The Goddess Aradia

Goddess: Aradia /Aaradia

A champion Italian Goddess sworn to protect her people against the
aggression of masculine faith and its persecutors during the reign of
medieval terror. The original Aradia was a female Christ figures in
Italy who taught around 1353. She was imprisoned more than once,
escaped several times and eventually disappeared.

This is the story of Aradia is the daughter of Diana and Lucifer God
of the Sun. (Not the christian god of hell aka called Satan). She is
considered the Italian Queen of the Witches. Aradia is an extremely
powerful entity and a protectress of Witches in general.

The story I would like to tell her is the story of Aradia the daughter
of Diane and Lucifer. The Queen of the Witches. *The Story Of Aradia*
Goddess Diana used magick to charm Lucifer. He was a bit afraid of
her, most likely because she was a Moon Goddess, and very dark next to
his light. Of this union, Aradia was born. Diana liked using magick,
and wanted to develop her magickal strengths further, so she decided
to go to Earth and do this. She disguised herself as a mortal woman
and went to Earth. On Earth, Diana found that times were hard and the
people were oppressed. She decided to teach the people magick, so that
they were more easily able to care for themselves, and to protect
themselves from their oppressors. Diana became a Witch, and she taught
many people her craft. After a long while, Diana had no choice but to
reveal herself as a Goddess. After doing this, Diana realized she must
return to the heavens, and so she did. Diana knew there was more
teaching to be done with the mortals, so she decided to send her
daughter, Aradia, to Earth. Aradia was to take over where her mother
had left off. Aradia was sent to Earth with instructions from Diana to
be carried out. Aradia was instructed to teach the mortals aggressive
magick, in order to help themselves from their horrific oppression.
Aradia taught them well, as she was a strong and powerful Goddess. For
the gifts of magick she gave so many, Aradia is considered "Queen of
the Witches.

How Diana give birth to the Aadia (Herodias) "It is Diana! Lo! She
rises crescented." ~ Keats Endymion -Krats' Endymion "Make more bright
The Star Queen's crescent on her marriage night." -Ibid.

---Lady Abigail

Dominionism is Scary

The Year in Review, Sexually Speaking

A year of focusing on sex scandals like Anthony Wiener's while reproductive rights were under viscious attack.

Sharron Angle UGH

Really?

Sharron Angle, the Nebraska Nevada Republican Senate candidate who recently made headlines when a radio interview was unearthed in which she opposed legal abortion even in case of rape/incest because "God has a plan" (and your assault is part of it), has caught media attention again for her advice to 13-year-old incest victims to just make lemons into lemonade.

The Huffington Post reports that, during an interview on the conservative Alan Stock Show, Angle was asked what she would say to a 13-year-old incest victim who became pregnant by her father's rape. Angle's response? She says she counsels teenagers facing "very at risk, difficult pregnancies" to just look about for alternatives, and when they do, "they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade."

I don't think "lemon situation" accurately describes the unfathomable situation of a young girl who has been raped and impregnated by her own father — a situation that would be made even worse if Angle had her way and the girl was subjected by law to forced pregnancy. Angle's flippant, clichéd comparison shows how out-of-touch she is. You can survive a traumatic situation, move on with your life, but that doesn't make child rape a "lemons into lemonade" situation. There is no "upside" to being raped as a child, especially by your own father.

"Raped by Dad? Just Turn Lemons Into Lemonade!"

Pamphlets Tell Women "Ungodly" Dress Provokes Rape

original story

In Tri-Cities, Washington, religious fundamentalists are handing out pamphlets telling women that their "ungodly" dress provokes rape. What century is this again? I get so confused....

A lady sitting in the backseat leaned forward, between the two men in front, and handed her a leaflet: “Women & Girls” it said across the top.

“Even though nothing is showing, you’re being ungodly,” Canter recalled the woman telling her. “You make men want to be sinful.”

Canter was wearing boots pulled up over jeans, a pink zebra-print shirt with a black jacket zipped up over it. She has blond hair, dark eye make-up and a little red lip ring. “I just asked if she needed any salt, pepper or ketchup,” Canter said. “I mean, how do I respond to that?”

Minutes later, Canter’s mother, Pam Yates, who owns the restaurant, returned from the bank. Canter handed her “Women & Girls” and Yates started reading.

“You may have been given this leaflet because of the way you are dressed,” it begins. “Have you thought about standing before the true and living God to be judged?”

It continues with one essential theme: The sins of men are, in part, the fault of women, specifically women in tight-fitting clothing. Yates was annoyed. Then she got to a section on page two:

“Scripture tells us that when a man looks on a woman to lust for her he has already committed adultery in his heart. If you are dressed in a way that tempts a men to do this secret (or not so secret) sin, you are a participant in the sin,” the leaflet states. “By the way, some rape victims would not have been raped if they had dressed properly. So can we really say they were innocent victims?”

The hand-out is signed “anonymous.”

Yates was angry.

“What if my daughter had been a rape victim?” she said. “I hope that they never handed this to anyone, especially a young person, who’s been through that and struggles with that daily. And then they get handed something that says they are at fault. I cannot believe that a Christian, someone who walks in God’s shoes, would have made this.”

Leaflet in hand, Yates locked eyes with the old man driving the old white car, still parked in the lot, and stormed outside. The car quickly drove away.

Sandra G. Rasnake, the sexual assault program director at Bristol’s Crisis Center, had one eyebrow cocked as she read through the leaflet Thursday morning.

She cocked the other as she read aloud: “some rape victims would not have been raped if they had dressed properly.”

“Wow,” she said. “This idea that men don’t have enough self control – and evidently they shouldn’t have to – plays into all the old myths that we’ve tried for years to overcome: Rape happens to 2-year-olds and 92-year-olds, not just attractive young women. How about we hold the person doing the action accountable, whoever it is going against the will and consent of somebody else?”

more at link

Want!

Department of Book Reports: A Twisted Faith

"Love in the Depth of our Disagreements"

Melissa Harris Lacewell:

"Standing on the Side of Love: Harnessing Love's Power to Stop Oppression:"
immigration, LGBT rights and more, sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Association.

video - "Blue Boat Home"

I think this is truly lovely. In an all too stressful world, this goes right to the soul; it's my version of religion. Please take a few deep breaths and then relax and enjoy this:

Mission Accomplished

Back during the South Carolina primary, Bill Clinton tried to marginalize Barack Obama by comparing the latter's victory in that state to Jesse Jackson's decades before.

Most white Americans can not stand Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. I'm sure about this because I'm around white people a lot, what with being white and all. Bill Clinton's putting Obama's name out there with Jackson's was calculated - and despicable.

Bill Clinton is a sharp pol. From what I've read, even direct quotes over the years, the man can calculate electoral percentages quicker than you or I can figure up how much to tip a waitress (Catholics plus X percent of Protestants on this issue, X percent of red state support on that issue). He knows the different demographics and how they will break around various issues. He knows these as well as he knows the insides of his own eyelids. I am certain of it.

Bill Clinton knows the demographics - and he knows how to split them too. For instance, remember his infamous Sister Soulja moment? As recently as 2004, he was, we now know, still up to his old tricks:

Clinton Advice Spurned. Looking for a way to pick up swing voters in the Red States, former President Bill Clinton, in a phone call with (John) Kerry, urged the Senator to back local bans on gay marriage. Kerry respectfully listened, then told his aides, "I'm not going to ever do that." (Pam's House Blend).

So, Clinton knows how to split different demographics for political advantage (right - and my next insightful post will be on the imporant topic of "the world is indeed round"). He is willing to throw minority groups under the bus if he sees a potential electoral advantage to doing so.

After spending my Katrina evacuation in Little Rock (which we chose so we could tour Clinton's presidential library...it beats Houston!), I decided to take a detour through Bill Clinton's boyhood home of Hope, touring some of the sites linked to the childhood of the former president.

Truth be told, there wasn't that much to see. There was Clinton's mother's home, his grandparents' home. There was the Blythe/Kelly/Clinton cemetery plot, an unremarkable looking school he attended (long since converted to another purpose). Finally, there was a little train depot that functioned as a museum.

That was it.

Still, I am so glad I took that detour. It was deeply moving, not because any of the designated sites of interest were in any way remarkable, but precisely because none of it was remarkable. As a southerner, once I'd walked around in Hope, Arkansas, I felt I understood some things about our nation's forty-second president. The southerness of the place was palpable. It looked quaint and tidy in places, shabby and unkempt in others. There was no large-scale commerce, no industry. There was poverty. And, to this New Orleans girl, the racial mix of the residents looked like that in my hometown (indeed, census figures show that the town is about 42% white and about 42% black).

From this place came Bill Clinton, this humble place, a president born of working people. I admit that tears came to my eyes because for all that I bitch about what's wrong with my country and engage in activism against the status quo, there is, truly, something right about a country in which a white man so humbly born can become president. (I know, I know. Radical critics are supposed to hate America, right? Well, actually, as Dr. King said, "I criticize America because I love her. I want her to stand as a shining moral example to the world."* No, I'm not an America hater, no matter what my brother-in-law says about me. In truth, I'm a woman whose idea of a great vacation is to go to Washington, D.C, to wander the grounds of Mount Vernon giving thanks for the light rain shower so that no one will notice that I'm crying, to visit the Library of Congress and find that I have to locate a bench on which to rest because standing just on the other side of the glass from Thomas Jefferson's beloved book collection has literally made me lightheaded. I confess to all of that even though, in the context of the rest of this essay, said confession puts me firmly in the camp of white American nationalists I'll be criticizing a few paragraphs hence - just one of the many paradoxes inherent in trying to do antiracism work when you're white like me. Please forgive me my absurdity while I flirt with radical honesty. As Walt Whitman said, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.")

In this place called Hope, Clinton has oft told us, his grandfather taught him to reject the racism that was as much an ordinary part of life for whites as were warm, ripe tomatoes and oversized, iced watermelons. Clinton's grandfather taught him by example to do business with local blacks the same as he did with whites, a habit quite different from other white shopkeepers of the day.

So, I've been to Bill Clinton's hometown. I know he and I share the same roots, roots in a beloved, schizophrenic South - a South of sweet tea and relic slave shacks, of casserole-bearing funeral attendees and still-segregated churches, a South of unfailing manners as well as fierce racism both personal and institutionalized (I've lived up North and out West too, and white people there need not check their mental compasses for due South when they think about racism).

And so I've seen where Bill Clinton grew up. And I know. I know that Bill Clinton knew exactly what he was doing when he made that comparison of Barack Obama to Jesse Jackson. He knew, and for personal gain for himself and his, he was willing to fan those racist flames, always there, always hot, always bright - and denied by whites even if maintaining that denial requires us to stay in our skivvies and wander blindfolded while denying the existence of the fire.

Oh, he knew.

And it isn't just that Clinton compared Obama to Jackson, Jackson is someone most whites don't like, therefore the association could hurt Obama. It is that, but it's also more.

Hearing about what's happening with Obama's polling numbers beginning to decline now that lots of oh-so inculpable white people have seen film of Obama's pastor speaking his truth, I was thinking today that about how this process, this process of making Obama black enough to make whites consciously uncomfortable, began with Bill Clinton's comment in South Carolina. Now, I'm sure someone - a bunch of someones - would have eventually begun doing that anyway. So this thought came to me: they intended to morph him into "the angry black preacher," to link Obama in the minds of white voters to Reverend Jesse Jackson and Reverend Al Sharpton. It ended up being Reverend Jeremiah Wright instead.

Mission accomplished. Heckuva job, Billy.

And it's no coincidence that in order to morph Obama into those two "angry" black preachers so dreaded by whites, they went through....Obama's preacher.

That was the only way white culture, really, could finally go after Obama.

You see, most white people - and I am a white person - don't know black people. Sometimes, it's overtly racist whites who don't want to know black people. Sometimes, we move to the suburbs, shop at Whole Foods, vote for Democrats, and tell ourselves we just don't have that much opportunity for interracial interaction, but that if we did, you know, we're sure we would be "good" white people who are culturally colorblind. After all, in our reality, race isn't a problem, ergo racism isn't a problem in America.

And even if we know some black people, we don't know black people. How can we, running around the racist bonfire I described above, stripped down to our skivvies and blindfolded so we can deny the heat and the light that are right there? Blindfolded is no way to see. So we don't see.

And when we, blindfolded, hear someone like Jeremiah Wright, ranting apparent madness out there in the beyond, we are shocked. We are appalled. We are angry. We can't imagine why they are being so racist!**

Why don't we know black people? Simply because, to borrow from the boorish Jack Nicholson, we can't handle the truth.

I'll borrow from someone far wiser than I to explain further (his name actually is Tim Wise, but that actually isn't why I consider him a wiseman):

What Jeremiah Wright knows, and told his flock--though make no mistake, they already knew it--is that 9/11 was neither the first, nor worst act of terrorism on American soil. The history of this nation for folks of color, was for generations, nothing less than an intergenerational hate crime, one in which 9/11s were woven into the fabric of everyday life: hundreds of thousands of the enslaved who died from the conditions of their bondage; thousands more who were lynched (as many as 10,000 in the first few years after the Civil War, according to testimony in the Congressional Record at the time); millions of indigenous persons wiped off the face of the Earth. No, to some, the horror of 9/11 was not new. To some it was not on that day that "everything changed." To some, everything changed four hundred years ago, when that first ship landed at what would become Jamestown. To some, everything changed when their ancestors were forced into the hulls of slave ships at Goree Island and brought to a strange land as chattel. To some, everything changed when they were run out of Northern Mexico, only to watch it become the Southwest United States, thanks to a war of annihilation initiated by the U.S. government. To some, being on the receiving end of terrorism has been a way of life. Until recently it was absolutely normal in fact.

But white folks have a hard time hearing these simple truths. We find it almost impossible to listen to an alternative version of reality. Indeed, what seems to bother white people more than anything, whether in the recent episode, or at any other time, is being confronted with the recognition that black people do not, by and large, see the world like we do; that black people, by and large, do not view America as white people view it. We are, in fact, shocked that this should be so, having come to believe, apparently, that the falsehoods to which we cling like a kidney patient clings to a dialysis machine, are equally shared by our darker-skinned compatriots....

Whites are easily shocked by what we see and hear from Pastor Wright and Trinity Church, because what we see and hear so thoroughly challenges our understanding of who we are as a nation. But black people have never, for the most part, believed in the imagery of the "shining city on a hill," for they have never had the option of looking at their nation and ignoring the mountain-sized warts still dotting its face when it comes to race. Black people do not, in the main, get misty eyed at the sight of the flag the way white people do--and this is true even for millions of black veterans--for they understand that the nation for whom that flag waves is still not fully committed to their own equality. They have a harder time singing those tunes that white people seem so eager to belt out, like "God Bless America," for they know that whites sang those words loudly and proudly even as they were enforcing Jim Crow segregation, rioting against blacks who dared move into previously white neighborhoods, throwing rocks at Dr. King and then cheering, as so many did, when they heard the news that he had been assassinated.

Whites refuse to remember (or perhaps have never learned) that which black folks cannot afford to forget. I've seen white people stunned to the point of paralysis when they learn the truth about lynchings in this country--when they discover that such events were not just a couple of good old boys with a truck and a rope hauling some black guy out to the tree, hanging him, and letting him swing there. They were never told the truth: that lynchings were often community events, advertised in papers as "Negro Barbecues," involving hundreds or even thousands of whites, who would join in the fun, eat chicken salad and drink sweet tea, all while the black victims of their depravity were being hung, then shot, then burned, and then having their body parts cut off, to be handed out to onlookers. They are stunned to learn that postcards of the events were traded as souvenirs, and that very few whites, including members of their own families did or said anything to stop it.

Rather than knowing about and confronting the ugliness of our past, whites take steps to excise the less flattering aspects of our history so that we need not be bothered with them. So, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for example, site of an orgy of violence against the black community in 1921, city officials literally went into the town library and removed all reference to the mass killings in the Greenwood district from the papers with a razor blade--an excising of truth and an assault on memory that would remain unchanged for over seventy years.

Most white people desire, or perhaps even require the propagation of lies when it comes to our history. Surely we prefer the lies to anything resembling, even remotely, the truth. Our version of history, of our national past, simply cannot allow for the intrusion of fact into a worldview so thoroughly identified with fiction. But that white version of America is not only extraordinarily incomplete, in that it so favors the white experience to the exclusion of others; it is more than that; it is actually a slap in the face to people of color, a re-injury, a reminder that they are essentially irrelevant, their concerns trivial, their lives unworthy of being taken seriously. (please for the love of god please read the rest of this***)

So, there it is. We don't know black people and Tim Wise has explained why we don't.

And what happens when we don't know or know them? Well, apparently the best we can do is to rely on what we've seen.

What have we seen? Well, each of us has been provided through American culture with a rather limited range of black archetypes. There is what Spike Lee calls "the magical negro, there is "Mammy" (yep, still), there is "the driver" a la Morgan Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy" - those are the classic archetypes.****

In addition to archetypes, whites commonly hold stereotypes of blacks and despite our being supposedly oh-so postracial, surveys show the list hasn't change much in the last sixty years.

In 1933, the top ten stereotypes of blacks were "superstitious, lazy/slovenly, happy-go-lucky, ignorant, musical, ostentatious, very religious, physically dirty, naive and unreliable."

In 1995, the top ten were "athletic, rhythmic/musical, unintelligent/ignorant/stupid, poor, loud, criminal, hostile, very religious, disloyal to family, and physically dirty." (source)

So I submit that whites individually, mainstream culture, and the media have been struggling to find a category - an archetype or stereotype, something for heaven's sake, it's all so disorienting - a hole into which we whites could peg Barack Obama because, once again, we rely on racist cultural shorthand since we don't really know black people (and we really can't recognize that we don't know because the whole system of white privilege is so invisible to us).

For months, Barack Obama was broadcasting to white America as an individual (well, who doesn't, really) and seemed to be being received as such. He wasn't Mammy (or, to be gender precise, Uncle Peter), the driver, Sambo, "the magical negro" (although some have attempted to link him to the latter). He is clearly not, to return to the list of top ten stereotypes, unintelligent/ignorant/stupid, poor, loud, criminal, hostile, disloyal to family, or physically dirty.

He is athletic, and the media has treated us to a number of "Barack plays basketball" stories, but I think white voters were also seeing in those stories the Obama who is competitive and a fighter, who is focused, who is young and vigorous (although I heard some time back that, should he be the nominee, Republicans will run campaign ads that show him playing basketball).

He did joke during one of the debates about his dancing abilities versus Bill Clinton's, and he also danced on the Ellen show.

I offer these last two items with tongue-in-cheek. The point is that I believe whites and our media have been working down a list of "black people we think we know" to try to know Obama.

One item remains on the list of top ten stereotypes - it's "extremely religious." Somehow, the (white) public has very quickly begun morphing Obama into his minister (even as the Clintons previously tried with Reverend Jesse Jackson). And if the (white) public can successfully do that, can think "angry black minister" when they think of Obama, then we will have finally, after these long months of bumbling around, found one of our holes into which he can be fitted. "Angry black minister." Then maybe Obama too is "angry." And then maybe he hates us. In fact, maybe he can't be trusted; maybe he's acting nice around us and hating us behind our backs and plotting against us (these were the big fears during slavery, obviously, and I think we still fear these things today). AND, Hillary is here to explain to us that he isn't even qualified for the job he seeks - she will give that much to the likes of John McCain, experienced political whore in more ways than I care to list at the moment, and not to Barack Obama. I notice too that the red phone ad has lots of racist fearmongering potential - nighttime, white kids sleeping sweetly all snug in their beds while visions of sugar plums dance in their heads - virtuous white women of America, can you entrust this man with your precious children? (NY Times noticed too).

THERE! I think that'll do it. Yep, he's finally fitting in that hole! Whew, what a relief, my white brothers and sisters. Life as we understand it can now continue! We now return to your regularly scheduled oblivion.

Enjoy your recession. Buy a bikini to celebrate global warming. Keep those kids safe and send them to America's fine institutions of learning; McCain says we'll be needing them in Iraq years from now. Keep a month's supply of, well, everything in case there is a levee breach near you (yeah, you, non-Louisianians, I AM talking to you too; check out the links). Stock up on the duct tape because it looks like for the indefinite future they will be hating us for freedoms (apparently "they" haven't heard that our freedoms ain't what they used to be).

Submission accomplished. Barack who?

UPDATE: A WHITE FRIEND WHO READ THIS SAYS HE HAS A BLACK FRIEND WHOM HE BELIEVES HE REALLY KNOWS. WHEN I WROTE THAT WHITES DON'T KNOW BLACK PEOPLE, I GUESS I WAS THINKING PRIMARILY IN BROADER, CULTURAL TERMS. WHEN IT COMES TO INDIVIDUAL FRIENDSHIPS, I CONCEDE THAT I MAY HAVE OVERSTATED THE CASE. I GUESS I WOULD HAVE TO TALK TO HIS FRIEND, WHOM I ALSO KNOW, AND ASK HIM WHAT HE THINKS.

* Tim Wise's essays don't seem to have individual URLs, so I can't link to them directly. All I can get is the URL to his homepage. From there, click on "essays" and then "A Dream Distorted: Reflections on the Hijacking of Martin Luther King Jr."

** from the link, click on "essays" and then "Another Batch of White Whine:
Obama, Black Voters and the Myth of Reverse Racism"

*** from the link, click on "essays" and then "Of National Lies and Racial Amnesia:
Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, and the Audacity of Truth"

**** It occurs to me that in each of those examples, African-Americans are defined strictly according to their utility to white people - mammy, driver, "magic negro." This is also the case with female archetypes - wife (in relationship with a man), mother (in relation to a child), virgin (not yet penetrated by man), slut/whore (penetrated by too many men), femme fatale (man can't resist), damsel in distress (needs protection from or rescue by a man), and so on. This tendency toward what I'm calling for the moment the archetype-in-relation illustrates the extent to which women and people of color are still viewed through the lens of the dominant culture (women as seen by men, people of color as seen by whites).

Gay Scientists Isolate the Christian Gene

Ha!

Hat tip The F Word.

The other day this New Orleans talk radio program did a whole show on Obama's pastor and some of McCain's buddies (Haggee?) and about what people thought. So, on the topic of some people's religious views, this woman called in and said that in the aftermath of Katrina, she worked sorting food donations that were coming in from around the country. The donors apparently didn't realize that the food bank would break packages down into the smallest possible units (I guess to get widest possible distribution). Time and time again, when this woman opened the packages, she found that people had tucked notes inside their food donations, notes telling the already devastated recipient that Katrina was the wrath of god visited upon a sinful people.

I really do hope those gay scientists, now that they've isolated the gene, can find the cure.

(with apologies to any REAL Christians out there; I get so frustrated with the other kind)

This and That Blog RoundUp

Sixteen Maneuvers to Avoid Really Dealing with Racism is wonderful and is at feministe. Hat tip What Tami Said.

Yesterday was International Women's Day. Women for Women International is a great organization: "sponsor a woman survivor of war and change a life!"

While some give their best, others give their worst. Here is Phyllis Schlafly on International Women's Day:

"The radical feminists want to remake our laws in order to eradicate everything that is masculine from our culture and create a gender-neutral society," concluded Schlafly. "The United States should seriously reconsider lending its stamp of approval to future IWDs."

I attended a speech by Schlafly one time. It was at a Jesuit college whose tuition was in the $20,000 per year range, which is quite a chunk of quarters to pay for an education if you are among the more than 50% female student body and what you should really expect is to stay home and have babies. We in the Women's Studies group attended, wearing matching t-shirts that had some sort of slogan on them (I can't remember now). Sometimes it was hard not to laugh. Hardly any actual students attended, other than our protest group. The audience was made almost entirely of old white Republicans. Apparently, the local Republican party had sent out emails about her visit, so that's who showed up at her speech.

Here, rightwingwatch dishes on this heapin' helpin' o' rightwing hypocrisy:

Why would such an independent-minded, ambitious, self-motivated and capable woman devote so much effort to making sure that members of her sex would benefit from their dependence upon men? How could Schlafly reconcile her professed anti-elitism and opposition to day care with the fact that, although presenting herself as a traditional wife and mother, she ran for Congress twice, campaigned hard for Goldwater, crisscrossed the country speaking out for conservative causes, wrote more than a dozen books and enjoyed the services of a housekeeper who stayed with her family for 26 years?

Kathryn Jean Lopez says that once Hillary Clinton's campaign is over, we can also do away with feminism:

It would mark the end of the silly-women-talk on the national political scene. The beginning of female candidates running as candidates, without a heavy serving of identity politics…America is ready to quit this feminist silliness that men and women are equal, and that women don’t have different, natural responsibilities to the children they give birth to than men do.
From Townhall.com

Right - because when women and people of color support candidates who look like them and may share their experiences in the world, that's called "identity politics," but when white doodz support candidates who are white and male, that's just called "voting." And god forbid parenting would be about men taking responsibility for their seed.

Let's explain it again for Schlafly and Lopez:

Translated from French, the above sign says, "Feminism never killed anyone; machismo kills every day." Hat tip The F-Word for these three items (and what a great name for a blog).

The Burning Times has a great post about the silencing of older feminists and how it prevents our passing on herstory. She also has links to two MORE great blog posts on this subject (dear dog, will I ever finish reading these internets??). I said this recently in a comment over at Heart's site, but I'll say it again. I am shocked every single day to discover how little herstory I know. We really do seem doomed to perpetually reinventing the wheel because our previous work on how to do it is constantly being erased. I am an educated woman. I was raised by a feminist to be a feminist (although my mom was a liberal and I'm a radical, but the point is that I was given more feminist tools in childhood than are most). I have a degree in Social Justice Issues with a Women's Studies concentration. I read all of the feminist herstory and theory I can find time to read. And yet, the more I read the more frustrated I become by my own ignorance.

The Burning Times also explains about "the porn test," with what may be one of the most insightful things I've ever read:

Porn does destroy women. Sometimes by tiny increments, sometimes in one fatal blow. It infringes upon women's lives, and is increasingly inescapable. The destruction of the individual woman by porn may take many years, but it is also a destruction of women as a class over many hundreds of years. For as long as porn exists, it will be destroying women, one by one, relationship by relationship, state by state, and globally.

on the death of ecofeminist Val Plumwood, covered over at the Society of Women in Philosophy

Dear Sister of NOLAradfem and Certain Other Clintonites

Dear Little Sister of NOLAradfem:

Welcome aboard! We are glad to have your assistance (of course, we do strictly mean your assistance, as women are, of course, not equipped to lead)!

Thank you for helping to circulate our emails about Barack Hussein Obama being a Moslem, the son of a Moslem, the stepson of a Moslem, the son an atheist, the stepson of an atheist, an Islam denier, a liar, a Moslem candidate ready to free the Middle East from the Great Satan, a former Moslem student paying to attend a Catholic school in Indonesia, an anti-Semite, a black militant, and the parishioner of a profanity-spewing, black militant, anti-semite, Methodist preacher who is clearly a racist because he points out that the U.S. is a white, racist nation; that Obama calls a Kenyan woman with a very black face (photo helpfully included) "Grandmother;" that he is the product of racial mixing, the descendant of African slave traders (because, as all we all know, the really bad slave traders were the Africans themselves, so American slavery was their fault); that he wants to get us into war in Kenya (because even though he opposed the Iraq war, he is indeed just itching to get U.S. troops into Kenya!); that he lied about his WWII vet grandfather teaching him flag etiquette when he was two years old; that he won't say the pledge or put his hand over his heart during the national anthem.

Even though we also have at our website articles claiming that domestic violence protection orders discriminate against men; that a woman can't be president ever because it's unconstiutional; that hetero, Christian, white males are oppressed; that the Clintons are murderers and cocaine runners; that Pell grants discriminate against the middle class in favor of the working class; that the proposed law banning cops and soldiers convincted of domestic violence from continuing to have employment that involves firearms is another example of discrimination against fine, heroic men; that radical feminism is ruining the world; that global warming is a hoax and Al Gore a fraud; that John Kerry must be impeached, since under the constitution, no traitor may hold public office; that the ten commandments must be displayed in all public buildings and that all American governments, state, local, and federal, must immediately adopt a resolution stating that this is a Christian nation and that the wall of separation between church and state is a myth; that the "pro-Hanoi" actions of Senators McCain and Kerry caused the death of one of our soldiers; that John McCain is a traitor who broke under torture and has been programmed as a Manchurian candidate...even though our website says all of those things, none of which you agree with, we are heartened by your taking the time to forward our anti-Obama hatred to your friends and family members (not to mention glad that you didn't first bother to research us and our websites! who remembers the google anymore anyway! whew!)

As you might imagine, cramming that much contradictory crap into one email was quite a bit of work, so we're grateful for your help in forwarding it to as many people as possible. It's true we don't usually make common cause with people like you, Little Sister of NOLAradfem (liberal, feminist, pro-Clinton, believer in the separation of church and state, all that kinda stuff).

But, you know, when it comes to sliming and destroying that Obama dude, we reichwingers will take all the help we can get.

Thanks again for your blind support. We look forward to serving you beyond January of 2009.

Signed,
SwiftBoatVeteransForGullibleAndBitterClintonSupporters

Dear Senator Vitter - My Modest Proposal

I just sent this to our prostitute-hiring, diaper-fetishing idiot of a senator:

Dear Senator Vitter,

I see that you have devoted time and effort to the pressing problem of the need to pass legislation ensuring that women receiving health care under the Indian Health Service can never get abortions there. You devoted time and effort to getting that passed even though the Hyde amendment has banned the use of ANY federal funds for abortions since the 1970s. Heckuva job, Davie, because what the voters in this devastated state really need is duplicate layers of legislation.

I understand though that you have a principled pro-life position. My suggestion is that, in that spirit, you should offer a Senate bill limiting contraceptive access for prostitutes and ensuring that the fathers of any children of prostitutes be genetically identified and then forced to pay child support. Politicians, who are, after all, the self-styled moral guardians of a nation, should submit samples of their DNA to a centralized database for these purposes, thus ensuring that any guilty parties may be identified and compelled to provide diapers for the duration.

Seriously, Senator, a man who rents women's vaginas and then legislates what they do with their wombs - what's with this obsession of yours? It's so obvious, and it's an embarrassment.

Starhawk Explains Obama's Magic

She is amazing! This blew my mind as surely as when I first read her books:

If politicians hired Witches or magicians as consultants, we’d tell them that your deep mind responds to positive words and images, and doesn’t get ‘no’. Linguist and political theorist George Lakoff makes the same point in his book Don’t Think of An Elephant. You can’t not think of an elephant—because as soon as you say the word ‘elephant’, that image fills your mind.

Magically speaking, then, Obama is casting a good spell. Whether he wins or loses, he’s filling the psychic and emotional atmosphere with words like ‘healing’ and ‘hope’. The effect is like a clean breeze blowing through a morass of stinking, noxious fumes. People want to believe, because they like the way he makes them feel about themselves.

And then:

In this country, we ask our politicians to do four main things: to make policy, to defend the country, to be good administrators, and to carry a huge load of our archetypal projections, embodying our hopes, fears, dreams and aspirations. The first three tasks are rational, the last goes much deeper. It falls into the realm of what we Witches call ‘magic’—the ‘art of changing consciousness at will.’

She has some advice for Hillary too:

In the contest of archetypes, women are at a disadvantage, facing a deep, unconscious sexism that limits our collective imagination. We so easily turn into Mom, either Nagging Mom, or Bitch Mom who doesn’t really love us, or harried, responsible but dull Mom, complaining about how she does all the real work while sexy, divorced Dad just takes the kids to Disneyland. My personal sympathies lie deeply with Mom’s cause. She does do all the diaper changing and the homework while Dad breezes in for Ski Week and holidays. But if I were Hillary Clinton’s campaign advisor, I’d tell her, stay away from that archetype. Responsible Mom is not going to win over Aragorn the Exiled King. Instead, I would urge, be Joan of Arc. Find your vision, and be so passionately driven by it that you would stand forth and challenge kings and armies. Show us your courage, which we know you have. Tell us “I stood forth and went into realms where few women dared to go, because I care so deeply about the welfare of all of us.”

Whatever you do, don’t attack Obama on issues of faith and trust. Doing so will be just as effective as warning your teenage daughter that the sexy biker she’s fallen in love with has no history of gainful employment. more

Chales Barkley from New Orleans

Charles Barkley takes on the Christian hypocrits in a BIG way. Wow. Seldom do you hear someone on CNN going after the wingnuts like this. He says he is pro choice and pro gay marriage and that Christian hypocrits have no forgiveness and that they need to read their bibles. Wolf Blitzer gives him every chance to soften his position, and Barkley refuses. Can I just say, "Wow!" again???

fake christians
by luvnews

Mr. Barkle, please meet exhibit 85,462.

The Letter to the School Board

(see previous post for what brought this on)

Dear Mr. X,

My daughter is a student at X Junior High. On February 14, each student was given the opportunity to pay a dollar for the privilege of wearing a regular shirt to school instead of the usual uniform shirt.

I am very concerned about where these funds are going and about the use of the public school system to raise money to help buy an ultrasound machine for the Women's X Center. That organization clearly intends to use that machine to try to make desperate, pregnant women feel even more horrible about the difficult choices they face. According to its website, this group counsels women regarding "post-abortion syndrome." The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported in 2003 that "there is no evidence of an abortion-trauma syndrome." The American Psychological Association has found that"the weight of the evidence does not suggest a psychological hazard for most women." Furthermore, pro-life Surgeon General C. Everett Koop wrote in a letter to President Ronald Reagan summarizing the findings of his study that any psychological effectswere "miniscule."

You and I may agree or disagree. I am confident we agree, however, that this is a highly incendiary topic. I therefore think that it is inappropriate for such an organization to become the recipient of funds taken directly from the hands of schoolchildren, collected by teachers, and through so powerful an incentive as a uniform-free schoolday. I don't expect Planned Parenthood to benefit from schoolchildren's fundraisers. I don't expect Women's X Center to do so either.

Please note that the flyer this organization handed out to X Parish schoolchildren (attachment)contains a capitalization error ("for Mommies to see") and is also missing one needed apostrophe ("their babies heart beat"). Indeed, on the same day that my child came home with this flyer, she also came home with a study guide from one of her teachers, the latest in a shocking series of documents written by her teachers that have contained errors in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. May I respectfully suggest that perhaps teachers' time spent encouraging blissfully innocent children to donate to a controversial cause and teachers' time spent at the front of the classroom actively encouraging children to attend a religious event during the schoolday (the recent "Just for Jesus" revival, December 5) might be better used for more important and pertinent matters, such as proofreading documents?

I look forward to hearing from you about the Valentine's Day fundraiser. Thank you,

(little ol' me)

Me & the School Board

Oh, my frickin' god, I am so pissed I am just shaking.

So, today, the kidlet tells me she needs a dollar for tomorrow. Her public school requires the kids to wear uniforms. She says her school is raising money to help buy an ultrasound machine and that they can get out of wearing the uniform tomorrow if they pay a dollar to help buy an ultrasound machine.

Now, as an advocate for women's rights who didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, I hear "fundraiser" and "ultrasound machine" and am immediately suspicious. I demand to see this note from the school.

The note, on bright red paper and with the heading "Helping Hands Help Beating Hearts!" confirms that they can get out of wearing their uniforms tomorrow, Valentine's Day, IF they pay a dollar. The money will go to "help purchase an ultrasound machine for Mommies to see and hear their babies heart beat. The Family X Clinic (formerly the Women's X Center) located in X appreciates your support!"

Skipping their poor grammar and capitalization skills for the moment, I went to the computer and googled this organization. And here 'tis:

ttp://www.womenshope.net/

They offer "life-affirming services" for women and "post-abortion syndrome counseling," along with this handy little explanation of what "post-abortion syndrome" is:

ttp://www.womenshope.net/PAS.htm

Oh, my f**king god!

Okay, I am in a little town outside New Orleans for now, and I know the culture is different from what I'm used to. I tried not to make waves when they sent out flyers inviting kids to a prayer gathering at the school flagpole one morning. I let my daughter go to a revival meeting all the kids were going to, and which was advertised with flyers taped to walls all over the school (I let her go because her friends were going and because I believe in letting her satisfy her curiosity and because I know she will have to deal with pressure from the Jesus freaks eventually; indeed, they had several nights of great rock concerts and then, on the last night they got her alone and pressured her to be "saved;" my kid, who is true to herself no matter the pressure, managed to get out of there without ever giving in to the pressure, before collapsing sobbing on the sofa when she returned home).

I said nothing when, on December 5, 2007, they had an EXCUSED absence day for kids who wanted to go to this cokehead-cum-preacher's tent revival for Jesus in Baton Rouge. The guy admits he holds the revivals during the school day, when he could hold them on weekends, because he is pushing the limits of a new Supreme Court ruling permitting some worship activities during school hours - all in the name of "freedom." So, my kid faced either going to their revival or having to go to school when everyone else got the day off and also being stigmatized as one of the few "non-Christian" kids in this place: ttp://www.justforjesus.tv/.

Funny but last I checked my state was in the bottom five in terms of student academic achievement, yet they gave out excused absences for a full schoolday with Jay-zus.

Two years ago, I found out late about the parish's efforts to segregate several schools by gender:

ttp://www.aclu.org/womensrights/edu/26328res20060802.html

ttp://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2006/08/18/segregation/index.html

As the ACLU brief explains (ttp://www.aclu.org/images/asset_upload_file564_26286.pdf), they were not JUST going to have gender segregated public education here, but were going to rely on outdated stereotypes about the biology of gender to teach boys and girls differently. Girls, the training for teachers under the new program claimed, learn best by talking and being in groups. Girls hear better. Boys, the training for teachers said, learn best by doing. Boys should be active. They are wired for hunting prey. Boys who are not as active should be encouraged in group activities outdoors. When processing literature, teachers should ask girls how they would feel if they were the characters in the story, and not about the action; boys, on the other hand, must never be asked about their feelings and should, instead, be asked about the action. Teachers should smile and make eye contact with girls, but avoid eye contact with boys. Boys should be disciplined more harshly. Girls should be taught math and science differently from how boys are taught. Boys should be segregated from girls until they learn to control the "surging levels" of testosterone in their bodies (maybe we should keep women separate and in burkas, for their own protection, since teh menz can't help themselves, right).

The parish spent Louisiana taxpayer dollars on teacher training from this man at his "Gurian Institute," without ever checking his credentials:

ttp://www.michaelgurian.com/

As I wrote to the ACLU after they'd already won their temporary court reprieve (the current status is that the parish has simply backed off for a while as they wait for the furor to die down and regroup their legal strategies), I knew this guy personally when I lived in Washington State. The guy calls himself a "counselor." He appears on CNN and "Good Morning America" where anchors call him "Doctor" and fails to correct them. He has written a number of books on boys and girls (including one in which a friend of mine in WA is credited as a "research assistant" when all she did was show the dood how to use a word processing program). Although the Institute's webpage gives his partner's credentials in great detail (hers are relevant to the work they're doing), it is suspiciously light on his credentials. This is because, as I was able to prove to the ACLU simply because I knew the guy enough to know where to begin digging, he has a B.A. in Journalism and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Some gender expert, eh? He cherry picks his science in his books. It's a joke. Finally, he is what is called a "registered counselor" in WA State. A "licensed counselor" is someone with an actual education in therapy. A "registered counselor," on the other hand, is someone who 1) lives in WA State, 2) pays a registration fee to their Department of Health, and 3) works in the field of counseling, usually in an institutional setting, like a school or a prison (the latter is where Mr. Gurian apparently began his work as a "counselor"). You read that correctly. "Registered counselors" in WA are not required to have any particular training in therapy-related fields, any particular degree, or even be working towards such a degree. Anyone may receive the designation, including you or me. In fact, in 2007 WA State convened a task force to decide what to do about the designation, as it is so vague as to be potentially misleading (task force findings at: ttps://fortress.wa.gov/doh/hpqa1/hps7/Registered_Counselor/default.htm). When an R.C. counsels patients, he or she must get a signed waiver stating that the patient understands that this person may have no actual background as a therapist. So, Mr. Gurian has to get waivers from patients, under WA law, when he sees individuals, yet the state of LA paid him taxpayers' money to train several dozen Livingston Parish schoolteachers in his gender studies quackery, no waiver required (Mr. Gurian's registration with the state is here: ttps://fortress.wa.gov/doh/hpqa1/Application/Credential_Search/Profile_Results.asp?PCN=RC00017593&VID=5d46a7a82db4d84ea78bb46603b51ecc&SID=affd0243ac5922e9494a025f9412&PID=6).

The parish's gender segregated education plan was also heavily influenced by this guy, Leonard Sax:

ttp://www.whygendermatters.com/

My daughter has an auditory processing disorder! She has never, ever learned anything well by "hearing" or by being in groups. She learns by DOING, by getting up and creating, just like these idiots claim boys do. Their narrowly defined, gender restricted versions of teaching would have been a disaster for my daughter - and will be if they ever manage to implement it.

So, I have held back from being at war with this damn parish for two years now, but this is the final straw. Tomororow at 8, I call the head of the school board. I am also going back to my contact at the ACLU (with whom I corresponded about Mr. Gurian's dubious credentials, with that information to be used should the issue come up again) to ask for help with this completely out of control school district.

(links broken for a little discretion)

Fun with Fundamentalists