Unless you live in a hurricane-ravaged part of the southeastern United States, you've heard by now that (now former) House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been indicted on charges related to illegal campaign financing that led to gerrymandering.

You can read the whole indictment here, including a scan of the smoking gun check from the Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee to the Republican National Committee. My favorite part is that they didn't redact the checking account number on the check. Of course, those assets will probably be seized before anyone has a chance to commit fraud on TRMPAC's bank account.

My question: how can Jim Kolbe support this corrupt snake oil salesman by voting for him for Majority Leader and with him in 92 out of every 100 House votes?

On the Justice appropriations bill, Kolbe voted nay on the final amendment that would have sent the bill back to committee to create a new Title XI - Gas Price Gouging.

With gas prices skyrocketing and people having an even harder time making ends meet, it's good to know where Kolbe and his majority party's priorities lie.

Here's a hint: it's not with their constituents!

The Violence Against Women Act will be voted on by the House of Representatives TODAY!!

The House is currently debating Justice Department appropriations, so there is still time!

The Violence Against Women Act of 2005 will be brought to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote some time tomorrow. This critical legislation will reauthorize existing programs, which expire at the end of this month. VAWA also creates desperately needed new programs and protections for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.

All Members of Congress must hear from their constituents and vote yes on VAWA!!

***Please call your Representatives immediately and ask them to vote yes on the Violence Against Women Act!***

Congressman Raul Grijalva
D.C. Office: 202-225-2435
Tucson District Office: 520-622-6788
Congressman Grijalva is a Co-Sponsor of VAWA

Congressman Jim Kolbe
D.C. Office: 202-225-2542
Tucson District Office: 520-881-3588
Congressman Kolbe has expressed support but has not yet committed to voting to reauthorize

Try the D.C. office first and tell the receptionist who answers the phone that you are a constituent and that you urge the Congressman to vote yes on reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act when it comes to a floor vote later today. Remember to be polite, concise and heartfelt!

It's down to the wire, but it's still not too late to make a difference!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

We also need your voices in the Senate. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed VAWA on September 8, 2005 but has not yet scheduled a time for the full Senate to vote on the bill. The Senate must bring VAWA to the floor for a vote soon!

***Please call your Senators and ask them to bring the Violence Against Women Act to the floor for a vote!***

Senator Jon Kyl
D.C. Office: 202-224-4521
Tucson District Office: 520-575-8633
Senator Kyl voted with the rest of the Judiciary Committee on September 8 to move the bill to the floor; he has been a solid supporter of VAWA since 1994

Senator John McCain
D.C. Office: 202-224-2235
Tucson District Office: 520-670-6334
Senator McCain has not clarified his position on reauthorization

Try either the D.C. office or the Tucson district office number and tell the receptionist that you are a constituent and that you urge the Senator to do everything he can to bring reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act to a floor vote before the Act expires on Friday.

Perhaps anticipating his tough nomination battle next year, AZ08's own Jim Kolbe has just sponsored a floor amendment to the Justice Department Appropriations bill currently on the floor in the House.

Kolbe's amendment would:

...reauthorize the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) through FY2011 and would increase authorized funding to $750 million for FY06, $850 million for FY07, and $950 million for FY08-11; specifies that funds "may be used only for correctional purposes." Amendment also requires the Department of Justice Inspector General submit a report on the state and local governments that receive SCAAP funding and whether they are cooperating with efforts to deport criminal aliens, whether they have policies in violation of current law, and in the case of illegal aliens released without being referred to the Department of Homeland Security, the number of subsequent offense committed and how many of these aliens were released because the state or local governments lack space or funds to detain them.

In other words, lock 'em up and throw away the key!

That's a minor exaggeration, but the point is that Kolbe is just throwing money at the problem instead of looking at the root causes of illegal immigration. And if he really wanted to help the states on illegal immigration issues by spending money, the dough could be better spent going to hospitals and other facilities that do face a very real financial hardships because they are treating undocumented, uninsured and underpaid immigrants.

This is typical conservative retribution politics, the idea that if you lock enough people up, the crimes they have committed will just go away.

I have no doubt this will play well in Cochise County during the primaries, a place that Kolbe lost to Randy Graf by wide margins in the 2004 primary cycle. It looks like Kolbe will be facing an even tougher primary challenge from Graf this year, which might explain this exercise in futility.

The amendment was, not surprisingly, agreed to en gross with a number of other pending amendments to the bill.

I love it when science validates my worldview.

An article today from The Times of London reports on a new study by social scientist Gregory Paul on the correlation between the strength of a nation's religious convictions and the damage those convictions do to that society.

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.

Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.

Seriously, I've been saying this for years. It's a big part of why I'm an atheist. You don't need a PhD to recognize the correlations.

I'm not about to say that belief in a higher power CAUSES social ills, but there is certainly a preponderance of evidence that there is at least a relationship between the two.

So be patriotic: don't go to church this weekend.

For real.

Apparently Georgia courthouse shooter hostage survivorAshley Smith gave some of her crystal meth to rapist, murderer and her hostage-taker Brian Nichols in her Atlanta apartment where he held her hostage earlier this year.

You remember the case. The guy was to stand trial for raping his ex-girlfriend until he overpowered the Sherriff's deputy bringing him into the courtroom, took her gun and killed her, the judge and the clerk before escaping and killing a couple of others. Nichols eventually arrived at Smith's apartment, overpowered her and held her hostage there for a few days.

At the time, Smith's story was that she convinced Nichols to surrender by reading him a chapter from "The Purpose-Driven Life," a Christian screed that professes to teach people a better way to live "through Christ's love."

I thought that story was fishy at the time, especially because that kind of book can barely inspire a bowel movement, let alone inspire a fugitive murderer to turn himself in.

Seriously, Smith's admission this week just proves you have to be in an altered state to get anything out of that pap.

I tuned in to Geena Davis' new drama tonight because I genuinely like her and I genuinely like political dramas.

While the idea of a woman Commander in Chief is certainly appealing, the feminist ethic of the show was consistently compromised by what was supposed to be a running gag but just came off as Hillary-bashing.

The pivotal moment of the episode was when Davis' character decides not to step aside from ascending from the Vice Presidency to the Presidency when the President suddenly dies. She is having an argument with Donald Sutherland's character. He's basically saying blah blah blah Islamic governments won't cotton to a woman as leader of the free world blah blah blah women are weak-cakes.

They get into an argument over a Nigerian woman who is about to be put to death for having a child out of wedlock in that country. The Vice President has been following the case, including involving the U.S. military brass (I found this a rather implausible plot point, as Vice Presidents don't have any Constitutional authority over the armed forces). She's almost persuaded to step aside by Sutherland's archaic arguments, until he grumbles something about how the Nigerian woman "couldn't keep her legs closed."

At this point, Davis' character stands up, hands him her notes for her resignation statement and tells him she's going to go take the oath of office. Right on! She's a strong, decisive woman about to become the leader of the free world. She's a role model.

Unfortunately, the rest of the episode was a major disappointment. The running gag was a series of scenes of the new first spouse getting used to his new place. He is being guided around the White House by an aide of some kind, who keeps telling him how things are usually done, then points out that Hillary Clinton did it differently (she had her office in the West Wing, she didn't set the daily menu with the executive chef). Each Hillary statement is followed with, "that didn't go over well" in a derisive tone in which it's clear that Hillary's actions didn't go over well with anyone less than with the aide.

The message? Only a moderate, Indepent woman can be a strong leader (and even that is in doubt given the resignations and general reactions of White House staff to her new position of power). A progressive, Democratic woman who exhibits originiality, initiative and ambition - in the view of this show's producers and writers - does not deserve respect or admiration.

I'll stick with "The West Wing" I think. It definitely seems more realistic - the production values alone put it head and shoulders above this new show. When Geena Davis was supposedly addressing Congress at the end of the episode, it looked and sounded like she was standing in a classroom, not in the House Chamber.

I was pretty turned off and turned the channel. It's a good thing "The Office" is starting to grow on me.

My sister Debra sent me a link to the Theocracy Watch website. According to the website:

TheocracyWatch is a project of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy (CRESP) at Cornell University. CRESP is a nonsectarian, action-based educational organization with its roots in religious dialogue, human rights advocacy, and ethical thought.

Go take a look and read up on some pretty abhorrant stuff.

Oro Valley resident Jeff Latas has formed an exploratory committee for a possible run against Kolbe next year. So far, he's the first credible potential Democratic contender for the seat.

Based on his initial website, he seems pretty solid on energy policy and environmental issues. He'll need some help fleshing out some of his other policy stances. He also will need to work on distilling some of his other positions into clearer and more compelling messages.

But what is most interesting to me about his potential candidacy this early in the game is how competitive he could be to Kolbe in a general election. The voters of District 8 are mostly moderate-to-conservative (with a few flaming progressives like me). Latas' career in the Air Force, which only ended a few years ago, would easily put a dent in one of Kolbe's strongest personal history credentials: his Navy service. Latas also has a son on active duty in Iraq, so if he is the Democratic nominee, he would have instant credibility to capitalize on the anti-war majority sentiment.

Let's face it: in this district with an Air Force Base and an Army Intelligence Base, military service is political gold. Mary Judge Ryan was a great candidate in the last mid-term elections, but she failed to ignite her base or get more than 40% of the vote. Eva Bacal was more or less a disaster of a candidate in 2004. The last Democratic challenger to come close to unseating Kolbe was former Tucson mayor Tom Volgy in '98, and I attribute most of that near-success to name recognition and a largely successful tenure as the city's chief executive.

For the Dems to win back the seat, they need to do two things: nominate a candidate with a military background (that's the part that generally makes me uneasy, as they are generally unwilling to divert military spending into more vital human service needs) and tie Kolbe to Tom DeLay at every turn.

According to the DCCC, Congressman Kolbe votes with the Majority Leader a whopping 92% of the time. Kolbe has accepted more than $5,000 in campaign contributions from the PAC at the center of the criminal probe against DeLay. The rotton apple doesn't usually fall very far from the corrupt tree.

Anyway, check out Latas' website. Depending on how the primaries shape up, he could be a strong contender. If by some wild chance Graf wins the Republican primary, Latas would mop the floor with him. I'm interested to see if any other Dems throw their hats in the ring. I think Tim Sultan would also have a decent chance if he ran again this year.

As you recall, Sultan ran in the primary in 2004 and lost to Eva Bacal. But the amazing thing is that during the primary season he raised within $1,000 of what she raised in the entire primary and general cycle. He would have been a lot more competitive financially if he had won the nomination. Kolbe outraised and outspent Bacal by 10 to 1 margins. Sultan could have at least cut those margins in half and would have been a smarter campaigner. He could have won at least more than 40% of the vote.

But what's past is history. It's time we look to the future.

This week's episode of Real Time with Bill Maher featured an all-Brit panel.

The thing that stood out to me this week was just how insufferable Christopher Hitchens is. I was turned off by his performance on The Daily Show a couple of weeks ago, and not simply by what he was saying, but the ways in which he said it.

True to form with Maher this week, Hitchens was miserable the whole time. In fact, he came off as an obnoxious, self-important, intellectual elitist; you know, everything liberals are always inaccurately accused of being.

Hitchens is among the worst of the delusional Bush apologists. I will never understand how the "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" reasoning makes a whit of sense, but he kept repeating increasingly paranoid and rude versions of his talking points.

I almost felt sorry for him when he was reduced to nonsensically attacking fellow panelist MP George Galloway unprovoked. Almost.

Hitchens is an ass of royal proportions, but I am curious to read his new book on Thomas Jefferson, as I am a fan of our third President.

I just got home from the Eighth Annual Wingspan Dinner.

I coached many of the speakers and stage managed the affair. I am proud to report that we finished ahead of schedule for the first time ever.

But even more importantly, Wingspan will have raised close to a quarter of a million dollars when all is said and done. Not too shabby for one night's work.

Of course, it took a lot more time than just one night to prepare and organize. A shout-out to my good friend Miriam Barnard, Wingspan's Director of Development, and her crew for their long hours and tireless dedication.

I was honored to have a small role in this monumental task; the money raised tonight will go a long way to ensuring that southern Arizona's queer community is safe, healthy and respected.

Nothing we don't already know here, but still a decent summary.

Arizona 08 (Jim Kolbe)
The 8th Congressional District of Arizona includes all of Tucson except the Latino west side that is in the 7th District. The 8th also includes the eastern half of surrounding Pima County and much southeastern Arizona desert real estate: All of Cochise County (including Tombstone and Bisbee), Douglas and Sierra Vista near Fort Huachuca, site of the Army Military Intelligence Center, the training site for military interrogators; and very small portions of Santa Cruz and Pinal Counties. Politically it is closely divided, voting narrowly for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. It is overall 48.3% Dem. Its incumbent is longtimer Jim Kolbe. Kolbe had an unexpectedly close race in 1998, winning 52-45. Since then, he has won more comfortably, 65-35 in '02 and 68-32 in '04. Still, this is a district trending Dem, and could well be the site of an upset in a strong year."

Another ineffective Bush appointee tenders his resignation.

Lester Crawford, the Administrator of the Food and Drug Administration, unexpectedly resigned today, citing his age and saying it was time to step aside.

As you recall, Crawford is the obstructionist who refuses to allow emergency contraception to be offered over-the-counter, despite a panel of experts overwhelmingly recommending - twice - that the FDA do so.

I found this description of Crawford a little disturbing:

An affable veterinarian who specialized in food safety...

It makes you wonder what happened to his patients who didn't make it...

But that bit of snark is beside the point. Crawford went back on his word, given to Senators during his confirmation hearing, that he would have a final decision on EC by the end of August. His obviously politically-motivated stalling tactics have gotten him exactly what he deserves.

This of course begs the question, who will Crawford's replacement be? There's little doubt that the President will nominate another crony with dubious credentials to this post charged with protecting the health and safety of our food and medication.

The FDA is supposed to be an independent regulatory agency. This is the time to insist that the President nominate someone who will act independently and that our Senators not give empty promises a pass during confirmation hearings. This President and this Senate (both parties) have demonstrated a severe dereliction of duties in the way the nomination, advice and consent process is conducted.

Somebody in D.C. needs to stand up for principles and ensure competent officials are put into crucial posts at all levels of federal government.

With the resignations of Brownie and now Crawford, the message is clear: the time for partisan ideological hacks is over.

TIME.com:

Federal troops aren't the only ones looking for bodies on the Gulf Coast. On Sept. 9, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions called his old law professor Harold Apolinsky, co-author of Sessions' legislation repealing the federal estate tax, which was encountering sudden resistance on the Hill. Sessions had an idea to revitalize their cause, which he left on Apolinsky's voice mail: "[Arizona Sen.] Jon Kyl and I were talking about the estate tax. If we knew anybody that owned a business that lost life in the storm, that would be something we could push back with."

Absolutely sickening. Now besides actively working to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich, Arizona's junior Senator is now complicit in a plot to exploit dead rich people to give even more money to other rich people.

If there's one thing that people are now paying attention to in the Katrina aftermath, it's the pitiful condition in which this country's government has left its poor and middle-class citizens. The rich people along the Gulf Coast had the resources to survive the storm. They also could afford the insurance to rebuild.

Stop robbing the poor to pay the rich! And don't you DARE exploit the dead to do it!

From last night's Real Time with Bill Maher:

"...Is George Bush purely evil? Of course not. And that's what's so evil about him! He doesn't twirl a moustache and smirk and cackle...well, he doesn't twirl a moustache.

He's like the Peanuts character PigPen. Wherever he goes, he stirs up such a humongous mess, it can only be cleaned up by Halliburton. But he is not pure evil, because evil is a chain.

Did any one person doom New Orleans? No. It's a chain: people vote for a corrupt leader, a corrupt leader puts unqualified cronies in high places, and when those cronies fuck up, evil gets done.

The devil didn't fly up from hell and knock a hole in that levy. The levy just didn't get built because the money for it went to rich people's tax cuts and pork projects and corporate welfare.

Evil isn't Salem's Lot. It's Trent Lott.

This week an ailing American bald eagle was found to be dying from mercury poisoning. Republicans immediately tried to blame it on the eagle's lifestyle choices. But it's worth noting that also this week, the White House threatened to veto limits on mercury pollution.

Now pure evil would be if George Bush sat around the White House saying, "let's poison eagles!" And even I don't believe George Bush would do that. Cheney would do that. And even he is not pure evil. Dick Cheney doesn't hate poor children and caribou. They're just in the way.

Bottom line: some people think satan is real and some people think global warming is real. If you think stopping gays from doing it is more important than the ice caps melting, the Boogey Man is YOU."

Amen, Brother Bill.

I just wanted to add something about the last post.

The launch of the new polling initiative will hinge on hammering out the methodology. In particular, I'm referring to how to ensure a random sample over the internet.

I have plenty of ideas about this and I'll be exploring each and every one of them.

I'm not a statistician, but I have a grasp of the basics and I want this project to provide reliable information.

m²powered communications solutions will soon be unveiling a new project: local public opinion polling.

I try and keep track of the latest poll results that are published by the major polling outfits like SurveyUSA, Gallup and Ipsos. Polling Report is a great clearinghouse for these and many more national polls.

The problem as I see it is that these are all national polls that rarely, if ever, accurately reflect the opinions of people in Arizona Congressional Districts 7 and 8.

So I intend to use the resources at my disposal, mainly this website for starters, to begin documenting local opinions. I will contract with SurveyMonkey.com, a great site that does an excellent job with online data collection.

I'm not just looking for progressive viewpoints either. I really am genuinely interested in knowing what everyone in southern Arizona thinks about the issues and about the job our elected officials are doing in Phoenix and D.C.

Now this plan isn't without flaws, of course. The margins of error will be huge for the first few rounds because we won't yet have a very large representative sample. But eventually I hope to have a sizeable solid, diverse base of southern Arizonans who want to make sure their voices are heard. And the methodology of conducting an online poll will of course leave some people out whose voices also still deserve to be heard.

But all that aside, there are perks to participating. The most immediate benefit? Poll participants will have free password-protected access to the most recent poll results. Local businesses, advocacy groups and candidates may eventually pay to have specific questions included in the polls, but I won't allow push-polling.

As the cliche goes, knowledge is power. And I hope that this new initiative will give us all a little more knowledge about our neighbors, which in turn will increase our citizen power subtantially.

Stay tuned...

The Arizona Daily Star has it:

PHOENIX - State health officials are sending a new message to Arizona teens: Abstain from sex - or at least use a condom.

The commercials, purchased with state lottery and tobacco tax dollars, are a significant departure from prior efforts of the Arizona Department of Health Services. Until now, each of those strategies, including extensive TV ads, had a single focus: Just say no.

...

A 2003 study done for the state Department of Education found that 29 percent of ninth-graders said they have had sex. That figure rose to more than 61 percent for seniors.

Yet two-thirds of freshmen said they used a condom the last time they had sex; that figure was less than 53 percent for seniors.

Until this year Arizona had only state and federal dollars for pregnancy-prevention programs, which, by law, could be used only to promote abstinence. But the new lottery and tobacco proceeds, which have no such strings, provided $437,745 to produce and air the new commercials briefly this spring and again now as students go back to school.

There also are billboards in neighborhoods the health department identified as having high rates of teen pregnancy.

This is absolutely the right thing to do. Unfortunately, it may be too little too late for many Arizona teens.

The right wing sexphobes who have a stranglehold on our legislature have forced their sex-negative views on the state for years, insisting that young people will just not have sex if we sufficiently scare them enough. Wishing something almost never makes it so.

Comprehensive sexuality education has consistently been proven far more effective than abstinence-only education in reducing teen birth and STI rates. The only thing keeping these life-saving messages from reaching the ears of Arizona's young people is a small group of misguided idealogues who would rather live in a fantasy world where nobody has sex before marriage because it's sick or bad or unholy.

Sex can be very healthy and positive and safe and fulfilling, whether before, during or after marriage.

The sexphobes' arguments hold no water:

The new campaign displeases Rep. Laura Knaperek, R-Tempe, one of the legislators involved in the 1999 launch of the Sex Can Wait campaign. She said if the state wants to keep teens from getting pregnant, "then the message should be: Stop, don't do it," even for those who already are sexually active.

Yes, because you can really tell a horny teenager not to do something and expect him to listen. Sometimes I wonder how old these people were before they first got laid.

And this gem from stuffed shirt Mark Anderson (R-Mesa):

"It's better to send a clear message and not a mixed message," he said. Anderson said the same people who get the abstinence-only program in school are also viewing the new commercials.

"Now the message they get is, well, we don't really expect you to be abstinent," he said.

No, the message is clearly that abstinence is the first choice, but we're not stupid and we know that teenagers and sex have gone together like peanut butter and jelly since time immemorial. This is their fallback talking point whenever anyone challenges the scientific credibility of abstinence-only education. The even clearer message here is that Republicans don't think people can follow a logical progression.

A woman who actually knows what she's talking about, Patricia Jo Angelini, director of the Arizona Coalition on Adolescent Pregnancy and Planning, can and does follow the logical progression:

"Youth need to hear that it is good to wait as long as possible" because of pregnancy and disease. "They also need to understand that when the time comes in their life they're going to have sex, they need to be responsible."

I thought Republicans were the party of "personal responsibility." Their rhetoric clearly puts the lie to that assumption.

We should all contact the Arizona Department of Health Services and thank them for doing the right thing.

As unfunded mandates go, this one's not so bad.

Tomorrow, September 17, is Constitution Day/Citizenship Day. Schools around the country are now required by law to study and celebrate our national blueprint.

I think it's a great idea, though a little sad that it takes a federal law to encourage schools to honor this document.

A lot of lefties are derisive of this kind of thing. They think any expression of patriotism is an endorsement of a corrupt and amoral government.

I think that's absolutely the wrong attitude. There are plenty of problems with the United States, particularly with her government. I don't dispute that. But I also believe with every fiber of my being that this country has been the vehicle for radical worldwide progressive change during her 228-year history.

Despite reactionary forces that have constantly tried to forestall and reverse that progress during that time, the Constitution was one of the catalysts behind the radical redefinition of what government could and should do for its citizens.

And so I celebrate Citizenship Day tomorrow, not because I think the United States is better than other countries and not because I think our government is the best the world has ever seen. I celebrate because the Constitution gave the world an unprecedented gateway to progressivism.

You can read the Constitution online. I highly recommend it. I carry a copy of it around with me in my bag.

This would be funny if it wasn't so scary.

At a U.N. Security Council meeting yesterday, President Bush was caught asking for a permission slip to go make peepees.

That's right, the note he was photographed writing reads:

I think I MAY NEED A BATHROOM BREAK? Is this possible

Despite the frustrating abuse of punctuation, lest you think this is an amusing fake like the already-circulating picture of Dubya and Poppy fishing in Lake New Orleans that I've received three times via e-mail at this point, read this from Editor and Publisher:

The photo, which appeared on Reuters' official photo site, was quickly published all over the Web, though dismissed by some as a likely photoshop special. Others suggestged that surely someone must have hacked the Reuters site. But a Reuters spokesman on Thursday told E&P the photo was legit.

"The photographer and editors on this story were looking for other angles in their coverage of this event, something that went beyond the stock pictures of talking heads that these kind of forums usually offer," explained Reuters' Stephen Naru. "This picture certainly does that."

Indeed.

Per MSNBC.com:

LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson’s publicist says eight performers so far have agreed to join a song to benefit Hurricane Katrina victims.

Raymone K. Bain said artists who will appear on Jackson’s song, tentatively titled “From the Bottom of My Heart,” include James Brown, Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliott, Lenny Kravitz, R. Kelly, Snoop Dogg and Ciara.

It's so nice when the child rapists can get together and give back to their communities.

And by "this guy," I mean the President of the United States.

In non-responding to reporters' questions about Brown's resignation, the most powerful man in the world, who has nearly infinite resources at his disposal, had this to say:

Maybe you know something I don't know. I've been working.

Now, I know he was being coy and that his administration probably made it clear to Brown that they would be expecting his resignation any day now.

But it wasn't the politically slick statement we've come to know this guy for. He's already fighting an image problem dealing with the hurricane. Instead of the "I'm working" message he was trying to put out there, he only reinforced the "media has more information than I do" message that's been out there since Katrina made landfall.

Doesn't inspire confidence. Or respect, really.

The Arizona Division of Emergency Management is responsible for, well, managing emergencies. A quick glance at the Division's website tells me that the people chosen by the Governor to lead it are well-qualified and competent.

About ADEM Director Frank Navarrete:

Mr. Navarrete has extensive experience in the area of law enforcement communications and intelligence, including 18 years with the Phoenix Police Department.

And Navarrete's deputy, Lou Trammell:

Since being with the Division he has participated in the response and recovery for 48 state and federal emergencies and disasters.

Lou retired in 1991 as a Lieutenant Colonel after twenty-three years with the U.S. Army. His last assignment was a Combat Weapons Developer for armor forces. Qualified as an Instructor Pilot and Flight Examiner, he has served combat aviation tours in Southeast Asia and Central America. He is a licensed commercial pilot and certified open-sea diver.

He received an MBA from Central Michigan University in 1981, received a BS degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1977, and is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College.

These are professionals with actual experience in protecting, rescuing and serving their constituents.

I have little doubt that these two men and their staffs would efficiently and effectively respond to a natural disaster in Arizona. The question is whether or not Bush's FEMA would allow local authorities to upstage the federal entity by actually getting the job done.

I wouldn't put it past Bush's FEMA to obstruct a relief operation if they feared the locals would come out smelling like roses while the feds would smell like the cess pool they've turned the federal bureaucracy into.

SurveyUSA just released the results of their latest 50-state poll, this one on abortion.

By an overwhelming margin, adults in this state identify as pro-choice. A strong belief in individual self-determination makes sense for a state that has that whole silly "rugged individualism" thing going for it.

This makes for a confusing disconnect, given that most elected representatives at the state and federal level are rabidly anti-choice. One curious exception is Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-08).

This leads me to mention that I've been compiling extensive research for an analysis of the '06 race for Congressional District 8. Jim Kolbe is an 11-term Congressman, the first Republican to represent this general area (the district has changed boundaries several times due to redistricting since he was first elected) since statehood.

I'll be creating a separate page on this site with much of this information and my own analysis. The important point for now: according to the Arizona Redistricting Commission that independently established the current Congressional Districts following the 2000 Census, District 8 is the only competetive one in the state, with the difference in party registrations less than 7%.

Of the other seven districts, four have a distinct Republican registration advantage and three have a distinct Democratic registration advantage. Of the three with a Democratic advantage, only two are represented by Democrats in Congress: Ed Pastor in District 4 and Raul Grijalva in District 7. The remaining district, District 1, has elected a radical right-winger who barely lived in the state when he was first elected. Not very surprisingly, District 1 has the second-lowest registration difference between the two parties.

What does this indicate? That Congressional Districts in Arizona with close numbers of Republicans and Democrats can be won by a crossover non-district-majority candidate who can sufficiently activate his (or her) party base in the District.

I would assume that local Democrats are already aware of this. They can prove that they are competent by nominating a candidate who can win, not just one who has been loyal to the party hierarchy or makes them feel good by nominating her. Democrats need a real all-star who will play a strong offense.

MSNBC has the AP feed on the resignation.

Brown on his resignation:

I think it’s in the best interest of the agency and the best interest of the president to do that and get the media focused on the good things that are going on, instead of me.

Um, actually, it's in the best interest of the American people, which needs to be the first concern of any public official - elected or appointed. It's telling but not at all surprising that this hack puts the best interest of the President first and foremost. Party over country as usual.

This is the same strategy we see the national Republicans using on Iraq. "It's the media's fault for showing only bad news! Everyone would be much better off if they would just show some of the positive things happening in Louisiana (or Baghdad). Why does the media hate the President? Why does the media hate America?"

Give me a freaking break. The media has been complicit in crimes against humanity committed by this Administration and the past three Congresses.

I would feel much better if Brown's #2 and #3, who were also patronage appointees, follow his lead. The President should appoint someone who has experience in, oh, I don't know, emergency management. And the Senate should fulfill their responsibility to ensure that all appointees are well-qualified, diligent and effective.

Until then, good riddance to the absolute worst rubbish.

Better late than never, I guess.

Of course, before Katrina hit would have been infinitely better.

I'm happy the new TV season has arrived. I particularly enjoy checking out the new shows that pop up each fall.

So it follows that I tuned into the new FOX sitcom The War at Home after The Simpsons tonight (which, by the way, was a little derivative but still funny).

Now I generally find domestic comedies pretty insipid, but every now and then there's one that is funny, original and inspired (think Roseanne or All in the Family).

But Michael Rappaport's opening monologue was none of those things. It was misoginystic. It was offensive. It was just plain stupid. He denigrated Mary Tyler Moore for inspiring women to want careers. He actually called her a bitch. Doesn't get much more blatantly woman-hating than that. He whined about equality of the sexes in the household.

I was already skeptical of the promos that implied he hated his gender non-comforming son. Those suspicions were confirmed within the first five minutes of watching his incoherent rant. His character is a throwback of the first order.

I liked Mike Rappaport when he was on David E. Kelley's Boston Public, another FOX show that was cancelled before its time. I don't know who the writers are for this new pap, but they're definitely no David E. Kelley.

The thing that really bothers me though is that there are a whole lot of American men out there who feel threatened by having to sacrifice some of their privilege who watched that show tonight and thought to themselves, "hell yeah!" How do you counter that?

I remember certain aspects of the day quite clearly. It was a Tuesday morning and I was running a little late for work (as usual) at the Center for Crime Victim and Sexual Assault Services in Ithaca, NY.

Ithaca is about a four hour drive from NYC, depending on which route you take. But I grew up in New Jersey about an hour's drive from the city. It was an ever-present piece of anyone who grew up in the greater tri-state area.

When I got to work a little before 9 AM, I logged onto the internet as I did every morning. The Center only had dial-up, and I'd often tie up the phone lines checking e-mail or doing research.

I tried loading the MSNBC.com homepage that morning and it just wouldn't load. I tried the CNN.com homepage and after hitting the refresh button a few times, it finally came up. The picture of the plane-shaped hole in the first tower that was hit.

I remember thinking that it must have been a small plane because the hole wasn't as wide as the building. I thought it was an accident, that a small prop plane had lost control and gone tragically off course. I had no idea it was something much more sinister.

Around that time our therapist Kathy received a phone call from her husband telling her that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center and nobody was sure what was happening. He called back to tell us that the second plane had hit.

I remember going with our receptionist Tina to visit her husband that morning. He was a paramedic in Ithaca and we went to their squad office because they had a big screen TV. That's the first time that either Tina or I saw what happened in vivid detail. CNN just kept rerunning the second impact. Every broadcast of it was just as traumatic as the one before.

From there we went back to the office badly shaken. We had more details at that point, about the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crashes, and a palpable fear set in. Kathy's dad was a government official and our boss Kate's father was on vacation in D.C. Neither of my colleagues could reach their respective fathers by phone.

We closed the office early, took the crisis line pagers with us and went to Kathy's house to follow the coverage on her TV. Most of us went home a few hours later, feeling pretty raw and vulnerable.

I remember very clearly spending the next few weeks feeling lost and deeply traumatized. Tina's husband, along with his Ithaca EMS colleagues, were almost dispatched to NYC. We were informed by the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault that our services as crisis advocates might be needed in the city. Our services were never activated though. That may have been a good thing, since I was having a hard time with just the images myself.

It was weird looking up in the sky and not seeing any planes or their contrails, which were a familiar sight in the autumn skies over upstate New York. There were calls across the internet for candlelight vigils within a couple of weeks after the attacks. One was to be held at the Muller Chapel Pond on the Ithaca College campus. I felt overwhelmingly compelled to go be in a place where I felt safe and to be surrounded by those who were as deeply impacted by the tragedy as I was.

There were only three of us who showed up at the pond: me, my friend Tara and her girlfriend at the time. Tara brought the candles and the three of us lit them and stood staring into the pond and sharing our grief. It was cathartic despite our small number.

I never felt comforted by President Bush's "we're gonna get 'em" speechifying. I knew even then that he would cynically use this traumatic tragedy for his own selfish political gain. I was one of the 10% who still didn't approve of him even in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.

National tragedy shouldn't buy anyone automatic support, respect or admiration. All those must be earned, and I can at least feel validated four years later that most of the country is finally coming around to seeing what I've seen all along.

I had many friends living in the city at the time and feared for their lives. But they thankfully survived and still didn't support the Iraq invasion or nearly any part of Bush's domestic agenda. The direct survivors do not need lectures about what September 11th means or about the threat of terrorism. We lived it, thankyouverymuch.

Now that I'm an Arizona resident, I feel I have a little more credibility and investment in talking about 9/11 than most of my neighbors. I find it more than a little silly to see "Remember September 11th" bumper stickers on cars with Arizona license plates. It's a nice sentiment, but Arizona was not attacked. Frankly, I don't need to be told to remember that day; that day will forever be indelibly etched in my mind.

Yes, it was a horrific national disaster that could have been avoided if our leaders weren't asleep at the wheel (or on vacation, as the case may be), but no, it wasn't valid justification to cut taxes for the wealthy, to invade Iraq, to destroy Social Security, to evicerate our emergency management service, or to destroy the enviroment, among many other travesties.

I started with listening to Ani DiFranco's Self-Evident from her "So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter" album.

More on my memories of the day in a bit...

Given the disaster that was the federal government's response along the Gulf coast (FEMA regions 4 and 6), I wanted to find out what I could about how FEMA might respond in Arizona (FEMA region 9).

It seemed like a good place to start by looking up who Arizona's regional director is. Her name is Karen Armes. She's acting regional director, and apparently also her own deputy. It looks like she was originally appointed deputy in 2000, which means she's not a patronage appointee.

Unlike her boss Michael Brown, it appears that Ms. Armes does have prior managerial experience, but none in emergency management, disaster relief or crisis intervention. Her educational experience is something of a mixed bag too:

Ms. Armes holds a bachelor of science degree in recreation administration from Radford University, VA. She has also completed graduate courses in business administration at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

The coursework in business administration is mildly reassuring, but how does a B.S. degree in recreation prepare this woman for whatever natural catastrophe might come our way? To be fair, she's spent most of her career in accounting and management, so she's apparently able to transfer skills from one field to another.

And incidentally, the FEMA regional senior staff in regions 4 and 6 all have training and experience in various aspects of emergency management. They all also appear to be Clinton appointees. Why weren't the appropriate regional directors given more of a leadership role in the colossal screw-up? These people not only have the experience and training, but they know the lay of the land and the cultures involved. Would Karen Armes also be told to take a back seat if a massive natural disaster struck California or Arizona?

They keep trying to shift blame to the locals, but FEMA had a local element that was all but ignored. More hypocrisy, as we've come to expect from this administration.

With all the poor people who live in this region, I'm sure we'd be left to drown too.

I rather enjoy beating up on Senator Kyl because he really deserves it.

But he did do something this week that deserves our thanks and I'm not above giving him his due for it.

Senator Kyl is a member of the Judiciary Committee, which voted on Thursday to pass the Violence Against Women Act to the floor of the Senate. Not only did he vote with the majority, but he also added an amendment that makes it easier for law enforcement to maintain DNA databases.

I was a little creeped out by the "big brother" aspects of this amendment at first, but his justification makes sense: most sex offenders are serial predators who perpetrate repeatedly and are arrested a few times before they are actually convicted. By collecting DNA evidenced from them after their first arrest, it makes it easier to link their future crimes to them, even if there's not enough evidence to convict at the time of the first arrest. This isn't a violation of civil liberties because law enforcement would already have probably cause to make the arrest.

So I give a very narrow thank you to Jon Kyl for his work on this issue. It has the potential to prevent some sexual assaults, particularly of children.

George Carlin on Barbara Bush on Real Time with Bill Maher just now.

Priceless.

In the wake of the massive FEMA patronage scandal that has proven fatal for tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents, we're faced with examining how these rubes get confirmed in the first place.

Apparently Michael Brown faced a grueling 42 minute confirmation hearing during which he was grilled about possible nuclear disasters in Connecticut by then-Chairman "Joementum" Lieberman. Nothing about his lack of any even remotely related experience in emergency management. Way to go Joe!

The Democrats can use this with the Roberts nomination as a justification for a lengthy and deliberate confirmation process that a Supreme Court appointment deserves. Especially a lifetime appointment. Especially for Chief Justice.

Senate Democrats should rightly assert that they don't want to make the same mistake twice(or six times, as is apparently the case). The country just witnessed the horror of the hasty confirmation of an unqualified Bush-appointed hack for a time-limited position. Just think of the damage that could be wrought by a lifetime appointee. We just want to be eeeeexxxxxxxtttttttrrrraaaaaaaa sure that history doesn't repeat itself in even more new and horrifying ways.

So liar-slash-FEMA chief Michael Brown has been sent back to D.C. This is being touted as a rare but tacit admission of a Bush mistake. It nay very well be that and I certainly enjoy a little bit of Bush squirming, but let's also remember something else: FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The immediate crisis along the Gulf Coast is over - has been for a while. That's not to say that there are plenty of smaller crises that must be managed over the coming weeks, months, possibly years.

But we're now in a phase that really has nothing to do with the scope of FEMA either before or after the Bush administration gutted it. The fact that Brown has been sent packing isn't the story here; that he hasn't been fired outright is.

This bungling bureaucrat absolutely botched the emergency period of the disaster. He should be held accountable. So should the person who appointed him without adequately verifying that what was on his resume was accurate. Whatever happened to checking referenes? I would never hire a volunteer without checking references; I'm appalled that the person chosen to protect me, you and everyone else wasn't subject to at the same scrutiny I give unpaid interns.

The lie is put to "compassionate conservatism" yet again.

Jon Kyl once again put his overpriced loafer in his mouth during an interview last week with a local conservative talk radio station. The host was receiving e-mails from listeners about why the government was expected to pick up the tab. To his credit, the host, Barry Young, called these e-mails what they are: wacky.

Our intrepid soulless Senator took their comments seriously though:

Kyl: It's a great question, Barry. You need to explore it. Because the question is if people know year after year after year a natural disaster occurs in a particular place and people continue to build there and want to live there, should they bear the responsibility of buying insurance or should everyone else bear the responsibility? Good question. I think you ought to ask your audience.

Yet another national Republican who is either ignorant or cruel, but likely both.

Most people don't have a choice about where they live. Moving is expensive. Picking up and leaving is not an easy or cheap task. Beyond the simple mechanics, most people like where they live and wouldn't dream of leaving under ordinary circumstances, expecially if their families have lived in the same place for generations.

But all this is irrelevent of course. The insurance industry is predatory at best. And most of us can't afford the kinds of insurance Kyl is talking about. I've only just been able to muster enough cash to buy renter's insurance for the one-bedroom apartment I barely afford. And I make well above minimum wage, which is more than can be said for many of the hurricane victims.

That's no fault of theirs. And it's no fault of mine that I've lived in apartments without having renter's insurance. Would Senator Kyl rather I defaulted on my student loans to pay the ridiculous insurance premiums? Or maybe it would be better to starve so that I at least have coverage in case there's a natural disaster in the Sonoran Desert.

Seriously, I would love for these guys to try and live with the circumstances the hurricane survivors lived with prior to the disaster and see how long they could go. Hell, I'd love for them to try to walk a mile in my shoes and see how long it takes them to go running back to their gated communities and fancy SUV's.

These are not the people to have in positions of power. Jon Kyl must be removed from office as soon as humanly possible. He is a disgrace to this state.

At least as disturbing as Kyl, though, are the yahoo radio listeners who were sending those ignorant e-mails in the first place. I don't think much of that human scum, but I still wouldn't wish on them even a fraction of the same horrors that the countless survivors of New Orleans are facing.

It's easier for me to believe that Republicans understand the dynamics involved in poverty and oppression and just choose to ignore them. That would be a conscious choice that, while inherently evil, is at least something they have some control over.

But with the latest idiocy being spewed by PA Senator Rick Santorum, combined with the obnoxious chortling of that pitbull in pearls Barbara Bush, I'm beginning to think they're just stupid. At the very least, it's a combination of the two.

How can anyone look at the devastation in Louisianna or Mississippi or Alabama, with the poor, disadvantaged and people of color most affected, and either minimize their suffering because of their economic status or actually blame and try to fine them for being poor? These people are just wretched.

The only rational conclusion is this: they are both ignorant and mean-spirited. They either can't or won't see past their own privilege.

Frankly, at this point I don't care. The only thing that matters now is helping the survivors and ignoring the heartless morons who are doing nothing productive in this crisis.

A man in Washington state just surrendered himself after killing 2 convicted child molesters. The two victims had been convicted of their crimes and spent time in prison before the state of Washington decided they had paid their debt to society and set them free. Nothing justifies murder.

That said, I can understand why the murderer felt compelled to do what he did. Their crimes were among the most heinous there are. The two men who were murdered were monsters who caused lifelong trauma and pain to their young victims. They were truly the scum of the earth.

Online sex offender registries are problematic for this reason. Their benefit is that community members can protect their families by knowing which homes and individuals to tell their children to avoid. The case in Washington state illustrates the need to do more aggressive education about the purpose of these registries. It's illegal to use them to commit a crime, no matter how justified one might feel in doing so.

There a lot of other issues to consider here: increasing prion terms to appropriate lengths so violent child rapists serve more than 5 or 6 years; stronger rehabilitation programs in prison that could help cut the recidivism rate; and most importantly, more effective and widespread primary prevention programs to stop that kind of violence from being committed in the first place.

I hestitate to do this, but Arizona also has an online sex offender registry.

That headline's a little less blunt than the one I originally typed...

Touring hurricane relief centers in Houston today, viewing the evacuees as though they were on display in a zoo, former first lady Barbara Bush had this to say:

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this [she chuckles slightly]is working very well for them."

You know, Barbara Bush used to be the only member of her family that I had a shred of respect for. She publicly differed with her husband while he was still president by voicing her support for reproductive choice and she's always been an aggressive defender of her family. Whether they deserved her defense or not, I can respect a mother protecting her cubs.

But her remarks today go far over the line. Beyond her innapropriate chuckling in the face of overwhelming human suffering, which I grant could be a normal trauma response to what she was bearing witness to, her comments were just absolutely wrong.

The poor people were poor anyway, so the squalid living conditions are just fine for them. Now we know why her son has demonstrated such indifference toward these human beings who had so much less access to opportunity than the Bush family has.

We always knew the son took after the father. Now we know he follows just as much in the mother's footsteps.

Just disgusting.

Can't be more blunt than that.

Senator Kyl answered questions about the Roberts nomination from the Arizona Daily Star on Wednesday. And it's the Arizona Daily Star, not the Tucson Star as the Phoenix bloggers keep wanting to call it. Newsflash, you self-absorbed Maricopans: any community in Arizona can focus on statewide issues.

Anyway, here's a sample of the hackery we've come to expect from our junior Senator:

What qualities would you like to see in a new justice?

The key qualities are judicial temperament, intellect, experience and the ability to approach cases honestly and without preconceived bias.

Well that sounds fair. Who doesn't want a Supreme Court Justice with those qualities? It would be nice if Kyl actually meant it. He wants nothing more than right-wing idealogue like him.

Do you know enough about John Roberts to make that decision?

I do, but on the other hand, there is still testimony to be given and questioning to occur. If nothing else changes, I will vote to confirm.

That's funny. Nobody else does. But what else does he have to know? Roberts is opposed to affirmative action, women's equality, individual rights and personal privacy. Everything Kyl looks for in a nominee.

Here's a gem:

How can you be sure you're getting what you think you're getting?

No one can ever be sure. Look at how many divorces we have in this country. Look, there has been more documentation released, more pages of information by John Roberts than by any other nominee.

Uh, what the hell does divorce have to do with it? Good thing you're working so hard to protect families by making sure that the homos can't get married and subsequently divorced. Oh, also, Senator Jackass, those pages of documentation haven't really given any information that makes Roberts more desirable. If anything, they've made him even less confirmable than before.

How long will it take?

I predict he'll be confirmed ... the last Friday in September.

Lord have mercy. Senator Kyl puts Miss Cleo to shame. Sure they're both shysters, but his scam could cause some serious damage to America's future.

And finally, this doosie:

You have always supported a "right to life" position on legislation concerning abortion. Are you satisfied, without asking, that John Roberts does as well?

That assumes I believe that the significant thing is to put people on the court who agree with me politically. If that's the case, then let's just have another legislative branch. I don't want to be setting up a test for judicial nominees based on their political views or ideology.

But you do believe that, Senator. Saying otherwise doesn't change the facts. Then again, this is classic national Republican strategy: say what people want to hear but do what you want to do. "No litmus test" is a lark that politicians from both parties use to deflect attention from their partisan agendas. I just happen to support one of those agendas, but I still wish the politicians would be up front about their ideology.

But then that would mean being honest with constituents so we could make better informed voting decisions.

Great episode tonight.

Interviews with: Anderson Cooper, climatologist Stephan Schneider and Fareed Zakaria

Panelists: Michael Eric Dyson, Bradley Whitford and Mary Frances Berry

I'm so glad that Bill had an actual climatologist on tonight who explained, in laymen's terms, the direct connection between global warming and uber-hurricanes. Hurricanes, you see, get their fuel from warm water, which is why hurricane season is during the summer through November (it takes a while for large bodies of water to cool off after being heated all summer). When the water is hotter, the hurricanes have more fuel and get bigger. The Gulf of Mexico is about three or four degrees warmer than average, which when magnified on a massive scale, was enough to generate a hurricane like Katrina. They also talked about The Day After Tomorrow, so that was validating.

I love Bradley Whitford. He's like his Josh Lyman character from The West Wing without the arrogance. Smart, charming and a die-hard liberal. He'd make a great candidate for something.

Dr. Berry is an inspiration and a national treasure. Given what's happening with the subtle dismantling of the Commission on Civil Rights these days, it's a little sad to know that the work she did as its chair for 12 years is being rapidly undone. Nevertheless, she was reasonable, likeable and articulate. I had the honor of hearing her speak last year at Creating Change in St. Louis. She has a humbling way of putting terrible tragedies in perspective, as she did tonight with the survival looting in New Orleans.

No surprise that I like the show better without any Bush apologists as guests or panelists. Why give them another platform to spin and obfuscate? They control virtually every other TV show in political broadcasting except for this one and The Daily Show. Let them lie on Fox or CNN. We do humor better anyway.

After an incredibly traumatic week, capped by the death of the Chief Justice, we could all use a good laugh to help us deal with the trauma.

The Aristocrats is the filthiest, funniest, raunchiest movie you're likely to see in a long time.

It may not be for everyone and it may not be the appropriate time, but it sure made me feel a little better for two hours.

Who says liberals don't have a sense of humor?

Ideologically reprehensible, but still the Chief Justice of the United States of America, which deserves respect.

Condolences to the Rehnquist family at this time.

I just flipped over to CNBC because they're airing the "Concert for Hurricane Relief" and my timing couldn't have been better. I tuned in just as Kanye West and Mike Myers were doing their appeal.

But just at the point where West said "George Bush doesn't care about black people" in the original broadcast (still streaming online at MSNBC.com), the camera cut to the concert logo and the sound turned off. Then two seconds later Chris Tucker came on screen with a couple of lines.

What the hell? This kind of censorship is disgusting. Kanye West was expressing justified outrage and a pretty inarguable observation.

Just goes to show that the mainstream right-wing media hates it when anyone speaks truth to power.

I will give Bill Frist credit for diagnosing patients in person for once.

The cognitive dissonance comes from his admirable work as an emergency medic in New Orleans, compared with his pushing the repeal of the fair-share tax (a.k.a. the estate tax) in the wake of this tragedy. It's almost like these are two different Bill Frists.

I'd like to know whether Chairman Dean will also volunteer his sorely needed medical skills to the disaster zone. Anyone with the skills and the means to get there should be headed to New Orleans, regardless of their political affiliation.

I've created a page on the site with examples of my published work. The link is static on every page on the site.

As humanitarian organizations prepare for the hurricane aftermath, there have been calls for people to donate more than just money to the American Red Cross: donate blood.

Of course, the Red Cross doesn't let just anyone donate. Among other reasons, you cannot donate blood to the Red Cross blood bank if you:

// snip//

are a male who has had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977

have ever taken money, drugs or other payment for sex since 1977

have had sexual contact in the past 12 months with anyone described above

// snip //

Never mind the fact that all blood is screened for pathogens, including HIV and other STI's, before it enters circulation. These rules are arbitrary and are pretty glib; they don't make a distinction between safe sexual behavior and high-risk sexual behavior, which has far more to do with whether or not the blood is safe for transfusion. This stigmatizes gay men absolutely unnecessarily and limits the pool of potential donors. Many queer guys would gladly pitch in to relief efforts by donating much-needed blood if they weren't prevented from doing so by an arcane bureaucratic regulation.

Of course, the only way that the Red Cross knows these guys like the weenie is if the prospective donors say so. There's a questionnaire that donors fill out before they're taken to the donation room. The MSM question is on there, in yes or no form.

I suggest that gay men who know they are STI-free simply answer no to that question. Let me be clear: men who have had sex with men and have contracted a sexually-transmitted infection or who are HIV positive or who do not know their HIV/STI status should still not donate. But those men who have had sex with men and know they are "clean" should not have any reservations about telling a little white lie about their sex lives if it means they could help save some lives.

The American Red Cross could easily revise their ridiculous guidelines so we could avoid this relatively minor ethical conundrum. Of course, they refused to do so after 9/11, so there's little hope they'd do the smart and right thing now.

So do what you need to do to help hurricane victims who need blood. Find a blood donation center here.

Can you imagine what America's first Republican president must be thinking right now? He presided over the seccession of the southern states and the north's ultimate victory. He spent a lot of political capital when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation and made slavery a central issue of the conflict.

Until the Proclamation, most of the conflict was about the conflict between the agrarian economy in the south and the rapidly industrializing northern economy. Of course slavery was part and parcel of the southern economy of 1861, but emancipation was a political non-starter. In fact, Lincoln himself was for slavery before he was against it (see Zinn and others on this).

But at the end of the day, President Lincoln went out on several politically-teneble limbs to do what we look back on today as the right thing. He payed a pretty steep price for that political calculation, but it was a monumental progressive step at the time.

Contrast that with our (hopefully) final Republican president. While his predecessor gave his life so poor black and brown folks could have the liberty they deserved, the guy we have now is more interested in saving his political hide at the expense of poor black and brown folks while paying empty lip service to the concept of liberty.

I say more power to Kanye West for using the platform he was given to tell it like it is.

One thing is clear: the Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln. Heck, it's not even the party of Goldwater anymore.

That Ted Downing: he can be a little nutty, but I sure am glad he's one of my Representatives for District 28 in the Arizona Legislature. Between him, David Bradley and fellow 40-Under-40'un Gabby Giffords, I feel my interests are well represented in Phoenix.

Anyway, Representative Downing had a message about the hurricane over at Blog for Arizona. He puts some local perspective on the tragedy:

The hurricane that devastated the Gulf Coast knocked out about one third of the US crude oil supply and about 20 percent of our domestic gasoline. Here in Arizona, the damaged area accounts for around 18% of our fuel. It will take 13 days for the strategic petroleum reserve to enter market following the President’s Emergency Order. It will take longer than that to recover the lost refining capacity and re-open the port at Fourchon, Louisiana, which is used to ship a third of the US oil supplies.

One of the things I admire most about Ted is his vast knowledge of facts and figures and knowing how to use them. It accounts for part of his eccentricity, but it also makes him a great friend to a lot of progressive causes.

Ted leads by example:

This Labor Day weekend, my wife and I decided to cancel our planned vacation and donate to a hurricane relief fund. We hope that like-minded Arizonans will dream up creative ways to reduce our energy footprint during this shortage. We have seen a lot of chaos over the past few days, but Americans are good people who are ready and eager to help in a crisis. Show them what Arizona can do.

Arizona Daily Wildcat - Guest Commentary: The real facts about assault - September 2, 2005.

We take a break from our regular Hurricane Katrina coverage to return to the McCain/Daily Star play-by-play...

On global warming:

In Alaska, the seal, sea lion sea otter population is down by 80 percent. In the Yukon, half of their spruce trees are dying from an attack of the spruce beetle because they have not had a cold enough winter to kill the larva. The native Alaskan tribes keep oral history that is handed down to them for generations, through thousands of years, and they've never seen anything like this.

Alaskan villages, because of melting permafrost, are toppling into the ocean. Erosion is incredibly severe, again because of the melting of the permafrost. The poles are a miner's canary of climate change - the atmosphere and the ozone layer at the poles. Whether we act or not is just a matter of time. Whether act in time so that our kids and our grandkids don't pay a huge price is still unknown.

//snip//

At least on this one I can agree with both my Senators, at least based on their votes on the energy bill. They both voted against the original bill and the conference report that was ultimately signed into law by the president on August 8. It's a massive boon to the oil industry and it's light on the environmental provisions. I doubt McCain and Kyl voted no for the reasons I'd want them to, though I'm willing to take Senator McCain at his word above based on his actions matching those words.

He could really put his money where his mouth is by becoming a co-sponsor of S. 261, "To designate a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness." He seems awfully concerned about the Alaskan wilderness, and this legislation would go a long way to protecting that which Senator McCain claims he holds so dear.

//snip//

What's the answer? Among other things, the cap-and-trade that Lieberman (Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.) and I proposed, plus nuclear power, plus a new Kyoto treaty. The United States' price for any treaty is the inclusion of India and China. The two emerging industrial nations would have to be part of any effort that would be successful in order to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

Why hasn't he been more vocal on this issue then, especially about Kyoto? He's wrong about waiting until China and India are included in the treaty. The United States must sign on now for two reasons. First, we are the world's top producer of greenhouse gasses, which have been shown to be the cause of worsening tropical storms and hurricanes, the likes of which we saw earlier this week. Second, we would have far more credibility on insisting other nations join the treaty if we lead by example. McCain's rhetoric here is nothing more than a high stakes game of chicken. And given that he doesn't deny the existance of global warming, I bet dollars to doornails that he knows he's playing that game.

And I'm always skeptical of anyone who advocates nuclear power as a cure-all for our energy shortage as a way to reduce greenhouse emmissions. It's a highly imperfect and dangerous technology. If anything, he should be advocating the appropriation of money to develop cleaner ways of burning fossil fuels and to develop safer nuclear technologies. More than either of those options, though, is the need to seriously invest in research to develop more efficient renewable energy sources. Wind, hydro and solar technologies could literally save the world.

Nuclear reactions create deadly radioactive waste that nobody wants stored in their backyards. Inevitably, it will be put in rural areas populated primarily by people of color. Congress should not be putting Americans' lives at risk by exposing them to nuclear waste. There are safer, cheaper, renewable options that are virtually ignored by the new energy bill.

Responding to a question about involving U.S. businesses in "immigration reform":

I think it's welcome, of course. I don't know why you have to pay money to do good for America but that seems to be the way we work in Washington. I think its very good to get the business community on board. I've had numerous conversations with the U.S. Chamber and they're already on board with our bill.

//snip//

Depends on what you mean by "do good for America." His argument here is a shrug and a dismissive, "that's just the way it works." I've said it before and I'll say it again: this man is not a reformer. He's just a savvy politician who knows how to sound like a reform maverick. And he's not asking the business community to pay-to-play. The corporations and ranchers and other businesses can better afford the costs he is advocating than the people coming over the border looking for a better life. It's counter-intuitive.

//snip//

There's a debate going on in the administration right now over the disposition of the 11 million who are already here. And I don't think that's been decided within the administration. But I can tell you this: Like Social Security, if it's going to succeed, it's got to have bipartisan support. And I know of no Democrat today who could support sending people back to the country that they came from. So I think that Kennedy's and my proposal would over time probably emerge with modifications.

I'd have more confidence in this analysis if the Democrats in Congress were actually acting like an opposition party, standing up for the unprivileged like they used to. They were successful in opposing the gutting of Social Security because the Bush administration's assault on the world's most successful social welfare program was far too blatant.

Speaking of Social Security, expect another assault on it before next year's mid-term elections. Next time their tactics will be much more subtle; their efforts won't involve public meetings with constituents and there will be no mention of private accounts. I don't yet know exactly how they'll reframe it, but you and I both know they will. I suspect they are considering starting up again soon, perhaps using Katrina as a backdrop to create some Orwellian inversions.


Enough for tonight. I'm going to bed early.

I absolutely abhor shows like Dateline NBC, which I consider to be the worst of the genre.

Nevertheless, I'm watching it right now with their on-the-ground coverage of the hurricane aftermath.

I've been meaning to write about this thought for a while, and I'm actually inspired by Dateline to say this: human beings are remarkably resilient.

I have the honor of working with trauma survivors every day. And more than their strength and courage, I am constantly awed by their ability to carry on in the face of tremendous odds.

And so it goes with the hurricane survivors. In the face of horrifying conditions, they carry on the best they can.

The other thing that has touched me is the outpouring of support, money and compassion from around the country and around the world. Americans are remarkably generous to our countrymen in times of dire need.

I'm especially grateful to the members of the international community who don't hold our bullying foreign policy against the survivors of this tragedy and have offered aid and services.

Human beings are remarkable and that gives me hope.

Susan F. Wood, PhD., Food and Drug Administration Assistant Commissioner for Women's Health, has resigned her post after FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford decided to play politics with women's health by further delaying approval of emergency contraception for over-the-counter sale. This despite the deal he struck with Congress to lock his confirmation as Commissioner that the FDA would issue a final decision by today.

Ms. Wood is a true hero who spent 15 years dedicated to improving the health of American women.

I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled. I therefore have submitted my resignation effective today.

Now that's integrity.

Los Angeles Times has a brief mention:

At least two people, including a child, have been raped.

I guarantee you there are many other people who have been sexually assaulted during this ordeal. Most of those survivors are compartmentalizing their trauma for now and focussing instead at the moment on not dying.

The human toll here is enormous. I have nothing but disgust for the sick scum who would take advantage of this situation to impose their sexual will on others.

I didn't want to jump the gun on this, but as I expected, WWLTV.com New Orleans is reporting that storm refugees are being raped:

4:15 P.M. - (AP): Police say storm victims are being raped and beaten inside the New Orleans Convention Center.

About 15,200 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses grew increasingly hostile.

Police Chief Eddie Compass says he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob.

Compass says, "We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten."

He says tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon.

In hopes of defusing the unrest at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they can find. But the bedlam appeared to make leaving difficult.

As I say repeatedly in my full time career, sexual assault is a violent crime of opportunity, in which the rapists takes the decision about his victim's body away from her and taking all her personal power away. Environmental stressors like, oh, say, a natural disaster, leave people feeling powerless and searching for a sense of control over the chaos any way they can get it. Of course, that thought process is never nearly that conscious, and there is never an excuse for sexual assault.

Unlike the so-called looting, rape is not being committed in the name of survival. It's a cruel, destructive crime that isn't even getting a fraction of the coverage. Even in a time of crisis when rapes are openly rampant, the right-wing media can't bring itself to cover that story. They're just perpetuating the silence and shame.

MSNBC.com asks some ethicists: in a city without rules, is looting OK?

“Obviously stealing things like TV sets or beer or any items that aren’t crucial for survival, that’s a nonstarter,” said Mark Bernstein, a professor of applied ethics at Purdue University. “There would be no ethicist in the country that would think that’s proper behavior.”

But he quickly made an analogy: If the only pharmacy nearby were closed, and it had a drug your mother needed to stay alive, breaking into the pharmacy would be the right thing to do."

“If it’s truly for survival — and I emphasize that, really for your children or wife — I think you have an obligation to your family that is at least as strong as the respect you have to pay other property owners,” he said.

It's pretty silly to steal a television set or toasters or other appliances in this situation anyway, since there is no electricity, large items would slow down evacuation from the area and those items don't meet basic needs.

So far the only actual "looter" photographs I've seen have been of people finding food and clothing. The ethicists are seeming to have some trouble with the looting of clothing and footwear.

I don't understand those reservations though. These people have been wading through hip-deep water for days. They probably didn't have a chance to pack changes of clothes. Even in places where the flooding isn't hip-deep, it's still likely over their ankles. People aren't taking shoes and apparel to make a fashion statement; they're taking these things as a matter of hygiene and personal health.

Stealing guns and major appliances, definitely not kosher. But I don't begrudge anyone for taking the food, clothing, medication or personal hygience products they need to survive under these circumstances. Most of those perishable items would have been long spoiled anyway by the time the original and rightful owner is able to come back to the city. Better somebody should get to use the potentially life-saving swag.

The Daily Star is reporting that 42 southern Arizona schools received failing grades. While I believe that there should be standards that need to be met, our punitive education system, codified with No Child Left Behind and state education laws, sets schools, teachers and students up for failure.

It's absurd that we allow these labels to be handed out based on one week of testing each year. Instead of teaching life lessons and hands-on useful information, educators must teach to tests. That's incredibly boring. No wonder students aren't showing up to school on test day.

I've spent some time as an educator for a local non-profit organization, so I've had the opportunity to go into a variety of middle and high schools in the greater Tucson area. My impression is probably a little skewed since I generally only spend about 3 hours in each class that invites me. What I see in our schools though are a whole lot of students just not caring about the education they are receiving. That's not to say they don't care about education or receiving an education. A lot of the problem has to do with the messengers.

That said, I think teachers have the rawest end of the deal. They have enormous pressures to deliver and fewer and fewer resources with which to deliver. It's difficult to be creative and engaging when you're using textbooks that refer to the civil rights movement as "trouble ahead." (What's that from? I just heard that line on TV somewhere...an episode of Buffy, perhaps?)

My mom was a teacher "B.C." (before children) and served on our local school board for 16 years. She was president of her county school board and was one of New Jersey's first 12 Master Board Members, a certification that she had to pass a lengthy, complex test to earn. She speaks from successful experience when she talks about improving student performance. New Jersey (our home state) consistently outperforms most other states in the education arena.

There are four major elements that NCLB doesn't really address but are critical for it to succeed:

1. Smaller class sizes. Call them "Smaller Learning Communities" or whatever you want to call them, but the fact remains that students do better and are more engaged when their teachers can dedicate some one-on-one time to them.

2. Encourage participation in extra-curriculur activities, but let the football team pay for their own uniforms. Students who are involved with clubs and teams outperform their peers who go right home after school. They are more engaged with their school community and are more likely to continue showing up to classes.

3. Motivate parents to motivate their children. When parents show that they value education and are interested in their children's success, starting with pre-K, that sends an incredibly positive, powerful message to those kids that makes education a priority in their lives. Staying interested and involved in their kids' school careers is the most important effort parents can make.

4. Eliminate the link between property tax levies and school funding. The largest segment of the voting population are the elderly, who don't have a direct stake in the education system anymore, their children having long since left public school. If quality education is the birthright of every American - as it should be - then it should be fully funded by the government without reservation. School funding should also not be tied to property values, which further perpetuates the disparities in school performance based on location.

That last one especially is a radical concept. Why invest in textbooks when we can invest in bomb? The "local control" red herring can easily be addressed by giving every school district in the country the exact same amount of money per pupil, but leaving how to spend that money up to each district to decide.

If I was a cynical lefty, I'd argue that the powers-that-be have a vested interest in supporting an educational system that continues to fail students because an educated workforce is bad for business and would further put a dent in the military's recruiting efforts. Lucky for you I'm not that cynical.

Education, good nutrition and home stability are the keys to reducing poverty and crime rates. We could make a lasting difference if we worked to radically shift the nation's education systems rather than paying lip service with ethnocentric standardized tests. Too bad many of our state and federal legislators never got to take a class in logic when they were in school...