Accidental Blogger

Senator Jeff Sessions' Southern Discomfort

I happened to catch parts of Tuesday's Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The most fascinating exchange of the day took place when Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) questioned the judge. Sessions, a southern right winger, whose own nomination to federal judgeship was blocked in 1986 partially because of his attitude towards racial issues,interrogated Sotomayor about her opinions on race and prejudice. The line of questioning was doggedly vicious, not uncommon for either political party when a candidate from the other side is up for confirmation. But in the case of Senator Sessions, he not only displayed remarkable mean spiritedness but he also inadvertently gave us a glimpse into the one track mind of a bigot who is not quite comfortable dealing with an accomplished woman of color. Of particular interest to Sessions was Sotomayor's statement regarding a "wise Latina woman." Here is an excerpt from the transcript of Tuesday's hearings:

SESSIONS: Welcome. It's good to have you back, Judge, and your family and friends and supporters. And I hope we'll have a good day today, look forward to dialogue with you. I got to say that I liked your statement on the fidelity of the law yesterday and some of your comments this morning.

And I also have to say had you been saying that with clarity over the last decade or 15 years, we'd have a lot fewer problems today because you have evidenced, I think it's quite clear, a philosophy of the law that suggests that the judge's background and experiences can and should -- even should and naturally will impact their decision what I think goes against the American ideal and oath that a judge takes to be fair to every party. And every day when they put on that robe, that is a symbol that they're to put aside their personal biases and prejudices.

So I'd like to ask you a few things about it. I would just note that it's not just one sentence, as my chairman suggested, that causes us difficulty. It's a body of thought over a period of years that causes us difficulties.
And I would suggest that the quotation he gave was not exactly right of the wise Latina comment that you made. You've said, I think six different times, quote, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion." So that's a matter that I think we'll talk about as we go forward."....

SESSIONS: I know one judge that says that if he has a feeling about a case, he tells his law clerks to, "Watch me. I do not want my biases, sympathies or prejudices to influence this decision, which I've taken an oath to make sure is impartial." I just am very concerned that what you're saying today is quite inconsistent with your statement that you willingly accept that your sympathies, opinions and prejudices may influence your decision-making.

So it went on and on about heritage (read "race and gender"), experience and resulting biases that supposedly taint judicial decisions. Later, second guessing Sotomayor's ruling about the New Haven firefighters case, Sessions said to Sotomayor: 

SESSIONS: Judge, there was a -- apparently, unease within your panel. I -- I was really disappointed. And I think a lot of people have been that the opinion was so short. It was pro curiam. It did not discuss the serious legal issues that the case raised. And I believe that's legitimate criticism of what you did.

But it appears, according to Stuart Taylor, a respected legal writer for the National Journal -- that Stuart Taylor concluded that -- that it appears that Judge Cabranes was concerned about the outcome of the case, was not aware of it because it was a pro curiam unpublished opinion. But it began to raise the question of whether a rehearing should be granted.

You say you're bound by the superior authority. But the fact is when the re -- the question of rehearing that 2nd Circuit authority that you say covered the case, some say it didn't cover so clearly -- but that was up for debate. And the circuit voted, and you voted not to reconsider the prior case. You voted to stay with the decision of the circuit.

And, in fact, your vote was the key vote. Had you voted with Judge Cabranes, himself of -- of -- of Puerto Rican ancestry -- had you voted with him, you -- you -- you could have changed that case.

Wait a minute! What was that about Judge Cabranes and his Puerto Rican ancestry?  After raking Sotomayor over the coals for her so-called biases, did Sessions suggest that she, a Puerto Rican by birth, would have done well to vote with a fellow Puerto Rican?  Perhaps Sessions was also chiding her for failing to keep her womanly foolishness in check by not following a man's example?

When at last can we hope to see the last of such lizard-brains like Senator Sessions, the likes of whom continue to contaminate all public discourse with their outmoded ideas and prejudices?

A Return Journey

Readers may remember this book review about the Crypto Jews of Spain and Portugal. Their stories were a complicated maze of religious faith, persecution and conversion under duress. Above all, their history was also about tenaciously and secretly holding on to a personal identity despite considerable external threats. Christian persecution of Jews is now mostly a matter of the past and the Crypto Jews, several generations removed from their ancestors, have mostly assimilated into the larger Christian population. Puzzled by some odd family traditions, some Hispanic Catholics in the southwestern states of the US (mostly immigrants from Mexico) are eagerly investigating possible Judaic roots, including genetic testing, to establish Sephardic Jewish descent. Their clues come from certain seemingly non-Christian practices amidst their Christian lives which they believe hark back to a Jewish past. One such story of a Catholic woman from Houston who believes she has found her way back to the faith of her Sephardic ancestors.

At an East Galveston beach, Mari Barkhausen is waist-deep in the cool, brown water. After repeating Hebrew blessings, she is immersed once, twice. When she emerges from the water a third time, she is a Jew.

She hugs her rabbi, looking to the shoreline at her husband and two sons who are waiting for their mikveh, the ritual immersion for Jewish converts.

“Mazel tov, everyone,” declares Rabbi Stuart Federow. “This day begins the rest of your education. Jewish learning never stops.”

Barkhausen’s journey began decades ago as she watched her maternal grandmother’s peculiar ways. Her Mexican-American abuela would light candles on Fridays and draw the curtains before sundown, cover mirrors at home when a relative died and examine eggs for blood spots.

No one questioned her ways, and no explanation was ever offered to little Mari or her siblings.

Years later, Barkhausen would realize those customs were not one woman’s idiosyncrasies. They were Jewish customs.

Lighting of candles marked the beginning of the Sabbath. Many cover mirrors when someone dies to avoid concentrating on their grief-stricken appearances. And the Old Testament teaches that life is in the blood.

Grandma did all these things, Barkhausen remembered. But Grandma wasn’t Jewish. She was Catholic.

About Time!

In a recent landmark ruling Delhi's highest court has decriminalized homosexual sex among consenting adults in India's capital. 

NEW DELHI —In a landmark ruling Thursday that could usher in an era of greater freedom for gay men and lesbians in India, New Delhi’s highest court decriminalized homosexuality.

“The inclusiveness that Indian society traditionally displayed, literally in every aspect of life, is manifest in recognizing a role in society for everyone,” judges of the Delhi High Court wrote in a 105-page decision, India’s first to directly address rights for gay men and lesbians. “Those perceived by the majority as ‘deviants’ or ‘different’ are not on that score excluded or ostracized,” the decision said.

Homosexuality has been illegal in India since 1861, when British rulers codified a law prohibiting “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal.” The law, known as Section 377 of India’s penal code, has long been viewed as an archaic holdover from colonialism by its detractors.

“Clearly, we are all thrilled,” said Anjali Gopalan, the executive director and founder of the Naz Foundation, an AIDS awareness group that sued to have Section 377 changed.

“It is a first major step,” Ms. Gopalan said during a news conference in Delhi, but “there are many more battles.”

Clearly not everyone is "thrilled" by the groundbreaking decision. See here and here.

Thursday’s decision applies only in the territory of India’s capital city, but it is likely to force India’s government either to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, or change the law nationwide, lawyers and advocates said.

Outside the hall where the Naz Foundation news conference was held, dozens of young men and women gathered to celebrate, along with a group of hijras, men who dress and act like women who classify themselves as belonging to neither gender. “It is a victory of human rights, not just of gay rights,” said one 22-year-old man who only identified himself as Manish.

Gay men and women have rarely been prosecuted under Section 377 in India in modern times, but it has been used to harass, blackmail and jail people.

Britain legalized homosexuality in England and Wales in 1967, but many of its former colonies, including Singapore, Zimbabwe and Malaysia, still retain strict laws against same-sex relations.

India’s society is generally unwelcoming of homosexuality except in the most cosmopolitan circles. It is not uncommon for gay men and women to marry heterosexuals and have families, while carrying on secret relationships with members of the same sex.

In their decision, Chief Justice A. P. Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar declared Section 377, as it pertains to consensual sex among people above the age of 18, in violation of important parts of India’s Constitution. “Consensual sex amongst adults is legal, which includes even gay sex and sex among the same sexes,” they said.

For more on the history of homosexuality and the prevailing gay culture in India see Namit Arora's essay.

Texas Department of Unintended Ironies

The Texas legislature has given preliminary approval for issuing state licence plates that read "Choose Life." The revenue raised from the sale of the specialty plates will be used to fund adoptions and pro-life counseling at state pregnancy centers.

The Senate tentatively passed a bill to establish "Choose Life" license plates, with revenue going to promote adoption. There was no debate on SB 1098 by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas. The vote was 22-9 with one Republican, Sen. Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio, joining eight of the body's 12 Democrats in opposing the bill.

The bill faces a final Senate vote before going to the House. Gov. Rick Perry favors the bill. Texas would join 19 states that have similar plates, which have raised more than $9 million to support pregnant women who are considering adoption.

UPDATE: Perry's office just issued the following statement:

"I am pleased the Senate has passed legislation authorizing the creation of a Choose Life specialty license plate. Texans have long been able to support their causes in this way, so I'm glad they can do so now to assist pregnant women who are considering adoption as an alternative to abortion for their unborn children."

"This license plate will give Texans a subtle but meaningful way to express their personal views, while supporting pregnant women making the decision to choose adoption. I applaud Sen. Carona and Rep. Phillips for sponsoring this bill."

There would be nothing objectionable about the proposed plates had it not been for another inconvenient fact about the state of Texas' commitment to life. See here and here for the most recent data.

"Be Prepared"

The unsettling events of the past decade - eight years of Bush-Cheney's reign of terror, 9/ 11, an economy in the doldrums, two wars dragging on for years and now a black president in the White House, have some Americans feeling particularly paranoid. Hate groups are quietly increasing their ranks and recruitment efforts, anti-immigration fervor is high, guns and ammo sales have spiked and the Explorer program of the Boy Scouts of America is training teenagers to fight terrorism and illegal immigration.

Although Sir Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts movement in America was a passionate pro-military patriot and scouting does have an element of quasi-military regimentation (duty, obedience, honor, patriotism etc), for the most part youngsters in the program are taught values like discipline, teamwork, responsibility and self-reliance. We don't expect scouts to be well armed and combat trained. But apparently, some adults feel that a scout's training should not be limited just to learning  rope knots, lighting campfires, pitching tents and earning merit badges through community service.

IMPERIAL, Calif. — Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.

The responding officers — eight teenage boys and girls, the youngest 14 — face tripwire, a thin cloud of poisonous gas and loud shots — BAM! BAM! — fired from behind a flimsy wall. They move quickly, pellet guns drawn and masks affixed.

“United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!” screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued.

It is all quite a step up from the square knot.

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

“Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”

No matter what the Explorer leaders say about the training being confined to simulated settings, we know that children like to show off their skills to impress others, especially the ones they also enjoy practising. Filled with patriotic zeal and paranoia, some may begin to nurture adventurous fantasies.

Cathy Noriego, also 16, said she was attracted by the guns. The group uses compressed-air guns — known as airsoft guns, which fire tiny plastic pellets — in the training exercises, and sometimes they shoot real guns on a closed range.

“I like shooting them,” Cathy said. “I like the sound they make. It gets me excited.”

What is to prevent Cathy or another Explorer from deciding that the man mowing the lawn next door is an illegal immigrant or the gas station attendant looks like a terrorist and taking matters in his/ her own hands with the hope of becoming the neighborhood hero?  In any case, how is this a good idea, pumping unnecessary fear into young minds and teaching them to take lethal action? We point fingers at fundamentalist Islamic nations for fueling jihadist fires. We claim that the ill education offered by the madrassas is early training for terrorism later in life. What are we then doing through such stupid drills under the aegis of a respectable youth organization like the Boy Scouts? Creating future xenophobic, trigger-happy goons? How can we go about "civilizing" the rest of the world when our elected leaders attack other countries without provocation like the old Soviet Union and torture  prisoners like middle eastern theocracies and third world dicatorships? How safe can we become by ridding ourselves of decency and common sense? Should we now also go down the same road as the Congo, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone and train child soldiers?  How safe will that make us?  And how civilized?

"Be Prepared" is the motto of the Boy Scouts. "For what?"  Baden-Powell was often asked. "Why, for any old thing," he's supposed to have answered. Any old thing, indeed. At this rate of fear mongering, that may no longer include helping little old ladies waiting to cross the street!

Food for thought and the palate

I have been sitting on a couple of blog posts that I wanted to expand upon since they appeared on 3 Quarks Daily  on the same day in the beginning of March. Both pertain to food, both are written by Indian born authors who muse on Asian food habits and their relation to religion, culture and the versatility of the human taste buds. 

The first article is written by Namit Arora who is familiar to our readers through his comments and blog linked on A.B.  Namit took his readers through the eating habits of two large Asian countries - India and China, geographic neighbors with ancient histories and vastly disparate culinary cultures.  He focuses on the prevalent natural, religious, and philosophical climates that may have influenced the choice of food of the two peoples, in particular, meat eating and vegetarianism. Read the article and comments below and see if you find the arguments convincing. Although Namit did not address the morality of eating meat in this article, I know that he had the thought in mind (he admitted to me as much in an email) as I myself do occasionally. If I were to ponder this issue, the practice of killing animals for food or other consumer products, I will have to answer some of the following:

• Is it an "all or nothing" proposition?  Is killing another sentient being for our comfort and appetite immoral under all circumstances?
• Does the mere fact of eating amount to immorality or is the suffering of the animal the more important issue?
• Does eating less meat and therefore killing fewer animals count for moral Brownie points? Do waste and over indulgence count towards immorality of meat eating? (the US population will fail miserably)
• Does the "life" of the slaughtered animal matter - (free grazing vs factory farmed) as much as its death?
• Do "compassionate" killing methods count in alleviating the moral pangs?
• If we ate the meat of an animal that died "accidentally" without any affirmative killing agent involved, is that ethical?
• Why can't we eat our dogs and cats but can slaughter the chicken and cows in the backyard who too can become like our pets when we take care of them?
• Should we look upon ourselves as biologically inclined meat eaters like many other carnivores / omnivores and merely accept our place in the food chain? Or are humans, as highly evolved beings with ethics and morality a significant guiding principle in the thought process, be able to buck our "natural" inclinations and formulate our eating habits to accommodate the rights of other animals?

As an animal lover I have oftentimes grappled with the above thoughts. I have answers to some and not to others. But I continue to eat meat. If some day, the fact of another animal dying (being killed) for my food starts to weigh too much on my conscience, I will indeed become a vegetarian. And if I do, one particular veggie will definitely figure prominently on my menu. That vegetable is bitter melon or karela (in Hindi),  a delicacy in some parts of the world, mostly in Asia. Not everyone can stand the taste of it, some not even when it is disguised with spices and other ingredients. The second post on 3QD is about this very same bitter item of food. Author Aditya Dev Sood waxes philosophical on why some among us would choose not only to eat but thoroughly enjoy something that by normal standards of palatability, should be quite unpalatable.

Karela is a truly bitter vegetable and the taste is somewhat acquired or perhaps one has a genetic predisposition to enjoying it or not. I myself have loved it from early childhood, when most children reject bitter, to the astonishment of adults. I enjoy almost all the ways the vegetable is prepared. I can even eat it plain, just boiled with a sprinkling of salt. My husband on the other hand, can only consume a few mouthfuls even when it is spiced up. If any uninitiated reader would like to try it, I will present here a few tips and recipes for consuming karela. 
 
First, a quick guide to karela buying. There are two varieties of the vegetable. The Chinese variety features larger, smoother gourds which are less bitter and less delicious to my bitter loving palate. It is more widely available both in Asian markets as well as in the produce section of large grocery stores. The Indian variety is smaller, crunchier and more bristly looking (see photos of both varieties in the Wiki link).  Usually, only Indian or Pakistani stores carry the Indian variety. Also, the Indian bitter gourd  is decidedly more bitter and truer to the karela taste that I crave. If you have never tasted the veggie, you may wish to begin with the less bitter Chinese variety.

Recipes follow.

This Should Be Fun!

Can't wait to see this happen. But given the physical and moral cowardice of right wing blowhards, it probably won't.

The Torturers

While the lawmakers and the media are tiptoeing around the torture memos and debating whom they implicate, cartoonist Nick Anderson of the Houston Chronicle evokes images of Abu Ghraib to point to the real torturers.

Bybee Bleg (Joe)

Does anybody who has been watching/reading the news more carefully than I have lately know if there's any serious talk about impeaching Jay Bybee? 

Just curious.  With the most recent release of torture memos, I'm sure there's increased chatter regarding the possibility that John Yoo -- and, a fortiori, Jay Bybee -- is a war criminal. 

And actually, double bleg: if there is talk about impeaching Bybee, is anyone aware of doubts being raised as to whether he can be impeached? 

I'm curious about this last one because Bybee is a federal judge, which means that Article III of the U.S. Constitution gives him life tenure "during good behavior."  Compare the President, who is removable under Article II for "high crimes and misdemeanors."  My knee-jerk reaction to the text is to say that this is a relevantly different standard.  Committing war crimes would surely be a high crime or misdemeanor, and indeed, "good behavior" sets the bar lower here.  Behave badly and the Congress can remove you.  But the word "during" suggests a temporal element, so that you must behave badly while a federal judge.  If I'm right, Judge Bybee can't (constitutionally) be removed because he committed war crimes while a DOJ lawyer -- he would actually have to be tried and convicted, in which case he wouldn't be able to fulfill his judicial responsibilities.

Tortured Logic

The story of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by the Bush-Cheney administration is now unfolding in strange and unexpected ways. Just until last Sunday, President Obama and his spokespersons, even while they made the torture memos public, insisted that no prosecution of the planners and the executors was on the horizon. Suddenly, just in the past two days, the position of the Obama administration has changed to "if not prosecution, at least a probe" of the matter is warranted.

Reversing weeks of White House resistance to the idea, President Barack Obama said Tuesday he’s open to creating a blue-ribbon panel to investigate Bush administration excesses during the war on terror.

“If and when there needs to be a fuller accounting of what took place during this period, I think for Congress to examine ways that it can be done in a bipartisan fashion, outside of the typical hearing process that can sometimes break down and break entirely along party lines, ... that would probably be a more sensible approach to take,” Obama said during an Oval Office press availability with King Abdullah of Jordan.

Obama stopped short of endorsing the “truth commission” idea, which has been advanced in recent months by Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) However, his comments were markedly more positive toward the idea than those of White House aides, who have repeatedly brushed aside the suggestion.

Obama's reluctant hand may have been forced by lawmakers like Sen Diane Feinstein asking for further scrutiny of the torture methods and others like Sen Patrick Leahy and Congressman John Conyers demanding the impeachment of Judge Jay Baybee who as a DOJ lawyer under Bush authored a memo endorsing those methods.

The really odd thing in all this is the behavior of former vice president Dick Cheney. While all other Bush operatives have been silent, Cheney has defiantly defended the illegalities that took place during his tenure. He has even implied that the Obama administration's reluctance to participate in similar extra-Constitutional activities may endanger the security of the US.  In a stunning move, the normally secretive Cheney demanded that the CIA make public more information about torture in order to prove to the American public that techniques like waterboarding of suspected terrorists kept the country safe.  But others have suggested that the former veep may have more mercenary motives in wishing to see the secret files de-classified. He is writing a memoir and would like to use the information to brag about his muscular machismo.

Researching his memoirs, former Vice President Dick Cheney is pushing the CIA to declassify files that he claims would vindicate the CIA’s use of coercive interrogation techniques that President Barack Obama has banned.

The request, which the CIA has not yet answered, sets up a showdown between the past and current administrations. Cheney can be expected to argue that the Obama administration's publication of other files last week is a precedent for release of the reports he wants. Cheney contends that the information he seeks does not pose a threat to anyone, nor to intelligence sources and methods.

Cheney originally requested the reports in late March as he worked on his book, but now thinks the documents should be made public immediately as evidence that waterboarding and other controversial practices deterred terrorist attacks and therefore saved American lives.

The CIA declined to comment on Cheney's request. Other officials say a demand like Cheney's is so legally complex that it’s unsurprising the government has not yet answered him.

The president asserts that the techniques amounted to unwise and immoral torture, and has set out to show the world that he will take a different approach. Disavowing the memos during a visit to CIA headquarters on Monday, Obama said in public remarks to the Langley workforce: “I believe that our nation is stronger and more secure when we deploy the full measure of both our power and the power of our values –- including the rule of law.”

Vicoprofin? No, just ibuprofen? (Joe)

I don't believe anyone here at Accidental Blogger has yet mentioned the strip-search case currently pending at the U.S. Supreme Court.  A school strip searched a 13 year old girl; the legal question is whether that violated her constitutional rights, which disturbingly is not an easy question.  One of her classmates had gotten caught taking a pill at school, and said she got the pill from her.  The school had a zero tolerance policy or something.

Here's the most shocking aspect of this to me: the strip search was conducted because of the suspicion that the girl had provided another student with prescription-strength ibuprofen.  That's a double dose of Advil!  Forget the constitutional-law aspect of this -- what type of school administrator orders a strip search in order to catch a girl with ibuprofen?

Second most shocking aspect of this: at oral arguments, the lawyer for the school district told Justice Scalia that yes, the Constitution would allow even a body-cavity search. Not that anyone would ever do that. But Scalia's not allowed to stop them.

UPDATE: Apparently, at oral arguments Justice Breyer raised the point that people stuck things in his underwear when he was in school.

“So what am I supposed to do? In my experience when I was 8 or 10 or 12 years old, you know, we did take our clothes off once a day, we changed for gym, okay? And in my experience, too, people did sometimes stick things in my underwear.”

He stopped in his tracks as the entire courtroom dissolved into laughter. Then he attempted to dig himself out:

“Or not my underwear. Whatever. Whatever. I was the one who did it? I don’t know.”

Which explains why the vice principal would think a strip search was appropriate? I'm not really sure where he was going with this one.

Bush-Cheney's Torture Memos

In case you haven't watched today's news, here are the "torture memos" issued by Bush-Cheney's Justice Department which enabled the top administration bosses and their underlings in the CIA to carry out illegal torture tactics on prisoners.  War criminals like Dick Cheney still justify their actions with impunity. Why should he worry? The weak-kneed Obama administration, even while making the memos public, has made it clear that it intends to paper over the lawlessness of its predecessors for the sake of moving forward.

Who are the real pirates?

Why become a pirate? Perhaps because other "honest" means of livelihood have been destroyed? Lawlessness is a menace whether perpetrated by pirates or "civilized" governments. So reveals Johann Hari in the Independent. (via 3 QD) Hari also reflects on the rebellious and brutal history of pirates, some of whom were mercenaries for legitimate European regimes.

Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy – backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China – is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labelling as "one of the great menaces of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell – and some justice on their side.

The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young British man called William Scott, should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."

Ask, Tell? (Joe)

In an e-mail following up on the Iowa Supreme Court's same-sex marriage decision, Ruchira mentions the possibility of a challenge to the military.  "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" means that openly gay (or bisexual?) members of the military are not permitted to serve, but everyone is supposed to just not mention it and look the other way. 

During his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama had promised to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  Because it's a statute, we actually need the Congress to do it legislatively, although the Obama administration could arguably just refuse to enforce it.  In any event, the Obama administration is enforcing the law and has recently -- allegedly temporarily -- given up on reform. 

This is a little strange because repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell enjoys widespread popular support -- far more than same-sex marriage (and, I suspect without fact-checking, more than civil unions).  So you'd think it should happen easily through the political process.  But right now it's not.  The question then becomes, Is it going to happen through a court challenge?

I doubt it.  The Constitution basically does apply in the military, but the Supreme Court has traditionally recognized "the unique nature of military society" in modifying constitutional requirements.  This is true, for example, in the realm of criminal procedure.  I suspect that if there's anywhere where the military will be entitled to deference, it's on an issue like this which purportedly relates to the military's ability to operate effectively. 

In short, a court challenge, while not inevitably unsuccessful, would almost certainly be weaker than a challenge to marriage laws, and is thus further away.  It's hard to believe that policy makers haven't fixed this problem, though, and I suspect they will long before a successful court challenge could be mounted.

Marriage After Iowa (Joe)

Yesterday the Iowa Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Varnum v. Brien, holding that the equal protection provision of the Iowa Constitution requires the availability of same-sex civil marriage. 

This is starting to look like a strong, and increasing, trend in favor of state recognition of same-sex marriage.  Iowa joins the high courts of Massachusetts and Connecticut in mandating full marriage equality.  (California, of course, had also done that, but its decision was overturned by Prop 8.  Unlike California, Iowa's constitution is not absurdly easy to amend, so there is little chance of a similar amendment in this case.) 

One thing I did not realize until just now is that we may soon see legislation (which was not mandated by courts) creating same-sex marriages.  According to the San Francisco Chronicle, legislation is pending in Vermont, New Hampshire, and New Jersey.  In Vermont it has passed through both houses, although the governor has threatened to veto it.  In New Hampshire it has passed a house vote and is awaiting a vote by the senate.  In New Jersey a bill has been introduced in the legislature; the governor has vowed to sign it.  Legislative success would refute the complaints about judicial activism and a lack of democratic legitimacy.  It would also further embolden courts to make constitutional decisions in favor of marriage equality.

The speed at which these decisions are now rolling out is also significant.  The California Supreme Court decided its case less than a year ago; Connecticut decided its less than six months ago.  With each case it becomes easier for the next state to cite it and follow in its stead.  The fact that Iowa is widely regarded as the purple, mainstreamish leader of the heartland only strengthens the case.  No one has ever accused Iowa of being full of pot-smoking hippies, or liberal, coastal elitists. 

I wouldn't be surprised to see Minnesota follow, leaning heavily on its well-regarded neighbor of a supreme court.  And what then?  Wisconsin?  No, sadly -- we run into a problem at that point.  Wisconsin is one of 29 states with a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage; this group is comprised mainly of conservative states, but in addition to Wisconsin also includes Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, and Oregon. 

So let's say Vermont, New Hampshire, and New Jersey pass their legislation.  The Minnesota judiciary follows Iowa.  At least some out of a group including Rhode Island, New York, Maine, Washington, and Pennsylvania could be expected to follow, as well as possibly a surprise like New Mexico.  Asking for all of that would be too much, but within a few years it's realistic to expect CT, MA, IA, NJ, NH, as well as, say, MN, RI, NY, and WA to have same-sex marriage.  That's 9 states, 7 of them on the basis of judicial decisions.  The figure could not go higher than 21 on state grounds, which is where the next interesting step comes into play: federal constitutional law.  What happens then is harder to guess at -- it's plausible that federal or state judges will want to be the ones to kick off a U.S. Constitution-based right to marriage equality, but if it happens too soon, the U.S. Supreme Court will kill it (unless Justice Kennedy is convinced by the growing state trend and wants to be the one to really top it off -- he would obviously get that opinion).

In any event, this is great news out of Iowa.  It's an important step toward legal equality for gay people in this country, and for now there is reason for optimism.

Unraveling The "Webb" of Injustice

In just the past week, I wrote about the overcrowded and sometimes cruel prison system in the US and Joe took President Obama to task for not providing a serious answer to the question of  legalization of marijuana. It is important to note that one of the principal reasons for the high rate of incarceration in our country is that a large number of inmates occupying prison cells happen to be non-violent  offenders who go to jail for drug related offenses.

Most American politicians like to run on a tough electoral platform of "law and order."  Being "soft on crime" is an epithet a politician dreads. So hardly any elected official loses sleep over the plight of prisoners and the violation of their civil and human rights. One US senator though has worked hard to shine the light on the grossly flawed penal system in the most powerful (and free) country in the world.  Sen Jim Webb (D-VA) whom I have lauded more than once for his honesty and courage before,  has introduced a bill to create a commission that will focus on the many shortcomings of our criminal justice system. The bill has garnered the support of senators of both political parties - a rare achievement in itself. In the introduction to the bill, Senator Webb explains the need for the commission:

The National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 that I introduced in the Senate on March 26, 2009 will create a blue-ribbon commission to look at every aspect of our criminal justice system with an eye toward reshaping the process from top to bottom. I believe that it is time to bring together the best minds in America to confer, report, and make concrete recommendations about how we can reform the process.

Why We Urgently Need this Legislation:

• With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses 25% of the world's reported prisoners.

• Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.

• Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.

• Approximately 1 million gang members reside in the U.S., many of them foreign-based; and Mexican cartels operate in 230+ communities across the country.

• Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard and often nonexistent, undermining public safety and making it extremely difficult for ex-offenders to become full, contributing members of society.

America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.

We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration.

In an article in Parade magazine, titled Why We Must Fix Our Prisons Webb explains in more detail what he considers wrong with our prison system and our drug laws. I am impressed by the senator - his tireless advocacy and initiative on behalf of the most neglected segment of our society and for confronting unpopular issues like the wrong headed drug laws which operate under significant racial and economic biases.  And to think that the unlikely electoral victory of Webb, a former Republican, came  about because of the careless arrogance of his popular and powerful GOP opponent. We can thank the macaca for giving us a politician with the courage of his conviction. 

The Torment of Solitude

The US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. One recent report puts the number of people behind bars at slightly higher than 2 million (including local jails). That translates to nearly one out of one hundred American adults. Of these, many are in Supermax penitentiaries where prisoners are kept under lock-down 23 hours a day . Inmates who are deemed especially dangerous are kept in solitary confinement where there is no interaction whatsoever with another human being.  The living conditions in the SHU (Security Housing Units), the prison cells designed to create complete isolation, have raised the concern of human rights groups. A UN task force investigating torture argued that the punishment meted out in the SHU is "inhumane and degrading."  Dr. Atul Gawande, the excellent writer of medical matters in the popular media, agrees. In an article in the New Yorker he calls such prison cells "hellholes" and argues that prolonged and forced solitude may be tantamount to torture.

Human beings are social creatures. We are social not just in the trivial sense that we like company, and not just in the obvious sense that we each depend on others. We are social in a more elemental way: simply to exist as a normal human being requires interaction with other people.

Children provide the clearest demonstration of this fact, although it was slow to be accepted. Well into the nineteen-fifties, psychologists were encouraging parents to give children less attention and affection, in order to encourage independence. Then Harry Harlow, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, produced a series of influential studies involving baby rhesus monkeys. .....

We have been hesitant to apply these lessons to adults. Adults, after all, are fully formed, independent beings, with internal strengths and knowledge to draw upon. We wouldn’t have anything like a child’s dependence on other people, right? Yet it seems that we do. We don’t have a lot of monkey experiments to call upon here. But mankind has produced tens of thousands of human ones, including in our prison system. And the picture that has emerged is profoundly unsettling.

Among our most benign experiments are those with people who voluntarily isolate themselves for extended periods. Long-distance solo sailors, for instance, commit themselves to months at sea. They face all manner of physical terrors: thrashing storms, fifty-foot waves, leaks, illness. Yet, for many, the single most overwhelming difficulty they report is the “soul-destroying loneliness,” as one sailor called it. Astronauts have to be screened for their ability to tolerate long stretches in tightly confined isolation, and they come to depend on radio and video communications for social contact.

The problem of isolation goes beyond ordinary loneliness, however. Consider what we’ve learned from hostages who have been held in solitary confinement—from the journalist Terry Anderson, for example, whose extraordinary memoir, “Den of Lions,” recounts his seven years as a hostage of Hezbollah in Lebanon......

......On December 4, 1991, Terry Anderson was released from captivity. He had been the last and the longest-held American hostage in Lebanon. I spoke to Keron Fletcher, a former British military psychiatrist who had been on the receiving team for Anderson and many other hostages, and followed them for years afterward. Initially, Fletcher said, everyone experiences the pure elation of being able to see and talk to people again, especially family and friends. They can’t get enough of other people, and talk almost non-stop for hours. They are optimistic and hopeful. But, afterward, normal sleeping and eating patterns prove difficult to reëstablish. Some have lost their sense of time. For weeks, they have trouble managing the sensations and emotional complexities of their freedom.

For the first few months after his release, Anderson said when I reached him by phone recently, “it was just kind of a fog.” He had done many television interviews at the time. “And if you look at me in the pictures? Look at my eyes. You can tell. I look drugged.”

Most hostages survived their ordeal, Fletcher said, although relationships, marriages, and careers were often lost. Some found, as John McCain did, that the experience even strengthened them. Yet none saw solitary confinement as anything less than torture. This presents us with an awkward question: If prolonged isolation is—as research and experience have confirmed for decades—so objectively horrifying, so intrinsically cruel, how did we end up with a prison system that may subject more of our own citizens to it than any other country in history has?

The long article is worth reading.

Lust For Life

The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that terminal cancer patients with religious faith are more likely to resort to heroic measures to prolong life than their secular counterparts. (see the NIH publication, Medicine Plus) 

TUESDAY, March 17 (HealthDay News) -- People with advanced cancer who turn to their religion to help them cope are more likely to use aggressive measures to prolong their lives at the end, new research shows.

Published in the March 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study found that those who turn to their faith for comfort during their illness are significantly more likely to use intensive lifesaving measures, such as mechanical ventilation.

"In a large study of terminally ill cancer patients, we found that patients that rely more heavily on religion to cope are about three times as likely to get aggressive medical care in the last week of life," said study author Dr. Andrea C. Phelps, a senior medical resident at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Phelps said the study wasn't able to address the question of why people who rely heavily on their religion might be more apt to use any lifesaving measure available, but there are several possible theories. One is that, "they may be more optimistic because they have faith in God, and their religious faith may provide them hope near death," Phelps said. Another possibility is that those who lean on their religion "may want all measures to extend the length of their life because they believe in the sanctity of life." (emphasis mine)

Almost nine in 10 cancer patients involved in a recent multi-center study said that religion and spirituality were important to them in handling their diagnosis, according to background information in the study.

Intensive life-prolonging care was defined as the use of mechanical ventilation or cardiopulmonary resuscitation during the last week of life.

Those who reported a high level of religious coping were much more likely to use intensive life-prolonging measures than those with low levels of reliance on religion for coping -- 13.6 percent vs. 4.2 percent. Just over 11 percent of those with high levels of religious coping were placed on mechanical ventilation compared to 3.6 percent of those with low levels. The rate of resuscitation for those with high levels of religious coping was 7.4 percent compared to 1.8 percent of those with low levels of religious coping.

"Many people, within the framework of their belief system, want to make sure we're giving God every opportunity to see if something can change in the course of care," said the Rev. Percy McCray Jr., director of pastoral care and social services at Cancer Treatment Centers of America's Midwestern Regional Medical Center in Zion, Ill.

"People who are religious or faith-based don't want to prematurely give in to the idea of cancer. They want to know that they did everything they could do; they want the sense of having fought," he said. (emphasis mine)

Phelps said this study shows physicians how important religion can be to their patients. "Doctors need to recognize that religion is central in how many people make their decisions, and we need to be really sensitive to this and open to talking about it," she said. At the same time, she said, patients need to let their doctors know that faith is important to them and that it's playing a role in how they adjust to a terminal illness.

Interesting. One would have thought that a strong religious faith would in fact equip a devout person with greater strength and equanimity to face death than those with secular materialistic beliefs. So, why would the religious be more willing to prolong life? (Remember Terri Schiavo) The report speculates on some possibilities. I would like to add a few more.

• Religious people are more satisfied with their earthly lives and therefore more reluctant to let go.
• Afraid of death, many hold fast to the idea of eternal life but when faced with the impending end, begin to waver in their faith.
• Having internalized the concept of heaven and hell, perhaps some are just afraid that the neighborhood where their life after death will be spent lies on the wrong side of the celestial tracks.

Dick Cheney's Assassination Inc.

If this report turns out to be accurate, I don't see how even the faint hearted Obama administration can avoid seeking prosecution for war crimes ... or at least a thorough investigation. (Unless the Obamaites too are using the same killing outfit?)

Journalist Seymour Hersh speaking at the University of Minnesota:

At a “Great Conversations” event (MP3) at the University of Minnesota last night, legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh may have made a little more news than he intended by talking about new alleged instances of domestic spying by the CIA, and about an ongoing covert military operation that he called an “executive assassination ring.”

Hersh spoke with great confidence about these findings from his current reporting, which he hasn’t written about yet.

At the end of one answer by Hersh about how these things tend to happen, Jacobs asked: “And do they continue to happen to this day?”

Replied Hersh:

“Yuh. After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet. That does happen.

"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

"Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

"It’s complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder. It’s a very complicated issue. Because they are young men that went into the Special Forces. The Delta Forces you’ve heard about. Navy Seal teams. Highly specialized.

"In many cases, they were the best and the brightest. Really, no exaggerations. Really fine guys that went in to do the kind of necessary jobs that they think you need to do to protect America. And then they find themselves torturing people.

"I’ve had people say to me -- five years ago, I had one say: ‘What do you call it when you interrogate somebody and you leave them bleeding and they don’t get any medical committee and two days later he dies. Is that murder? What happens if I get before a committee?’

"But they’re not gonna get before a committee.”

GLAD sues US in MA (Joe)

From CNN:

A legal advocacy group sued the federal government Tuesday, seeking benefits for 15 gay and lesbian Massachusetts residents who wed after the state legalized same-sex marriage.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders -- the same Boston-based group that successfully argued in 2003 for same-sex marriage rights in Massachusetts -- filed the lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Boston on behalf of six couples and three men whose husbands have died.

The suit contends the federal Defense of Marriage Act denies them protections and benefits that heterosexual couples receive, including health insurance for federal employees, the ability to file as "married filing jointly" on federal income taxes and Social Security spousal protections.

* * *

GLAD's suit addresses only Section 3 of the law, a portion that prevents the federal government from giving Social Security and other protections to same-sex married couples.

Should they have waited, giving Obama time to fill up the federal courts with a few more moderates?  Will this suit win?  I don't know.  But I'm oddly exited about this.  I think DOMA, on these facts, is plainly unconstitutional -- the provisions refusing federal benefits to same-sex married (or civil unioned) couples pretty clearly reflects nothing more than a "bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group," as they say.  Recently a couple of well-known judges on the Ninth Circuit, including conservative Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, have suggested that DOMA is unconstitutional in this respect.  

One thing the plaintiffs are clearly doing right is limiting the claim.  A challenge to the "no recognition of gay marriages as marriages" portion would surely fail.  That would probably make it harder in the future to overrule that precedent; it would also endanger the rest of the litigation, and cause a greater political frenzy.

And while we're on the topic, I'd just like to mention that Bill Clinton signed DOMA in 1996.  It's one of the most rotten things he did as President, and the Act does far much more than merely allow states to refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in Massachusetts or Connecticut (or at the time, Hawaii), no matter how much he attempts to spin it that way.  As we have noted from time to time at this blog, the Clinton years are far from perfect, no matter how they seem in relation to the (worst of all time?) Bush II years.

Boneheads

George W. Bush's aristocratic family boasted several dedicated Yalies, many of whom were members of Yale University's ultra secret Skull and Bones Society, home to a number of movers and shakers of America's establishment ruling class. A decades old adventure of one Bonesman Bush is now the basis for a modern day lawsuit. George Bush's grandfather Prescott Bush is said to have robbed the grave of the famous Apache leader Geronimo, for his "skull and bones" as a treasured prize for the  eponymous secretive fraternity. It is tempting to speculate that the same arrogance that plagued the grave-robbing Bush ancestor, may have manifested itself as an atavistic trait in his frat boy grandson whose monumental prank as president nearly turned the nation of Iraq into a graveyard. Geronimo  the warrior, who spent his life fighting against occupiers, can't even turn over in his own grave.  

They claim his body was taken by members of Skull and Bones, a secret student society, and are hidden at Yale University.

George W Bush's grandfather and two other members of the group are said to have taken the remains of the Apache warrior Geronimo during the First World War.

However, the society's repeated refusal to comment on the story, or on rumours that new members have to kiss the chief's skull, have prompted the extraordinary lawsuit.

In a court action that names not only Yale and the society, but also Barack Obama and Robert Gates, his defence secretary, 20 descendants of the famous American Indian leader are seeking to recover his remains so his spirit can be laid to rest in his tribal homeland.

Their legal action, filed this week in a federal-district court in Washington DC on the 100th anniversary of his death, will seek to determine the truth of rumours that Geronimo's burial at Fort Sill in Oklahoma was not his final resting place.

Three Bonesmen, including Prescott Bush, served at Fort Sill during the First World War.

The trio were rumoured to have dug up Geronimo's remains in 1918 and took some of them back to Yale where they are supposedly still kept in the society's hall – known as the "Tomb" – on the university campus.

The Skull and Bones, whose illustrious membership has numbered three US presidents including both Bushes, supposedly makes new members kiss the Chiricahua Apache's skull.

Then there is Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania whose right wing blather no longer reverberates on the senate floor but is unfortunately still to be heard on the speaking circuit where he continues to spread fear and misinformation about war and peace. On a recent tour of college campuses to "present his idea that Americans do not truly understand why the United States is at war," Santorum tried to explain the conflict in the middle east to students at the University of Nebraska. Mixing politics and religion to make his case, the senator proved that he is ignorant on both fronts.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum visited the auditorium of the Nebraska Union on Tuesday to present his idea that Americans do not truly understand why the United States is at war.

Santorum is passing through the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as a part of his college campus tour on which he describes to students what he believes are the dangers in not knowing what is going on in the Middle East.

“I talk to college students because I can have an intellectual conversation, and they usually don’t agree with me,” Santorum said. “I like to state my case (to students) and let them decide who to believe.”

Santorum was a member of the United States Senate from 1994-2007. He believes that the Bush administration made a huge mistake in not informing Americans exactly what’s happening with the wars and who America is fighting. He said the Obama administration is making the same mistake.

“America has little information and Bush went out of his way to mystify who the enemy really is,” Santorum said. “Is that true, are we really fighting ‘terrorists?’”

Santorum also gave the audience a lecture on Islam. When he asked the audience who knew the difference between the Sunnis and the Shi’ites, three audience members raised their hands. Santorum said this proved his point – America has been at war with Islam for seven years and doesn’t know the two branches.

Santorum said he supported the war when it was unpopular because he thinks not fighting could destroy western civilization. He said he believes that Muslims are America’s enemy because they read their religion literally and apply it to real life, instead of in historical context.

The lecture continued when Santorum pointed out what he thought were the main differences between Christians and Muslims. Santorum said Christians, who believe in Jesus Christ, never governed or conquered anyone, but Mohammed was a warrior and killed people.

Santorum said he believes Muslims’ religious views cannot be changed or altered, so Middle Easterners reject American, democratic ideals.

“A democracy could not exist because Mohammed already made the perfect law,” Santorum said. “The Quran is perfect just the way it is, that’s why it is only written in Islamic.” (emphasis mine)

Someone needs to inform the senator that the Quran is NOT written in Islamic. Just as the New Testament is not written in the Christian language, the Torah in Jewish, the Gita in Hindu ... nor by the way, the US Constitution in American. And also, Santorum conveniently forgot Christianity's messy Crusades, Inquistion and colonialism.  

Name that fallacy... (Joe)

In a New York Times op-ed, the co-authors (one for same-sex marriage, one against) propose the obvious compromise: replace the federal Defense of Marriage Act with something slightly less beastly, and moderately less constitutionally infirm.  Basically, federal civil-union or domestic-partnership law.  Same-sex couples still can't get the name marriage for federal purposes, but they can get the civil benefits offered by the federal government if they are given marriage or civil-union status under state law.  (To be fair, the more obvious compromise [still beastly, but less so, and no longer constitutionally infirm] would be full-fledged federal civil-union law: same-sex couples are guaranteed the right to create civil unions, period.)

Anyhow, I support same-sex marriage because I'm not a horrible person, but as a political matter, federal recognition of civil unions is certainly worth talking about, and is a plausibly reasonable compromise.  What bugs me about this op-ed is that they think federal legislation here should include a "condition":

Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill.

This seems to come up a lot: "We need protection for religious freedom, laws creating same-sex marriage could force churches to change religious doctrine!"  This is flatly ridiculous.  I believe it's what you would call a red herring, although I could be wrong on that -- my philosophy days are long behind me.  My law days, however, are not, and it's clear that discussion of religious-freedom exceptions both distracts from real issues and gets people worrying about something which is actually impossible.

The First Amendment protects the freedom of religion, forbidding state establishment of religion as well as state infringement on the free exercise of religion.  As a factual matter, I am not aware of any state with same-sex marriage which has purported to require religious recognition of same-sex civil marriages (nor am I aware of any state without same-sex civil marriage which recognizes, for civil purposes, same-sex religious marriage).  More important, as a constitutional matter, neither a state nor the federal government could do so.  If the First Amendment means anything, it means that religious organizations cannot be forced by government to recognize same-sex marriage.  (There are also judicial doctrines, such as the ministerial exception, which protect the freedom of religious organizations and preclude judicial inquiry on marginal issues such as employment discrimination.)

This type of sophistry, even if well-intentioned, in fact distracts from any real debatable issues and functions to get the socially conservative base riled up.  I'm sick of hearing about the need for statutory protection of religious freedom, which falsely makes it seem as if that protection is not existent and fully secure.  Church-state separation on this issue is probably as doubt-free as anything in the Bill of Rights.  So let's stop talking about it as if it's even debatably in need of aid, okay?

It's NOT cheaper by the dozen... or Goodman and Good Sense # 7

As a concession to the grumbling GOP members of the Congress, President Obama dropped the provision for family planning and contraception for low income families from his economic stimulus package. Not that it did much to garner bipartisan support - no Republican voted for the bill.  The conservatives had argued that family planning is not a means of stimulating the economy. As usual, they are wrong. Helping low income families have fewer children may not be a direct way to boost the economy in terms of creating jobs but indirectly it is indeed a way to create prosperity by reducing costs in social services. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi points out in the article, savings too are good for the economy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi-D-Calif., appeared to sidestep the question when she was pressed over the weekend to explain how family-planning money would boost the economy or create jobs.

"Well, the family-planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost," she said on ABC.

"The states are in terrible fiscal budget crisis now, and part of it, what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements, are to help the states meet their financial needs," she said. "One of those, one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception ... will reduce cost to the state and to the federal government."

Unfortunately, in the minds of conservatives any discussion of contraception and family planning here and around the world, is inextricably linked to just one thing - abortion. Every time the matter of limiting birth rate comes up, the specter of abortion becomes front and center. In their zeal to abolish abortion, the right wing often ends up opposing funding and education for any form of birth control.  There is much to be settled in the abortion debate. However, family planning is NOT abortion. If anything, proper contraception is a deterrent to abortion, making it unnecessary.

I was born in a country where overpopulation is the single most identifiable cause of poverty, infant death, poor maternal health and malnourishment of the young. Far be it for me to dictate who should have a baby and who should not. But it doesn't take much deductive power to figure out why large numbers of children around the world are condemned to a life of need and unrealized potential. Most of them are poor and often born in families with too many mouths to feed and too many minds to nurture.  One image of a perfect (or near perfect) world that I envisage is where most, if not all babies are born to responsible and willing parents who can provide them with the basic minimums of health, nourishment, emotional support and education. That of course, is an idealistic dream. Meanwhile, responsible governments everywhere should have that very goal in mind for their citizens as far as is practical. I am not for eugenics, communist China style punitive measures of limiting family size nor the coercive attempts at population control  that Indira Gandhi attempted in India in the 1970s for which she was rightly voted out of office. But what about common sense?  What is not desirable about educating people that given the limited global resources, small families are good for parents, children and the world at large and then aiding those who like the idea?

Of course, the right wingers who are perpetually on a warpath against abortion in particular and contraception in general to a large degree, hardly ever raise their voices at irresponsible child bearing. (How else can they maintain a steady pool of man power to do cheap labor and fight the wars? ) More often than not, we hear from them that "children are gifts from god." God or not, most children born to poor mothers without access to contraceptives, especially in underdeveloped countries indeed are born the old fashioned way. But that doesn't hold true for wealthier, developed societies. Medical science now plays a vital role in making childbirth possible for parents who otherwise would remain childless. Fertility drugs, in-vitro births, surrogate pregnancies etc. are now thriving businesses of birthing. The alarming case of Nadya Suleman, the 33 year old single, unemployed mother of six who gave birth to an additional set of octupulets recently, has focused the public's attention on the physical, social and ethical aspects of unbridled fecundity. When does someone else's personal choices become our business? What ethical guidelines are there in place for the fertility industry? What are the penalties for non-compliance?  Ellen Goodman explains with her usual aplomb.

"They bent down and listened to my heart,"

We have recently focused a lot on the greed and self absorption (here, here and here) of the wealthy and the powerful who even with plenty to spare, don't stop to think of others less fortunate than themselves. Here now for a refreshing change is the story of ordinary people who thought of the need of others even in a time of extraordinary grief. 

CLIFTON, N.J. — James O'Hea was told privately his failing heart gave him little more than a month to live. Terence Begley's diabetes meant more years of dialysis and deteriorating kidneys.  That was before a tragic event — the shooting of three people in a church last November — turned life-affirming through the quick response of one victim's family.

O'Hea, Begley and three other people received organs from 25-year-old Dennis John Malloosseril (mahl-LOO'-sir-ihl). He was shot and killed Nov. 23 as he tried to break up an argument between a fellow church member and her estranged husband, according to police and witnesses.

O'Hea, Begley and the other recipients — Malta Hameed, 40, of Clifton; Migdalia Torres, 52, of Cleveland, Ohio, and John Muscarella, 22, of East Newark — attended a memorial service for Malloosseril on Sunday at the St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya (kah-nahn-NIGH'-ya) Church, where the shooting happened. Before the service, the recipients had an emotional meeting with Mallossseril's parents.

"They bent down and listened to my heart," O'Hea said. "I had tears rolling down my cheeks."

Torres, who has suffered for 25 years from lupus that has affected her kidneys, recalled jumping out of bed at 6 a.m. on the morning after the shooting when she received a call that an organ match had been found. Like the others, she admitted having mixed feelings about the events that led to her transplant.

Purloined Image of Hope and Change

The famous Obamaicon with which we recently had some fun on A.B. (here and here) has now become a subject of controversy.  The Associated Press is alleging that artist Shepard Fairey used an AP photo to create the image without permission. The AP wants a share of the credit and compensation.

NEW YORK (AP) — On buttons, posters and Web sites, the image was everywhere during last year's presidential campaign: a pensive Barack Obama looking upward, as if to the future, splashed in a Warholesque red, white and blue and underlined with the caption HOPE.

Designed by Shepard Fairey, a Los-Angeles based street artist, the image has led to sales of hundreds of thousands of posters and stickers, and has become so much in demand that copies signed by Fairey have been purchased for thousands of dollars on eBay.

The image, Fairey has acknowledged, is based on an Associated Press photograph, taken in April 2006 by Mannie Garcia on assignment for the AP at the National Press Club in Washington.

The AP says it owns the copyright, and wants credit and compensation. Fairey disagrees.

"The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission," the AP's director of media relations, Paul Colford, said in a statement. "AP safeguards its assets and looks at these events on a case-by-case basis. We have reached out to Mr. Fairey's attorney and are in discussions. We hope for an amicable solution."

"We believe fair use protects Shepard's right to do what he did here," says Fairey's lawyer, Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford University and a lecturer at the Stanford Law School. "It wouldn't be appropriate to comment beyond that at this time because we are in discussions about this with the AP."

Fair use is a legal concept that allows exceptions to copyright law, based on, among other factors, how much of the original is used, what the new work is used for and how the original is affected by the new work.