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keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus: Anonymous asked you: 5 years ago I had an abortion in Pittsburgh,...

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:02:52 -0600

Anonymous asked you:

5 years ago I had an abortion in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Prior to the abortion, the doctor administered a transvaginal ultrasound. She told me that it was to confirm that I was indeed pregnant and that to confirm that an abortion was necessary (eg the fetus had not naturally dislodged). She also said that so early into a pregnancy (7weeks) it would be impossible to do an ultrasound externally (via my abdomen). Because I believed it was medically necessary, I had no problem with this. Was it?

I’m not a doctor or a nurse or in any way qualified to advise on medical decisions.

Here is what I will say.

Plenty of doctors have testified in response to the VA bill that the procedure - IN MOST CASES - is not medically necessary. Perhaps, for whatever reason, your doctor felt that the best course of action before performing the procedure. That could have had to do with your own personal history, the type of abortion, or it is just something that that particular doctor asked of all their patients.

I’m not against the procedure. I’m against the fact that it will be demanded by the government even if it isn’t for medical reasons. I’m all for making decisions with your doctor about your health care.

I just bolded that paragraph because it’s the absolute only thing about this nonsense that need be stressed. This is about the state forcing doctors to perform unnecessary medical procedures, and removing from those doctors the ability to use their own critical knowledge and expertise. It turns the doctor/patient relationship from one in which the patient’s health and safety is of paramount importance at all times into one in which non-experts who know nothing about the patient’s case can demand invasive procedures be performed for no valid medical reason whatsoever.

That’s not health, and that’s not medicine. When the state decides to interfere with health and medicine — whether it’s to act punitively, as Virginia legislators responsible for the now-defeated bill smirkingly framed it, or to “help women make a more informed decision” — it is every bit the Big Government Intrusion into health care that the braying jackasses going on about Obamacare and socialized medicine described. The state forcing doctors against their will to perform unnecessary procedures on anyone who seeks a particular operation that is completely legal is an absolute violation of American ideals.

The idea that so many of the same people who crow about “liberty” and “freedom” are okay with this exposes them as the absolutely wretched hypocrites that they are. There is no other way to view this without the sort of mental gymnastics and rationalizing that any halfway honest human being commit seppuku before attempting.

And remember, y’all — this shit is the law of the land here in Texas. Good on Virginia, I guess, for shutting it down, but that isn’t and wasn’t the frontline of this battle.

Hello, Internet. I am back from vacation. Kat and I went to Philadelphia to visit friends. It was...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:24:31 -0600

Hello, Internet. I am back from vacation. Kat and I went to Philadelphia to visit friends. It was fun. Philadelphia is an okay city! People live there and stuff, also cheesesteaks, which are actually delicious despite the fact that I never got the point before. Philadelphia was, I think, the last significant American city of the contiguous 48 that I hadn’t spent any real time in, so now I can totally run for President or something.

Here is a thing that occurred to me while I was there: I am a history nerd, and I’ve spent a lot of time reading specifically about US history, especially the American Revolution through the War of 1812 (super fun at parties, y’all), so I expected to be excited about all of the remnants of that which are still in Old City and the rest of Philadelphia. But you know what?

Americans’ relationship with our history is weird. That was the major conclusion I drew the past few days. Like, if I saw it in a science fiction movie or something, I would feel like it was stupid and it would take me out of the story. “Generations ago, brave, visionary men dreamed up a society for us, and thus we must deify their concepts and even, often, the men themselves, and our current politics will spend an inordinate amount of time contemplating what these long-dead ancestors would have wanted for us.” “Here is a totemic bell that was rung, hundreds of years ago, to symbolize freedom — let us gaze upon it as we consider what makes us great!” That is some weird, Game Of Thrones shit if you think about it long enough.

Which isn’t to say that history isn’t important or significant, but our relationship to it is strange. When you think of contemporary, sophisticated humans, the fact that we worship long-dead ancestors and maintain these talismans feels a bit silly. I understand why a national heritage is important — and it’s worth noting that the display near the Liberty Bell is far from uncritical of Washington, Hamilton, Adams, etc — but it’s also hard to shake the notion that we allow ourselves, constantly, to be oppressed by our own history.

But I’m not really in a place to articulate that properly right now. At the moment, I’m mostly getting back into the swing of work-things as we lead-up to SXSW, which will be the busiest ten days of my life, no foolin’. I had the cover of the Austin Chronicle again this past week, even, but wasn’t around to see it (humblebrag), so it really is hard to find time for much. But I missed you, Internet.

mrhipp: HULK SMASH, BROTHER! (Inspired by this great piece from...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:45:29 -0600

mrhipp:

HULK SMASH, BROTHER! (Inspired by this great piece from the amazing Phil Noto)

Okay, good one.

The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:08:19 -0600

The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal:

…[F]rom a conservative evangelical seminary professor, writing in Billy Graham’s magazine for editor Harold Lindsell:

God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed. The Law plainly exacts: “If a man kills any human life he will be put to death” (Lev. 24:17). But according to Exodus 21:22-24, the destruction of the fetus is not a capital offense. … Clearly, then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.

Christianity Today would not publish that article in 2012. They might not even let you write that in comments on their website. If you applied for a job in 2012 with Christianity Today or Dallas Theological Seminary and they found out that you had written something like that, ever, you would not be hired.

But seriously — and I’m still on vacation here, so this will be only partially...

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 13:52:27 -0600

But seriously — and I’m still on vacation here, so this will be only partially thought-out —- the thing that gives the birth control discussion legs is that it’s a broad coalition of forces: It’s the people should not be able to fuck without permission squad that also wants to shove probes up the vaginas of anyone who needs an abortion to teach them a lesson; but it’s also the we hate health care in all its forms, so birth control is as good a place start as any crowd; furthermore, the debate that went “if a bunch of shitty Catholic bishops think that people should be able to cite moral concerns as a reason why they should be exempt from certain tax laws, why the fuck have we been paying for an illegal war that so many on our side oppose” actually plays into the hands of the anti-tax fundamentalists who are on board with this because they want everybody to insist that taxes are unfair.

Basically, you have three different interest-groups: the fiercely anti-sex/anti-woman hate brigade, the anti-Obama types who want to undo anything he’s done, and the Norquistian anti-taxers who like the idea that people on the left are suddenly receptive to the argument that people maybe ought to be able to opt out of taxes to fund things they disagree with, since those people disagree with every tax for everything.

Add all that up, and you have three different ways of looking at a situation that is a lot more complicated — and thus scary! — than just the birth control basics. Restricting access to birth control may be a losing issue with a public that overwhelmingly benefits from its existence, but if you can muddy it up with “we’re really doing this to roll back SOCIALISM” and “you hate paying taxes, right” then it’s part of a broadening coalition.

That is what the GOP has been for years, and it’s the way that the Christian nutjobs and the Tea Party hardliners can find common ground. Whether you oppose birth control because you want to dismantle Obamacare piece-by-piece; because you want everyone who has sex to suffer for the unsanctioned pleasure they’re enjoying, there’s a place for you at the party; or because you’re trying to further an anti-tax argument by getting more people to endorse your rhetoric, there’s a place for you at this party.

"During the floor debate on Tuesday, Del. C. Todd Gilbert announced that “in the vast majority of..."

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 13:38:00 -0600

“During the floor debate on Tuesday, Del. C. Todd Gilbert announced that “in the vast majority of these cases, these [abortions] are matters of lifestyle convenience.” (He has since apologized.) Virginia Democrat Del. David Englin, who opposes the bill, has said Gilbert’s statement “is in line with previous Republican comments on the issue,” recalling one conversation with a GOP lawmaker who told him that women had already made the decision to be “vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant.””

- Also: Virginia now allowed to forcibly pour boiling water down the throats of anyone who’s ever had a cup of tea — “You made the decision to open your mouth to hot liquids when you stopped in at the Starbucks,” says Congressman!

BREAKING: All Virginia GOP lawmakers who’ve ever treated their hemorrhoids with Preparation H to have mammoth dildo shoved up their asses! SHIT IS GETTING REAL IN THE STATE OF VIRGINIA!

Taken with instagram

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:52:54 -0600

Taken with instagram

If it’s any consolation, Jane Goodall is a member of the...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:49:46 -0600

If it’s any consolation, Jane Goodall is a member of the field team, while Buzz Aldrin is strictly an eye-in-the-sky operative (from outer space!).

I am on vacation right now. In the meantime, one of my “I...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 20:55:30 -0600

I am on vacation right now. In the meantime, one of my “I can’t fall asleep, so here is a dumb thing to think about until I do” projects stands before you: Behold, a superhero team for the real world.

mattjordan: Which group scares you less? Yeah, me too.

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:39:12 -0600

mattjordan:

Which group scares you less?

Yeah, me too.

The GOP Farm Team Brings the Wingnut Once More

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:31:41 -0600

The GOP Farm Team Brings the Wingnut Once More :

what you’re seeing in the state legislatures is the activity of the Republican farm team. The people voting for laws springing from the mushy brains of people like Bob Marshall and Lori Klein are the young Republicans who, a few cycles from now, will be running for Congress, probably from safe Republican districts that they’ve helped draw up, and aided immeasurably by voter-suppression laws that they’ve helped pass. Most of them will be the products of the vast conservative candidate manufacturing base — the kids at CPAC, the College Republicans, the various Christianist organization. They will not equivocate. They will not moderate. And they are the future of the party. Anyone who thinks the Republican party eventually again will have to “move to the middle” (this translates from the Punditese to “regain its sanity”) isn’t paying attention. In 2006, the Republicans were handed a defeat every bit as epic as any one ever handed to the Democrats. They did not pause to give it a second thought. Their resolve hardened. They ran what few “moderates” were left right out of the party. And, in 2010, they got a wave election that not only gained them the House of Representativse, but also the legislative majorities in the states that are now producing these goofy-ass laws, and a lot more seriously dangerous ones as well. And, even then, they blew a chance to retake the Senate by running sideshow freaks like Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell. They didn’t care.

They do not stop, even when they’re losing. The country told them, through the 1998 midterms, that it didn’t want Bill Clinton impeached. Bill Clinton got impeached. In 2005, everybody including their Democratic colleagues told them that they were going off the cliff in their meddling in the life and death of Terri Schiavo. There were gobs of polling data to back them up. The Republicans kept meddling even after Ms. Schiavo passed.Is there any evidence that the Republicans are moving “toward the middle” in their presidential contest? Ask poor Willard Romney if that’s the case. The current frontrunner is a nutball ultramontane Catholic who lost his last race by 18 points, at least in part because he was one of the more noxious of the Schiavo meddlers.

The fact is that the presidency is not really that important to them. They have found a way to make it impossible for any Democratic president to govern as a Democrat. Their real goal is in the legislatures, federal and state, where they have been able to exercise their power on the issues they care about. They will not change themselves. They are going to have to have the wingnut flogged out of them over several losing election cycles, and they’ve arranged things in the states so that may not be possible.

Charles Pierce’s politics blog for Esquire has really become indispensable reading every single day.

If George Lucas decided he was going to make another series of Star Wars films, would you be...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:56:57 -0600

If George Lucas decided he was going to make another series of Star Wars films, would you be lobbying to play the funny, nerdy Jedi?

No. I’m done with Star Wars. My love for the original films is intact, and it will never go away, but I can’t. And, you know, there are some things beyond the prequels that I’ve enjoyed. Some of the games, and the Clone Wars cartoons really came into its own, but I can’t in all good conscience. I don’t know if I’d trust George after the last three. They’re so… awful. I just don’t think I could. The Phantom Menace: I can’t believe it’s coming out again this Friday in 3-D. I can’t believe anyone would want to go and see it in 3-D. It would be like being in the car crash as it’s happening, rather than just watching it. [laughs] It’s only because I love it so much that my opposite feeling is so impassioned. If it wasn’t George, maybe? [laughs] It’s a tough one. I don’t want to be down on him, because I’m very grateful to him for making those first three films, but I’m kind of over it.

Well, if he ever hands the reins over to Brad Bird, maybe?

Maybe, yeah. I love Brad. I’d go to the ends of the world for him.

Sometimes when I interview people, I ask questions that are very unlikely to end up in the final piece just because I want to hear them sound exactly like all of my nerdy friends do when talking about things like Star Wars. Also, how great would a Brad Bird-directed Star Wars sequel, with Simon Pegg as a Jedi, actually be?

DON’T YOU WANT TO BE VEGAN SO YOU CAN BLIND YOUR...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:16:11 -0600

DON’T YOU WANT TO BE VEGAN SO YOU CAN BLIND YOUR GIRLFRIEND WITH YOUR SEMEN DUDES

This is the video of the armored personnel carrier that Lenco is...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:00:05 -0600

This is the video of the armored personnel carrier that Lenco is trying to sell to local police departments all over America. The problems here are two-fold: One, if you give people some cool-ass shit like this, they are going to be inclined to want to use it. I mean, between the AC/DC and the knocking down walls, I would love to ride in — or drive! — one of these things. That is a normal reaction to seeing a badass fighting machine at work.

But that kinda seems like a reason why police shouldn’t have them, because where the hell are all the reports of SWAT teams getting their fucking asses kicked by dudes with meth labs or whatever that necessitate a giant-ass APC? I have missed every one of those stories!

Which is the second problem: First, if you give people neat tools, they will look for excuses to use them. I got a power drill a couple of years ago and screwed all sorts of shit together, and that was a fucking power drill, y’all. And second, there are no problems that require this solution! Not in American policing, anyway. No police official anywhere has been like, “Well, we would have stopped crime if it hadn’t been for the fact that the criminals have such well-fortified hideouts!” They’re not busting Doctor Octopus in his secret base, right? And it’s not like they’re poorly equipped before.

But you give police ridiculous tools — like desert camo, or tanks, or Steven Seagal (or, god forbid, all three) — and what you end up with is a lot of people (some of whom live in the wrong house!) getting their walls knocked down and their dogs killed. When you have these things, you want to use them. Even if there is no need for them whatsoever.

Troy, Pierce, and Chang’s are 100% perfect.

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:34:51 -0600

Troy, Pierce, and Chang’s are 100% perfect.

"Osama kept coming back to Whitney Houston. He asked if I knew her personally when I lived in..."

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:44:03 -0600

“Osama kept coming back to Whitney Houston. He asked if I knew her personally when I lived in America. I told him I didn’t. He said that he had a paramount desire for Whitney Houston, and although he claimed music was evil, he spoke of someday spending vast amounts of money to go to America and try to arrange a meeting with the superstar. It didn’t seem impossible to me. He said he wanted to give Whitney Houston a mansion that he owned in a suburb of Khartoum. He explained to me that to possess Whitney he would be willing to break his color rule and make her one of his wives. I tried to hide my outrage at his racist remarks, but it would come to pass that for the entire time that I would be trapped in his palm, Whitney Houston’s was the one name that would be mentioned constantly. How beautiful she is, what a nice smile she has, how truly Islamic she is but is just brainwashed by American culture and her husband—Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed, as if it were normal to have women’s husbands killed. In his briefcase I would come across photographs of the star, as well as copies of Playboy, but nobody in the West believes me when I tell them this. It’s like they have this totally bogus image of Osama bin Laden. Anyway, it would soon come to the point where I was sick of hearing Whitney Houston’s name.”

- Kola Boof’s recollection of the time she spent living with Osama Bin Laden is remarkable in many ways (not the least because she’s a fabulous writer), but this timely excerpt is especially fascinating.

fleetfoxessing: “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston...

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:09:29 -0600

fleetfoxessing:

“I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston (originally by Dolly Parton)

Watch Whitney’s version.

Watch Dolly’s version.

Fleet Foxes Sing* started with a Whitney Houston song, and I reckon it’s only appropriate that he cover another one today. I love the way you can find new things in songs when you interpret them this way — the opening here reminds vintage doo-wop, something that isn’t present in either recording of “I Will Always Love You” (or in Fleet Foxes music) but which makes sense when you combine those two things. A neat little chemical reaction.

*Fleet Foxes Sing is not Fleet Foxes. Just some dude who sings like them.

I’m Not Okay with Chris Brown Performing at the Grammys and I’m Not Sure Why You Are

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 13:30:05 -0600

I’m Not Okay with Chris Brown Performing at the Grammys and I’m Not Sure Why You Are :

Later in February, a photo of Brown riding a jet ski in Miami hit the Internet, and singer Usher was caught on video commenting on it: “I’m a little disappointed in this photo,” Usher says in the video. “After the other photo [of Rihanna’s bruised face]? C’mon, Chris. Have a little bit of remorse, man. The man’s on jet skis? Like, just relaxing in Miami?”

The backlash was so severe that Usher was later forced to publicly apologize.

“I apologize on behalf of myself and my friends if anyone was offended,” he said. “The intentions were not to pass judgment and we meant no harm. I respect and wish the best for all parties involved.”

Yeah, go read this link immediately.

There’s a weird thing going on here. It’s something we do in our culture that I have observed mostly in regard to football, but it’s the exact same principle at work here: We are so hungry for redemption stories, and so primed to find reasons within the narrative to offer redemption, that we equate “success” with “atonement.”

In football, this plays out with the idea that a guy like Ben Roethlisberger could have “redeemed” himself after a pair of credible rape accusations by winning the Super Bowl last year; the way that Mike Vick became endorsement-friendly because he had a great 2010 season. Because in the movie version of these events, the injustice that these people who we are not ready to forgive could go on to win — that good things could happen to bad people — is unfathomable. And because we want the narratives in real life to follow those we require from our stories, we have to assume that Roethlisberger winning the Super Bowl would prove that he’d done something, found some inner peace and transformed his life, to succeed.

Or, to bring it back to Chris Brown: The fact that his music is hot means that he can’t be that bad, right? The idea that this dude would beat up his girlfriend, be totally unrepentant about it, act like he’s the victim for people being mad at him, make the best record of his career, and be embraced by the mainstream once again — that has to mean that he’s redeemed himself. Because if not, then we’re all kind of shitty for playing “Look At Me Now” on repeat; and where does the magic to do great things come from, if not some inner reserves of strength that we find because we’ve learned from our mistakes?

So Chris Brown has earned forgiveness because he sold a shitload of records and got Busta Rhymes and Lil Wayne to drop some of the best verses in their storied careers on a hot single. “Success” — at the ballot box, in the ratings, on the charts, on the court or the gridiron, wherever — is valued so highly that it carries “redemption” as a freebie.

Not gonna front, still get chills listening to this song.

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:54:46 -0600

Not gonna front, still get chills listening to this song.

Stock photos of women looking remorseful after sex. It really is...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:34:36 -0600

Stock photos of women looking remorseful after sex.

It really is kind of remarkable that our culture has created a significant enough market for images like these that this page exists, isn’t it?