Posts by Maria Luisa Tucker

Maria Luisa Tucker is a staff writer at AlterNet and associate editor of the Columbia Journal of American Studies.

Not Your Soldier
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on May 10, 2006 at 1:37 PM.

How many of us have high school friends that were suckered into the military with promises of bonuses, college money and cajoled with the fictitious “glory of war” and the idea that the military “makes you a man”?

I can count four among my friends—four young men who later regretted their enlistment and realized that had been duped into something they knew very little about. Thankfully, those friends are out of the military by now, but recruiters are continuing to target Latino kids with Hummers, bonuses, and glorified ideas of military life. And thankfully, there are counter-recruitment measures underway across the nation.

Today, Boing Boing noted one counter-effort in an organization called Not Your Soldier. By offering educational camps for youth aged 13 to 22, the organization is attempting to arm students with knowledge

Not Your Solider focuses on kicking military recruiters out of schools and/or telling the other half of the story to youth who are being wooed by recruiters -- it provides handbooks and comic books about military recruitment and suggests that students invite a local veteran from Iraq Vets Against War to speak at their schools. Here’s a tidbit from their website:

The Not Your Soldier Project gives youth the tools we need to stop the military invasion of our schools and our communities.

Not Your Soldier Action Camps bring together young people who are heavily targeted by military recruitment. At the camps, youth learn how to take action to fight military recruitment, the poverty draft, and the corporations that profit off of war.

Sounds about right. The organization promises to hold a camp for grown-ups (i.e. anyone older than 22) sometime this year.

Marvel Comics takes on homeland security
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on May 5, 2006 at 8:03 AM.

Marvel comics is taking on politics with its new series called Civil War, “which can only be described as a gutsy comic-book series focusing on the whole debate over homeland security and tighter government controls in the name of public safety,” according to The Globe and Mail. The series was released Wednesday:

The seven-issue series once again puts superheroes right back in the thick of real-world news, just as DC Comics has Batman battling al-Qaeda in a soon-to-appear comic and Marvel's X-Men continue to explore themes of public intolerance and discrimination.

It also recalls the plotline during the Watergate years when Captain America's alterego, disillusioned by White House politics, stopped donning the patriotic costume.

But with Civil War, hero is pitted against hero in the choice of whether or not to side with the government, as issues ranging from a Guantanamo-like prison camp for superheroes, embedded reporters and the power of media all play in the mix.

The story essentially revolves around issues of civil liberties versus homeland security. In the fictional world, superheroes are supposed to register with the government as human weapons of mass destruction, but not all of them want to cozy up to the government in this way.

Marvel Comics says it is not trying to take sides or be partisan, but is simply exploring the issues and allowing readers to decide what they think. But, of course, that leaves one big question up in the air: Which side wins? Guess I’ll have to start reading the comics to find out.

In Government We Trust, apparently
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on May 3, 2006 at 9:10 AM.

Here's a fact to make you wretch -- The American public trusts the government more than the media according to a BBC/Reuters/Media Center poll released recently.

It makes me wonder if Dubya's putting some sort of short-term memory loss drug into the American water supply. I mean, hello? The reasons for not trusting our current government could be (and have been) made into several volumes of books: WMD, "Mission accomplished," NSA, Tom DeLay, Valerie Plame, FEMA, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I mean, even Miss Mainstream Glamour magazine published an article this month uncovering the ways in which U.S. government agencies spread misinformation about reproductive health. I mean, what part of government do people still trust? Maybe the post office?

While the media world has certainly had its supply of crappy moments and characters in recent years, the evidence still seems to show that the news media at large usually contains a few more grains of "truthiness" than our current government. But, of course, when has evidence mattered to the American people? How silly of me.

As usual, Americans are the outsiders of the world in our trust for government:

Media is trusted by an average of 61 percent compared to 52 percent for governments across the countries polled. But the US bucked the trend — with government ahead of media on trust (67% vs 59%) along with Britain (51% vs 47%).

Trust in media was highest in Nigeria (88% vs 34% gov't.) followed by Indonesia (86% vs 71%), India (82% vs 66%), Egypt (74%, gov't. not asked), and Russia (58% vs 54%).

The U.S. stood out from other nations in other ways as well. This tidbit is from the results by country:

Attitudinally, Americans stand out from citizens of the other countries surveyed on a number of dimensions. They are the most critical of the news media's reporting of all sides of a story; fully 69 percent disagree that the media does this. They are also significantly more inclined to disagree (46%) that the media reports news accurately; and more likely to agree (68%) that the media covers too many 'bad news' stories.

One more fact to make you wretch -- Americans mentioned Fox News and CNN as the two most trusted specific news sources.

The poll had some interesting findings on internet news, revealing a definite public ambivalence toward the blogging world. Half of respondents were unable to say whether or not they trusted blogs as a news source. But then, blogs aren't really meant to fill the same function as newspapers or TV news.

The BBC put it well; blogs "exist to agitate, to question, to swap information, to provide leads and opinions, and generally to act as guerrilla forces against the massed ranks of the mainstream media."

I would add that blogs also act as a guerrilla force against government propaganda and public complacency. Guess we still have a lot of work to do on that one.

See the full report on media trust here (PDF).

Majority favors earned citizenship
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on April 26, 2006 at 11:18 AM.

One day after legislators returned to work, CNN released poll results indicating that a majority of Americans favor legalization for most illegal immigrants. CNN reports:

In the poll, released Tuesday, 77 percent of those responding favored allowing illegal immigrants who have been in United States for more than five years to stay and apply for citizenship if they have a job, and pay a fine and back taxes. Twenty percent said they opposed such a measure.

A majority opposed a proposal to allow iIlegal immigrants who have been in the United States for two to five years to stay on a temporary basis, without a chance to apply for U.S. citizenship. Fifty-four percent opposed that measure, and 40 percent favored it.

A proposal to deport illegal immigrants in the United States for less than two years was favored by 64 percent and opposed by 31 percent.

For the poll, 1,012 adult Americans were interviewed by telephone between Friday and Sunday; it has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

This is consistent with most recent polls regarding earned citizenship. Earlier this year, both Time and CBS polls found that three out of four people thought illegal immigrants should be offered legal status if they have lived in the U.S. for a set number of years, spoke English, paid back taxes and had no criminal history; an L.A. Times poll found that the majority of people polled -- 66% -- favored a path to citizenship, while only 18% opposed it. We already know that the McCain-Kennedy bill, which would offer a path to citizenship, has majority support among legal immigrants, according to a poll conducted for New American Media last month. Several other polls, with the exception (duh) of the Fox "News" poll, showed similar leanings regarding legalization. (To read the stats yourself, Polling Report provides a list of immigration polls going back to 2001.)

What carries much more ambivalence are issues of border security and enforcement. Here's how some of those provisions fared in the CNN poll:

700-mile fence along the border: 47% oppose, 47% favor

Making illegal immigration a felony offense: 56% oppose, 39% favor

Increasing penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants: 68% favor, 27% oppose

It seems the public realizes that illegal immigrants are already woven into the fabric of American society. The question that remains is how to slow the tide of illegal immigration from here on out. As many AlterNet readers have suggested, that's an international issue that can't be solved by passing a law.

The rapists in charge
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on April 24, 2006 at 2:28 PM.

We've often heard the refrain that rape is not about sex, but about power. When it comes to prison culture, that refrain seems especially appropriate.

Last week, the CDC released a study about HIV transmission in Georgia's prison population. Most headlines focused on the somewhat surprising finding that 91 percent of HIV-positive inmates contracted the disease before entering the system. What seemed more telling to me, however, was the info below the fold regarding the incidence of sex reported between corrections officers and inmates. Gay.com reported Saturday:

Besides low HIV transmission rates, the study revealed several other surprises, namely … a high number (37) reporting having consensual sex with corrections officials.

But prisoner rights experts contend that sex between inmates and corrections officials cannot be considered consensual.

"It's inherently coercive because the official has power over the inmate's life in ways that don't exist in the outside world," said Kathy Hall-Martinez, co-director of Stop Prisoner Rape, a national group working to prevent sexual assault behind bars.

Corrections officials control when an inmate eats, sleeps, and whether or not he can bathe or have time outside, Hall Martinez said.

"They control everything about the inmate's daily life, so if an inmate refuses sex there's a great chance it will result in the lowering of the quality of his life," she said. "There is no such thing as consent in that situation."

Certainly, staff-on-inmate rape is not on the top of law enforcement's agenda, and the public isn't clamoring on behalf of inmates. Prison rape is something that is rarely acknowledged or discussed in public life. Most middle-class, law-abiding people feel that this kind of news is irrelevant to them, but even the most minor of offenses and a short stint in jail can be dangerous. Take the case of Stephen Donaldson, the former head of Stop Prisoner Rape. He was arrested for trespassing on White House property during a peace demonstration in 1973. During two days in jail, Donaldson was gang-raped approximately 60 times. He contracted AIDS from the rapes, and died in 1996.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Anti-War grannies go to trial
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on April 20, 2006 at 2:50 PM.

A gaggle of peace-loving grandmothers are on trial today in New York for disorderly conduct. Yahoo News explains:

The trial opened in New York of 18 grandmothers arrested for disorderly conduct after they sought to enlist in the US Army as a protest against the war in Iraq.

The women, whose ages range from 50 to 91, have all entered not guilty pleas and some said they would ignore any court-imposed penalty if found guilty.

"Coming to this damn court is nothing compared to what is happening to people in Iraq," said Marie Runyon, 91.

[They] were arrested in October during a protest outside a military recruiting station in Times Square. They were charged on two counts of disorderly conduct, for blocking the recruiting station door and refusing to comply with a police order.

These ladies, calling themselves the Granny Peace Brigade, are part of the apparently burgeoning number of activist grandmothers. A 24-year-old organization called Grandmothers for Peace International claims 44 chapters across the globe and has grown substantially since the Iraq War began. The Village Voice described the "granny power" phenomenon this week:

These grandmothers may be filling a void in the anti-war movement. Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of U.S. history at New York University, notes that campuses have yet to become the epicenter of the anti-war scene as they did during the Vietnam War. One reason is obvious. "The draft created an imminent and urgent reason for young people to protest the Vietnam War," Zimmerman says. Most of his students oppose the war, he says, but none of them are in danger of being sent to Iraq or even know people who are there now.

So it looks like the older folks have filled a gap, providing needed zest and passion to the anti-war movement. Says 91-year-old grannie Marie Runyon: "Oh hell! I would go to jail if I had to just to make the goddamn point! You've got to make a statement."

No Child (except those who are part of statistically insignificant racial groups) Left Behind
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on April 19, 2006 at 12:47 PM.

The Associated Press reported this week that the test scores of about 2 million students, mostly minorities, were not being reported under the No Child Left Behind Act. The kicker – the feds allowed states to underreport minorities on purpose.

Calling it "quite a scam," Steve Benen writes:

"The administration insists the tests will help show which students need the most help, but the administration allows 2 million minority students' results to be quietly set aside to help states avoid NCLB penalties."

AP explains:

The plight of... two second-graders shows how a loophole in the law is allowing schools to count fewer minorities in required racial categories.

There are about 220 students at West View Elementary School in Knoxville, Tenn., where President Bush marked the second anniversary of the law's enactment in 2004. Tennessee schools have federal permission to exclude students' scores in required racial categories if there are fewer than 45 students in a group.

There are more than 45 white students. Victoria counts.

There are fewer than 45 black students. Laquanya does not.

One of the consequences is that educators are creating a false picture of academic progress.

Silly me, but I thought the act was supposed to ensure that No Child – not even minority children – got Left Behind in their academic achievement. Right? Well apparently, it should have been called the No Child Left Behind (Unless They’re Part of a Statistically Insignificant Racial Group) Act.

Here’s more from AP...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Mr. Senator, should I have a baby?
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on April 19, 2006 at 10:31 AM.

The anti-abortion lobby was whipped into an activist frenzy when it was reported a while back that two more women died after using the so-called abortion pill* RU-486 to end their pregnancies. But last week, when RU-486 (also called Mifeprex) was rejected as a cause of death for one of the women, the Christian anti-abortion groups barely acknowledged the news.

The Chicago-Sun Times reported April 12 that:

Health officials said Monday they have ruled out the abortion pill RU-486 in one of two deaths in women who had taken the drug. The second remains under investigation.

The one death was unrelated to either abortion or use of the pill, the Food and Drug Administration said. The second woman showed symptoms of infection.

Four other women have died of a rare but deadly infection after undergoing pill-triggered abortions. In those four deaths, the women tested positive for Clostridium sordellii, a common but rarely fatal bacterium.

The anti-abortion groups that did respond to the news were skeptical and conspiratorial; Carrie Gordon Earll of Focus on the Family wondered publicly if the woman’s death was being covered up somehow, presumably by rabid pro-choicers.

The fact is, RU-486 was not responsible for the death, and has still not been proved to be the cause of the five other deaths of the women. Of course, none of this has slowed the Christian right’s attack on the prescription drug.

Just yesterday, the Christian Coalition put out another call to its members to support legislation that would ban RU-486:

A group of conservative members of the U.S. House of Representatives has written House Majority Leader John Boehner a letter demanding a vote on a bill that would pull RU-486 from the market because of the health risks that it poses to women…

The bill would withdraw FDA approval of the drug and send it back for review in light of the medical record. Christian Coalition will be working hard to push members of Congress on this issue…

Essentially, the bill seeks to override the FDA and allow elected politicians to make a huge medical decisions for all women. Personally, I wouldn't go to my Senator or Representative and ask them what birth control I should take, what kind of abortion is better, or whether or not they think I'm ready to have a kid. This attempt to ban RU-486 would do just that.

The proposed bill is just another disingenuous attempt by the far right to "protect" women, when in fact it is safer to take the dreaded RU-486 than it is to give birth. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: About 1 in about 5,890 women die in childbirth, while 1 in only 115,000 women have died after taking RU-486.

*Just as a note to readers who previously commented on the use of the term "abortion pill": RU-486/Mifiprex is considered a medical abortion. According to Planned Parenthood, RU-486 “blocks the hormone progesterone. Without progesterone, the lining of the uterus breaks down, ending the pregnancy.” Afterward, another drug is taken to induce contractions and empty the uterus. RU-486 can be used up to 56 days after your last period, and it’s only used if the woman is actually pregnant.

RU-486 should not be confused with emergency contraception pills, which are much different. Emergecy contraception must be taken fewer than 120 hours after unprotected sex. According to Planned Parenthood, emergency contraceptive pills, like Plan B, “prevent pregnancy by stopping ovulation or fertilization.”

How the immigration debate hurts the G.O.P.
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on April 13, 2006 at 12:46 PM.

The immigration debate is far from over and already the wave of pro-immigrant rallies have begun to affect the rhetoric. The demonstrations have divided and weakened the Republican Party, leaving them tangled up in their own politics in few different ways.

First, G.O.P. leaders are on the defensive, backtracking and finger-pointing like mad for supporting the criminalization of illegal immigrants. (Illegal immigration is now a federal violation, not a criminal offense.) In fact, some Republicans have decided they don't really support the legislation they wrote and/or voted for. Among them is Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.), who wrote the draconian House bill that prompted this month's rallies, and now blames Democrats for the harshness of his own legislation.

See if you can follow this: Back in December, Sensenbrenner introduced the House bill that would make it a felony crime to immigrate illegally or even assist illegal immigrants. When his bill was being amended, Sensenbrenner supported an amendment that would downgrade the charge from a felony to a misdemeanor. Most House Democrats voted against both the misdemeanor amendment and the entire bill. But due to Republican support, Sensenbrenner's bill passed anyway. The bill pissed off the Catholic Church -- many priests said they would defy any law that prohibited them from ministering to illegal immigrants. Then hundreds of thousand began denouncing Sensenbrenner's bill in a wave of demonstrations. Apparently surprised by the backlash, Sensenbrenner is now accusing Dems for refusing comply to the misdemeanor amendment of his own bill.

The Washington Post reports: "In a letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops last week, Sensenbrenner charged that all but eight Democrats 'decided to play political game by voting to make all illegal immigrants felons.'"

Right, so now that he is realizing that his potential 'criminals' are real people putting up a real fight, Sensenbrenner says his idea of making 11 million people into insta-felons was perhaps, a bad idea, and blames his rivals for letting his bad idea make it through the Republican-controlled House intact.

Sensenbrenner isn't the only one trying to distance himself from the very bad idea of criminalizing millions of people. CNN reported yesterday that:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The zero-sum game of immigration economics
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on April 3, 2006 at 10:58 AM.

In the last week, I've been called a corporate whore, a Bush lover, an elitist and an idiot for supporting compassionate immigration policy.

Most readers who disagree with my pro-immigrant stance have argued that illegal immigration is bad for American workers and the U.S. economy. One man from Sedona, Arizona emailed me to say that illegal immigrants had "taken his job" -- something that is probably not uncommon in border areas. For workers in his position I have sympathy and can understand his personal feelings about any legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. (The Sedona reader said he was in favor of a guest worker program.)

However, on a macro level of economics where numbers are unsympathetic, the job losses by some folks in particular industries and regions are part of a zero-sum equation. NPR Economics Correspondent Adam Davidson explained this yesterday on Weekend Edition -- you can listen here. When asked if illegal immigrants take away jobs and hurt the U.S. economy, this was his reply:

ADAM DAVIDSON: Well, of course if you go to certain places and look at certain industries, yes. Whether its gardening work in Los Angeles or construction work in Miami, there are sectors that are almost entirely done by illegal immigrants. But there's been an awful lot of study by academics, and when they look at the overall U.S. economy, they come to the conclusion that illegal immigration has virtually no impact on unemployment rates.

The other thing is that illegal immigrants spend money in the U.S. They get haircuts, they go to the movies, they buy food. They do lots of things that create a demand on businesses that creates new jobs.

And so when you add those two things up, it seems that, overall, illegal immigrants do not take jobs away from Americans.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Against illegal immigration, but for social justice? So was César Chávez.
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on March 31, 2006 at 11:38 AM.

Today, as eight states recognize César Chávez Day as an official holiday, some groups are recalling Chavez’s memory in their own fight for legislation that would provide 11 million undocumented immigrants with a path toward citizenship.

The conflation of Chávez’s work and the fight for compassionate immigration reform is both right and wrong.

In spirit, it makes sense. Chávez, after all, worked on behalf of the underdog and always clung to a spirit of non-violence (just as pro-immigrant demonstrators have done over the last week). A farm worker who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, he has become a legendy figure of social justice and civil rights for Chicanos. He followed Gandhi’s example and fasted in 1968 to draw attention to the poor treatment of farm workers. It was this sense of justice and equality that makes Chávez a person to remember during the debates on immigration.

However, Chávez was no friend to undocumented immigrants during his time. He was born a U.S. citizen in Arizona, and was loyal to American farm workers. In fighting for the rights of agricultural workers, in 1969 his union protested farms that hired illegal immigrants as scabs during a union strike. They even reported some suspected illegal immigrants to INS.

I point out these two images of Chávez in order to make a point about the immigration battle that will continue for weeks to come: Just as Chávez was not a simple man, immigration reform it is not a simple issue. It is not black and white. There is no perfect answer.

Those who support legalization of undocumented immigrants are not against unions, or worker’s rights. Rather, we see that the ability for families, no matter where they are from, to stay together and make enough money simply to eat is a human right. The anti-immigrant legislation that the House has already passed would rip families apart—parents who are illegally here would inevitably leave their children and grandchildren who were born U.S. citizens—and proposes to send millions of immigrants back home to starve. I don’t believe this is the kind of “justice” that Cesár Chávez would condone.

Rather than pitting poor American citizens against poor illegal immigrants, I propose that we take Chávez's vision of social justice and apply it to all. Let’s fight for legalization and workers’ rights. We can demand both, and I believe there is enough American wealth to support all our nation's laborers and service workers, citizen and non-citizen, alike. We need to concentrate on forcing those who own the wealth to share it with their employees, rather than blaming our nation's newest immigrants for our crappy wages. So, rather than fighting one another for the pennies that corporations throw at their workers, let’s make the Wal-Marts of the world pay up.

After all, the problem is not a lack of wealth, it is the disparity of the wealth. Why else would so many Latin American immigrants come here?

For my fellow New Yorkers who support compassionate immigration reform, join me Saturday, April 1, at the Solidarity March. The march begins at 11 a.m. at Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn. Marchers will walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and end at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan.

When the wrong people are not completely wrong…
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on March 30, 2006 at 1:50 PM.

For the first time in six years, I find myself thinking that Bush is not completely unreasonable. I also happen find myself in rare agreement with both the Catholic Church and Sen. Hillary Clinton. It's not that I've suddenly become a social conservative or had some kind of conversion -- it's just that Bush, Clinton, and the Church (an unlikely trio by all accounts) are not completely wrong when it comes to immigration policy.

Dubya has always supported a guest worker program which, like the Braceros program of the 1940s, would allow immigrants to come to this country and work legally for a set period of time. This is obviously a nod toward the business community that wants to keep its cheap labor without giving workers any real benefits -- not an ideal solution at all. However, a guest worker program is way more compassionate and reasonable than the far-right, anti-immigrant stance of those who essentially want to criminalize and deport all undocumented workers.

Of course, Bush's guest worker program leaves a lot to be desired, and I am certainly not its biggest fan. It is unrealistic -- it asks immigrants to identify themselves as illegal and gives few incentives to do so since there is no path to citizenship and workers would eventually have to return to their home countries. The guest worker proposal essentially asks millions of people to come out of hiding on the off chance that they will be punished later rather than sooner, when there is still the chance that they could get away with not being punished at all. Not quite right, but not quite wrong, either.

What I find hopeful in Bush's proposal is his disagreement with the far right.

Bush, Clinton, and the Catholic Church have all voiced their opposition to the harsh legislation that calls for the construction of walls along parts of the southern border, criminalizes anyone who helps (i.e. feeds, clothes, provides medical care to) undocumented immigrants, and makes illegal immigration a felony crime rather than a civil crime.

Clinton even attempted to shame the unshamable legislators (Congressmen Bill Frist, Arlen Spector, and F. James Sensenbrenner) by metaphorically throwing the bible at them:

"It is hard to believe that a Republican leadership that is constantly talking about values and about faith would put forth such a mean-spirited piece of legislation..."

"[ The Sensenbrenner Bill, HR-4437] is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scripture because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself," [Clinton] said.

And the Catholic Church says it will defy the law if legislators pass a bill criminalizing assistance to undocumented immigrants.

My point is that when Bush, Clinton, and the Catholic Church are all considered the "liberals" in a debate, you know things have gone hog-wild. Bush says a wall at the border "won't work" in stopping the tide of immigration, Clinton says the anti-immigration legislation is "mean-spirited" and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony said the proposed criminalization of assisting undocumented workers is "just crazy." For probably the only time in my life, I can agree with all three of them.

Yeah right, it's the media's fault that war is hell
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on March 23, 2006 at 11:21 PM.

By now, you've all seen the segments on CNN, Fox (if you watch it), and all the other major media outlets seriously debating whether reporters are giving enough coverage to the "good" parts of the Iraq war.

This is just mind-boggling to me. I mean, war is kind of all about violent combat and death, right? Or am I misunderstanding something about the nature of war here?

But aside from the most obvious ridiculousness of "good" war stories is the attempt at straight-faced "reporting" as news outlets respond to the accusations from Dubya and his supporters that it's the media's fault that this isn't a more popular and lovable war.

How can we even take these accusations seriously when they come from the same administration that has regularly paid fake reporters to praise its policies both here and in Iraq?

And how can the Bush administration even think of blaming reporters for the lack of "good" news? As CJRDaily points out, reporters in Iraq can't write up-beat stories even when they try to:

We're left with this nagging feeling, however, that the overwhelming reason why we see so much "bad news" coming out of Iraq is that, in spite of a halting start-and-stop sort of progress toward democratic institutions, things are not going well on the ground.

[...]

The other day: in search of a "good story," Jake Tapper visited the set of a popular sitcom, "Me and Layla" filming in the streets of Baghdad and starring the "Iraqi Danny Devito." Tapper was going to focus on the head of the entertainment company producing the show, a man named Hamid, in an attempt to highlight those "who are trying to make the Iraqi people laugh." Just as the ABC crew was taping a segment showing the sitcom being filmed, Tapper captured the director running to take an urgent phone call. Hamid, the man who had greenlighted "Me and Layla" and arranged for ABC to do the story, had just been assassinated.

CJRDaily also points out that "86 journalists and news assistants have been killed in Iraq since the initial invasion three years ago and 38 have been kidnapped (compare this to the 63 journalists killed over a 22-year period of war in Vietnam)."

And they want some warm fuzzy news from reporters who are being injured, kidnapped, threatened and killed?

Exploding heads
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on March 21, 2006 at 11:42 PM.

Pundits on both sides of the immigration debate look like their heads may explode before the any reform legislation reaches the Senate floor next week.

The anti-immigrant forces have been issuing increasingly dramatic alerts asking their xenophobic followers to protest any immigration reform bill that—gasp!—might actually include a guest worker provision.

For example, the ultra conservative website RightMarch.com is asking each of its readers to pay $14 to fax a letter to Judiciary Committee members. The form letter they recommend is emphatic, telling Senators that they "will listen to NO MORE weasel words or slick excuses" and basically demands that Congress send all them foreigners back where they came from, gosh durnit.

The equally xenophobic Immigration Watchdog is lying to its followers, telling them that, "The committee is preparing an unlimited guest worker amnesty plan. 20 million illegal aliens and their families living abroad will be given de facto amnesty."

Uh, what? Couple things wrong with that one, watchdog.

First of all, there aren't 20 million undocumented immigrants in this country (most estimates fall around the 11 million range). And second, there are no bills being considered that seek unlimited amnesty. But I'll take these ridiculous attempts as a good sign-- desperation spells defeat, hopefully.

The escalation in the sheer number and drama of each action alert is no surprise, though. Things have been heating up for a while.

Last week, anti-immigrant Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), and Puerto Rican born Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) got into a shouting match after appearing on CNBC. The televised debate apparently escalated after the cameras stopped rolling. According to the Rocky Mountain News:

At one point, Gutierrez reportedly asked Tancredo if he had ever eaten in a restaurant.

"How could you eat from the plates touched by those nasty illegal immigrants?" Gutierrez said [sarcastically].

He then asked Tancredo, "Have you ever eaten an orange? A grape?" - an apparent reference to illegal farm workers.

He then repeated the phrase several times as Tancredo tried to answer: "An orange, a grape, an orange, a grape, an orange, a grape."

Gutierrez, who has a cast on a foot, reportedly walked toward an elevator, but Tancredo tried to stop him by putting his hand on his shoulder. Gutierrez reportedly demanded: "Get your hand off me!"

Add to all this insanity the drama of the Minuteman.

Gas station parking lots across the nation's borders are filling up with legal observers who are watching Minutemen "civil defense" volunteers, who are watching day laborers, who are hanging out waiting for some work (and probably biding their time by watching the legal observers and the Minutemen scowl at one another).

It's a crazy world, y'all. Let's try to make it a little more sane by speeding along some halfway decent immigration reform legislation.

If you're like me and you don't equate dangerous criminality with the millions of people who have crossed illegally into the U.S. to wash dishes, harvest food, and construct homes, then let's take a stand against the anti-immigrant crazies.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Real Dolls, Real Creepy
Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker on February 16, 2006 at 8:42 AM.

At first glance, there is something disturbing about Elena Dorfman's photographs of lovers. Upon second glance, it's clear what that something is. Half of each couple is not human, but doll.

Dorfman's photographic series "Still Lovers," which appears in this month's issue of photo journal Aperture, shows men with their life-size, sexually-available Real Dolls.

The $6,500 dolls are made by a California company called Abyss Creations primarily as full-service sex toys for men. They are clearly made to satisfy fantasies; one model has a cup size of 42H.

The dolls' pornographic lifelessness is eerie by itself, but Dorfman's photographs manage to capture an even more bizarre element to the Real Dolls--- the actual sentiment that doll owners have for their silicone rubber lovers.

New York's Edwynn Houk Gallery, which displayed Dorfman's photos last year, described the images as "a series of documentary photographs exploring the relationship between silicone sex dolls and their owners."

The gallery's press release:

The project that began as an investigation into the world of hyper-realistic sex dolls, soon unveiled more complex and unexpected associations.

In a recent interview, Elena Dorfman described the evolution of the series: "What began for me as a playful curiosity, how to photograph men having sex with 125 pounds of perfectly formed, synthetic female, rapidly turned into a serious exploration of the emotional ties that exist between men and women and their dolls. This exploration forced me to evaluate my own notions of love and what it means to value an object, a replacement human being, in effect, as real."

The sex dolls pictured in the photographs are expensive and highly realistic. Owners can choose from nine facial and body types, ranging from very petite to highly voluptuous. They can choose eye color, skin tone, nail length and polish, and the style and cut of the pubic hair.

Despite the functionality of the female dolls, Dorfman quickly discovered a succession of more complex doll/owner relationships. The doll owners, often women, seem to defy our expectations and question the limits of our acceptance. One doll owner fantasizes about marrying his doll, another holds the hand of his date as they watch television on the couch, and yet another owns several dolls that she shares with her family as a reflection of different aspects of her own sexuality and personality.

While I'm sure that some Real Doll owners may truly feel that they have relationships with their hunk o' burning love-silicone, I somehow don't think this is something that should be applauded or even accepted as just another way to express one's sexuality. Call me old-fashioned, but I think that people should spend their emotional energy on relationships with other human beings.

To read more about Real Dolls, check out this story from Salon.com.