« May 2006 | Main | July 2006 »
June 29, 2006
Dog Bites Man: Yahoo Headlines Vol. 1
"'Conflicts' complicate survey of world's wars"
"Awkward moments abound in penis pump trial"
Posted by emily at 3:18 AM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2006
SUPPORT THE NEW YORK TIMES!
Well, they were wrong about WMDs and Judy Miller and Jason Blair, but that shouldn't stop us from supporting them now in their our of, yet again, scapegoat.
We need a watchdog press and this new smear campaign is nothing more than an attempt to muzzle the watchdog. NYT is not perfect, but it is the best in the country and we should stand by it. Remember the Pentagon Papers?
Will Bush be hiring "plumbers" now, too?
Support NYT. If they go down (which they won't, hopefully), then the free press is endangered. Remember, they didn't steal these documents. Someone leaked them to them. Ellsburg went to jail, maybe this leaker will too. But The Supremes refused to stop publication. Of course, this was back in the early seventies.
Posted by emily at 8:25 PM | Comments (0)
June 19, 2006
Tim Russert Should Really Find A New Subject
Ah, yes, the importance of fathers. Russert offers a soothing balm on our troubles: why write a book about the degredation of the American political sphere when you can write about daddies? And make everyone feel warm and gooey.
He didn't actually write it. These are just letters from the first book "Big Russ and Me". I suppose all of us who had good fathers, including me, can just write a book about them now. Or maybe we can't. Maybe you can only be an elite journalist to get this kind of book deal.
The big journalist stars, Russert, Brokaw and their ilk, write about the generation before them with almost a glossy sheen. The Greatest Generation. Big Russ and the Greatest Fathers. If you were born prior to 1930, you get a big fat gold star. Your sweat got us through the depression, your blood got us through WWII and you were too busy saving the world to shed any girly tears about it all.
The great white-washing of history continues because you never hear how it was this generation who kept segregation up and running. This generation justfified the internment of Japanese. This generation whose brightest minds got us into Vietnam. This generation who brought commercialsm, materialism and the military/industrial complex to great heights in the 1950s.
They accomplished a great deal and lived through great trials, our grandparents. Of course, if your grandparents actually came from Europe, out of WWII, they lived through a much darker and bloodier epoch. Perhaps that's why some of the original agitators of the 1960s were children of European immigrants who had a feeling in their gut that satifisaction doesn't come from a new washer and dryer alone.
It is perhaps our greatest fault in our retelling of American History that we bath ourselves in the good and ignore the bad, as if there can't be two sides to the same coin. Every "generation" (as if they are homogenous) does good and does bad.
Implicit in the Russert/Brokaw argument is that the 60s generation, my parents, were worse than their parents. We've adapted a conservative mindset about the 60s. The words "excess" and "selfish"... so often used. Was it excessive and selfish for Cheney, Goodwin and Schwerner to take that fateful bus trip to the deep south? Was it excessive and selfish for the students on UofW Madison to sit in on Dow Chemical's recruitment effort? What is excessive and selfish about earnest people trying to change the world, bring equality and end a vicious war?
Russert knows when he speaks of fathers, he's spoonfeeding us Norman Rockwell. There are good fathers out there; of this there is no question. There are questionable fathers out there. Bad fathers. Fathers who abandon their children. Fathers who beat their wives. Fathers in that questionable middle, who perhaps don't do anything "bad", who support their families financially, but are emotionally unavailable to the children. The father/child dynamic is complicated; just as the "generational" idenity. What Russert and Brokaw peddle is a certain truth, but not a total truth.
One final note: if Russert is so atuned to the goodness of fathers, why wasn't he, a mere two weeks ago, standing up for families with two fathers?
Posted by emily at 5:39 PM | Comments (0)
June 7, 2006
I Heart Ann Coulter
I heart anyone who has the amazing ability to make Tucker Carlson, Bill O'Reilly and their ilk seem like moderates.
Because that takes a level of skill. She reminds me of the fifth grade on a pure gut level. She's taunting me, thowing a kick-ball at my head. But better angels appear on my shoulder. One can't get angry with her. One can't get angry by what she says. Because that's what she wants you to do.
She wants liberals to hate her, because in her mind, this will validate her opinions. And deep down, one has to believe she is frightened of us. Hatred that intense can only be ignited by fear. Why is she afraid of us? Did one of us steal her lollypop? Did one of us dump her in the 12th grade?
I give her the attention she so desperately craves and pat her on the back is she realizes that, to the vast peoples, she is nothing more than a circus act. We all witness what comes out of her mouth and pen with our hands in the air, but this does nothing more than encourage her to greater acts of self-parody. As she tars and feathers 9-11 widows, I will hand it to her. There is perhaps no group more immune than 9-11 widows. Ann always goes after the sticky brass ring.
I will gladly let her shoot me with the bullets she does not have. Because, in her paradigm, I am one of the traitors, one of the godless, a deacon in that church of liberalism she so desperately wants to carve stained glass for. She gives us all the credit in the world for a level of organization we don't have and can't have. She wants me shot, or at least exported to Belgium, and I will gladly take my one-way ticket.
Those angry with the GOP and the President are many: true liberals, progressives, lefties and socialists in this country are still few. To fear us as Ann does means we must have some power and perhaps in Connecticut it still looks that way. But if she's really so afraid and so hateful, she should move to Salt Lake City and be among those who agree with her. Why she stays among those she hates... mystery.
Ann, I'm guilty of everything you've accused "us" of. I want gay people to be able to marry, burn a flag at the cerimony, and then recycle the charred remains for some stem-flag research. I want the illegal immigrants to take over the country, the Constitution re-written in Spanish and Jennifer Lopez to replace the Statue of Liberty. (If she's turned into a statue, she can't make any more movies.) I'm proudly guilty. I'm glad you're there, assigning me my guilt.
Ann, we need more like you. To tar us, flame us, turn us into demons. I welcome it. You will never convince the majority of Americans to agree with you, but you also fail to convince the majority of Americans to disagree with us. When a parady hits you with their venom, you only stand to look good.
Posted by emily at 3:03 PM | Comments (1)
June 6, 2006
All The Kiddies Are Cynical Tonight
Gay Marriage Amendment: How transparent is this? I mean, is it made of glass? Is it made of see-through plastic? Are the American people stupid enough to fall for this? Am I scared to my own answer to the last question?
Very, yes, yes, yes and yes.
Let's see what's wrong with the world today: Iraq, Haditha, the resurgance of fighting in Afghanistan, Iran, instability in Somalia, AIDS, immigration, global warming, gas prices, interest rates, inflation, the deficit. That's the short list. You know, right off the top of my head with no real thought put into it. There's much more.
And what is the Congress doing? Gay marriage amendment, flag burning and a repeal of the estate tax.
I usually think I'm beyond cynical, but this is just beyond me. How the voters won't be disilusioned and disgusted... but you know what? We'll stop the damn gays from marrying! And that will solve... none of the above problems I have listed.
Nevermind what I personally think: that straight people have done enough damage to that sacred institution of marriage. When Britney Spears can get married like she's getting a tattoo, when the divorce rate is still 50%... we don't need gay people to damage the institution. These focus on family groups never talk about the divorce rate.
I've known many gay couples in long, long-term relationships that would like to get married. I know gays that don't want to get married. (I know straights in the same situations as well.) Denying a specific group their civil rights... Equal protection clause of the 14th. And I will look Scalia in the eye and say it. Marriage has been defined by the Supreme Court as a fundemental right. Thus, it is within the fundemental right strand of equal protection, thus the scrutiny is bumped up to strict and thus, the law/amendment must be narrowly tailored and interest must be compelling. (A- in both Con Law I and II, baby!)
But the saddest, most depressing thing for me about this whole thing: Bush made his big speech on the 25 anniversary of the CDC MMWR report which described the symptoms of five men in Los Angeles. (See below). There would soon be cases reported in San Francisco, Miami, New York and Paris. The media would soon label it GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) By the end of 1981, there was a new word for it: AIDS. Like his political father, Ron Reagan, Bush said not one goddamn fucking word yesterday about a disease that has killed 25 million people worldwide, with 2 million estimated new infections every year (and that's low-balling it). A disease in which people in this country suffered so much in the early years; they lost jobs, insurance, family, friends and their lives. They died a horrid death, made that much worse by fear and prejudice. It didn't matter how they got the disease, whether they were gay or straight, a blood transfusion, an infected needle, an infected partner... and it is now a pandemic, leaving orphans across Africa, denial in Russia and a scary complacency in the US. People still die of AIDS here. And the virus has shown great adaptablity: someday, the triple-cocktail may not be enough. But, on the anniversary of the beginning of one of the most tragic chapters of American and World history, let's deny gays the right to marriage. Clearly, in 25 years, we've learned nothing about tolerance.
Posted by emily at 1:26 AM | Comments (0)
June 5, 2006
25 Years Ago Today
Pneumocystis Pneumonia - Los Angeles
MMWR Weekly, June 5, 1981 / 30(21);250-2
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
In the period October 1980-May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia at 3 different hospitals in Los Angeles, California. Two of the patients died. All 5 patients had laboratory-confirmed previous or current cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and candidal mucosal infection. Case reports of these patients follow.
Patient 1: A previously healthy 33-year-old man developed P. carinii pneumonia and oral mucosal candidiasis in March 1981 after a 2-month history of fever associated with elevated liver enzymes, leukopenia, and CMV viruria. The serum complement-fixation CMV titer in October 1980 was 256; in may 1981 it was 32.* The patient's condition deteriorated despite courses of treatment with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX), pentamidine, and acyclovir. He died May 3, and postmortem examination showed residual P. carinii and CMV pneumonia, but no evidence of neoplasia.
Patient 2: A previously healthy 30-year-old man developed p. carinii pneumonia in April 1981 after a 5-month history of fever each day and of elevated liver-function tests, CMV viruria, and documented seroconversion to CMV, i.e., an acute-phase titer of 16 and a convalescent-phase titer of 28* in anticomplement immunofluorescence tests. Other features of his illness included leukopenia and mucosal candidiasis. His pneumonia responded to a course of intravenous TMP/.SMX, but, as of the latest reports, he continues to have a fever each day.
Patient 3: A 30-year-old man was well until January 1981 when he developed esophageal and oral candidiasis that responded to Amphotericin B treatment. He was hospitalized in February 1981 for P. carinii pneumonia that responded to TMP/SMX. His esophageal candidiasis recurred after the pneumonia was diagnosed, and he was again given Amphotericin B. The CMV complement-fixation titer in March 1981 was 8. Material from an esophageal biopsy was positive for CMV.
Patient 4: A 29-year-old man developed P. carinii pneumonia in February 1981. He had had Hodgkins disease 3 years earlier, but had been successfully treated with radiation therapy alone. He did not improve after being given intravenous TMP/SMX and corticosteroids and died in March. Postmortem examination showed no evidence of Hodgkins disease, but P. carinii and CMV were found in lung tissue.
Patient 5: A previously healthy 36-year-old man with clinically diagnosed CMV infection in September 1980 was seen in April 1981 because of a 4-month history of fever, dyspnea, and cough. On admission he was found to have P. carinii pneumonia, oral candidiasis, and CMV retinitis. A complement-fixation CMV titer in April 1981 was 128. The patient has been treated with 2 short courses of TMP/SMX that have been limited because of a sulfa-induced neutropenia. He is being treated for candidiasis with topical nystatin.
The diagnosis of Pneumocystis pneumonia was confirmed for all 5 patients antemortem by closed or open lung biopsy. The patients did not know each other and had no known common contacts or knowledge of sexual partners who had had similar illnesses. The 5 reported having frequent homosexual contacts with various partners. All 5 reported using inhalant drugs, and 1 reported parenteral drug abuse. Three patients had profoundly depressed in vitro proliferative responses to mitogens and antigens. Lymphocyte studies were not performed on the other 2 patients.
Reported by MS Gottlieb, MD, HM Schanker, MD, PT Fan, MD, A Saxon, MD, JD Weisman, DO, Div of Clinical Immunology-Allergy; Dept of Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine; I Pozalski, MD, Cedars-Mt. Siani Hospital, Los Angeles; Field services Div, Epidemiology Program Office, CDC.
Posted by emily at 11:42 AM | Comments (2)