iTunes for Democracy
October 28, 2004
Make your decision more informed by listening to the Presidential Debates, free, courtesy of iTunes.
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It Comes in Waves
October 21, 2004
I haven’t posted in the last couple of days because I’ve been busy, attempting to help my mother curry favor with her boss by doing her boss’s homework for her. I am officially a graphic design whore.
I try to steer clear of the meta-commentary here, lest this site turn into your average LiveJournal, but I must mention my experience of getting the Yetta fixed yesterday. It was choking every time I started it up cold, and the check engine light had started coming on. So John played hookie and went with me to Mobile yesterday to get it checked out. After two hours, the VW dealership called back to let me know that it was a software bug, and that they had updated the software on my car’s computer and that it would take care of the problem.
I don’t know much about cars or computers, but I didn’t know either of them could do that. I almost felt somewhat impressed.
And to make myself feel better about getting my brother to skip an entire day of school, I made the trip educational by stopping by the Mobile Kerry/Edwards HQ. We got bumper stickers and a yard sign that, in less than 48 hours, will probably have been stolen from our yard.
Ex Utero
October 14, 2004
I don’t know how many Catholics are still undecided at this point, but my feeling is that abortion just isn’t strong enough an issue to decide an election on. I was looking at catholic.com — which isn’t exactly the most balanced source of information — but they have this big voters guide saying the five “non-negotiable” issues for Catholics are abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and gay marriage.
Well, Kerry and Bush agree about gay marriage, so the most controversial one of those is moot.
Both oppose euthanasia.
Both support embryonic stem cell research, although with different opinions on just how it should be done.
“Human cloning” is a red herring. John Kerry supports therapeutic cloning, the creation of an embryo and the extraction of stem cells before they’ve become specific cell types. This, while the embryo is still microscopic. John Kerry opposes reproductive cloning, like the crazy cult that keeps saying they’ve cloned a baby. The writers at catholic.com included “human cloning” as a separate item, despite the fact that Kerry’s position on the issue is simply that of his stance on stem cell research, to make it look like Kerry was advocating cloned babies for everyone.
What’s left is abortion. Life begins at conception, etc. etc. etc. But like the earlier article stated, “life doesn’t end at birth.” Yes, it’s a clever marketing line but it’s also something to seriously consider. The problem is that Bush’s moral focus on the dignity of life is focused solely on the gestational stage of the child.
Once the child is born, Bush is content to cut back Medicaid so that she can’t receive adequate medical care.
He’s cut funding for Head Start programs^1^ so she’ll be unprepared when she gets to school.
He’s underfunded the No Child Left Behind act to the tune of $9 billion.2
He’ll give 31% of the tax cuts^3^ to the the wealthiest 1% of Americans. By 2010, 52% of the tax cuts will go to the wealthiest 1%.4 That’s not exactly the best way to take care of a poor woman who’s just had a baby, and can’t rely on government-funded programs to help pay for her child’s health and education.
And once that baby is grown up, if she did well, she might consider joining the military because of the government’s promise of money for college. There, she might be forced to fight, and risk her life, in an unjust war — which the Catholic church says that, as Catholics, we must oppose.
Or if she didn’t turn out so well, she might be executed by the government; an issue that the Catholic church opposes (although catholic.com didn’t deem it “non-negotiable”), yet Bush supports vigorously. On the other hand, John Kerry opposes the death penalty, and has been called “the first major-party presidential candidate in more than 15 years to take such a strong stand against capital punishment.”
And if the girl manages to survive all that, Social Security will have been depleted by the Republicans’ record-setting deficits, and if Medicare still exists it will have been rendered useless by Bush’s concessions to the drug companies.
It’s not that I agree with Kerry so much about what happens in utero — it’s that I can’t stand what Bush is doing to those of us who have traversed beyond the birth canal.
Sources
1 Tom Paine.com: Leaving Head Start Behind
2 The Seattle Times: ‘No Child Left Behind’ should be more than just a slogan
3 Citizens for Tax Justice
4 ibid.
Savannah’s Sludge
October 13, 2004
Because of our Republican leadership (and Zell Miller’s lapdog strategy) in the Senate, the citizens of Savannah are the recipients of an exciting new environmental disaster-in-waiting.
With the stroke of a pen last weekend, Congress changed high-level radioactive waste at the Savannah River Site into “waste incidental to reprocessing.” ... The rewording means the tons of radioactive sludge left over from Cold War bomb-making won’t be subject to the most stringent cleanup standards.
Originally, all the sludge in the SRS tanks was slated to be pumped out, immobilized in glass rods and buried in a federal repository. The new plans calls for most of the sludge to be immobilized in glass and buried, but allows SRS to leave a layer of sludge in each tank.
The residents and Savannah and the lowcountry have three senators to thank, Lindsay Graham (R-SC), who introduced the reclassification as an amendment to the defense authorization bill. Georgia’s own senators, Saxby Chambliss and the indomitable Zell Miller, let it happen. The final vote approving this measure in the senate was 48-48. Either one of Georgia’s senators could have brought the measure down, but they both chose blind devotion to the Republican party over the health and well-being of the citizens of their own state.
Savannah’s mayor, Otis Johnson, whom I am more grateful for every day, said:
”...in this particular case the experts are divided on the potential for success in permanently eliminating the leakage by grouting,” Johnson wrote. “Combining this with the impossibility of reversing the effort, places an unacceptable risk on the long-term use of the Savannah River, and unduly jeopardizes the long-term physical and economic health of the entire Savannah Region.”
For more information: Savannah Morning News: Radioactive Sludge Won’t Budge.
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Life Does Not End at Birth
October 12, 2004
Finally, there is a group working to spread the word to fellow Catholics that abortion, gay marriage, and stem cells aren’t enough to base your political decisions on. Catholics have a rich history of supporting the poor, the disenfranchised, the underdogs of society. Despite what the ultra-conservative Catholics who get most of the press would have you believe, this is what being Catholic is really about. Reprinted here is the text of Pax Christi’s campaign.
“A Catholic moral framework does not easily fit the ideologies of ‘right’ or ‘left,’ nor the platforms of any party… Our responsibility is to measure all candidates, policies, parties, and platforms by how they protect or undermine the life, dignity, and rights of the human person, whether they protect the poor and vulnerable and advance the common good.” –From Faithful Citizenship, issued by the United States Catholic Bishops.
It is a common misperception of politicians seeking office that the Catholic vote can be courted by addressing a narrow range of issues. In reality, the great majority of Catholics in the U.S., in agreement with the U.S. Catholic Bishops, will vote for candidates based “on the full range of issues, as well as on [the candidate’s] personal integrity, philosophy and performance.†(??Faithful Citizenship,?? U.S. Catholic Bishops, 2004).
Members of the media—and indeed a few of our own religious leaders—do a great disservice to our church and nation when they attempt to use one or another issue as the benchmark for Catholic identity.
“The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the Church’s social doctrine does not exhaust one’s responsibility toward the common good†(??Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life,?? Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, November 24, 2002 and approved by the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II).
The Catholic Church teaches that all life is sacred. A candidate for office must understand that the Church stands against any policy or course of action which diminishes life, dignity or the rights of the human person: abortion, capital punishment, war, scandalous poverty, denial of healthcare, mistreatment of immigrants and racism, to name but a few.
There are 60 million Catholics in the U.S. We take the responsibility of voting seriously. Each of us will evaluate candidates based on what our conscience—formed by reading the signs of the times in light of the example of Jesus in the Scriptures and the teachings of our Church throughout the ages—demands. We will examine the broad range of issues, measuring “all candidates, policies, parties, and platforms by how they protect or undermine the life, dignity, and rights of the human person, whether they protect the poor and vulnerable and advance the common good” (“Faithful Citizenship,” U.S. Catholic Bishops, 2004).
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Huc-a-Who?
October 12, 2004
It might be my territorial nature about things I love, but I can’t help but be a little concerned about the “Huckasomething” trend. Huc-a-Poos Bites and Booze is my home-away-from-home, the place where I met most of my friends, and the only bar I’m willing to ever go to. So imagine my surprise when I discovered the worst music ever made is currently being churned out by a group of 14-year-old girls, collectively known as Huckapoo. Now there’s a movie coming out, starring Marky Mark (_nee_ the Funky Bunch), called I ♥ Huckabees.
I find this all more than a little unsettling, but for me, Huc-a-Poos always comes first. You’ve got to respect a bar that will put your name on the menu when you move away.
Tybee’s the Bomb
October 3, 2004
In the past week or so, I’ve had more than a few friends and family ask me about the “Tybee Bomb.”
They ask me because Tybee is a small town of about 3,000, and they are surprised when they hear the island’s name mentioned in the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Here’s the story.
In the late 50s, an Air Force pilot jettisoned a nuclear bomb off the coast of Tybee Island after being involved in a mid-air collision. Shortly afterward, the Air Force searched the waters surrounding Tybee, but could never find the bomb.
It’s been a subject of local lore for years, and even has its own web site.
I knew about the Tybee Bomb before I ever moved there, and while the subject rarely came up, every now and then you’d catch a group of locals at one of Tybee’s many watering holes discussing what they almost reverentially called “our bomb.” I don’t think anyone in town was genuinely concerned about it. It was more like Tybee’s many other local characters: once-dangerous, but now old, and probably a lot safer if you left it alone.
However, a man from Statesboro by the name of Derek Duke has been patrolling the waters of Tybee, radiation detection equipment in tow, looking for the bomb. And after years of searching, he believes that he may have found it. It was then that he decided to turn over his findings to the Air Force.
Well, in the process of getting the federal government involved, the national media picked up the story. After all, a 7,600lb nuclear bomb in the waters off the coast of the United States is a pretty good story. But to the locals, the story is divisive for a few reasons.
First, as the bomb has been buried under the shifting sands of Wassaw sound for almost fifty years, no one is sure that they will ever find it.
Second, whether the bomb has its plutonium capsule attached is a source of contention. It is however holding a cache of highly enriched uranium, which presents the possibility of an environmental disaster if the bomb’s condition is deteriorating as it is thought to be, there in the salty waters of the Atlantic.
And beyond that, the bomb is also holding 400 pounds of conventional explosives. If they were to explode while the bomb was being removed, it could blow a hole between the saltwater Atlantic Ocean and the freshwater Floridan Aquifer—Savannah’s water source. The possible contamination of the water supply of most of coastal Georgia could pose as serious a threat as what could happen if the bomb is left to its own devices.
So there you are, your very own primer on the Tybee Bomb by a former Tybee resident. In my informal observations, it seems to be the consensus among residents on the island that they should leave the bomb alone. Those with an interest in the tourist economy are much more interested in having it investigated or removed, as the presence of a live nuclear weapon doesn’t exactly say “Fun Family Destination” to the thousands of tourists who visit Tybee every year. All in all, “The Bomb” is certainly a Tybee character that rivals Mrs. Roma, Jimmy Carter, or Tommy Barlow in its stature, but it had better watch out. If it gets too much publicity, the other locals are going to lose their fondness for it.
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Bad Medicine
October 1, 2004
The medicine that my mother took…well, this morning to control her arthritis has just been pulled from the market because it’s making people have heart attacks and strokes. Niiice. Doctors are urging patients not to panic but who wouldn’t? Mom already underwent a nuclear stress test a few months ago, after she had been taking Vioxx for a while, because a fluid buildup around her heart. After Larry’s death from a heart attack in 2003, and because of my grandfather’s recent stroke and past history of heart attacks, I am particularly sensitive about these kinds of things. At least Merck is offering a refund. How thoughtful.
Merck made two billion dollars last year from the sales of Vioxx. Here’s hoping they lose every penny of it.
