What Does the "Funky Savior of Humanity Have on His Holy iPod?"

If columnist Mark Morford ever wants another career, he'd make a great preacher. He knows.

(And now, back to my monster work deadline. Shhh!)

music iPod religion

I Have a Dream . . .

. . . and it's remarkably like Peter Fallon's.

pope Bush religion

Ratzinger Wanted Priestly Pedophilia Kept Secret

Thanks to KL, who commented on "An Anti-Everything Choice," for the link to an article on instructions by Cardinal Joséph Ratzinger—now Pope Benedict—to keep pedophilia committed by Catholic priests away from public scrutiny. Not only is the UK'S Observer reporting this story but the Guerilla News Network, South Africa's Mail & Guardian Online, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Tapei Times are reporting it, too.

Keeping abuse of any kind secret is evil when you are not the victim who has been terrorized into staying silent. It serves to perpetuate the abuse and kills the spirit of the victim(s). I speak from experience—though I was physically and emotionally abused, not sexually abused. I can't see such an action by a leader in any religion as being something God wants, by any twist of the imagination. If Ratzinger–Benedict is a changed man, I want to see his actions show it.

pope Catholic religion

An Anti-Everything Choice

I'm not Catholic, so the election of conservative German cardinal Joséph Ratzinger has no effect on how my church operates. But I'm human, so the prospect of Pope Benedict XVI has me worried.

The head of the Catholic Church has always had huge influence on world affairs through the attitudes he personally represents. Benedict will, I believe, have a negative influence on the world. He stands for unloving religion, religion that doesn't take real life into account. He stands for heading back to a more repressive, unforgiving past. And forgiving is what God is all about.

With Benedict at the helm, heaven help GLBT people, women, priests, nuns, Catholics who wanted a visionary leader, compassion, open hearts and open discussion of issues . . .

pope Catholic religion

Get Over It Already

A good many Americans have never figured out what women's breasts are for. They've made breasts into sex objects, things to be hidden yet flaunted, bound and pushed into unrealistic shapes, used to sell cars and lifestyles. So these same Americans raise a stink whenever women put their breasts to proper use in—gasp!—public.

Breasts are for feeding babies and children. They house the mammary glands, organs that, in an amazing feat of engineering, don't become fully operational until they're needed by the owner's offspring. The milk they produce meets all the nutritional needs of an infant for as long as a year and provides astounding mental and physical benefits that can last a lifetime:

• A jump-start for the immune system
• A higher IQ
• Fewer ear infections
• Protection against early childhood caries (tooth decay)
• Fewer allergies
• Protection against asthma
• Decreased lifetime chance of obesity
• Protection against some forms of childhood leukemia
• Protection against multiple sclerosis
• Decreased chance of death from SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)
• Protection against heart disease, Hodgkin's disease, Crohn's disease, diabetes, and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis

Women who breast-feed their children have a lower risk of developing breast, uterine, and ovarian cancers and osteoporosis. And for you economists, breast-feeding saves mucho bucks.

So with all these wonderful benefits to breast-feeding, why the attempts to shame women who do what nature intended? It's an odd juxtaposition of puritanical demonization of the human body and oversexualization of it. Thrown into the mix are the big bucks spent by makers of infant formulas, who'd have us all believe that breast-feeding is time-consuming (ever had to clean baby bottles and prep formula?) and ties women down (hey—breasts are the ultimate portable containers!).

I'm perimenopausal and have just finished my twenty-second year of breast-feeding children off and on: my daughter for 3 months, my first son for 3.5 years, and my second son for 3.5 years (he's just about weaned). My daughter would've gotten a lot more breast-feeding if I hadn't been young enough to be really sensitive to our society's shaming.

Breast-feeding a child isn't a sexual event; it's lunch, for goodness' sake! It's breakfast and dinner and "I need comfort" and "I'm sick" and "I'm sleepy" and "I'm still your baby." Would you make an adult go eat his or her lunch out of your sight because you found it shameful? No? Then why make a child do so?

Get over it already!

breast-feeding breastfeeding breast

Running Low on RAM

This week, I haven't much brain power to spare for writing. I'm learning new procedures for one of my freelance editing gigs, and that's got me running low on RAM. I'll be back as soon as I can.

One Man's Courage

This week, a gay man stood up to his bigoted hometown. Daniel Lippold has more courage in his typing fingers than most of us have in our entire being.

GLBT Atwood gay

Bigotry Disguised as Religion

Why can't more adults be like their own teenagers, accepting people for who they are?

Today is the Day of Silence, "a project of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in collaboration with the United States Student Association (USSA), . . . a student-led day of action where those who support making anti-LGBT bias unacceptable in schools take a day-long vow of silence to recognize and protest the discrimination and harassment—in effect, the silencing—experienced by LGBT students and their allies." Wonderful!

Then along comes a conservative Christian legal group called the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF; "Defending Our First Liberty"), spearheading an event for tomorrow called Day of Truth, in which student participants will pass out T-shirts and cards saying that they don't condone "detrimental personal and social behavior." ADF calls this an opportunity to "counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda" and express "an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective."

"Agenda"? I guess you could call wanting the same basic human rights as everyone else an agenda. But I'd call it a fight for justice.

The Day of Silence kids have it right.

GLBT Christians gay

Letter from the President

To my amazement, George Bush took the time—or at least an assistant of his took the time—to send a form letter in reply to my son's "please stop the war" letter about Iraq:

Dear Neil:

Thank you for sharing your views and suggestions. I always enjoy hearing from young Americans.

As you continue your studies, I hope you will strive to learn something new every day. You can read more about issues that interest you, current events, and the history of our country by visiting your library or by logging onto the White House websites, www.whitehousekids.gov and http://www.whitehouse.gov/. I also encourage you to set high goals, study hard, and help others in need. Kindness to others and dedication to your schoolwork can strengthen your community and our Nation.

Mrs. Bush and I send our best wishes. May God bless you, and may God continue to bless America.

Sincerely,
George W. Bush

I'll be sitting my 10-year-old down for a lesson in how to detect hypocrisy. Then he can hone his hand–eye coordination by throwing darts at the photo of George and Laura that came with the letter.

Stabbing the World in the Back

In his first term, George W. Bush slapped the United Nations around so much that even an ostrich at a beach would have realized that he has no use for the U.N. unless it’s doing his bidding.

In his second term, however, he’s been courting the U.N. and European nations with fake friendship. If he so wants to work with the U.N. now instead of against it, why ever does he want John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, to be the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.?

Bolton is a conservative’s conservative who served Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He’s said he thinks little of international treaties and international law: “It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so because, over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States.” If this is how Dubya shows his desire for friendship with the U.N., what will he do to indicate his dislike of an organization? Oh, yeah—he’ll call it part of the axis of evil.

There have been accusations that Bolton tried to intimidate intelligence officials whom the Bush camp thought were soft on Cuba. The man has no diplomacy skills; he’s as blunt as a tire iron. He’s an out-and-out hawk. Here’s a frightening profile of him from the International Relations Center. The New York Times reports that “former government officials have accused Mr. Bolton of improperly circumventing State Department channels to gain access to confidential sensitive intelligence reports” and that “there have been accusations that Mr. Bolton has sought to remove dissenters from their posts or bar them from meetings called to discuss policies. A senior Central Intelligence Agency official has become the second government official to tell the Senate Intelligence Committee that he believes Mr. Bolton sought to remove him from his post after he complained that statements Mr. Bolton made in 2002 about a biological weapons program in Cuba did not reflect the views of intelligence agencies.”

At Diplomats Against Bolton, 67—yes, 67—former U.S. diplomats have signed a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee opposing Bolton's nomination. As the site says, "of these signatories, 50 of 67 served under Republican administrations (28 served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, 22 in only Republican administrations), and 17 in only Democratic administrations."

Diplomats don't want him. Do you want this person in a position where he’s supposed to be working with other nations for world peace? I sure don’t. Get on the phone to your senators and representatives now!

PBU15

Lonely Day

I miss my husband. (Here he is, lying on the bed he made for us just over 10 years ago.)

He’s at work today, though not on the clock. He’s a cabinetmaker, so work is a cabinet shop. He’s there working on the bunk beds he’s been building for our sons for months now. The shop there is so much bigger than ours here at home, and there’s no one else there—no coworkers and no family members—today to slow him down. I know why he has to be there, but I don’t have to like it.

He’s my best friend. I’d rather hear his corny jokes and his stories that I’ve already heard so many times than sit here and edit an article for a medical journal while our 3-year-old scatters toys on the floor all around me. He’s a silly man, a gentle man, a kind man, a daddy man, a sweetheart. Why didn’t we just buy bunk beds? We’ve been married almost 12 years, and I still want to be around him all the time. Stupid bunk beds.

That's Exactly How I Feel

This article, sent to me by my friend Martha, explains exactly why I don't like the Iraq war. It's just so on the mark that nothing I can say would add to it.

"Where Are the Good Christians?"

"Where are the good Christians?" columnist Mark Morford writes today in his SFGate.com article. Thank goodness somebody's noticed that all the antigay and Schiavo-must-live-forever Christians don't represent all Christians. We nonfanatical Christians don't make the news much, as Morford says, because we're busy working quietly for peace, justice, and an end to poverty and discrimination.

We're the ones working in soup kitchens.

We're the ones giving as much of our money as we can to tsunami relief efforts, to programs that provide job training, to peacemaking organizations, to the ACLU, to PFLAG.

We're going on a Midnight Run to give a meal and clothing and conversation to homeless people.

We're flying "Pray for Peace—Act for Peace" flags and marching in war protests.

We're writing to our senators and representatives and our president about illegal, immoral wars.

We're wearing "Another Presbyterian for GLBT Rights" T-shirts and carrying "Another Christian for GLBT Rights" tote bags.

We're working behind the scenes with groups promoting GLBT equality.

We're blogging about justice.

We're too busy living God's word to bash people over the head with our Bibles. We're too busy trying to do what's right ourselves—because we know, as mere humans, that we don't know it all—to tell everybody else how they should live.

We won't stop until consenting adults can marry whichever other adult they want to marry.

We won't stop until all women in the world have the same rights as men.

We won't stop until everyone has plenty of food.

We won't stop until there is peace among all nations.

We won't stop until bigotry disappears.

We won't stop until the hatred is gone.

We won't stop. Ever.

New Equal Rights Amendment Proposed

You may not know that on March 15, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York and U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts introduced versions of an amendment to the Constitution that would outlaw discrimination on the basis of sex.

You can read the text of Senate Resolution 7 here and the text of House Resolution 37 here. Another source of information is here.

Please blanket your senator and representatives with letters and faxes in support of these resolutions. The women's rights movement didn't erase all discrimination against women. Let's not let this important amendment fail as it did in 1982.

Don't know who your senator is? Go here. Go here to find out who your representatives are.

3/30/05 update: For updates, see the web sites of the National Organization for Women and the ERA Campaign Network.

The Republican Emperors Have No Clothes

How can any American anywhere believe anything said by any Republican?

Perpetual hypocrite and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who led Congress's efforts to keep Terry Schiavo's shell alive, once decided to let a comatose man die—his own father.

But that was back in 1988, before the new Bush "morality," so I suppose the 65-year-old man's life wasn't worth legal grandstanding. DeLay had just been elected to his third term in Congress when his father sustained a serious injury in an accident. He wasn't yet in a position to drag Congress along with him, so perhaps that was why he decided, along with the rest of his family, not to prolong his dying father's life.

E-mail DeLay, call his Washington office at 212-225-5951, or fax him there at 212-225-2541 about his self-serving politicization of a private matter.

An Easter Message

Illustration by BBC Photo Library
Cover of the December 17, 2002, issue of Popular Mechanics,
illustrating the cover story, "The Real Face of Jesus"

And God said, "Thou shalt not kill," not "Thou shalt not kill, unless thou art George Bush and believest that thou hast the ear of God."

Living in a Rogue State

On September 11, 2001, I was in my obstetrician’s office, waiting to find out what day my third child would be born by cesarean section. I was 42 and it was a high-risk pregnancy, so my son wouldn’t be allowed to enter the world whenever he got around to it.

The physicians in the practice had a heavy patient load that day, so there was a long a period between the ultrasound examination and the consultation about scheduling when I sat in the waiting room. At one point, the nurses and receptionists stopped what they were doing and listened intently to a radio behind the reception desk. Then they began whispering furiously to each other, looks of shock on their faces. I and the other patients in the waiting room began asking one another what was up. The staff members didn’t want to scare anyone, so they were giving no explanations about the radio reports. I didn’t find out that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center had been rammed until I went back into an office for the consultation. When one nurse finally explained in my doctor’s office, my heart sank. I wasn’t sure why the towers had been hit—I wouldn’t learn all the details until I got home and could watch TV—but I dreaded what George Bush would do in retaliation. I was afraid he’d start World War III.

On March 21, 2003, I was nursing my 18-month-old son, and my heart sank again as I watched TV news footage of the beginning of the “shock and awe” campaign against Iraq. Bush had convinced enough people that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and had connections to al-Qaeda. He had not been swayed by the huge protests in America and around the world. It was too late; he was in the grip of war fever.

Today, it’s March 21, 2005, two years later. My youngest son is 3½ years old. My heart sinks now at the thought of all the Iraqi civilians and American soldiers who have died or been wounded, their families’ lives forever changed. And for what reason? So that Bush could find nonexistent WMD? So that he could satisfy his megalomaniacal need to make Iraq over into his version of a democracy? So that he could give his Halliburton buddies lucrative contracts for rebuilding Iraq? So that he could play at (read: bumble) being a statesman?

It’s been a long, depressing road. But I’m not about to stop protesting this illegal war. I don’t want my youngest son—or his older brother and sister—growing up in a country that believes it knows best for the world and can do whatever it wants. I don’t want my children growing up in a rogue state.

PBU12

Let Me Count the Days

Here's a timeline of events in the Iraq war.

And this is from my friend Bill Blinn*:

3 years 8 months 8 days (1,347 days).

That's the number of days between September 11, 2001, and May 20, 2005.

It's also the number of days between December 7, 1941, and August 15, 1945.

In the 1,347 days between December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and August 15, 1945, when Japan ended World War II by signing an unconditional surrender, the United States

• Worked together with the rest of the world
• Helped defeat Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria
• Provided unprecedented aid
• Built strong alliances
• Earned the trust and the respect of what would later be known as the "free world"

In the 1,347 days between September 11, 2001, when New York and Washington were attacked by terrorists, and May 20, 2005, what will the Bush administration have achieved? So far, the United States has

• Invaded Afghanistan (population: 24,800,000 in 245,000 square miles of land mass; by comparison, California has 33,800,000 inhabitants in 158,700 square miles of land mass)
• Invaded Iraq (population: 21,400,000 in 168,000 square miles of land mass)
• Lied about completing a mission
• Lied about weapons of mass destruction
• Misplaced millions of dollars flowing into Iraq despite predictions that oil from Iraq would finance the country's own reconstruction
• Earned the distrust of most of the rest of the world

But maybe I'm criticizing too early. After all, the Bush administration still has 62 days to actually end the war in Iraq, complete the mission, find the missing WMDs, find the missing money, find a way for Iraq's oil to pay for reconstruction, and earn the trust and respect of the world.

Think the neocons will be able to pull it off?

________________________
*Bill says this is based on a statement made by Ed Schultz on March 18, 2005.

A Great Reason to Drink Green Tea

Both fans of green tea and proponents of alternative medicine have long said that green tea has cancer-fighting effects. A news report today explains that mainstream science has discovered how it does so:

Researchers at the University of Murcia in Spain and the John Innes Center in Norwich, England have shown that a compound called EGCG [epigallocatechin gallate, a potent antioxidant] in green tea prevents cancer cells from growing by binding to a specific enzyme.

“We have shown for the first time that EGCG, which is present in green tea at relatively high concentrations, inhibits the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase, which is a recognized, established target for anti-cancer drugs," Professor Roger Thorneley, of JIC, told Reuters.

“This is the first time, to our knowledge, a known target for an anti-cancer drug has been identified as being inhibited by EGCG,” he added. . . .

The scientists decided to look at ECGC after they realized its structure was similar to a cancer drug called methotrexate.

I've been drinking green tea for years, because of both its good taste and what was then its unproven ability to stop cancer. I also savor white tea, which is less processed than green tea (which in turn is less processed than black tea). It has a very delicate flavor and very likely has even higher concentrations of beneficial compounds such as EGCG. This article by researchers from the Linus Pauling Institute (named a Center of Excellence for Research On Complementary and Alternative Medicine by the National Institutes of Health and the National Center for Alternative and Complementary Medicine) of Oregon State University explains.

I've not ever found white tea sold by the tea bag—only as whole tea leaves. Once I started drinking whole-leaf tea, both green and white, I didn't want to use tea bags anymore. Whole-leaf tea tastes fresher because it hasn't been crushed the way tea for tea bags is. My favorite place to order tea online is SpecialTeas—and no one there asked me to say so, either.

Another reason



polyphenols green tea black tea white tea tea leaves antioxidants epigallocatechin gallate EGCG anticancer EditorMom

Can Federal Officers Kill Arab Americans at Will?

On Saturday, February 6, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Officer Douglas Bates, off duty and outside his own home in Orange County, California, allegedly shot and killed unarmed 19-year-old Arab American Bassim Chmait—and only now is a grand jury hearing testimony about it. You can bet that if Chmait were white, the legal system would have pounced on Bates immediately.

Eyewitnesses have said that Chmait, a college student, and three friends were walking from a car to a party on Los Alisos Boulevard in Orange County. One of the four picked up a soda can that someone had thrown at the group and tossed it into the street. Bates apparently heard the noise and came out of his apartment wearing a bathrobe and carrying a badge and a gun. The witnesses said that Bates said he was a cop and then pistol-whipped the head of one of Chmait’s friends. Chmait, trying to protect his friend, asked Bates to put down the gun and stood between the officer and the wounded friend. Bates then fatally shot Chmait in the head, said the witnesses.

Bates was not arrested, because the local sheriff’s department said it didn’t see any evidence that he committed a crime. But Chmait’s family has been pushing for legal action, hiring an attorney and holding vigils in his memory.

The hysteria created by the Bush administration over national security has created an atmosphere in which anyone of Arab descent—and anyone who is assumed to be of Arab descent—is seen as a terrorist, a thug, or at least a threat. Arab Americans are the new blacks in America, guilty until proven innocent. This is outrageous. Legal protection in this country isn’t supposed to be only for whites.

PBU11