Tag: politics

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politics Uncategorized

Paul Ryan. Whee.

Whee?

Me, this morning on Twitter: Gosh, I am at the edge of my seat over which anti-gay white guy who thinks women aren’t really people Mitt Romney will pick.

And thus, Paul Ryan. Whee. He’s got the standard Republican anti-gay stuff going. He thinks women aren’t grownups who should be allowed bodily autonomy. He’s a climate-change denier. As far as I can tell, that’s basically the standard at the moment.

All that’s made him stick out to me is that he apparently does P90X. Which let me tell you, I would pay some good money to see him drag Mitt Romney on some of those workouts. (And then presumably Mitt Romney would hire an undocumented worker from Mexico to do the workouts for him. Zing!) I’ve done P90X and then I stopped because I just didn’t hate myself that much. So good on Paul Ryan for being kind of a badass there.

He’s also got the economics cray-crays in a big way. His proposed budget has reduced my husband (reminder: Masters in math with economics) into sputtering incoherence on three separate occasions, which is a fairly impressive feat when you consider Mike’s normal attitude can be fairly characterized as somewhere between phlegmatic and maybe I should check and see if he still has a pulse. For added hilarity, Paul Ryan seems to have a total schoolboy crush on Ayn Rand, except for that gross part where she’s an atheist.

Ultimately it makes no difference to me, because there are not enough drugs or brain trauma in this world of ours to get me to vote for Mitt Romney, who I consider a solid gold lying shitbag who stands out even in the kingdom of the lying shitbags. (The part where he hates gay people and has no respect for the agency of women also doesn’t help, obviously.) I just plan on watching with mild interest to see how this effects the campaign going forward.

And I think he’ll be a much bigger challenge to good ol’ Joe in the VP debate than Sarah Palin was. I have no idea what kind of drinking game we’ll need to craft this time around.

Additonal reading which is much, much more informative than my contempt-filled sarcasm: Fussbudget – Paul Ryan’s influence on the GOP from the New Yorker. The author of that article did an interview with Fresh Air on August 1 that was an interesting listen.

Categories
politics Uncategorized

Is that the sound of the other shoe?

More people are crying today. A madman went into a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and killed six people before being killed by police.

I’m sure more facts will come out later as once again we struggle to understand how someone could even conceive of doing something like this. The fact that this happened in a Sikh temple hints that this may have more horrifying motivation behind it than the seeming randomness of a movie theater filled with unrelated people. And indeed, it turns out that the shooter was affiliated with white supremacist groups, and may even have had a 9/11-related tattoo.

When something horrible like the Aurora shooting happens, there’s a part of us that waits for the other shoe to drop, because violence like this feels like it happens in clusters, one madman signaling another.

There are so many conversations that we seem to avoid having around incidents like this. The racist element here is pretty apparent. Are we going to have a discussion about right-wing hate groups now? Are we allowed to that? Can we finally talk about guns, and the related violence in America, or do we have to wait for another metaphorical shoe, an avalanche of shoes? Will any attempt at addressing the heavily-armed elephant in the room will be bellowed down as politicization?

Ezra Klein, standing in for Rachel Maddow on July 23, made the point that silencing discussion with shaming about “politicization” is already a political act. I tend to agree.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Eddie Izzard says it very pointedly in one of his comedy routines – “Guns don’t kill people. But I think the gun helps.”

Mass shootings already feel like they’ve become an accepted thing that happens in America. I don’t want them to be. I don’t want to have to worry that some day it’ll be my niece or my best friend or one of my coworkers caught in a shopping center while someone who has legally purchased weapons that are best used to kill large numbers of people stalks the aisles. Maybe I’m in the minority (and that’s a scary thought in itself) but it’s something that should at least be discussed.

My heart goes out to the people who have been so hurt in Wisconsin. I hope that no one else feels their same pain any time soon. But as with Aurora, a fear I hope in vain.

Categories
colorado lgbt

Shame on you, Rep. McNulty

Well, I got absolutely nothing done after trivia tonight. Rather, I spent the last 100 minutes watching the #coleg tag on Twitter with a growing sense of horror.

It was already a shit night, thanks to voters in North Carolina.

But somehow, the disaster in the Colorado legislature is even worse than that. We had a civil unions bill. There were enough votes for it to pass, because a few Republicans were willing to cross the aisle. But in a move of supreme, mean-spirited cowardice the rest of the Republicans stopped the bill from even going to vote. Representative McNulty deserves extra shame. As Speaker of the House, this anti-democratic move hangs squarely on him.

Apparently when the announcement was made that the civil unions bill was dead – as well as more than thirty pieces of legislation waiting in line behind it – the gallery in the House erupted with chants of “Shame on you!”

Shame indeed. The civil unions bill should have passed. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a step in the right direction. And there were a lot of other things that needed a vote, which are dead now as well. All because the group of Republicans in the state house in Colorado couldn’t face losing fair and square on a vote.

I’m beyond angry and frustrated. I’m tired. I’m tired of the selfish, judgmental bullshit that rules the petty fearmongers who continually attack my lgbt brothers and sisters. I’m tired of assholes claiming that they’re protecting my marriage because by dumb luck I met a man I loved enough to marry before I met a woman I loved enough to marry. I’m tired of people being so blinded by their own smug self-righteousness that they can’t seem to understand that life is damn short, and damn lonely, and if you love someone good for you and it’s no one else’s goddamn business.

I do my best to have faith in humanity. I have faith that fear and hatred will not always rule us. No matter how tired I feel, I will never be so tired I’ll stop fighting. Next year and the year after, no matter how long it takes, I know we’ll all keep fighting. This isn’t over.

Categories
rants

Everyone’s a Hero

Everyone’s a hero in their own way
You and you and mostly me and you.

— Captain Hammer

Stephen Marche wrote a column about the utter meaninglessness of the word ‘hero’ as currently used in America: We Are All Heroes. The stinger at the end sums the whole thing up nicely: If people living up to their basic obligations are heroes, then we’re all failing disastrously.

Ouch.

As I read the column, though, I found myself thinking “Yes, but…” a lot. I think there’s a lot more to the issue. Which is not to say Mr. Marche doesn’t, because goodness knows it’s hard if not flat impossible to boil down a complex issue into a snappy column that comes in at the appropriate word count.

However, since this is the internet, where oceans of text are spilled daily to expound on matters of no consequence that no one’s paying attention to anyway, I might as well say what I’m thinking. So, my buts. Let me show you them.

I’ve got kind of a knee-jerk defensiveness that kicks in every time mentions the self-esteem generation, participant ribbons, all that. Depending on who you ask, I’m either at the tail-end of Generation X or the very front of Generation Y (or whatever it’s fashionable to call them these days), but I always get this paranoid feeling that it’s me in the cross hairs. I don’t know when the self-esteem raising craze really hit, but I definitely churned through the public education system when it was in full swing. It just seems a little too easy to take a shot at the self-esteem bullshit we got fed in school.

I obviously only speak for myself and my limited group of friends that are close to my age, all of whom are intelligent, snarky nerds. But by about third or fourth grade, I’d copped to the fact that not only were participant ribbons meaningless, they were actually kind of insulting. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that when everyone’s getting the same award, it’s not much of an award. Particularly when you’re awarded for participation in something that’s mandatory.

Perhaps I was remarkably cynical as a child. I also had amazing parents, who took pains to drive two important facts into my skull:
1) You are smart, and don’t ever take shit off of anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.
2) It’s pathetically easy for even very smart people to do embarrassingly stupid things.

Hell, it could even be because my parents let me watch things like Life of Brian at an age that would probably cause some severe pearl clutching among the squadron of adults that think children are delicate hot house flowers as opposed to tiny, developing humans. There is a certain impression that gets made on you when you’re young and seeing the “Yes, we’re all individuals,” scene for the first time.

Whatever the reason, I want to give my peers the benefit of the doubt when it comes to participant ribbons and self-esteem raising. There’s an awful little part of me that would just like to think I had it all sussed out because I wasn’t one of the little sheeple (god I hate that word) but that smells way too much like hubris for my comfort.

At worst, the scourge of participant ribbons are a symptom. We didn’t turn into a country of selfish beasts because of the orange ribbon that got pinned to our shirts in sixth grade. The most toxic parts of selfish American culture that encourage an abdication of duty – emphasis on consumerism, lack of empathy for those on a lower social rung, the idea that we shouldn’t have to pay for anything – are not sourced from people in my age group. Sure, assholish thirty-somethings are now rallying around the idea that all taxes are too high and screw the safety net anyway, but the self-esteem generation isn’t leading the charge.

I’m pretty sure no one ever gave Senator Mitch McConnell a ribbon for just showing up. (Other than the invisible ribbons lovingly bestowed by privilege, but I digress.)

Maybe a message of selfishness is happily accepted by people who have had their egos artificially inflated. But I also think it is just that the lesser nature of the human animal is to be, well, kind of lazy and selfish. So anyone whispering sweet nothings about how we can have everything we ever wanted (Oh boy! A war in the Middle East!) and never have to pay a cent is going to have a lot of receptive ears.

This is a general failure on all our parts to reject the poisonous idea that selfishness is somehow an acceptable ground state, if not a virtue. Because if you’ve accepted that idea, even the smallest of selfless actions become noteworthy.

We like calling soldiers1, firefighters, and paramedics heroes – police as well, though that’s a bit more fraught. Some of it’s because, let’s be honest, most ordinary people would not want to run into a burning building or get shot at by hostile men armed with assault rifles, even if they were being paid to do so. People doing those things willingly, whether its their job or no, does seem a little fantastic.

There’s something else all of those heroic professions have in common, however: the pay is generally shit.

I volunteered as an EMT for several years. I never seriously considered making it a career because the pay was so ridiculously low, my mortgage would have swallowed up nearly half of my gross salary. (I do not live in a mansion with a pool.)

At a time when we have soldiers on food stamps and public safety workers looking down the barrel of severe budget cuts while simultaneously one party would love to slash social programs like food stamps, maybe calling these people heroes is also hollow compensation and pathetic excuse. You can’t feed your kids, but you’re a hero. You can barely scrape by, but you are some sort of superhuman paragon of virtue that should be above such mortal concerns anyway. We threw you a fancy party, what more do you want – more funding for suicide prevention? Mama needs a new tax cut.

Of course, it’s not just soldiers and public service workers that are struggling financially these days, though their struggle is all the poignant because it comes at such immense personal risk. But I think it’s this struggle that’s contributed to another change in how we view heroes. Mr. Marche mentions Peter Parker, and he’s a perfect example in this case. When you’re constantly having to decide if you’re going to have electricity or food this week, being a superhero does seem like it should be the easier half of life. Beating the ever-living shit out of a masked bad guy that’s threatening a little old lady is an easy, black and white call. When it’s a choice between heart medication and new shoes for your kid, it’s a hell of a lot harder.

This is not to say I disagree with Mr. Marche’s thesis. The utter cynicism which which the term hero is being wielded has everything to do with manipulation and political expediency. If we shy from our obligations as a nation, it’s because as a nation we have allowed our expectations to be so pathetically lowered, and without much of a fight.

But does that mean heroes are dead?

No.

Mr. Marche retweeted this (so I have no idea if he agrees with it or just found it an interesting point), and it makes me sad:

@arcadiaego: not sure *anyone* is a hero outside myths. (Which may be your point, Steven.) But interesting article.

Maybe this is me clapping because I believe in fairies. If that’s the case, so be it. But no matter how meaningless the word becomes in public discourse, heroes still exist.

The presentation of heroes even in mythology isn’t so simple as all that, but for the sake of argument let’s grant that they’re paragons, that they’re presented as what we should aspire to be. There are still people – ordinary, flawed, beautiful, mortal people – that have that same quality. There are people who far exceed expectations, and in so doing encourage others to aspire to do the same. Mr. Marche brings up the example of Sal Giunta, who says he doesn’t feel like a hero at all.

But that’s kind of the point, I think. People who truly have that quality we should laud as heroic have expectations of themselves that far exceed those of society. When they meet their own expectations, they don’t necessarily find it out of the ordinary. But it should encourage the rest of us to examine our own expectations of ourselves, society’s expectations, and find them wanting.

When I was in Germany, one of the ladies I worked with told me that she’d recently found out her grandmother sheltered Jewish people from the Nazis during World War II. She said, “I’d like to think that if I were in that situation, I would be that strong. But you never know.”

That is what heroes do.

They make you look deep within yourself and say, if I were in that situation, facing that kind of danger, could I be that strong? If that were me, would I have that kind of fortitude? I don’t know.

But I will strive to be that person.

Notes:
1 – I think with soldiers there’s also a whole other level of American neurosis at play, starting from the beginning of the Afghanistan War. People were reminded, and rightly so, about the abhorrent treatment some Vietnam War veterans received at the hands of civilians. No one wanted to see a repeat of that, particularly when it became clear that anti-war protests would be ongoing. We overcompensated, big and grand and loud, because damnit, that’s the American way. That desire to compensate then became a very useful political club to aim at anyone objecting to the wars, particularly in their early days.

Categories
climate change

Republicans Attack the Obama Administration…. on science?

If you haven’t read this yet, prepare to have your brain melted.

This letter caused me a lot of incoherent sputtering this morning.

First, I’d like to address the specific claims made by Senators Inhofe and Vitter and Congressman Issa, then I’d like to say a few words about the main premise of the letter itself.

I’ll go through this section by section. What I have to say here is the result of me spending some quality time with Dr. Google. My findings are not necessarily definitive, or complete. So if you dredge up any points that I’ve missed or gotten wrong – or have arcane knowledge that I manifestly do not possess – please let me know and I’ll add any new facts to the pile and swiftly correct mistakes.

Inspector General Investigation of the National Academy of Engineers Report

The criticism here is in regards to the report Secretary Salazar used to justify the six month moratorium on deepwater drilling following the blowout at the Macondo well that ultimately spewed millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. I do not have a link to the report, but rather the Investigative Report, Federal Moratorium on Deepwater Drilling, US Department of Interior, which responds to criticism of the original report.

The Republican letter implies that there was misconduct in the report, because scientific peer review for findings was claimed where none existed.

From the IG’s report:

All DOl officials interviewed stated that it was not their intention to imply that the moratorium had been peer reviewed by the experts, and that when the experts’ concern was brought to their attention, they promptly issued an apology to the experts via conference call, letter, and personal meeting.

And:

All DOI officials interviewed stated that it was never their intention to imply the moratorium was peer reviewed by the experts, but rather rushed editing of the Executive Summary by DOI and the White House resulted in this implication. After reviewing different drafts of the Executive Summary that were exchanged between DOI and the White House prior to its final issuance, the OIG determined that the White House edit of the original DOI draft Executive Summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer reviewed by the experts.

So basically, the Inspector General’s report says that any implication that there was peer review – and it was only an implication, not a stated fact – was a mistake that the preparers of the report freely owned up to and apologized for.

Also from the IG report, in regards to the complaint that information quality assurance was violated:

While the 30-Day Report’s Executive Summary could have been more clearly worded, the Department has not definitively violated the IQA. For example, the recommendation for a moratorium is not contained in the safety report itself. Furthermore, the Executive Summary does not indicate that the peer reviewers approved any of the Report’s recommendations. The Department also appears to have adequately remedied the IQA concerns by communicating directly with the experts, offering a formal apology, and publicly clarifying the nature of the peer review.

The Republican letter also alleges blatant political influence. Having read the Inspector General’s report, that’s a baseless accusation on their part.

I will note that the Inspector General’s report was requested by Senator David Vitter (and Congressman Steve Scalise). To be honest, after reading through the entire thing, I wonder if Senator Vitter is just feeling a little aggravated that the Inspector General didn’t find the steaming heaps of politicized scientific misconduct he was desperately hoping for. What’s in the Republican letter reads like a mountain being made from a mole hill.

National Research Council Review of IRIS Formaldehyde Assessment (EPA)

The NRC’s review can be found here if you’d like to read it yourself.

This seems to be the most damning part of the NRC’s review:

The report finds that EPA supports its conclusions that formaldehyde can cause irritation to the eyes, nose, and throat; lesions in the respiratory tract; and genetic mutations at high concentrations. Furthermore, the report finds that the evidence is sufficient for EPA to conclude that formaldehyde exposures are a cause of cancers of the nose, nasal cavity, and upper throat. However, the draft assessment has not adequately supported its conclusions that formaldehyde causes other cancers of the respiratory tract, leukemia, or several other noncancer health outcomes. Also, the assessment should consider additional studies to derive noncancer reference concentrations (RfCs), which are estimates of lifetime concentrations to which someone could be exposed without appreciable risk of particular adverse health effects.

This one is a little less clear cut, I think. The NRC makes valid points about the EPA overstating the research to pin leukemia on formaldehyde, for example. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies formaldehyde in group 2A, which means “probably carcinogenic to humans.” This is generally not the same as “you will get leukemia.”

Here’s a news article that has the rainbow of reactions in black and white. The Sierra Club is disappointed. Industry groups are happy. And Senator Vitter is quoted as saying:

“I’m extremely glad I fought so hard for this review by the National Academy of Sciences, which really is the gold standard in terms of scientific assessment,” Vitter said. “It confirms what I feared — serious shortcomings and bias at the EPA. Louisiana citizens should be able to count on EPA conclusions and advice. This study shows that we can’t.”

Which I think is a very nicely crafted attack, since it implies that the EPA is completely unreliable instead of overcautious, which seems to be the case here.

Personally, I’d rather agencies were too cautious about health risks than not cautious enough. Though that is no excuse for a lack of scientific rigor.

US District Judge Oliver Wanger’s Decision Criticizing Agency Scientific Work and Testimony in Federal Court

I find it rather curious that the source cited in regards to lives and local economies being ruined is an opinion piece: California’s Man-Made Drought, The green war against San Joaquin Valley Farmers

The snide tone of that particular opinion piece notwithstanding (because hey, I’m not going to begrudge someone a bit of snideness when I revel in it myself!) the job losses seem to be more about drought than pumping restrictions. (Estimated 16,000 jobs lost due to drought, 5,000 due to the restrictions.)

However, the rest of the points in the Republican letter are a bit more difficult to tackle. If you’d like to read the entirety of the judge’s opinion here it is, and I’d recommend you put on your asbestos underwear first, because it’s a doozy. Judge Wanger has some very nasty things to say about the scientists in this case, the juiciest bits of which are cited in the letter to the Administration.

This is where it gets muddy, I think. Judge Wanger has apparently faced some criticism:

But at times, Poole said, Wanger has gone too far. “We have argued in certain cases … that he has basically made scientific calls when there’s a dispute between scientists that are improper for him to make” under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act. “He shouldn’t be the arbitrator for scientific disputes. Congress has given that role to the expert agencies.”

I haven’t been able to find any detailed information about the testimony given by the two scientists. So at this point, I feel like it devolves into a he-said she-said, where Judge Wanger feels that the witnesses are not credible, and the EPA says it continues to support their findings. I’ve found several articles that have questioned Judge Wanger’s accusations that the scientists are contradictory on the grounds that he has mistaken scientific uncertainty for attempted deceit. I really can’t say one way or the other.

For more information on the issue at hand, I found this post helpful.

GAO Report on Yucca Mountain and IG Investigations into the Actions of DOE Secretary Chu and NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko

In this case, the NRC is the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, NOT the National Research Council.

The GAO report on Yucca Mountain can be found here.

I have little to say about the Yucca Mountain criticism, because FSM help me, I actually kind of agree.

The attack on Chairman Gregory Jaczko has me rather floored, though. Specifically in regard to his recommendations for evacuating Americans in a fifty mile radius around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor. The nuclear disaster at Fukushima is still really an ongoing thing, and will be for years to come. In March, radiation levels at 60km were hitting the threshold for increased cancer risk. The Japanese government has faced very strong criticism for redefining safety levels of radiation in proximity to the plant. In April, high radiation levels were being found outside the 10 km evacuation zone.

What just boggles my mind is that Chairman Jaczko is basically being attacked for taking a “better safe than sorry” approach to a nuclear disaster. One can only wonder what the reaction would have been if he’d just stuck with the evacuation zone that the Japanese government had drawn.

But really, this is all beside the point.

Public trust in federal scientific work is waning and the academic community has gone so far as to call the situation a “crisis.” Accordingly, we request that you provide us with an accounting of your activities in response to serious questions raised about the quality of science utilized by this Administration.

Looking over the list of issues in the Republican letter, one thing struck me the most – scale. They want to talk about public trust in scientific work? I’d be curious to know how many people outside of the San Jaoquin valley – and outside of those that have a serious hate on for the EPA – knew about Judge Wanger and the never-ending delta smelt war? How many people have had their trust of science scarred by the EPA overstepping and placing leukemia risk in a report about formaldehyde instead of just sticking to nasal cancer? How many people had their trust in the government shaken by Chairman Jaczka recommending Americans not remain within 50 miles of the meltdown at Fukushima instead of a more modest 20 miles?

I am not in any way saying that scientific misconduct – whether it involves overstating one’s case or acting with too much haste – is acceptable. (Though sometimes in the intersection of science and policy, haste is required and mistakes are made.) But I think I am well within my rights to talk about scale.

What hurts the public trust of science more? The DOI erroneously implying that something had been peer reviewed when it hadn’t, or Senator Inhofe calling climate change (and thus the robust science backing it), “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people“?

What hurts the public trust of science more? Judge Wanger calling Dr. Jennifer Norris a zealot, or Congressman Issa dogpiling on the Climate-gate-that-wasn’t and saying, “It’s very clear that an inconvenient truth has been replaced by a convenient lie – we’d like to get to the bottom of the lie.”?

What hurts public trust of science more? The EPA insufficiently documenting its methodology, or Senator Vitter stating, “I do not think the science clearly supports global warming theory“? Or perhaps Senator Vitter trying (and thankfully failing) to quietly earmark money for an anti-evolution group?

What hurts public trust of science more?

The hypocrisy fills me with rage.

The shear sack required for these men to continually attack biology and climate science then set themselves up as “defenders” of science to score a few cheap political points, is breathtaking.

With “friends” like these, enemies need not apply.

At Bad Astronomy, Phil Plait has previously had a lot to say about these newly-minted defenders of federal science:
Vitter: Fail
Deniers abuse power to attack climate scientists
A firehose of global warming news, both good and bad

Categories
music

Another reason to love the Dropkick Murphys

I already love the Dropkick Murphys to a ridiculous degree – they’re right up there with Flogging Molly as one of my favorite bands. And now they just released one of the songs from their upcoming album in support of the Union protesters in Wisconsin. You can listen to it on their website:

Take ‘Em Down

Sure gets my blood going.

Lyrics:

When the boss comes callin’ they’ll put us down
When the boss comes callin’ gotta stand your ground
When the boss comes callin’ don’t believe their lies

When the boss comes callin’ he’ll take his toll
When the boss comes callin’ don’t you sell your soul
When the boss comes callin’ we gotta organize

CHORUS:
Let them know
We gotta take the bastards down
Let them know
We gotta smash them to the ground
Let them know
We gotta take the bastards down

When the boss comes callin’ you’ll be on your own
When the boss comes callin’ will you stand alone?
When the boss comes callin’ will you let them in?

When the boss comes callin’ will you stand and fight?
When the boss comes callin’ we must unite
When the boss comes callin’ we can’t let them win

CHORUS

We gotta take the bastards down

When the boss comes callin’ they’ll put us down
When the boss comes callin’ gotta stand your ground
When the boss comes callin’ don’t believe their lies

When the boss comes callin’ he’ll take his toll
When the boss comes callin’ don’t you sell your soul
When the boss comes callin’ we gotta organize

CHORUS

CHORUS

Categories
feminism geology pictures

What I’ve been doing lately…

It’s been a busy week… couple of weeks… month… well, from about January on. But I’ve been doing things with my time, at least.

For example, today I went to Denver, CO’s Rally for the American Dream. With 3000 of my fellow Coloradoans – including my husband and my parents – I was in good company indeed.

We did a lot of cheering, a lot of chanting. There were maybe ten or twenty “Tea Party” counter protesters. One of whom wandered around in the crowd and tried to start trouble with his bizarre “Can’t get a taxi? Blame the Dems” and “Shame on Colorado Dems for Voting for an African” signs. He was completely ignored by the crowd, and then the cops chased him off.

The IAFF was out in force, as were a lot of other union people – and ordinary citizens. At the end of the rally, the Walk for Choice took off. A lot of us joined in, since it’s another important thing to support. We walked from the capital to Writer Square and back, shouting chants like, “Not the church, not the state, women must decide their fate!”

At the end of the Walk for Choice, there were maybe ten crazy anti-choice people waiting at the capital, on the other side of the street. It was standard “OMG THE BABEEZ” bullshit. It was also the most surreal moment of the afternoon – there was a very odd old guy with the anti-choicers, holding a very standard sign in one hand. His other hand was raised in a fist and covered with – I swear I am not making this up – a sagging latex mask of Ronald Reagan. Overcome by just how bizarre it was, I shouted across the street, “Dude, you’ve got a severed head on your hand!”

So yeah. The disembodied zombie head of Ronald Reagan doesn’t want you to have an abortion. Or something. Weird. Eerie.

I have also been putting a lot of time in at the core lab. If you want to see what’s been eating up most of my spare time, here are some pictures from our current core, which is from a meandering river deposit. I’ve tried to add some description to the photos, and hopefully it’s not too technical.

Busy busy!

Categories
security

Senator Bennet’s Reply to My Concern About the TSA

Dear Rachael:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security procedures for airline passengers. I appreciate hearing from you.

I am committed to ensuring that TSA has the resources it needs to keep our airports secure. We face serious threats to our airport security and must ensure law enforcement has the tools it needs to do its job. With that said, we must not unnecessarily surrender our individual right to privacy.

As you may know, TSA was established under the Bush Administration as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act in 2001 as a response to the September 11th terrorist attacks. TSA is responsible for screening all passengers and all checked and carry-on baggage in all major U.S. airports in order to prevent another potential terrorist attack.

As part of TSA’s overall approach to improving the detection of explosives and non-metallic weapons at passenger screening checkpoints, it is currently exploring the use of whole-body imaging technologies for detecting concealed items carried by passengers. Whole-body imaging scanning devices offer an integrated approach to passenger screening insofar as these technologies can reveal concealed items carried on a person, including traditional metallic weapons, non-metallic weapons and explosive devices. TSA reports that all images captured by the scanners are deleted from any of its facilities or records immediately upon viewing and cannot be stored, exported, printed, or transmitted. Also, the officer assisting the passenger cannot view the image, and the officer viewing the image never sees the passenger.

In addition, TSA offers an alternative for passengers who prefer not to use the full-body scanners. The alternative procedure, a search by a TSA security officer of the same gender as the passenger, has caused public angst as some feel it is overly intrusive. According to TSA, these procedures have only been used on three percent of passengers. My office has been briefed by TSA on these procedures and we will continue to closely monitor how the agency responds to potential threats with a special eye towards the privacy rights of passengers.

It is my view that a cornerstone of training TSA officers must be comprehensive sensitivity training. Americans entrust medical professionals and law enforcement officers because they are trained professionals. We should be able to reach that same level of trust with airport security officials too.

If you would like to pass on concerns to TSA regarding your experience, you may submit written complaints at the checkpoint, which are referred to the airport’s Customer Service Manager for appropriate follow-up. You may also contact the TSA Contact Center by e-mailing TSA-ContactCenter@dhs.gov or calling 1-866-289-9673.

To help aid the TSA in investigating any matter, you can file a complaint and include the airport, date and time of travel, and any other pertinent information. For those with privacy concerns about whole-body imaging: please see http://www.tsa.gov/approach/tech/ait/privacy.shtm, or health concerns: http://www.tsa.gov/approach/tech/ait/safety.shtm. For general information, please visit: http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/screening_experience.shtm.

I value the input of fellow Coloradans in considering the wide variety of important issues and legislative initiatives that come before the Senate. I hope you will continue to inform me of your thoughts and concerns.

For more information about my priorities as a U.S. Senator, I invite you to visit my website at http://bennet.senate.gov/. Again, thank you for contacting me.

Sincerely,

Michael Bennet
United States Senator

So basically, I’m getting: “The naked scanners are okay because the pictures are deleted and the person who gets to look at them is in another room anyway, and those patdowns you all are whining about are only 3% of travelers anyway. So it’s no big deal. Suck it up.”

Thanks, Senator Bennet. It reminds me that voting for you was really just voting against Ken Buck for being a total misogynist nut. Glad to know that assaultive patdowns as a form of punishment for opting out of the creepy scanners are okay when it’s only a few people getting them. And that you think complete invasion and trauma can somehow be fixed by sensitivity training.

You know what? I’ll trust the TSA employees like I trust other professionals when you start training them and paying them like professionals. And you also seem to be under the mistaken impression that no medical or law enforcement professional has ever abused the public trust and it’s not something we should worry our pretty little heads about.

GRRRRR.

Categories
security

Addendum to the TSA Post

Just a quick one, but I think this is very worth reading: TSA Enhanced Pat Downs: the Screener’s Point of View

The basic point is, some TSA employees are incredibly unhappy with this situation as well. Which I’m not surprised about; I don’t think most employees of the TSA are there because they get their jollies being jerks to travelers.

This doesn’t mean that I’m changing my opinion about the porno scanners or assaulting patdowns. If anything, I am angrier. In effect, the TSA’s rules have created a situation where both parties end up feeling violated, and have created a rapidly deteriorating atmosphere of hostility between screeners and travelers. How lovely. I’m sure that makes for some effective airport security.

And it’s great for pilots too, apparently.

So who exactly is this supposed to be helping? Other than the backscatter scanner manufacturer. Can’t forget about them.

Categories
security

TSA – "Total Sexual Assault"

The more I hear about the TSA porno scanners and their crotch-grabbing “enhanced pat downs,” the more nervous I am about flying out to England in December. Because you know what? I am not okay with a wage slave in a booth looking at a ghostly image of me in my altogether. I am not willing to just trust them when they say that all the images are immediately deleted. I am also not okay with a TSA agent touching my breasts or my lady bits. No one but me, my husband, or my doctor gets access to those. And for the record, I am likewise not okay with a TSA agent touching my husband’s junk. Period.

I got patted down once in Heathrow airport. It didn’t bother me. The security agent also assiduously avoided my naughty bits. And contrary to popular belief, I did not in fact blow up our flight home that year. Imagine that.

Making us take off our shoes and throw away our water bottles was already pointless security theater, trying to thwart specific attacks that had already been thwarted. This is a step beyond security theater. For most of us, this is an exceptionally creepy, upsetting invasion of privacy. For those who are survivors of sexual assault, it’s nothing short of inhumane.

I agree with Janiece. This is the point where we all tug our shirts straight and get some Captain in us. And by that, as she said, I mean Captain Picard:

We’ve made too many compromises already, too many retreats. They invade our space, and we fall back…Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far and no further!

I don’t know what the environment of the DIA security checkpoint is going to be like in December. I don’t know if they have the naked picture show installed there, or if they’ll be insisting on the grope fest if you look at them funny. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the giant, loud protest over this government-sanctioned assault will just get bigger and louder and it’ll all be fixed by the time I’m flying. But I’m not counting on it. I’m already planning to be at the airport several hours earlier than normal, in case I feel it necessary to make a scene. So if I’m absent for Pat’s amazing teeny sausages wrapped in bacon at Christmas this year, this little corner of the internet will know why.

I love Mike’s family, and I love our friends in Brighton, and I want to see them. But the price for that should not be letting a stranger stick their hand in my crotch.

If you need a little levity to get around all the sexual assault, here’s Next Animation’s take on the issue. I don’t recommend watching it while drinking anything.