F.Y.I.

Moving this weekend. Probably will be behind until Tuesday. Leave me a comment so I know you love me. :)

Chicago Abortion Fund's August Call-In Show

Here's a taste, part 1 of 3. This month, Shay is joined by Ronnie from F.R.I.D.A- Feminist Response In Disability Activism.

Masturbation is fun!

Just thought I'd point that out.



From Take Care Down There, a project of Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette. There's more videos on their page- I love the awkward guy! It's almost funny, almost not. I can't decide.

"If voting changed anything, they'd outlaw it." Or just rig the elections.

From an Uprising Radio segment:

A prominent data security expert and self-described life-long Republican has said that Diebold voting machines can never be trusted. In a 2006 interview, Steven Spoonamore says that the 2004 election was stolen and that Diebold voting machines are designed to steal elections. Spoonamore is a renowned expert having worked with the US Army and the Department of Homeland Security on cyber-security and other processes. He has worked extensively in private industry as well, and has testified in front of both houses of Congress about secure communications and emergency systems used in communications. His analysis of Diebold machines is a damning blow to a civil suit pending in Ohio relating to the 2004 elections. In fact Spoonamore is an expert witness in the case. What does this mean for the 2008 elections? How can voting irregularities that marred both the last Presidential elections be avoided in this coming election?

GUEST: Cliff Arnebeck, expert in election politics, and attorney with election-related civil suit in Ohio

What organic fruits and veggies should you buy?

Who can afford to buy 100% organic? An unfortunate truth is, what's healthy is kept out of the range of poor and middle class folk. Luckily, Food News has created a list of the top 12 most pesticide-contaminated fruits and veggies. If you can afford to buy these organic, you are significantly lowering your health risks, farm workers' health risks and, hopefully, the planet's!

THE DIRTY DOZEN

Peaches
Apples
Sweet Bell Peppers
Celery
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Lettuce
Grapes - Imported
Pears
Spinach
Potatoes

An EWG simulation of thousands of consumers eating high and low pesticide diets shows that people can lower their pesticide exposure by almost 90 percent by avoiding the top twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating the least contaminated instead. Eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables will expose a person to about 14 pesticides per day, on average. Eating the 12 least contaminated will expose a person to less than 2 pesticides per day. Less dramatic comparisons will produce less dramatic reductions, but without doubt using the Guide provides people with a way to make choices that lower pesticide exposure in the diet.


*Why Should You Care About Pesticides?

There is growing consensus in the scientific community that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can adversely affect people, especially during vulnerable periods of fetal development and childhood when exposures can have long lasting effects. Because the toxic effects of pesticides are worrisome, not well understood, or in some cases completely unstudied, shoppers are wise to minimize exposure to pesticides whenever possible.


*Will Washing and Peeling Help?

Nearly all of the data used to create these lists already considers how people typically wash and prepare produce (for example, apples are washed before testing, bananas are peeled). While washing and rinsing fresh produce may reduce levels of some pesticides, it does not eliminate them. Peeling also reduces exposures, but valuable nutrients often go down the drain with the peel. The best option is to eat a varied diet, wash all produce, and choose organic when possible to reduce exposure to potentially harmful chemicals.

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

First off, wow, what a horrible name! :)

Has anybody else been following this show on ABC Family? I don't have cable, but they stream the video online the day after it's been shown on TV, so I've been eagerly watching it whenever I get a chance.

You've gotta hand it to Brenda Hampton (creator of the show), after skirting around abortion and whitewashing a lot of issues on Seventh Heaven, she's actually diving into some serious issues that are hard to mention and discuss, especially when the adults in the picture are very rarely moral authorities to guide the kids.

The abortion episode ("Love for Sale") was... frustrating. Decent, but frustrating. First off, most clinics would NOT allow such a scene to be had in the lobby room. It was built up during the episode to be some big, scary thing (complete with Amy- the 15 and pregnant main character- crying when she was "rescued" off the exam table- why wasn't there a doctor or nurse with her?!) when in reality, I feel like a 15 year old giving birth is a much bigger, much scarier thing.

The preview before that episode had Molly Ringwald (Amy's mom) "confessing" to having been in a similar situation. I was really hoping she would 'fess up to having an abortion! The fact that her marriage is falling apart because she married her baby's dad due to being pregnant so young is interesting, though....

Ultimately, for TV, the episode was somewhat supportive of Amy's choice (she ended up deciding against abortion at the clinic). But the drama that was happening around her while she was changing her mind- and the show's insistence that she give up her baby for adoption- is a bit maddening. At an abortion clinic, there would have been counseling to make sure she wanted to have the abortion, and discuss adoption or parenting if not. Now, how many OB/GYNS are going to have counselors on sight to make sure giving birth is something you want to do?

There's so much more I want to say about the show, but two quicks things: one- it's great that they're working with The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy but- I'm frustrated with the details. Most teen pregnancies do not involve 2 teenagers. Often, the male in the situation is at least 5 years older, often in their twenties. But a show about predatory men and victimized girls- that'd be a bit hard to make a romantic-funny-family sitcom about, no?.,

The Conquest by Presidentialism

You have to hand it to John McCain—his campaign ads are (inadvertently) the most incisive commentary on the death of Jeffersonian democracy ever broadcast.

Superficially, they lambaste Barack Obama’s worshipful crowds and messianic promises that a heavenly “light will shine down” on his candidacy. But what the ads really lampoon is what Vanderbilt professor Dana Nelson calls presidentialism: our paternalistic view that presidents are godlike saviors—and therefore democracy’s only important figures.

“The once-every-four-years hope for the lever pull sensation of democratic power blinds people to the opportunities for democratic representation, deliberation, activism and change that surrounds us in local elections,” she writes in her new book, “Bad for Democracy: How the Presidency Undermines the Power of the People.”

In a country whose anti-royalist founders constitutionally constrained executive authority, what explains the metastatic growth of presidentialism? The evisceration of journalism and social movements.

The media’s Watergate triumph sired the current Age of Stenography. With personal glory the new priority, correspondents figured out that transcribing White House prognostication is a far easier way to gain notoriety than Woodward and Bernstein’s shoe-leather investigations. The result is journalism run by grotesque sloth and vapid speculation—the kind exemplified by The New York Times’ top three political correspondents this week. As inflation hit crisis levels and the Russia-Georgia conflict inched the planet toward World War III, these “reporters” devoted a stunning 2,148 words to fact-free guesses about selections for vice president—a position with no power and zero impact on ordinary people’s lives.

Media consolidation and cost-cutting have sped up this decline, turning many local news outlets into collages of wire copy and presidential punditry from D.C. bureaus. Meanwhile, the 21st century’s most celebrated model of “grass-roots” movement-building is MoveOn.org—a top-down group whose primary function is to land stories about itself in Washington gossip rags and send e-mail spam about presidential candidates.

The resulting noise reiterates one message: The only thing that matters is 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Why is this dangerous? First and foremost, by ignoring local elections and issue-based organizing in favor of presidential politics, activists make presidential progress less likely. “Even the best presidents need social movements to accomplish transformational change,” warns community activist Deepak Bhargava in The Nation magazine’s latest White House-centric edition. “FDR could not have succeeded without the agitation of the unemployed workers’ councils and the unions, and LBJ’s greatest accomplishments were made possible by the civil rights movement.”

Worse, presidentialism leads us to ignore the arenas where issues are already being sorted out.

For example, how many of the Democratic convention delegates incensed by the Obama-McCain energy brouhaha have any idea that just beyond Denver’s Rocky Mountain horizon, a battle over Colorado’s massive gas reserves will more immediately impact the national energy crisis than the inane presidential back-and-forth about offshore drilling? Better yet, how many Democratic enthusiasts donning Obama T-shirts know who their state representative or city council member is—or even what a state legislature or city council does?

In his upcoming book, “You Can’t Be President,” journalist John MacArthur ponders the depressing answers to these kinds of questions, reminding readers of Alexis de Tocqueville’s 19th-century writing.

“It is in vain to summon a people, which has been rendered so dependent on the central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that power,” he observed. “This rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity.”

Published 168 years ago, the passage is a prescient warning as the upcoming Democratic and Republican conventions toast presidentialism’s conquest of democracy in America.

From here.