the cartel: the corruption in american education

Q: What is a Cartel?

A: Group of people who hold dominant power in a marketplace of products or services and take actions to limit competition to protect their business.

Can’t wait for this DVD “The Cartel.” Many sites have reviewed it, giving their opinions. Tells me nothing. I need to see it for myself and examine the supporting documents, many of which you can find listed in the movie website’s FAQ.

I’ve already read everything I can find. Looks to be pretty damning. Not that claims of corruption and general incompetence are new to U.S. education.

It’s not the teachers, mind you. It’s the socialist system defended by liberal ideologues blind to their own self-interest. Corruption always follows on fatter government. (Just wait and see what happens over the next decade in Washington as the bloat sets in from our recent economic “rescue” of various industries.)

The filmmaker of The Cartel appears to be an advocate of school choice and particularly lauds charter schools. I didn’t find mention of homeschool, which is suprising, given the arguments made from statistics.

American education has no checks-and-balances, no accountability.

Except for homeschoolers. We make education account for itself by saying we can do a better job. Then we do it. And we even save the school system money when we do.

Let’s Be Upfront About This

What supports that claim is a paper Homeschooling in Nevada: The Budgetary Impact going around the homeschool blogosphere right now (published in 2005). It’s not exactly an analysis done by an unbiased source. The researchers have previous issues with public education: Clements is a homeschool advocate, Wenders has projects critical of public education and the need for performance-based measures, and the Education Consumers Foundation, a consumer advocacy organization, has this to say:

Public education’s status as a regulated monopoly also serves to enhance the prominence of certain educational perspectives and to insulate them from the demands of parents, the public, and their elected representatives. Thus despite vast research and development efforts undertaken over decades, certain theoretical and institutional constraints effectively impose boundaries on the educational research that is undertaken and published. (http://www.education-consumers.org/research.htm)

And the The Nevada Policy Research Institute calls itself an “independent research and educational organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for all residents of the Silver State through sound free-market solutions to state and local policy questions.” How telling are the keywords “free-market solutions” to you about the Institute’s political bent?

Nevertheless, despite any bias of the paper’s producers, the facts speak for themselves. You’ll be amazed at not just the amount of money homeschoolers have saved Nevada, but how much the taxpayers sacrifice for a broken system and in how many areas homeschoolers surpass their public school counterparts.

I would like to see similar research in Iowa and every other state.

why i hate independence day

So glad it’s over.

My 5 yr old asked why we shoot off fireworks on the 4th of July. I told him we celebrate our nation’s birthday by celebrating what we love about America. Looking back, I realize that was a bad answer. Or maybe all too accurate.

Let’s Celebrate!

Two-hour-long traveling billboard advertisements throwing gobs of candy into the streets for kids to fight over;  carnivals with expensive rides and unhealthy food; crowds in traffic jams competing to get to a field to sit on their asses the longest so they can be closer to the shows where they’ll enjoy NOT nature or fresh air but gaudy, loud, smokey explosions of the same stuff they use for war that terrifies animals and risks the limb even of professionals; locals and kids making a game of crime by hiding from police so they can buy and shoot off illegal fireworks.

Ah. America.

I don’t hate Independence Day. I hate the way we celebrate the triumph and sacrifice that gave it to us. I especially hate what our celebrating is teaching my kids. They now look forward to the local “parade” (i.e. cars rolling by with local business’s signs on them, owners waving) every year because they want to fill a bag with candy thrown into the street. I’m going to start a homeschool unit on the American Revolution before next summer!

My DH calls me a holiday scrooge. Maybe a little. The only bonus is that, like most holidays, it’s also about family, and that is certainly a part of America I can believe in. Even if my family happens to love those gaudy, loud, smokey displays of war-like explosives.

apostolic visitation: burqas and habits because women are a herd

Not sure why this ad for ice cream is “offensive,” except maybe it’s hitting a little too close to home?

Just when a great part of the world is trying to liberate women from disempowering, dehumanizing customs like the burqa, the Vatican is trying to force nuns back into habits and cloisters.

Like portions of the Muslim world, the Vatican knows how disempowering it is to strip away individuality and self-expression, and they want women back to being seen as a herd; hence the “Apostolic Visitation” going on in women’s religious orders across the U.S. 

Let me remind you that the last Vatican Visitation was to the seminaries in the wake of the sex abuse scandal. What came from that was a new initiative to roust out homosexuals from the seminaries, regardless of their activity. Straight priests might be screwing everything in sight, but celibate gays were to be removed. In other words, gay men in the seminaries became a nice scapegoat for the sexual abuse of minors in the Church. Nevermind that the stats show differently or that the real issue — the one the U.S. courts found the Church liable for — has always been that bishops covered up their inaction. My diocese didn’t go bankrupt because priests abused kids but because the bishop lied about it.

“They think of us as an ecclesiastical work force,” said Sister Sandra M. Schneiders, professor emerita of New Testament and spirituality at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, in California. “Whereas we are religious, we’re living the life of total dedication to Christ, and out of that flows a profound concern for the good of all humanity. So our vision of our lives, and their vision of us as a work force, are just not on the same planet.” (US Nuns Facing Vatican Scrutiny)

Mother Clare, who heads this Visitation, says, “There’s no intention to make us all identical” which is a telling statement because we all know that’s EXACTLY what the intention is.

Detractors from this ice cream ad will tell you it’s bad because it “sexualizes” religious, but the Church always blames sex. The thing to realize is that sex isn’t a cause of anything but the symptom, and the deeper thinkers in the Church know it. 

Sex is one result of experiencing independence, because with independence, you begin to feel you have a right to self-expression and pleasure. In turn, the experience of pleasure (in whatever form you find it) leads to greater joy and trust in yourself as God’s creation. You may begin to doubt the proclamations of an authority whose agenda includes the very unspiritual pursuits of power and control.

No wonder ads like this shake up the powers-that-be. Independent women always have.  Hence burqas and habits.

A newspaper advertising campaign for ice-cream featuring a young nun and priest about to share a kiss has been banned after complaints that it was offensive to those working in a religious order. Guardian

corridor pride parade and festival in the park – saturday, june 20

Iowa City & Cedar Rapids are having a joint Pride week this year. More Information at Iowa City Queer Connections

Parade starts at College Green Park in Iowa City at the corner of College and Washington streets at noon. All the usual suspects: floats, musicians, roller skates, and candy!

Everyone is welcome to march or just come and spectate on the 100 – 200 blocks of Iowa Avenue or in front of Studio 13. The parade will end in a rally on the Pentacrest in front of the Old Capitol with music and rousing speakers.

A festival will follow in Upper City Park.

Shaved ice, food, vendors, games, and music. We will be near the swimming pool so bring your suits or just cool off in the shade of the beautiful oak trees. A children’s game area provided. Music by New York singer, Pauline Pisano, The Honeybees from DM and Iowan Kellee Van Hemert and The Quire. Bring your own lawn chairs.

Come out and enjoy food and fellowship with the community! FREE.

Everyone is welcome!

perfect s’more deserves a porno soundtrack

james alison coming to iowa city!

The Nature of Desire
A talk on the role of desire in human identity and culture, and on God’s desire for humanity

Friday, May 29th, 7pm
New Song Episcopal Church
912 20th Ave Coralville

The Bible–A Primer of Peace
A talk on the revelation of a God of peace in the Judeo-Christian tradition

Sunday, May 31st, 7pm
First Christian Church
900 Lincolnshire Place Coralville

Unbinding the Gay Conscience: Imagining an LGBT Future in Faith
A day-long retreat with theologian James Alison, including presentations, discussion and personal reflection

Saturday, May 30th, 9:00 – 4:30
Registration and coffee at 8:30
At First Baptist Church, 500 N. Clinton, Iowa City
Pre-registration Required, visit Queer Connections
$30 donation includes lunch

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James Alison, gay Catholic priest and premier interpreter of Rene Girard’s mimetic theory for the Christian LGBT community, lectures around the world and has authored Knowing Jesus, Raising Abel, The Joy of Being Wrong, Faith Beyond Resentment, On Being Liked and Undergoing God, not to mention many smaller papers and interviews mentioned in this blog.

Having read everything he’s written, this will be my first opportunity to hear him speak (live anyway). His graciousness to the powers-that-be has often irked me; he is nothing if not considered in his beliefs. The patience and freedom to grow beyond rivalry is offered as charitably from him as he believes it is given to him. I’ve never been so charitable, but I do believe it is every Christian’s mission to be as Christ in this world.

The One who is coming will not preside over us, but will teach us to want peace from within, and to learn the habits that make it possible.

Learning to act toward our enemies as God does requires an ability to see them and ourselves beyond rivalry. But we can’t really know ourselves in a direct way. We aren’t auto-generated, self-contained Minds simply needing mirrors to reflect us back to ourselves. (Descartes was wrong.) It’s more like we’re each a propensity generating a sense of personhood from the mirrored funhouse of social relations. Our being, our identity, arrives culturally through interaction with other people. This is pure Girard, but Alison adds his emphasis to the theory when he calls that sense of “I” a symptom. Ha!

Jesus wants us to receive our being and identity without rivalry from the One who forgives. And the One who forgives is the One who offers no rivalry, no deception, no lie, no resentment, no retaliation for any of the many acts of violence we have done. The One who acts and doesn’t react. God.

Dorothy Whiston of Soul Friends Ministry, who we can thank for dragging Alison across the rolling fields from Chicago on his way back from Brazil, offers this quote about Alison’s contribution to modern theology:

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams says of Alison’s work, ‘It is the most imaginative and lucid presentation of a theology of redemption that I have read in many years. But above all, it insists that true theology, truthful reflection on what God is and does, can’t be done without a conversion to a new perspective on yourself and the world. God is not to be known unless we grasp the depth of our freedom and our unfreedom, unless we give up fictions about our purity or our innocence and become committed to searching out those we exclude and suppress, creating with them the promised community of mutual gift.’

Sponsored by: First Baptist Church, Connections, PRIDE, UI LGBT Resource Center, UI LGBT Staff & Faculty Association, UI GLBTA Union, Soul Friends Ministry, Consultation of Religious Communities and others. For information about Alison see his website.

another reason to love iowa

You already know that the Iowa Supreme Court struck down the ban against same-sex marriage in a unanimous, bipartisan decision. Iowa now legally observes same-sex marriage. You may not yet have heard that Iowa has two cities in the top ten urban areas with the lowest unemployment, including where I live and work. Iowa City is the urban area with the lowest unemployment rate in the nation.

This may not obtain for many months, since the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is operating in the red, and though their losses are less than anticipated, they may be looking at layoffs later in the year.

Unemployment Rates for Metropolitan Areas — Monthly Rankings
(Not Seasonally Adjusted Mar. 2009)

1 Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux, LA Metropolitan Statistical Area 3.6
1 Iowa City, IA Metropolitan Statistical Area 3.6
3 Ames, IA Metropolitan Statistical Area 3.7
4 Manhattan, KS Metropolitan Statistical Area 4.0
5 Lafayette, LA Metropolitan Statistical Area 4.1
6 Midland, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area 4.3
7 Amarillo, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area 4.4
7 Logan, UT-ID Metropolitan Statistical Area 4.4
7 Lubbock, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area 4.4
10 Lincoln, NE Metropolitan Statistical Area 4.6

(Bureau of Labor Statistics)

one iowa: iowa stands for freedom

Gay marriage will be officially acknowledged in Iowa as of today. Did you see the NY Times article about how this may seem an unlikely place for such progressive legislation? Not unlikely at all. Iowa stands for freedom.

Many people, even some who live here, cannot mesh their plain-Jane image of Iowa, a state that sits so sturdily in the middle, with the front lines of the same-sex marriage debate.

“To be honest, I would rather not have it in Iowa,” said Shirley Cox, who has spent most of her 84 years in this old railroad town [Eldon]. Ms. Cox said she had always been proud to tell people what state she was from, but now was not so sure.

“But the thing is,” she went on, “it’s really none of my business. Who am I to tell someone how to live? I live the way I want, and they should live the way they want. I’m surely not going to stomp and raise heck and campaign against it.”

This reluctance to interlope in the lives of one’s neighbors — “a very Iowa attitude,” in the words of one local political scientist, derived in part from the state’s rural heritage — may help explain how Iowa finds itself in this moment. Add to that individualistic sensibility the state’s current political alignment and its little-known, pioneering legal past on once similarly volatile questions, like segregation and the role of women, and suddenly it seems far less surprising to outsiders that this could happen here in the seemingly endless, rolling acres of cornfields. (Same-Sex Ruling Belies the Staid Image of Iowa)

the problem with f/f: erotica is as much about power as sensuality

Interesting discussion about f/f erotica at Lesbian Fiction Forum (you’ll find the link in my left sidebar).  I love this forum — and I’ve visited many over the years, which I have always left. But Lovers of LesFic is filled with smart, creative women and remains very active.

Do Straight Women Read F/F?

The question posed was whether straight women read f/f erotica. Publishers say f/f doesn’t sell. Readers claim they want more lesbian characters. Why the disconnect? Do you believe sex is something that resides outside cultural categories, that it remains untouched by a cultural agenda, that it is sheer animalistc “natural” response, something essential and unconditioned? Well, you’d be wrong.

Is the lack of interest in f/f sex because there are two women or because there is no man? And what’s not interesting about two women having sex?

I don’t want to summarize the discussion, because it wouldn’t do justice to the various thoughts. But I will post my own thoughts here, because, as an author of lesbian erotica, I’m always considering the value of what I write. I’m becoming convinced that erotica is not a liberating force but one of the best places to see steretypes reinforced. Women’s erotica has generally failed to expand our understanding of women’s sexual desire.

Sensuality and Power

Erotica, like sex, is as much about power as sensuality. In m/f erotica, the authors focus on the power aspect more than the sensual aspect, and the author tends to go the way of anti-feminists. You know: women have real power because they are desired. Their “feminine wiles” control all things if they just claim that power to compel men. The sensuality is often lacking, perhaps because the modern novel is all about plot but also because it’s power dynamics that straight erotica examines.

Don’t get me wrong. My own writing is all about power. I like conflict, violence, heroes, and adventure. But I like to see women with ego, not vanity; women desiring, not desired. I think f/f often lacks this aspect of women’s power. In my opinion, the sensual potential for f/f has rarely been met, but it’s still usually better than straight erotica. On the other hand, f/f has a hard time finding the power dynamic in the sexual relationship, and therefore the conflict. With m/f there is a conflict built in, a clash of interests engineered by our culture, or some would say by nature (but they’d be wrong).

Stereotypes

I think a lot of f/f is as guilty as m/f of stereotyping women, not by trying to attribute power to what is dependent as m/f does, but by avoiding the power aspect of sex altogether. Even in this forum, the idea that women only show conflict when competing for a man has surfaced. This is the stereotype: women are catty, vain, jealous, possessive, and compete against each other for the prize of male attention.

Stereotypes! I mean, I’m really tired of reading stories about a man (or dildo) thrusting into a woman’s vagina for a few minutes and then she comes. My suspension of disbelief covers ray guns and werewolves, but I won’t buy that one. Mainstream readers do buy that myth, among many, because they buy all the sex myths that erotica authors reinforce: men’s sexuality is normative so women who are sexually liberated/advanced experience sex like men do, women’s pleasure derives from men’s pleasure, women’s sex is secondary and reactionary, men’s sex is primary and predatory, and on and on. From what I’ve read of m/m so far, these myths are reinforced, but with men who choose to “be like a woman” in the power and sensual aspects. Vulnerability is a sign of strength and provides conflict only when it’s a choice, because we know a choice can change. Men have the power to choose to be submissive, to be done to. That’s what makes it sexy.

Women Get Tough

Take the male out and begin to examine the interfeminine conflict and what will you find? Nothing, says f/f. I would go so far as to say that is what has kept it so marginalized. In other words, f/f is not boring to female readers because it’s two female bodies, but because it’s two people with nothing to overcome. I believe the more power dynamics f/f fiction delivers, the more appeal it will have.

F/f has the potential to examine women’s sexuality without being overshadowed by the culture of the penis that — in some magical way I’ve never understood — makes breasts, lips, vulva, and vagina seem woefully dull even to most women. The sensual potential is fantastic and the examination of power is potentially fantastic, but f/f has to provide strong female characters that express aggression and desire. The more we examine women from the perspective of ego, not vanity, the more we’ll learn about women’s desire.

family annihilators: get the facts

There is a good article on Family Annihilators at Newsweek, an interview with noted expert Jack Levins (professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University and author of “Serial Killers and Sadistic Murderers: Up Close and Personal”). The article is good, but only if you read the whole thing.

The first page has Levins dividing Family Annihilators into “revenge” and “altruistic”, and he says they’re “remorseful, not manipulative or crafty.” In other words, this paints the picture the murderer wants left of himself: that he beat, mutilated, or otherwise killed the weak and innocent because he loved them so much and didn’t want them to suffer.

But Hold On…He Also Says It’s Not About Love But Control

Levins later points out that the murders are always planned and methodical, that the murderers

externalize blame. If they really blamed themselves alone, they’d take an anti-depressant or commit suicide. But these are also the kinds of men who will not take help. They are the commander in chief and will not go to foot soldiers. They want total control and can’t share responsibility.

Levins should be clear to indicate that the label “altruism” he uses is NOT a descriptive label but the defense offered by these blaming criminals, who resent losing their control and feel entitled to take out their frustration on the weakest people around.

Is there any way to see this kind of crime coming?
Scientists are like meteorologists, we’re usually wrong at predicting future behavior. On the other hand, the warning signs are there—but we should be using warning signs to access people who are troubled long before they become troublesome. If you wait until they are in crisis, it’s too late. You can’t wait until somebody wants to commit murder; you have to provide help years earlier. Get to people when they’re troubled, not troublesome. I do warn women to be careful early in the dating process—if you’re dating a man who is [unusually] jealous and possessive, it isn’t cute that he loves you so much. When you’re getting a divorce or he loses his job, it can be extremely dangerous.

family annihilators: entitlement rages long after sueppel

No record of domestic abuse. All-American family. Happy. In love. Involved in the community. Well-liked. Successful.

These are descriptions repeated by neighbors, friends, and family for every one of these recent crimes:

• A man in serious financial debt shot himself after shooting his wife and three children to death and then mutilating their bodies. (Christopher A. Wood, April 2009)
• A tax attorney whose investment dealings prompted an FBI investigation shot himself after beating and asphyxiating his wife and daughters to death. (William Parente, April 2009)
• A man who lost his job at a car dealership shot himself after shooting his wife and two young children. (Mark Meeks, January 2009)
• A man shoots himself after shooting his wife and five children after being accused of fraud and losing his job. (Ervin Antonio Lupoe, January 2009)
• A man shoots himself after he shoots his wife to death six months after filing for bankruptcy and separating from his wife. (Jason Montes, January 2009)

The one thing each of these crimes has in common? A man who saw children and women as his possessions. Each man murdered his family after he suffered shame and refused to live with it. Suicide notes invariably remain as the murderer’s propaganda, his way of framing what happened now that the victims are silent.

Neighbors, friends, and family desperate to make sense of the senseless swallow that propaganda: the murderer was mentally ill, drugged, out-of-control. None of these men were out-of-control. Their crimes were planned and precise, because these men were angry.

It’s Not Just For Sueppels Anymore

The news is calling this crime family-murder, famlicide, murder-suicide. It is the act of a family annihilator, like the case of Steven Sueppel, who beat his wife and four children to death with bats on Easter 2008, after being indicted for embezzlement here in Iowa City. He faced years of jail-time and financial devastation, but he wasn’t willing to live with the shame, and he wasn’t willing to let his family live without him.

Lauded as a community man and springing from a prominent Iowa family, Sueppel was buried in a Catholic cemetery right next to the children and woman he murdered. The Davenport bishop spread vague references to the media about “mental illness,” which no one substantiated and family members denied.

The Truth About the “Family Man”

The Church and most media made sure to bury Sueppel as an ill man — an aberration, not the normal result of an entitled life.

He was the sort of  “family man” that our culture admires, but what does a “family man” who feels entitled to success, dominance, and obedience become when he loses those entitlements? Sueppel was a valuable educational opportunity for women who may be questioning themselves because they’re told every day by a neighbor or pastor what a great man they have, when they know how controlling and frightening that man can be at home. Red flags may be dismissed.

Forgiveness?

Christopher Alan Wood, another Catholic who butchered his family, will receive a funeral mass at Holy Family Church in Middletown MD, but it appears he’ll be buried in a Lutheran cemetery along with his victims. Are Family Annihilators Owed a Church Funeral?

The need for quick forgiveness holds the real tragedy because it allows the community to mask the motive. Family annihilators are nearly always men (when they are women, a substantiated mental illness has almost always been the case). They are successful but they have been shamed. They lose control and power, and they are not willing to live like that. They feel entitled to control the women and children in their lives. They are, in essence, sociopaths.

As I mentioned in my several posts on the Davenport Diocese’s handling of the Sueppel case last year, the reason this is vital is because the sense of entitlement and controlling aspects of these men’s personalities tend to come to light after the murders. Maybe we need to start eyeing these relationships before they come to murder.

Every week I get hits to my Sueppel posts, usually found by people searching “family annihilator warning signs”. It’s chilling. I hope women in these “perfect families”are not burying their heads in the sand.

beware: sightings show cougars expanding into central u.s.

SNL Cougar Den: Cougar & Cougay

CALEDONIA, Wis. (AP) — Anna Lashley can’t forget her surprise when she looked out her kitchen window three years ago just south of Milwaukee and spotted what she believes was a cougar. “I thought it must have gotten away from the zoo,” she said. “I called the zoo, and they said they hadn’t lost one.”

Aside from a small population in south Florida, central Texas has been the eastern boundary of the cougar’s customary breeding range.

But now Wisconsin game managers get scores of reported sightings each year.

Ken Jonas, a wildlife biologist supervisor with the state Department of Natural Resources in Hayward, said the only ways to confirm sightings are with photos, good tracks or other physical evidence. In the case of the confirmed sightings, blood, hair, urine and droppings were recovered.

He expects Wisconsin will eventually have resident cougars. Still, he said people venturing outdoors should be aware of potential dangers.

The Lashleys said they have nothing against cougars, but they want people to be aware of their presence.

Sandy Kenner said she has no doubts the cats are here.

“I’m totally convinced. I wouldn’t jog at night anymore,” she said. “It doesn’t scare me. Just don’t be stupid.” (Associated Press)

obama’s genie: phenomenal cosmic spending, itty bitty budget cuts

This is why Tea Parties make buddies of the left and right. This is why Obama scares everyone with common sense and a checkbook. This is why I can barely stand to listen to the news anymore.

Washington stopped listening to voters last year, passing TARP and other irresponsible spending despite OVERWHELMING disapproval by both Democrat and Republican voters.

Harvard University economics professor Greg Mankiw’s comments on President Obama’s “budget cuts” as part of his “fiscal responsibility”:

Just to be clear: $100 million represents .003 percent of $3.5 trillion.

To put those numbers in perspective, imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall. How much would he or she announce that spending had to be cut? By $3 over the course of the year–approximately the cost of one latte at Starbucks. The other $33,997? We can put that on the family credit card and worry about it next year. (Fiscal Responsibility)

(From the movie Aladdin: “It’s all part and parcel of the whole genie gig: phenomenal cosmic powers, itty bitty living space.”)

iowa gay marriage: the queer field of dreams

Except for some things I’ve seen on the web — notably the lame attempts by the National Organization for Marriage to scare Iowans into working to constitutionalize a defense of marriage act — I’m not seeing grassroots rallies by conservative groups. Not yet anyway. Although there have been death threats made to Iowa state legislators.

Nevertheless, I did some poking around to find out how difficult it would be to overturn the Iowa Supreme Court decision that made gay marriage the law of the land come April 27, 2009. No matter how hard anti-gay marriage advocates try, gay marriage will be the law of the state for at least 3 1/2 years. But can they succeed even after that time?

Detail from new Iowa Marriage Application with optional gender and relationship fields.

How to Retro the Progressive

In order to overturn the Iowa ruling, legislators would have to pass a constitutional amendment. To do that, they have to pass the amendment through two consecutive sessions of the legislature and then bring it to a popular vote. The soonest that could happen would be 2012. If any vote fails, the process starts over from the beginning. The other tactic would be to prove that the law violates the U.S. Constitution.

Iowa’s equal protection clause is one of the strongest in the country:

Laws uniform. SEC. 6. All laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation; the general assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens.

So, since we have no residency requirement for marriage in Iowa, I’m eager to see how many tourists we get this spring. I’m sure businesses — no matter how conservative — will not be turning away queer customers.

Lisa Neff and the Iowa I Know

At 365gay.com, Liss Neff writes about the Iowa she knew. It’s also the one I know. So, if you’re a queer couple planning to visit us this summer for a wedding, maybe you ought to consider staying a little longer because:

Iowa is a place where dreams come true.

Iowa public schools desegregated a century before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka ruling.

Iowa became the first state to admit a woman to the bar.

Iowa became a nuclear-free zone before even Berkeley, Calif., could do the same.

And this month Iowa’s supreme court unanimously ruled that a state law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman is unconstitutional.

The Iowa House Speaker, resisting an effort last week to allow an anti-gay constitutional amendment to advance, said mob rule will not rule in the state.

Iowa’s governor has expressed his reluctance to “support amending the Iowa Constitution to add a provision that our supreme Court has said is unlawful and discriminatory.”

And the state supreme court, carrying on the tradition of a court that was years ahead of the federal government on desegregation and women’s equality, stands solid in its decision.

“Our responsibility … is to protect constitutional rights of individuals from legislative enactments that have denied those rights, even when the rights have not yet been broadly accepted, were at one time unimagined, or challenge a deeply ingrained practice or law viewed to be impervious to the passage of time,” the justices wrote. (Neff, The Iowa I Know)

she amazon ranked and decided anal sex was okay

Amazon and I have been together through ten years, three credit cards, two girlfriends, one husband, two kids, two houses, three dogs, and three jobs. So I’m going to give Amazon a day to come up with a good reason for what’s happened before I cancel my account and direct all my business to Barnes & Noble. It’s not that I’m fickle. I mean, they took the rankings off of Foucault, for cryin-out-loud!

Amazon Rank
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): amazon ranked

1. To censor and exclude on the basis of adult content in literature (except for Playboy, Penthouse, dogfighting and graphic novels depicting incest orgies).
2. To make changes based on inconsistent applications of standards, logic and common sense.

Etymology: from 12 April 2009 removal of sales rank figures from books on Amazon.com containing sexual, erotic, romantic, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or queer content, rendering them impossible to find through basic search functions at the top of Amazon.com’s website. Titles stripped of their sales rankings include “Bastard Out of Carolina,” “Lady Chatterly’s Lover,” several romance novels, GLBTQ fiction novels, YA books, and narratives about gay people.

Example of usage: “I tried to do a report on Lady Chatterly’s Lover for English Lit, but my teacher amazon ranked me and I got an F on grounds that it was obscene.”

Alternate usage: “My girlfriend wanted to preserve her virginity, and I was happy to respect that, then she amazon ranked and decided anal sex was okay.”

Follow the developing story at  Smart Bitches, Meta Writer, Dear Author, and Twitter.

It’s Not the First Time

There is this at LisNews.org, indicating some interest in pursuing this censorship last year, but the story at Nonstopbooks.com has been removed:

Amazon hides sales rank on certain books
August 27, 2008 – 1:58pm — Bibliofuture

Amazon.com is hiding the sales rank on certain risque books if they become too popular. Full story here. The books in the article may be the best selling books in the country. According to the article their is a strong argument that they are at least in the Amazon top 100.

Conspiracy or Glitch?

“Marshall” commenting at Smart Bitches says he works at Amazon and that this uneven censorship is some sort of glitch.

The piling on of conspiracy theories surrounding this is making me ill. Why get out the pitchforks and torches when you have no facts? This is being blown way, way out of proportion.

No censorship has transpired.

Listen, I work at Amazon and there are a few things you should know:

1. The whole system is automated. Big computers running everything.
2. They sell adult material, like soft porn DVDs. In order to keep this stuff from popping up in front of children, the suppress the sales rank, which feeds the algorithm that decides what to display first, second, etc. This is no different than Google. Google is smarter in that they give you the option to see unfiltered results if you like.
3. Some low-level person in the company probably tinkered with the algorithm based upon some input or complaints, and totally fucked up the code. There’s NO evidence this was an executive mandate. If there was, I’ll quit.
As reported on Twitter, the suppression of search rankings was inconsistent. If this had been intentional it would have been more effective.
4. Do you really think Amazon is that stupid to piss of a huge community of consumers?
5. Amazon’s corporate culture is very supportive of the GLBT community, both internally and externally.

So stop with the witch trials already. You have choices in where to shop but don’t scream bloody murder and sign petitions until you understand the fucking facts. Comment at Smart Bitches

how the grinch stole marriage

This is just too good not to spread all over the web. This poem is by by Mary Ann Horton, Lisa and Bill Koontz, and as Mary Ann writes, “If we allow ourselves to voluntarily sit in the back of the bus, we’ll never make any progress. Rosa Parks had to sit in the front of the bus to make a difference. We must as well.”

Every Gay down in Gayville liked Gay Marriage a lot……
But the Grinch, who lived just east of Gayville, did NOT!!

The Grinch hated happy Gays! The whole Marriage season!
Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, his Florsheims were too tight.
But I think the most likely reason of all was
His heart and brain were two sizes too small.

“And they’re buying their tuxes!” he snarled with a sneer,
“Tomorrow’s the first Gay Wedding! It’s practically here!”
Then he growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming,
“I MUST find some way to stop Gay Marriage from coming!”

For, tomorrow, he knew… All the Gay girls and boys
would wake bright and early. They’d rush for their vows!
And then! Oh, the Joys! Oh, the Joys!

And THEN they’d do something he liked least of all!
Every Gay down in Gayville the tall and the small,
would stand close together, all happy and blissing.
They’d stand hand-in-hand. And the Gays would start kissing!

“I MUST stop Gay Marriage from coming! …But HOW?”

Then he got an idea! An awful idea!
THE GRINCH GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!

“I know what to do!” The Grinch laughed in his throat.
And he went to his closet, grabbed his sheet and his hood.
And he chuckled, and clucked, with a great Grinchy word!
“With this beard and this cross, I look just like our Lord!”

“All I need is a Scripture…” The Grinch looked around.
But, true Scripture is scarce, there was none to be found.
Did that stop the old Grinch…? No! The Grinch simply said,
“With no Scripture on Marriage, I’ll fake one instead!”
“It’s one man and one woman,” the Grinch falsely said.

Then he broke in the courthouse. A rather tight pinch.
But, if Georgie could do it, then so could the Grinch.
The little Gay benefits hung in a row.
“These bennies,” he grinned, “are the first things to go!”

Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most uncanny,
around the whole room, and he took every benny!
Health care for partners! Doctors for kiddies!
Tax rights! Adoptions! Pensions and Wills!
And he stuffed them in bags. Then the Grinch, with a chill,
Stuffed all the bags, one by one, in his bill.

Then he slunk to the kitchen, and stole Wedding Cake.
He cleaned out that icebox and made it look straight.
He took the Gay-bar keys! He took the Gay Flag.
Why, that Grinch even took their last Gay birdseed bag!

“And NOW!” grinned the Grinch, “I will pocket their Rings.”
And the Grinch grabbed the Rings, and he started to shove
when he heard a small sound like the coo of a dove.
He turned around fast, and off flew his hood.
Little Lisa-Bi Gay behind him sadly stood.
The Grinch had been caught by small Lisa-Bi.
She stared at the Grinch and said, “My, oh, my, why?”
“Why are you taking our Wedding Rings? WHY?”

But, you know, that old Grinch was so smart and so slick
He thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick!
“Why, my sweet little tot,” the fake Shepherd sneered,
“The judges are evil, the other states weird.”
“I’ll fix the rings there and I’ll bring them back here.”

It was quarter past dawn… All the Gays, still a-bed,
all the Gays still a-snooze when he packed up and fled.
“Pooh-Pooh to the Gays!” he was grinch-ish-ly humming.
“They’re finding out now no Gay Marriage is coming!”
“Their mouths will hang open a minute or two
then the Gays down in Gayville will all cry Boo-Hoo!”

He stared down at Gayville! The Grinch popped his eyes!
Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Gay down in Gayville, the tall and the small,
was kissing! Without any bennies at all!
He HADN’T stopped Marriage from coming! IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?”
“It came without lawyers, no papers to sort!”
“It came without licenses, came without courts!”
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!

“Maybe Marriage,” he thought, “doesn’t come from the court.
Maybe Marriage…perhaps… comes right from the heart.
Maybe Marriage comes from all the words the Gays say.
Words like Husband, like Wedding, and Spouse who is Gay.”
And what happened then…? Well…in Gayville they say
that the Grinch’s small brain grew three sizes that day!

And the Gays had their Weddings. They promised for life.
They swore to be faithful, to Wife and her Wife.
The Husbands were happy, to each other they vowed
To be Out and be Honest, be Gay and be Proud.
They told all their neighbors and friends of their Spouse,
They told of their Marriage and sharing their house.
They said “We got Married.” They shouted it loud.
Their marital status was “Married and Proud.”

And the minute his heart didn’t feel quite so tight,
He whizzed with his load through the bright morning light.
And he brought back the rings, cake and Gay birdseed bags!
And he… …HE HIMSELF… hung the Gay Rainbow Flag!
…
The Lord looked down, at the proud and the tall,
and said “These are my children, and I love them all.”

from desegregation to gay marriage

I was reading some comments by conservative groups in response to the Iowa Supreme Court’s overturning of the state law that limited marriage to one man and one woman, and I can’t believe what I’m hearing — the same tone, the same self-righteous logic, and even some of the very same words used by ignorant privileged southern boys during the Civil Rights era.

The following is a letter written by an Alabama attorney to President Kennedy in 1962, when Ole Miss was forced to integrate James Meredith — under arms. (If you’re not familiar, get familiar with this pivotal moment in US history by starting at the links I give.) Take a look at the following letter and wonder at the mind that wrote it. Wonder how those arguing against equal rights for lgbt will be seen in the same light by our descendants in another 45 years:

We in the South do not believe that integration is the law of the land as voted upon by the people speaking through their duly elected representatives, but is indeed a rule laid down arbitrarily by a few men who would enforce their will upon us without recourse to the democratic process of legislation.

Your retort undoubtedly is that under our system of government judges have always legislated and must continue to legislate. I admit that this is true to a degree. Again, however, it is the size of the degree that irritates the South and causes many people in other sections of the nation to feel that a few men have unduly usurped power not allocable to them if we are to retain our democratic government….

There are several reasons why the integration decision is palpably wrong and completely foreign to the democratic process. As above observed, it is an unlawful usurpation by the judiciary of the legislative function of government….

The reluctance of the white man to associate with the black man is based upon deep rooted psychological considerations that I consider God given to preserve the purity, dignity, and special attributes of each race.

The attorney goes on to offer that old “separate but equal” lie that many trying to dodge criticism for their stand against gay marriage are using to support civil unions. The 1962 attorney even lets us know that “the negro of the South is not oppressed… Yankees coming to Birmingham are amazed at the splendor of our negro communities…” Does the modern segregationist think we’re called ‘gay’ because we, too, know lives of splendor?

The Segregationist’s Modern Counterpart

Here’s what a few conservative groups had to say about the renegade court in Iowa:

“I think they’re going to work hard to get it on their constitution before another renegade court goes out and creates new law,” said [Douglas Napier, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal group based in Scottsdale, Ariz.]

That’s exactly what Florida voters did in November, said John Stemberger, an Orlando attorney who led the Florida Family Policy Council in campaigning for the measure. Same-sex marriage was banned in Florida law even before the election, but Floridians voted to enshrine a definition of marriage in the state’s constitution.

“It’s a classic example at why we in Florida amended our state constitution — to protect it from judges who would not seek to appreciate their limited and restrained role as a jurist,” Stemberger said of the Iowa ruling. (Google News)

Here’s another bit from those who feel courts shouldn’t be making decisions about rights and freedoms, but such decisions should be left to the manipulations of well-funded PR campaigns and religious groups scaring local populations with lies, as they did in California:

The State of Mississippi and the Federal Government appear due for a head-on collision over the school desegregation issue. Federal courts all the way to the top have held that Negro James Meredith must be permitted to register as a transfer student at the University of Mississippi. The Governor of Mississippi has said he will go to jail before allowing this to happen, and he has urged other state officials to follow his example or resign.

This is a crisis for Mississippi, a threat to its traditions and mores, and a challenge to the cherished political belief that the Federal Constitution reserves certain rights — such as education — to the states. That belief springs from the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. Against the view is the 14th Amendment — which some say was never legally ratified — stating: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges . . . of citizens of the United States. . . . ” (Editorial, Memphis Commercial Appeal, 1962)

it’s good to be queer in iowa

Okay…same-sex couples have another state to be married in, and I’m proud to say that new state is little old Iowa. Yes…we are MORE progressive than California! The Iowa Supreme Court overturned the law that banned gay marriage. Unanimously.

DES MOINES — Iowa became the first state in the Midwest to approve same-sex marriage on Friday, after the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously decided that a 1998 law limiting marriage to a man and a woman was unconstitutional.

The decision was the culmination of a four-year legal battle that began with a suit filed on behalf of six same-sex couples in the lower courts.

The Supreme Court said same-sex marriages could begin in Iowa in as soon as 21 days, making Iowa only the third state in the nation, along with Massachusetts and Connecticut, to legalize gay marriage.

Same-sex marriages will be permitted in Iowa for at least two years, because the legislative process required to overturn the ruling would take that long. A constitutional amendment would require the state legislature to approve a ban on same-sex marriage in two consecutive sessions after which voters would have a chance to weigh in. Despite opposition to the ruling by Republican lawmakers, Democrats, who control the legislature, have given no indication that they intend to introduce such an amendment.

Iowa has no residency requirement for getting a marriage license, which some suggest may mean a flurry of people from other states.

While the same-sex marriage debate has played out on both coasts, the Midwest — where no states had permitted same-sex marriage — was seen as entirely different. In the past, at least six states in the Midwest were among those around the country that adopted amendments to their state constitutions banning same-sex marriage. (NY Times)

I’m sure the forces of oppression have already started their campaign to get an amendment like they did in California.

Hope they come knocking on my door.

And on a personal note, my sister will be glad to hear her lesbian daughter will now be stuck in this hotbead of progressive unrest until those bitter folks on the coast –  you know, places like California and New York where they cling to God and guns — find a way to imitate our swanky coolness.

‘feminism vs religion’ — really?

Regan Penaluna’s Christianity and Feminism: Oil and Water? at First Things has some food for thought, and I enjoyed the introduction to a few early feminists I had never heard of. But Penulana knows her audience well and has set up a false dichotomy that fits with the conservative world-view – that somehow (modern) feminists aren’t truly Christians, or perhaps even religious.

After all, the power of any ideology lies in its ability to frame the world with a clear border of us-vs-them, good-vs-bad. As if not accepting a patriarchal reading of Scripture means I don’t accept religion. I just don’t accept the partriarchal reading of Scripture.

Penuluna gives a little background on two feminists — Damaris Masham (1659–1708) and Mary Astell (1666–1731)  — who argued for women’s rights from within the Christian framework. That is, they argued that women, as portrayed in the Bible, are not weaker, less moral, less able than men. The dominant cultural notion in the 17th and 18th centuries was that women were not only lesser humans, they were evil — but a necessary evil.

Both feminist thinkers made their cases by emphasizing the uniquely feminine virtue of nurturing. The two women made claims for women’s value based on that virtue, but they came at it from different points-of-view: Masham saying that women as mothers must participate in society in order to raise better citizens; Astell saying that women as citizens could make valuable mother-inspired contributions that men couldn’t make.

In other words, each of these thinkers accepted the prevailing notion that women are essentially different from men and that their value comes precisely from that difference: their roles as mothers. These early feminists sought to rehabilitate “nurture” as something important and helpful to society at large. They didn’t seem to question the fact that women managed to get stuck with a role defined by all those virtues considered less important by culture.

Why a Role is Not Essential

Penaluna’s argument is the kind conservative ideologues love, because it allows them to believe that the feminists who disagree with them are just a radical fringe. It allows them to believe they’re more reasonable, more mainstream. You know, like people who are against gay rights but claim they’re not bigots because, hey, they have gay friends…

This is why conservatives have begun to rescue early feminists from obscurity. Have you noticed these articles cropping up?

But when you say women are different from men and define that difference with specific attributes — say “nurturing” — then all your energy is spent trying to get respect for a role rather than questioning  the validity of that role. You assume a role is built upon nature, rather than something less essential.

In this case, these early feminists were in a no-win scenario, trying to gain respect for something whose very purpose was to unburden the patriarchy of qualities necessary to maintain society but that were undesirable nonetheless, since they diminished independence and hence, power.

Perhaps those early feminists weren’t yet aware, as we are today with the benefit of generations of struggle, that you can’t win with a pair of twos when your opponent has a flush and has stacked the deck to begin with. It’s the roles associated with the sexes that need to be examined and redefined. This is the kind of work modern feminists are doing. This is the kind of work conservatives fear.

After all, when you redefine one sex’s role, you naturally begin to examine others, and I imagine most of the readers over at First Things are quite comfortable with the flush they’ve been dealt.

The history of Western feminism reminds us that our concepts of liberation and equality are not always antithetical to the Christian tradition and that Christian theology and Scripture have served as a source of women’s liberation. (Penaluna)

I don’t know where Penaluna gets this summary statement; at least, I don’t see where in her essay she has supported it.

If by Scripture as a source of liberation, she means the argument made by women such as Masham and Astell, I wonder how she defines liberation. Liberation to live out a role that lacks self-determination, that is assigned by a society run by those with the right to decide most things for you, including what you do with your money, your family, your body? Perhaps as a woman liberated by Scripture, you can demand — well, not anything so un-Christian, I suppose, as civil rights or equal opportunity, but certainly an acknowledgement that your subservient role has its uses.

writing with rosilla

Rosilla says Hi!

If you  want a smart dog that weighs in at less than an apple, is fearless against dogs ten times her size, and loves to snuggle, get a miniature dachshund.

But if you live in an area prone to voles, like me, best not to have this small black dog scurrying around outside when you have a shovel in your hand. Just a little advice from me to you.

Rosilla is five months old and keeps me company when I write. My kids used to do that, but now they’re loud, so they spend time with Daddy at the mall playyard or McDonalds or the park — anywhere he can spoil them while he pretends to be a divorced dad checking out the divorced moms.

He tells me he’s good at sensing that “hint of desperation”  in women of a certain age. He says I was giving off that particular scent when we met. That’s his little age joke. You see, I’m significantly older than him. Yeah, that’s right, I’m that “cougar” I was talking about in my last post.  Except I married my boy toy, so no sexy labels for me. I guess I’m not savvy, sophisticated, or cosmopolitan. I’m just a wife.

I wonder what scent is emanating from me now. A hint of frustration? Hint of irritation? Hint of yeah-that-was-nice-you-should-get-going-now?