report, why can't I see it? Upon further digging, I find what the VAERS website calls "reporting data." Ah, excellent!

So I open up this little gem, and guess what? There is absolutely no statistical integrity in this document whatsoever. Look at it! It's a single-columned mess! (UPDATE: Someone below alerted me to the fact that the commas were separating the columns, but after separating the columns out, my faith is not any more boosted in the data; see comments below.) This particular spreadsheet is all vaccine reports--not just reports for Gardasil--from 2007. Hey math folk out there; how would you like to get this document from your boss and be told to make sense of it? Imagine your boss handing you this, and saying, "Give me a report on the serious adverse side effects mentioned in this spreadsheet about Gardasil." Haha!

. . . except not so much haha, because presumably, that's what Merck did--some employee of Merck's company was handed the "reporting data" document by his/her boss and told, "Analyze this, and tell me if you think there's a safety issue with Gardasil." Apparently, the employees at Merck are so magical that s/he was able to do that, no problem, and now there's no reason to do any follow-up investigating, and we're all safe, and we should just shut up about it. I feel better already!!

So going back to the CDC website, they tell us, "VAERS received 15 reports of death following Gardasil vaccination in the U.S. Only 10 reports contained the level of information adequate for further analysis. After careful review of those reports we could not establish the causal relationship between vaccination and death. For the remaining 5 reports of death, we were unable to obtain any patient identifying information; therefore we could not confirm death outcomes."

O.K., "10 reports contained the level of information adequate for further analysis" and "the remaining 5 reports of death [. . .] were unable to [furnish] any patient identifying information; therefore [you] could not confirm death outcomes." WHAT?? So, in other words, "Five women died, and we couldn't locate 'em afterwards, so screw 'em." "The level of information adequate for further analysis" is apparently, what, a name and address?? The inability to "establish a causal relationship" is based on what now? Presumably, there are reports on those inquiries; where are they? Who performed these follow-up investigations? Where is their jumbled mishmash of totally useless data?

This whole thing stinks to high heavens. Follow this link if you or someone you know has experienced harm as a result of Gardasil.

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MAGICALLY UNCOMFORTABLE SQUIRMINATION



IMMEDIATELY AFTER THAT VIDEO CLIP IN JOHN MCCAIN'S THOUGHT BUBBLE: WHY DON'T THESE WHORES GO BACK TO GOOD OL' FASHIONED WIRE HANGERS IF THEY WANT TO SIN AGAINST GOD AND JUST SHUT THE #@*$ UP ABOUT THE WHOLE THING ALREADY??

THE LESBIAN COMMUNITY--PROUD BOYCOTTERS OF VIAGRA
(SO FAR AS I KNOW)

COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
GUEST-HOSTED ALL THIS WEEK
(PERHAPS LONGER?? PLEEEAAAASE??)
BY DR. RACHEL MADDOW
MONDAY-FRIDAY ON MSNBC
CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS

LISTEN TO
DR. RACHEL MADDOW ON AIR AMERICA RADIO AND AFFILIATES
3-6PM PST
(WHEN DR. MADDOW IS NOT BEING THE BEST HOST OF COUNTDOWN EVER)

P.S. CHRIS HAYES OF THE NATION ROCKS TOO

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I have approximately 1,000 lawyers in my family, so lawyers have always been heroes of mine--but never more so than at this given moment in history. I have watched a variety of attempts to impeach the so-called President and his cronies go down in flames, and I've always been struck by the thought, Why bother with impeachment? These guys are criminals who have repeatedly sh*t upon the Constitution! Let's prosecute them! Well, some lawyers have decided to germinate an answer to my civic prayers--as usual!

Outing CIA agents in wartime and overthrowing sovereign leaders while lying to your constituents and the world to do it and then refusing to testify about it? What's up with that? As a blogger on Morning Seditionists once wrote,

"You know, if I could ask these assholes questions, I’d ask how come good, god-fearin’ Christians are terrified of swearing an oath - in public - to their God, that they will tell the truth. I mean, lying is a sin (a big one, too - bearing false witness and all that; I don’t claim to be an expert, but I believe that’s one of those commandment thingies they’re always whining about), and they’re all a bunch of fucking holier-than-thou, party of God types, so you’d think they’d be chompin’ at the bit to get out there and rub their greasy palms all over the good book (among other things)."

So yeah, what's up with that? Well, some lawyers have decided to, um, yeah, like, kind of, maybe talk about how criminal prosecution over the accumulation of messed-up things the Bush administration has done might--just might--wind up in, um, you know, like, a hangin' or two.

The Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover is planning a September conference to establish a case for the prosecution of George W. Bush and friends for war crimes. The Dean's name is Lawrence Velvel, and back in the late 1960s, he and several other law professors gained notoriety for trying to declare the Vietnam war unconstitutional, so you have to love the guy. I will let Professor Velvel speak for himself:

"This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of law that have occurred; it is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth. [. . .] We must try to hold Bush administration leaders accountable in courts of justice, and we must insist on appropriate punishments, including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war-criminals in the 1940s."

This guy added, "For Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Yoo to spend years in jail or go to the gallows for their crimes would be a powerful lesson to future American leaders."

Reportedly, the conference intends to explore:

* the natures of the crimes committed;

* who (including federal judges and members of Congress) might be involved;

* which foreign or domestic venues could be used to bring about prosecution; and

* the coordination of an umbrella group of partnering legal organizations to make everything possible.

Sooooo . . . yeah! Thank you, Dean Velvel, and thank you participating lawyers--took you all long enough, but thank you. View the original announcement here.

From Dean Velvel's website:

"Both experts and the public are invited to the Conference. It will be held at 500 Federal Street in Andover, Massachusetts, from 10 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon on Saturday and Sunday, September 13 and 14. Breakfasts, lunches and dinners will be provided, and will be covered by a conference charge of $125. Hotel rooms will be available a mile away, at the Wyndham Hotel, for 99 dollars per night, with buses available to take attendees to and return them from the conference.

"Anyone who wants to attend the conference should contact my special assistant, Jeff Demers, at demers@mslaw.edu or at (978) 681-0800."

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I want you to watch this video so bad. I looked all over the internet for a transcript yesterday and couldn't find one, so I lovingly typed up a transcript for y'all [below]. Sheesh!

The next time some conservative tells you that liberals don't have a clue about foreign policy, please, for me, kindly shove this all up in their faces. Say it with me now: "that’s the result of the Bush/McCain approach to the war on terrorism!"

Transcript:
Barack Obama: We had a productive discussion on the challenges facing our nation. I’m grateful to these distinguished men and women who will be advising me in the months to come. As we discussed in the meeting, we face serious challenges to our security. Our nation is fighting two wars. There are terrorists who are determined to kill as many Americans as they can. The world’s most dangerous weapons risk falling into the hands of our enemies. That’s why the single greatest priority of my presidency will be doing anything and everything that is needed to keep the American people safe.

In the face of these real threats we can’t afford another campaign in which national security issues and the truth are distorted and manipulated. So let me take this opportunity to just talk about some of the attacks that the McCain campaign has made in the last few days. For all his talk about civil debate and bipartisanship, Senator McCain has shown that he is going to use predictable, petty, and divisive attacks to try to score a few political points on national security--and if these attacks seem familiar, it’s because they are. They come from the same tired political playbook that George Bush and Karl Rove have used for eight years. It is a political strategy that has been used to prop up policies that have completely failed.

First, let me say a few words about Guantanamo. By any measure, our system of trying detainees has been a failure. Over the course of nearly seven years there has not been a single conviction for a terrorist act at Guantanamo. There has just been one conviction for material support of terrorism; meanwhile, this legal black hole has substantially set back America’s ability to lead the world against the threat of terrorism and undermined our most basic values. So make no mistake, we are less safe because of the way George Bush has handled this issue.

My approach is guided by a simple premise. I have confidence that our system of justice and that our traditions of rule of law are strong enough to deal with terrorists; Senator McCain does not. That is not the same as suggesting that we should give detainees the full privileges that are afforded American citizens. I never said that, the Supreme Court never said that, and I would never do that as President of the United States. So either Senator McCain’s campaign doesn’t understand what the Court decided, or they are distorting my position.

I’ve made the same arguments as Republicans like Arlen Specter, countless generals and national security experts, and the largely Republican-appointed Supreme Court of the United States of America--which is that we need not throw away 200 years of American jurisprudence while we fight terrorism. We need not choose between our most deeply held values and keeping this nation safe; that is a false choice, and I completely reject it.

In their attempt to distort my position Senator McCain’s campaign has said I want to pursue a “law enforcement approach” when it comes to terrorism. This is demonstrably false since I have laid out a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy that includes military force, intelligence operations, financial sanctions, and diplomatic action, but the fact that I want to abide by the United States’ Constitution, they say, shows that I am “trapped in a pre-9/11 mindset.”

Well, I refuse to be lectured on national security by the people who are responsible for the most disastrous set of foreign policy decisions in the recent history of the United States. The other side likes to use 9/11 as a political bludgeon; let’s talk about 9/11.

The people who are responsible for murdering 3,000 Americans on 9/11 have not been brought to justice; they are Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and their sponsors, the Taleban. They were in Afghanistan, and yet George Bush, with the support of John McCain, decided in 2002 that they should take their eye off the ball—off Afghanistan—so that we could invade and occupy a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.

The case for war in Iraq was so thin that George Bush, again with the support of John McCain, had to hype up the threat of Saddam Hussein and make false promises that we would be greeted as liberators. They misled the American people and took us into a misguided war, and here are the results of their policy. Osama bin Laden and his top leadership--the people who murdered 3,000 Americans on 9/11--have a safe haven in northwest Pakistan where they operate with such freedom of action that they can still put out hate-filled audiotapes to the outside world; that’s the result of the Bush/McCain approach to the war on terrorism.

We had Al Qaeda and Taleban on the run back in 2002, but then we diverted military, intelligence, financial, and diplomatic resources to Iraq. And yet Senator McCain has said as recently as this April that,

“Afghanistan is not in trouble because of our diversion to Iraq.”

I think that just shows a dangerous misjudgment of the facts and a stubborn determination to ignore the need to finish the fight in Afghanistan.

Our military is badly overstretched as a consequence of Iraq. We have nearly 150,000 troops in Iraq. We may have no more than one or two brigades that can function outside of Iraq as a consequence of our current position. Many of the troops there are on their second, third, or fourth tours of duty; meanwhile, Afghanistan is sliding towards chaos and risks turning into a narcoterrorist state. The Taleban is on the offensive in the South. A recent Taleban prison outbreak in Qandahār freed hundreds of militants and underscored the volatile situation on the ground. The coalition’s casualties in Afghanistan last month were actually higher than they were in Iraq; that’s the result of the Bush/McCain approach to the war on terrorism.

We need to take more resources and put them into Afghanistan. I’ve been arguing for this since 2002 when I said that we should finish the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taleban instead of going into Iraq. I’ve called for at least two additional combat brigades to support our efforts there. I’ve also called for at least $1b in nonmilitary assistance each year, and I’ve repeatedly challenged George Bush and John McCain’s refusal to hold the Pakistani government accountable for the inability to crack down on Al Qaeda and the Taleban operating within their borders--because we are not going to get Afghanistan right until we get our Pakistan policy right.

So I am happy to talk about 9/11, and I am happy to talk about the choice that we have in this election. We can: listen to the other side and make the same false arguments about why we need to violate our Constitution; not explain to the American people what exactly we’re doing; stay in Iraq indefinitely; build permanent bases in a country that doesn’t want them; not disclose exactly what’s in the negotiations so we end up learning about them from the Iraqi foreign minister because our own President doesn’t explain it to the American people; and keep short-changing our efforts in Afghanistan and our ability to deal with nearly every other national security challenge that we face. That’s one option. We can do that.

Or, we can finally end this disastrous approach to national security because the record shows that George Bush and John McCain have been weak on terrorism. Their approach has failed. Because of their policies we are less safe, less respected, less able to lead the world.

That’s why I believe it’s time to turn the page. It’s time to end the war in Iraq responsibly. It’s time to stop wasting time and start putting away terrorists. It’s time to finally take out Al Qaeda’s top leadership and to finish the fight in Afghanistan. It’s time to restore our standing in the world so we can once again lead.

That’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America.

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A new study says more and more Americans are using the internet for political interaction. View the study here:

Wired: study stats

Here I am, talking at you as I have done about politics, getting myself all riled up.

Here you are, reading my [more-or-less] political meanderings.

I follow the backs-and-forths of my favorite political team, the Dems, with my full nerdy might going time-bankrupt keeping up-to-date with my RSS feeds. You may or may not be so recklessly nerdy as I, but you might have signed an online petition or sent an email to your local representative. You might have discovered places online that told you how to get to politically loaded places in the real world (like assembly meetings or rallies). Maybe you contributed to a campaign online or spoke up in a forum with other aware individuals.


Whether or not you’ve done any of those things (and this polling data suggests there’s a good chance you have), so what?

We are organizing ourselves in traditional methods; information comes from a central source (like Lesbiatopia) perhaps in the form of a bleg, and people comment or respond privately or send up original material or what-have-you. All of this winds up communicating back to the central source, which processes the responses and chugs forward.

Many of the web’s most innovative tools—such as vehicles for networking or user media—connect people in increasingly accessible ways. Suddenly, people can interact with one another directly without relying on an organized hub of command, thus enabling individuals with financial- or cultural-capital-earning ideas to make major changes without operating through a mediating force. The majority of the people using these tools for political interaction (as the data from the above poll suggest) are between the voting ages of 18-29.

This marriage of political thought with equality of access [accented with the tantalizing prospect of engaging hot 18-29-year-old politically savvy females] inspires my newest and most pressing curiosity in the field of populism. By using the word curiosity I mean to suggest that I know nearly nothing about the subject except what I have cursorily heard and read. In an effort to spark your interest about populism as I have had mine sparked, I will cite the following:

“The term [populist] is not simply defined by any given issue position. It is instead a ‘politics that champions issues that have a broad base of popular support but receive short shrift from the political elite,’ as the Atlantic Monthly’s Ross Douthat says. ‘This explains why you can have left-populists and right-populists,’ he adds” (8).

Sirota, David. “A Portrait of the Writer on a Bathroom Floor.” The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington. New York: Crown Pub, 2008.

Everyone is talking about David Sirota’s new book, The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington. Apparently the guy is a New York Times’ best-selling author, but I’d never heard of him—not until my pretend celebrity girlfriend Rachel Maddow interviewed him on her radio show. All of a sudden I wanted to know a lot more from this guy.

I went to a book-signing (free courtesy of Brave New Films in Culver City) to see what he was all about, and what struck me most was his assertion that the internet has yet to be used to its full capacity as a political tool. I thought to myself, This guy is so old. Hasn't he seen Obama's website? It's an ingenious mixture of networking and activism! Before I had time to ask a self-righteous question about his claim, he cut my thoughts off by pointing out that the position of President is, Constitutionally, the most resistant office to change; the fact that Obama has been able to pick up on popular social networking website constructs from MySpace and Facebook shows not the ingenuity of his staffpeople but rather the magnitude of benefits that already established methods of social networking lend to political discourse. The mere fact that Obama uses them shows how culturally pervasive (and thus politically safe) they must be in that a Presidential candidate would spend resources endeavoring to learn, promote, and wield them. To put it simply, Obama wouldn't bother making my.barackobama.com work like LinkedIn.com if he didn't think it would win him votes.

One might wonder if Obama is a populist force, but the Senator proves not to be; he releases communications, his base responds to them, and he acknowledges the desires of his base to often unequal degrees. This is all standard organizing as mentioned above. The contrast appears when populist members of Obama's base act independently of the campaign, perhaps by organizing smaller groups amongst themselves (e.g. LGBTQ folks for Obama) that operate outside of the central campaign.

I absorbed all this and much more at Mr. Sirota's book-signing but was left with one pressing question. Dutifully, I bought a copy of the book (AND I WAS SHORT $2 SO A MAN KINDLY GAVE ME $2 TO PURCHASE MY COPY. SIR, WHEREVER YOU ARE, THANK YOU AND THE BLESSINGS OF MANY LESBIANS UPON YOU!) and got in line to ask Mr. Sirota my question.

When I got to the front of the line I said, "I'm 24 years old, and this social networking stuff is, like, 1,000 years old to me and my friends. They're self-organizing all the time, but very few of them have any experience or interest in social activism. My parents (who instilled in me a love of justice and the Constitution) grew up in the most politically volatile period in decades and continue to be deeply involved in local to national legislature; however, their generation is slow to embrace all the technology that promises the most. So how do I bring together the experience of our elders with the innovations of our youth to inspire action?"

He didn't really have an answer, but he was upfront about it. He said something like, "Like I said, these tools have yet to be utilized to their full extent. Someone's going to have to figure out how to do it."

I lamely replied, "I'll figure out something!"

He signed, "To Julia-- Join the uprising! David Sirota".

Now I can't stop thinking about it, although I have yet to read Mr. Sirota's book. (I'm still relishing Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present by Michael Oren, which is awesome, by the way.) I keep asking myself, how do we self-organize to inspire change without an umbrella organization? How do we unite bloggers with our aged cultural warriors to kick ass? I'm seeing the buds of inspiration in places like OpenLeft where the "American Blogger" contest is producing fresh ideas every week from bloggers to affect change using normal people in their everyday communities.

But I look longingly at Lesbiatopia and experience an almost metaphysical sensation of the opportunities to incite lesbian revolution that must lie so narrowly past our capacity to perceive them. I feel that the machine to get lesbians in motion for their best interests must intrinsically reside in the html code here, but how do we activate it?

I suppose that an idea of "pure populism" works about as well in practice as "pure loving sharing equality hearts and flowers" does, which is not at all; naturally, a theory of self-organization that pits any sort of us versus them--no matter how noble the intentions--will eventually crumble to in-fighting or change under pressure over who is on the side of whom (much like an idea of total equality will be belied by invariably unequal assets within and among a populace). What I mean to say is, any movement that attempts to rid itself of a central hub will produce, ironically, a leader around which such a movement will coalesce, right?

--but then again, look at sites like youtube or Wikileaks. Even with the increasingly important roles they play in shaming the powers that be and providing laypeople with ways to educate themselves, we cannot point to leaders steering these egalitarian utilities; the popularity of the media within these sites reflects the necessity of useful user-driven content to succeed in a [quite metaphorical] "death-of-the-author"-type way. While the content-producers or "authors" may remain anonymous, we can easily identify the censors who pull the videos and articles from view and the lawyers who make the persuasive demands to pull them.

So we can point to populism, and we can point to its enemies. How do we go from pointing to interacting? How do we, for instance, take a site that points at lesbian interest and transform it into a weapon of lesbian evolution that takes its cues not from your fabulous blogging team but from you, the readers?

Check out David Sirota's blog here, and join the uprising with me. I wish I had some answers formulated for my questions, but like I said, this is brand-spanking-new to me, and quite frankly, to dictate my thoughts to you would be anathema to the spirit of the movement I'm seeking.

My only clue for my questions is anonymity--the one running current I can identify in the "populist" versus conservative hot-topic areas of social interactions as I perceive them . . . .

. . . including the faceless mass of people who hate the occupation in Iraq versus individuals running our government.

. . . including the prescriptively anonymous LGBTQ military members versus the senators, generals, and colleagues who oppose them while all receive salaries paid by public taxes.

. . . including the concealed couples who enjoy the intimate but not civil privileges of marriage versus the registered voters, petitioners, and rallying disorganized religions.

. . . including the anonymous closeted lesbians toiling away under an ENDA that protects no one versus the pointed homophobia of the identifiably ignorant in the workforce.

So maybe that's not populism at all really; I admittedly have a lot of research ahead. Perhaps radical change requires the full force of a nameless majority to impel momentum, and LGBTQ issues would not be considered large enough for the populist stage (although, e.g., 73% of servicemembers polled said they were alright with openly gay servicemembers in the military). Maybe populism doesn't have anything to do with any of this, and I'm completely making all of this up and/or missing the point entirely; it's interesting to ponder whatever it's called, though, right? And you know I'll come clean whenever I finish the book!

Regardless, if any of this stuff at all interests you, please kindly help me along; I told David Sirota I'd figure something out, and right now I got nothin'.

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Got guests arriving in 10 minutes and afraid you'll never be able to come up with anything current or interesting to talk about? Never fear! I whipped this up just for you. Even if you look at nothing else political this week, learn these headlines! Below is a veritable layered party dip of stories I am dying for you to know.

First, the beans. Like beans, this story just might give you indigestion.

LGBT folk anticipate particular hardship during poor economy.

Next, the guacamole. Smooth, creamy goodness.

Young voters vote Democratic and pro-gay.

On top of that, the sour cream. Sour cream and this story are favorite things of people with munchies.

Barney Frank (and I) totally, totally want you to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, dude, like, seriously.

(Psssssst, hey Cali ladies! If Barney Frank's bill right there were to pass, anyone with a medicard could grow up to but no more than 6 plants legally (!) and never have to pay for the dankydank again. Urge your Congresspeople to sign before my . . . um . . . er . . . glaucoma! gets any worse. 6 plants would just about fix my s*** right up; wouldn't you agree, Doctor?)

We finish, of course, with the cheese!

You may or may not be able to tell the difference between John McCain and George Bush; what I want to know is, can you tell the difference between John McCain and an old carrot?

Serve with a salty, pointy tortilla chip of pain that will likely cause a 5-inch gash in your esophagus. (Dave Barry fans out there?)

Speculators knock OPEC off of oil-price perch.

OK, and one final LGBT soupçon in case you get hungry later.

Both sides raising big bucks over marriage amendment.

When you're full, put in fridge to chill, and then you take a nap.

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Well, you don't want to be this woman, except for maybe the tig ol' bitties. A bit of levity today.

Someone I now love and whom I don't even know on OurChart directed me to this delightful set . . . of videos!

When I hear the term "Hillary supporter" on TV and say to myself, "Who in the world is still defending Hillary?" this is exactly the person I picture in my head. My new favorite person on OurChart--perhaps my new favorite person on the planet right now--posted these videos in a blog comment with the title "[Ma'amselle Lezident's] Nightmare," and she got it so right, and she doesn't even know me. I will send these videos to everyone I know. Thank you, new OurChart friend!

You know what? This woman has made me realize I've been wrong all along. I am so supporting this woman for President over anybody else. (NOTE FOR THE SARCASM-IMPAIRED: I'm kidding.)

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Beautiful, beautiful butchie women. Do you know the power you wield over people with bad gaydar? Thank you a million times wherever you are for challenging the norms of femininity, and I have no words sufficient to thank you also for courageously putting up with women shrieking at you in bathrooms.



I'm sure many people have written about this issue more thoughtfully than I, but wow! I never considered before the activism inherent in taking a piss sometimes, nor the consequences of such actions. I feel like I have been so naive about it that I need to share my revelation with the blogosphere.

I met two fascinating and beautiful ladies yesterday who are in the U.S. Navy. They both possess athletic frames and wear hot short military haircuts. I mention their appearances [because they continue to be of prurient interest to me but also] because they both shared with me the same story--independently of each other--unique to women with similar features to theirs. When the first one told me that women screech at her in restrooms--"You're in the wrong room, young man!"--I said, "Naaaaah, that actually happens to you?" She replied yes, at least once a day!

I'm always a fan of stickin' it to people with narrow mindsets, so I naively and stupidly thought, How cool! She doesn't have to wave a rainbow flag to get up in people's faces; all she has to do is use the bathroom! And she can do that, like, 3 times a day! Awesome!

The second woman with whom I spoke told me almost the same story in the course of our conversation. Again, I said, "No way; for real? People do that to you?" Both women then shared with me clever ruses they had devised to project their femininity in non-threatening ways (e.g. grab a femme friend and talk about tampons on the way to the ladies' room), while also both had picked ages they sometimes mischievously proclaim to be. ("I go with 13 most of the time. What age are you, young man?? 13.") Obviously, these were not isolated incidents; these women had had to develop whole strategies around this recurring problem.

This time, I let my stupid thoughts out of my head via my mouth, and I said, "Wow, how frickin' sweet that you get to be an activist just by being who you are!"

Then one of the women reminded me: Don't Ask; Don't Tell.

I am a schlubby civilian with a desk job. I love keeping my hair short short short, and on a couple of occasions, young children have mistaken me for a dude. (The parents in these instances were good-natured enough to correct them.) On the whole, though, I have a round feminine booty with a teeny waist that I think underscore my gender beyond a doubt. I went through a job search recently, and I let my hair grow out with the reasoning that I had a better chance in an interview for an executive assistant position if I appeared more femme (less threatening). I got a job finally, so maybe I was right.

When I met these ladies yesterday, my immediate reaction was, Oh, what I would give for a job where short hair would be encouraged! After speaking with them, it occurred to me that with the stupid trans-exclusive ENDA in place alongside DADT, I'm allowed to talk about being gay but not look like a butch woman; these women are allowed to be butch but not talk about it.

A dishonorable discharge for these women would mean the inability to ever get another government-contracted civilian job. Ever. For their noble service to our country--for volunteering while my schlubby butt is at home playing videogames and smoking kush--they would get nothing.

As the brilliant John Forster once wrote:

When you're on maneuvres
You'll peek through the louvers
At the straights who get to be
Exactly who they are, while we
Get to serve our country
And maybe catch a bullet
And possibly meet our makers
In the Closet.

This is a violation of both first and second amendment rights. The first amendment protects freedom of speech, while the second protects the right of the people to form militias. If lesbian militarywomen speak their minds (first amendment), they are kicked out of the military. If they are kicked out of the military with a dishonorable discharge (first amendment violation), they are barred from owning firearms (second amendment). In application, a freedom of speech punishment results in a second amendment punishment. This would mean (theoretically) that the people most able and willing to defend lesbians in times of trouble would, by law, be unable to do so (second amendment violation).

I don't know what else to tell you about it except please vote Democratic in the fall. Both Hillary and Barack have pledged to repeal this hateful piece of legislation. And out and/or butchie women everywhere, please keep on being out and/or butchie where our closeted and military sisters cannot; we influence our environments by doing so. I, for one, am going to get a haircut.

UPDATE: As an alert Anonymous reader pointed out, I was wrong about dishonorable discharge; however, lesbians can still face losing educational benefits, pensions, and in some cases can face criminal charges. Service members discharged under DADT are barred from ever serving in any branch of the military, and as I pointed out in my comment below, I don't know if this includes community militias or not. There's a great reference here:
http://www.sldn.org/binary-data/SLDN_SECTIONS/pdf_file/19.pdf

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I'm so tired of hearing that Clinton's negative press is due to her gender. As of Tuesday, I keep hearing, "She won in Pennsylvania, so why is everyone reporting on it so negatively?" "She's ahead in popular votes, so why are they saying she's fighting an uphill battle?" "It must be because she's a woman."

Well,
(a) the Democratic nominees are chosen by pledged delegates, not by a popular vote.
(b) Clinton is ahead in votes ONLY if you count Michigan and Florida, and Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. All the Democrats agreed they were not going to campaign in those two states; Hillary blatantly disregarded the rules.
(c) Also consider that Obama took the caucus states, and it is impossible to tally votes from caucus states.

Arguing that Hillary leads by votes is not only silly--it's misleading and wrong. Obama's lead is now insurmountable.



Clinton mathematically cannot win, neither by pledged delegates nor by the popular vote. That's why we're pissed at her and giving her bad press--not because she's female; we're pissed at her because she's ruining the Democratic Party by draining resources and distracting from the real issues in a terrible way. She promotes McCain over Obama; do I forgive that? She wishes to lead the Democrats when she does not have their best interests at heart--sadly, a running theme with the Clintons.

No, nothing says she has to drop out; the question at hand is, why would she want to keep going when it's over? It's wasteful, irresponsible, and petty. Every day she fights her stupid losing battle is another day Obama has to throw resources at her rather than at the Republicans where they deservedly should go.

"But she took Pennsylvania!" I can hear people screaming at me. Check this: she was always going to take Pennsylvania, but a while back, people wagered she would take it by a gigundo landslide. Obama narrowed the gap in popularity between them to 9+ percentage points (10 points if you round up). What does this tell you? As time goes by, Obama's popularity goes up, and Hillary's goes down. Now what does that tell you about who has better chances in the general election (especially as the primary contests drag on and on)?

Her loss is inevitable, and the same would be true if she were a dude.

Also, even if Hillary were a dude, you still would have 1,000,000 other reasons not to vote for her. Her foreign policy sucks, she's a monkey of Big Business, she won't get rid of the Defense of Marriage Act, her campaign is in debt, and her health care plan looks just like Mitt Romney's. And then what does she do without solid policy to promote? She turns increasingly negative, both to her detriment and to Obama's. We all know about the ridiculous guilt-by-association story she tried to drum up about Obama's relationship to Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and guess what? When Hillary's breeder husband was unfaithful, she sought Reverend Jeremiah Wright's counsel--and yet Obama has too much class to mention it. Who's running the archly negative campaign here? Not Obama. So let's quit pretending that Clinton is being singled out for her mud-slinging; really, it's just her.

Let's review:
(a) She doesn't represent you, compassionately righteous, honest, and noble woman that you are. (And please bear in mind: she won't speak up for lesbians if it's unpopular for her to do so, and you know that; she has too many handlers telling her to be mindful of the gay-hating crowd. Obama, on the other hand, advocates for gay people in places where no one wants to hear it--and that's important.)
(b) She had all the advantages of a front runner, and she managed to throw them away with both hands.
(c) She's not a blameless victim.

So, c'mon, ladies, let's all volunteer at some battered women's shelters if our urges to defend other females become overwhelming; then maybe we will feel comfortable enough to quit defending $109,000,000 Hillary by playing the chick card.

And now a message for all of us Lesbiatopians Living in the Beautiful State of North Carolina....

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I wish I had a nickel for every person who's told me how deeply I've betrayed my gender by endorsing Obama. Does everyone here know what a "granfalloon" is?

Kurt Vonnegut in his brilliant 1963 novel Cat's Cradle defines a "granfalloon" as "a proud and meaningless association of human beings." The members of a granfalloon amplify one or two characteristics they share in an attempt to promote a cohesive identity where none really exists.



In the case of the 2008 Presidential race, Hillary's supporters look at me and see a woman who doesn't support womankind as though all people with pussies should think alike. This idea demonstrates a granfalloon; the fact is, I do not have much in common with Senator Clinton except for the ladyparts.

I wanted very deeply for Hillary to be my candidate and absolutely because she is female. I would have been proud to stump for a woman had I felt that she made women look powerful and noble. Even when she won her first primary, I had a feeling I could not overcome of secret joy that the woman made it out on top; yet at the time I was trying to make up my mind between Edwards and Obama. I knew Hillary just wasn't it for me.

Now, had Hillary won the nomination, I could have supported her still with the fervor of a lifelong Democrat. (Vonnegut would have argued that political parties themselves are granfalloons, and any vote for Hillary from me would highlight that.) Had Hillary won the nomination, I would have had to have swallowed all my feelings about

· Hillary's shameless triangulating,
· her negativity to the detriment of the party,
· the 101 positive things she's said about John McCain (here's one--they've been friends a long time, you know),
· her unwillingness to fully get rid of the Defense of Marriage Act that Bill put into place (which she is somehow trying to spin as a positive for the gay community),
· the similarity of her health care plan to Mitt Romney's,
· her ties to Big Business (now compounded with her 10-year $109,000,000), and
· her foreign policy in regards Iran.

Those are the things that bother me most.

I do not wish to see myself as a woman who supports women at the expense of her own best interests. I want to be an honest woman with blazing integrity who speaks her mind concisely even when she's unpopular and stands up for people less fortunate even when she must struggle to do so. I'm sorry, ladies; I don't see Hillary as representing me.

Here are just a few reasons why I am backing Obama:

· Obama wishes to enact a Fair Pay Act, under which women would get equal pay.
· Obama wishes to strengthen federal hate crimes legislation.
· Obama takes no money from federal lobbyists or PACs.
· His health care program would include a National Health Insurance Exchange to act as a watchdog group over the private insurance market.
· His health care program would require employers to help employees with health care costs.
· He would also require health care providers to publicly report their expenses.
· He opposed the Kyl-Lieberman resolution on Iran (unlike Hillary).
· He is the most conscious of the Democratic Party; he has abided by the DNC rules (unlike Hillary).
· He unequivocally is against torture (unlike Hillary, who posed a "ticking time bomb" scenario in 2006 and then changed her mind in 2007).
· Small donors (<$100) make the majority of his campaign contributions; he would govern for the people, not for the wealthiest corporations or most powerful lobbyists. · He disclosed all his earmarks.
· He provided names of fund raising bundlers at all financial levels.
· He released his income tax returns to the public long before anyone else.
· He opposed the war from the beginning.
· He has pledged to be bipartisan in his cabinet appointments.
· He is a big labor booster in trade agreements.
· He believes in setting standards for trade with China.
· He would repeal Bush's tax cuts (unlike Hillary).
· He would give a $4,000 tax credit to college students in exchange for 100 hours of public service.
· He wants to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

The guy is also a civil rights attorney who taught law at Harvard; I believe the person with the strongest knowledge of the Constitution will do the most for the LGBT community. Check out his recent interview with The Advocate.

As lesbians, we all do our part to promote womankind, whatever that is, because we promote love of ladies by being ourselves. No vote for Hillary can touch that. Is lezkind a grandfalloon?

You can click here to join Senator Obama's LGBT online initiative at my.barackobama.com:
Click here to join LGBT Voters for Barack Obama

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The only thing wrong with her is that the Bush she talks about is the bad kind--the kind in the White House. Regardless, you have to see the clips of her guest-hosting Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC last Friday. Countdown is a news show with a strongly political bent, and Rachel burnt up the place with her sizzling brilliant out self. The woman has a radio show, too, but kind of a waste when she's this smokin'. Must-see links below.

Photo: Paul Teeling



Not that you need more to make you crazy about this woman, but according to her website:

Rachel has a doctorate in political science (she was a Rhodes Scholar) and a background in HIV/AIDS activism, prison reform, and other lefty rabblerousing. She shakes a mean cocktail."

Yeah, baby! Rachel is a correspondent for MSNBC and appears regularly on Countdown (which plays on MSNBC Monday-Friday twice daily); the rest of the show rocks, too.

Go out and TiVo her some love.

Clip 1:
Rachel reports on NYT poll: 81% believe the country is off track (with Jonathan Alter)



Clip 2:
Rachel reports on the Bush administration's refusal to release the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq



Clip 3:
Rachel reports on the day's top three Bush scandals (the daily "Bushed" segment)



Clip 4:
Rachel reports on candidate "likeability"



Clip 5:
Rachel intros Countdown's "Most Favorite Moment"



(MSNBC video)

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Leslie Hagen may or may not be a lesbian, but the U.S. Justice Dept. allegedly fired her over rumors that she might be one.

Why do you care?

In the majority of workplaces in the U.S., that is still legal.



There are two things to consider here; one is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and the other is the U.S. attorney-firing scandal.

Prior to ENDA, the legality of being gay in the workplace was a question of states' rights. The following states protected you from being fired if you were gay (not even if you were trans necessarily):


· California
· Colorado
· Connecticut
· Hawaii
· Illinois
· Iowa
· Maine
· Maryland
· Massachusetts
· Minnesota
· New Hampshire
· New Jersey
· New Mexico
· New York
· Rhode Island
· Vermont
· Washington
· Wisconsin
· District of Columbia
· (For everywhere else, it was Screw you, queer!)

The House of Representatives introduced the ENDA bill in April 2007 to protect LGBT folks at the federal level. In September 2007, some politicians got nervous that including protections for trans people might keep the law from passing, so they revised it without trans protections. The new version of the bill, HR 3685, passed.

This is old news in the LGBT community, but we should examine this anew in light of Leslie Hagen's job termination.

Without protections for trans people, no one in the LGBT community is protected by ENDA. Our sexual orientations receive federal protections, but our gender identities do not. What ENDA says in its present form is that so long as gay people act and look like straight people, federal law protects their jobs.

To explain: a femme is a woman who "looks like a woman" by average hetero standards, so that is acceptable in the workplace; a butchie, however, can still be accused of being a woman who "wants to look like a man," which can be considered "inappropriate workplace attire," which still--legally--can result in employment termination under ENDA.

Leslie Hagen's firing occurred before the introduction of ENDA, but consider the following. Hagen was a GOP loyalist in a Republican administration. Her final performance review shows marks of "Outstanding" in every category. The woman who took issue with her, Monica Goodling, was also a Republican--with a J.D. from Regent University (the one founded by Pat Robertson). (If you follow those links, the implication of that becomes pretty clear.) No proof was required for Goodling; the rumor was bad enough. As one Republican source for the NPR story said,

"To some people, [being a lesbian is] even worse than being a Democrat."

And as the investigation continues, Goodling continues to get away with it.

Leslie Hagen was not the only person to be fired under Monica Goodling's scrutiny. The U.S. Justice Dept. under Alberto Gonzales fired seven other U.S. Attorneys under the broad scope of the Patriot Act, and at least two other Attorneys were fired with no explanation at all. These attorneys were Bush appointees who allegedly had plans to investigate the administration and its officers for wrongdoing.

The U.S. Justice Dept. is supposed to be (a) a non-partisan entity and (b) just. With Bush's hijacking of the different branches of government comes the frightening prospects that (a) governing documents will outlaw LGBT freedoms, and (b) the attorneys and judges who would combat our injustices will be silenced.

Keep abreast of ENDA updates here:
The Task Force

And stay on top of the attorney-firing scandal here:
Blog Search

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