Gender and Sexuality

WBAI Radio on Right Wing "Feminism"

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Last Thursday July 15th Fran Luck interviewed Abby Scher and me about right-wing “feminism.” I wrote about it after our talk, and I just wanted you to know that you can hear us at http://archive.wbai.org. Just scroll down the page until you come to the “Joy of Resistance” on Thursday July 15 at 11:00am (the listing is in reverse chronological order). The first half of the show concerns current news about women around the world, and the interview begins at 31:17 (i.e. 31 minutes and 17 seconds into the program). Hope you enjoy it.

Culture

The Second Coming of Martha Coakley

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Having infuriated Democrats with her astonishing loss of Ted Kennedy’s long-held Senate seat to a suburban truck-drivin’ pin-up populist, Martha Coakley is back. But this time she’s racking up a series of impressive legal victories for liberals. She has won a $102 million dollar settlement against Morgan Stanley, taken on insurance companies for paying hospitals based on political clout rather than quality, and successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Athough unchallenged by the GOP in her November race for Attorney General, Coakley is campaigning vigorously. Could she be positioning herself to recapture the MA Senate seat from Scott Brown for the Dems?

Gender and Sexuality

Right-Wing "Feminism" Nothing New — More Thoughts

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This morning I had the pleasure of talking with Fran Luck on WBAI-FM , a Pacifica affiliate in NYC. Fran hosts the “Joy of Resistance,” a show that covers “the ongoing and world-wide struggle for the full liberation of women–as it continues to unfold dynamically in every country and culture on the planet.” She had read my original post about Sarah Palin and wanted to interview me about the parallels I saw between Palin’s “feminism” and the Nazi militants, about whom I wrote part of my dissertation. It was a great conversation. I’m a conversation junkie.

Culture

Sabbath Dinner: Cooking With Weeds

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I am beginning to wonder if perhaps Obama was right to tackle health care reform as a first initiative. It is difficult to find health care issues to write about these days…our mainstream and alternative media are rightly wrapped up in the crises of the day, the Gulf oil spill disaster, the Afghanistan War and high unemployment rates. Of these, at least two are directly tied to our inability as a nation to confront Big Oil. Frustrated with tepid Congressional efforts to stem the oil tide, I decided to take a small step to wean myself off of oil. I began cooking locally available food: weeds!

General News

How Communities Can Build on Health Care Reform

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Several gems designed to strengthen communities’ ability to define local systems of care are buried deep within the bowels of HCR. These provisions encourage community coalitions composed of health care providers, patients and other stakeholders to design innovative strategies for meeting their own unique health care needs. Instead of trying to impose a boilerplate solution to what has become a chaotic patchwork of local capacities and vulnerabilities, the community health coalition approach encourages creative, bottom-up solutions to our nation’s pressing problems. And it builds communities’ political power to advocate for future reform. I’d like to present you with a treasure map. This push was born out of an unusual alliance: career federal bureaucrats who hunkered down in agency basements to wait out the Bush administration, former federal bureaucrats who left their jobs because they could not wait out the Bush administration, local government officials and community leaders began meeting in the middle of the last decade to discuss “outcome driven health care.”

Culture

A Conspiracy of Love

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Beautiful article in our local paper about Dean Ornish (at right with his family), “the nation’s pre-eminent proponent of adopting a healthy life to reverse chronic diseases.” Since founding the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in 1984, he has run trial after trial looking at whether lifestyle choices involving diet, exercise, meditation – and even love – can be as powerful in treating disease as drugs, radiation, chemotherapy and surgery. “In my 33 years, in everything we did, people thought we were crazy,” said Ornish, a self-described hugger who exudes a doctor’s natural air of concern. “People said the tests must be wrong or that this could only happen in California. But we have proven that lifestyle is treatment, not just prevention.”

Environment

Coal Worse Than Oil

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All eyes are on big oil these days, and for good reason, with possibly the worst oil spill in history happening as we watch. But coal, the other fossil fuel, is by far a worse culprit in the long run. From mining to processing to transportation to burning to disposal, coal has more environmental impacts than any other energy source. And we’re burning it everywhere in the U.S. — often without pollution-control equipment — even on our college campuses. Here in Wisconsin, a large percentage of our electricity has been produced with coal.

Culture

Where Two Or More Are Gathered – Asylum May Be Granted

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As I headed into what we hoped would be the last of a long series of hearings, to decide whether our friend would be granted asylum, I wondered what good, if any, our silent witness had been. At each hearing at least six of us sat in the back, listening to testimony, watching exhibits argued over by our friend’s attorney and the attorney for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)… Did it make any difference for us to be there, other than providing support for our friend? A bit of background. Our friend had been a vocal opponent of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in her country.

Culture

April Fools: Jokes, Friendship, and Erasmus?

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“Have a seat!” I’d say on April Fool’s Day, offering a classmate a little wooden chair. If she were foolish enough to accept my kindness, I’d jerk it back and she’d fall on her butt. Or I’d point to a friend’s shirt: “Oh my God! There’s a spider on your pocket!”