Is today the big day?

Voices Carry is saying the big unveiling of the Vote Yes petition total is scheduled for this afternoon. Any predictions on what the total will be? Will they put Leslee up front or let a less divisive figure take the lead? How many times will they use the phrases "abortion as birth control" and "this is what the voters asked for"? How long will it take after this announcement is made for Missionaries for the Preborn and other fringe groups to load up their trucks and return to South Dakota?

***Edit: Total is 46,000; both in the press coverage and on the Vote Yes website, Allen seems to be taking the lead over Leslee; not much about the message in KELO's coverage, and the wild eyed crazies are loading up their anti-choice caravans as we speak.***

A Dis-Honorable Mention for Stupidity

*Edit: Looks like the pictures have been taken down. Description from the article:

Photos from the party show female students wearing “Indian maiden” dresses, stitched up the side with fringe at the bottom, and feather headdresses. Some male students are naked in the photos except for underwear and brown

T-shirts wrapped around their waists as makeshift loincloths and red makeup smeared across their faces and chests.

A little news from our neighbor to the north: apparently somebody forgot to tell these charming UND students that that as 'Fighting Sioux' they're supposed to be honoring Native Americans. Now, I'm not going to say that the fact that UND has stubbornly refused to let go of a nickname that has been condemned by tribes, human rights groups, and UND students alike *caused* this behavior, but I think it's pretty clear that even basic race relations are beyond the grasp of these kids. And yet Native people are supposed to just trust that the whole thing is a big honor?

Seriously, UND. It's time to give in. What is the big friggin' deal?? I guess I'm missing what you're 'standing up for' here. What would really be lost, besides the animosity and disgust that's currently directed your way?


On an unrelated note, check out Cory's great response to Ken's response to the ongoing Tibet discussion.

Speaking of discussion, can I just say how not a fan I am of comment-free blogs? Comments are a chance to actually have a dialogue about an issue. Not everything deserves its own post and the 'point-counter point' style seems like a poor way to work out the finer points of an argument. Instead of a conversation, we're forced to yell at each other from opposite sides of a gorge. Would it be a stretch to suggest that the commentless blog is indicative of exactly what's wrong with our democracy? Probably. But it's still annoying.

Lefties Love Tibet

Ken Blanchard's recent post on Tibet is a classic case of taking a random relevant issue and somehow turning it into a condemnation of the left with nary an example or piece of evidence in sight. He says:

It is one of the revealing facts about the international left that it cares deeply about the fate of Palestinians under Israeli power, but next to nothing about China's brutal occupation and colonization of Tibet.

Really? The left doesn't care about Tibet? That must be why The Tibetan Freedom Concert was put on by notable conservatives The Beastie Boys and features right-wing staples like Rage Against the Machine. I'm sure the reported support of Tibet by Democrats is because of some vast leftist MSM conspiracy. And all those dreadlocked kids around town with "Save Tibet" patches on their bags must be the membership of the College Republicans. Maybe the people who live out on the golf course just keep their Tibetan prayer flags *inside* and that's why I haven't seen them.

Certainly, there are conservative people who support the plight of Tibet, but it's a classically left-wing cause and I've seen no evidence that the left has abandoned it. It's like if I were to say, "South Dakota Politics talk about nothing but Barack Obama; clearly they hate John McCain and hope he dies." It just doesn't make any sense.

Perhaps it's just the Europeans that Ken's got a problem with:

European scholars have called for the ostracism of their colleagues from Israel. I missed the part where they want to punish Chinese scholars for the much worse atrocities committed by their nation. But of course the Chinese are communists, and hostile the U.S. Israel is not communist and is an ally of the United States.

Certainly, if there are Chinese scholars hostile to Tibetan independence working in Europe and receiving no criticism, the(unnamed, un-cited) European scholars who have called for the ostracism of their Israeli colleagues are big hypocrites. If such Chinese scholars, European scholars, and Israeli colleagues do indeed exist, then right on, Ken.

Jeez

Are we really at a point in the Democratic primary where younger feminists are calling older feminists 'hysterical'??

Why, yes. Yes we are.

Hint: Insulting people who hold a different opinion does not help your candidate, no matter who your candidate might be. Dividing feminists into "feminists who get it" and "hysterical, condescending, Archie Bunker in heels, extra-rational, emotional, pseudo-populist demagogues of the right" based upon which candidate one supports in this race is not useful either.

Update: STDs and Teens in SD

Apparently, the one in four stat probably doesn't even cover the teen STD rate in South Dakota. Great. I really love the comment from the mom who says:

"Clearly, the safe-sex message is fooling our children because there is no such thing."

There's no such thing as a safe-sex message? I would agree with that. Where would South Dakota teens be getting such a message? Not from school. Not from parents like this. Seems to me that the LACK of a safe-sex message might be the issue here. The Argus didn't bother to talk any one who was pro-comprehensive sex ed for this article (all that research and investigating you have to do as a journalist...who needs it??), which is really too bad because the article provides basically zero context.

"The best way to avoid getting an STD is no sex or to have one partner," [family physician Mark] Huntington says. Bottom line, "it makes good medical sense to be monogamous for life."

It also makes good medical sense to run five miles a day and never eat any cheese. Guess what? Any health education plan based on the idea that more than 1% of people is going to adopt such a lifestyle is going to fail. Let's spend millions of our tax dollars on a campaign to convince people to throw their TVs out their windows, while we're at it.

And considering the that more than 90% of adults have had pre-marital sex, there's a pretty good chance that almost everyone advocating abstinence until marriage for teens is a big fat hypocrite. But kids respond really well to "do as I say, not as I do," right?

As if by divine providence, I got an email this morning from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice informing me that today is National Interfaith Call In Day to Support Comprehensive Sexuality Education (click here to learn more and participate!).

They're trying to get Congress to support the Responsible Education About Life [REAL] Act.

REAL would provide states with much needed funding for programs that would:
•be required to be age-appropriate and medically accurate;
•teach that abstinence is the only sure way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and stress the value of abstinence while they also teach about the benefits of contraception and protection;
•encourage family communication about sexuality;
•refrain from teaching or promoting religion;
•teach negotiation skills for young people;
•teach young people about the effects of alcohol and drug use on responsible behavior.

Sound like good stuff to me. Exactly the kind of programs that South Dakota teens are apparently in desperate need of.

Not really a topic, but...

Every blog I try to post to these days has like twenty million 'K's, so I've had to go and change my name. Oh well, everyone knows who I am, anyway:P

Depressing News

Here's some depressing new: Study: 1 in 4 Teen Girls Has an STD

I think we can all agree that this isn't cool. Since HPV makes up the majority of the infections, I think there's a good chance these numbers will go down with use of the HPV vaccine, but it's still a worrisome statistic.
Interesting notes: Only about half of the girls acknowledged having sex. What do we make of that? Doesn't it seem like a lack of education about what sex IS, combine with a whole lot of shame are probably keeping girls from getting the services they need? Combine that with the fact that

"...screening tests are underused in part because many teens don't think they're at risk, but also, some doctors mistakenly think, 'Sexually transmitted diseases don't happen to the kinds of patients I see.'"

and you've got trouble.

I didn't have real sex ed in high school, but I had very honest parents, a good doctor, and access to my mom's copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves. I feel very lucky that I had some guidance. It seems like we're just leaving the vast majority of teen girls to wonder around blindly, trying to find their way. And what do they find instead? CHLAMYDIA.

p.s. I do not appreciate being baited

But Ken Blanchard must be bored, and virtually anything is better than grading student essays, which is what I've been doing with the rest of my weekend.

Ken's posting today about Heather MacDonald's recent LA Times op-ed, which he not so surprisingly accepts without question. I'd heard about MacDonald's op-ed a few days back, and have also followed the response from the feminist blogging community. I think the best, most detailed response came from Jill at Feministe, and it's worth quoting at length, mostly because this discussion is beyond tiring to me and Jill says it better than I could:

So as long as women aren’t defining their experiences as rape — a conclusion she draws based on the fact that many women decided not to report the incidents — it isn’t rape. Unless the woman says it is rape, and then it definitely wasn’t rape, it was her fault for how she dressed and acted.

While Ken and Heather MacDonald see this as evidence that rape just never occurs on campus, I can think of a bunch of reasons why rape survivors might want to convince themselves that what they'd just experienced wasn't rape. Ken is pretty smart, and can probably think of some reasons, too. Jill goes on to refute MacDonald's argument that the 'one in four' statistic is false, and questions MacDonald's criticism of both the "campus rape industry" and the "campus sex bureaucracy" (whatever those might be):

At first, it seems strange that MacDonald would simultaneously attack what she thinks is a hyped campus rape crisis and sex education on campuses. But it’s quite deliberate, and very telling. Anti-rape activism and sex-positive sexual health education are two sides to the same coin: They both challenge the dominant narrative that women’s bodies aren’t our own; they insist that sex is about consent and enjoyment, not violence and harm; and they attack a power structure that sees women as victims and men as predators. Anti-rape activists and sex-positive educators insist that men are not animals. Instead, men are rational human beings fully capable of listening to their partners and understanding that sex isn’t about pushing someone to do something they don’t want to...

It’s conservatives like MacDonald who pine for a time when women kept their legs shut until men forced them open — and were then humiliated and scorned if they dared stand up for themselves.

The psychology of female rape apologists isn’t that hard to figure out. If you can tell yourself that rape survivors asked for it — that they dressed a certain way, flirted too much, drank too much, just changed their minds, or flat-out made it up — you feel safe. You don’t do those things, and so you aren’t at risk.

I’m sympathetic to the need for psychological self-protection. But not when it’s to the detriment of other women. MacDonald works for the conservative Manhattan Institute, and her view isn’t simply a personal one: It’s the standard right-wing misogynist line. And it’s part of a much broader assault on women’s rights and basic bodily autonomy.

You might also want to take a look at "Wrong on Rape", Nora Niedzielski-Eichner's response in the LA Times.

Glad I could help, Ken.

Sanity (almost)

Interesting news from my new home: the Montana Catholic Conference has come out against the proposed Human Life Amendment to the state constitution:

The Montana Catholic Conference says there are better ways to limit abortions than a proposed ballot
initiative on human life.
Constitutional Initiative 100 would define a person as "a human
being at all stages of human development or life, including the
state of fertilization."
It has yet to qualify for November's ballot. It has the support
of some abortion foes.
But the Montana Catholic Conference says it prefers other
strategies to bring an end to abortion.
They want to fund pregnancy centers that help women find
alternatives to abortion, increase adoption services, and require
parental notification for juveniles seeking abortion.

So why is it again that South Dakota Catholic leaders can't get enough of attempts to ban abortion?