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This week, I’ve been deeply disturbed at the swelling public desire to adopt Haitians. Haitian orphan babies. The very name is problematic. In our imagination, an orphan has no family, but the vast majority of “orphans” all over the world have living parents, and almost every single one has living extended relatives. And the children that need family care are, overwhelmingly, older children.
Quite a few other parents I know are really pissed off about it. If you want to adopt, why not consider adopting from foster care? Why Haitian babies? I can guess at some of the answers. Most of them will not be very flattering.

There’s a certain group of white adoptive international parents that dominate much of the discourse around adoption in this country. The most organized of these are evangelical Christians, but many of them are secular in their beliefs on adoption. They’re across the political spectrum, ultraconservative to ultraliberal, though if I had to hazard a guess, most of them are center-right in politics. I believe these people are, basically, a force for evil. If I put it in any nicer words, that would be a lie. Examining their belief system, and their potential political influence on the recovery efforts in Haiti, is a pretty terrifying process. Continue Reading »

In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, we’ve seen many solutions posed around the world (and even suggested a few of our own). One option that has been raised is allowing more adoptions from Haiti; Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell even got involved in bringing orphans into the U.S., managing to land a plane when relief planes were unable to get in.

But is this really the best answer? We ask David M. Smolin, professor of law at Samford University, who has written extensively on intercountry adoption, Dawn Davenport, author of The Complete Book of International Adoption and executive director of Creating a Family, and Phil Bertelsen, himself an transracial adoptee and award-winning filmmaker, and the director of Outside Looking In, a documentary about transracial adopton.

The first thing you need to understand about healthcare reform is what Jane Hamsher identified long ago: nothing--absolutely nothing--is going to trump the White House's deal with PhRMA and the insurance industry.  The question you need to ask yourselves is: why?  If you're intellectually mature enough to get past "personal betrayal" as your best answer, you'll be on the right track.


While you ponder that one, you might want to also consider why nothing has been done--nor will anything serious actually be done--about financial industry reform.  Standing up to the financial industry in the current political environment should be a no-brainer.  So what in the heck is going on here?  If you can think past shadowy conspiracy theories and possible personal enrichment for the Obama family, you'll be doing the kind of thinking that will help actually solve the problem.


The problem is people like me, and the people I work for.  I'm what they call a Qualitative Research Consultant, or QRC for short.  Here's my website.  There's even a whole association of us who meet regularly to discuss ideas and tactics.  Together with the AAPC, the MRA, the AMA, ESOMAR, and a whole host of other organizations you've never heard of, we have more power and control than you know.  We're extremely good at what we do, and we do it all behind the scenes, appealing to and manipulating your subconscious brain in ways that your conscious brain has little to no control over.



Give us a little money to test some things out, and we can work magic.  Our business is persuasion, and we're very good at it.  Just watch PBS Frontline's series, The Persuaders to get just a small inkling of what you're up against.  We can make a company that earns a 38% gross profit margin manufacturing purely propriety products seem hip, cool and progressive.  We can take sugar water and sell it back to you as a health drink, and even Whole Foods shoppers will believe it.  We can take 30 different brands of vodka with almost exactly the same ingredients, and make you understand instantly just what kind of person drinks which brand, and how much you should expect to pay for each, without a moment's thought.  


For any given category of products, I can show you a bunch of different brands, and you'll be able to tell me a wealth of information about each one, despite the near absolute similarity of their actual products to one another.  One exercise we QRC's like to conduct involves actually turning a brand into a person in a group discussion; it's called personification.  And you wouldn't believe how effectively and universally we can tailor a brand's image, right down to what kind of car that "person" would drive, and what music he/she would listen to.  


So much attention has been paid to Naomi Klein's outstanding Shock Doctrine, that few pay much attention anymore to her far more provocative and important work No Logo.  If all Americans truly internalized the message of No Logo, people like me would be out of work, and we could really reform this country. ...


If you want to win, you will ORGANIZE. You will organize in the same way the Right has done for the last 40 years, and you will spend money on persuasion, where it really matters.  You will, in short, make the politicians as afraid of you as they are of them.  The Right has built vast networks of think tanks, newspapers, periodicals, cable news channels, and political advocacy organizations to spread their finely tuned, well-honed messages.  Their politicians may fail them, and their actual policies may be deeply unpopular, but their message machine nearly always works its magic to get them what they want, even when Democrats are in power.


That's partly because the American political Right never quits and never gives up.  They know that organization is the key to their success, and they don't trust politicians to do their work for them.  Democrats, on the other hand, get disappointed and quit when our politicians don't pan out the way we wanted.  That's why we lose.MORE

There is nothing wrong with self-satisfaction or national pride. But the incessant trumpeting of our national superiority to every other country in the world is more than just off-putting and insulting. It is infantile, like the vaunting of a schoolyard bully that his Dad is better than your Dad. It is wrong. And it might be dangerous both to ourselves and to the rest of the world.

Consider what it means. By what standard is one nation any greater than any other nation? Yes, the United States has vast material resources - we rank eighth in gross domestic product per capita - but we also have, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the "highest inequality and poverty rate'' in the world, outside of Mexico and Turkey, and things are getting worse. Nothing to boast of there.

Yes, we have a relatively high median income, but our standard of living as measured by the Human Development Index of the United Nations ranks us only 15th in the world, behind, among others, Norway, France, Canada, and Australia. Are they better than we are? Even our home ownership rate trails that of the citizens of Canada, Belgium, Spain, Norway, and even Portugal.

Yes, the United States has the best system of higher education in the world, but, according to an Educational Policy Institute report, we rank 13th in the affordability of that education, and we are much less successful with lower education - 11th in the percentage of the 25 to 34 population with a high school diploma and 22d in science education.

...

The point of all this isn't that America doesn't have a lot to be proud of. It does. The point is that just about every country has a lot to be proud of, and America has no more right to assume it is the greatest nation in the world than does France, Switzerland, China, or Russia.MORE

That was the deal. You greet us with flowers and candies and we will greet you with D.U, napalm and neutron bombs...

This may be news to you, but all kinds of weapons were tested in Iraq by the demoniacal terrorists called the Americans. Depleted Uranium is the most "famous" one.

D.U was used during "Desert Storm", may wrathful storms engulf you. And it was used during "Operation Freedom".

Napalm was used in Falluja and Mosul.

According to fellow MDs, they are convinced that neutron bombs were also used (for those of you who don't know, neutron bombs are a limited range nuclear mini explosions that carbonize people and leave buildings intact). According to them, those were used in 2003, in the battle for Baghdad, namely around Baghdad's airport. Fellow MDs said that the corpses they saw in ER on one particular day, were no longer corpses, they were not even burnt, like in napalm, they were simply disintegrated like and I quote "a handful of sand".

While, the sectarian Shiite puppet government is busy plundering and pimping for Iran,

While the numbed out, dumb assholes called American "people ?" are busy checking out the latest released single from Michael Jackson and Paris Hilton new hairdo,

While the filthy English are busy getting plastered on beers and cheers,

While the U.N and its "specialized" agencies are busy snoring in the corridors of silence

While environmental NGOs are busy saving another penguin in Antarctica...

While ...

Tumors are multiplying in Iraq, at a vertiginous rate...sparing none.
Click through for the Al Jazeera English video

I guess Howard Dean was just ahead of his time.
When the liberal anti-war candidate ran for the White House in 2003 and 2004, the Beltway press was uniformly clear that Dean had an "anger" issue. When Dean launched his campaign and gave voice to the hundreds of thousands of activists who had marched and protested against the Iraq war, the media elites did not approve.
As early as June 2003, The New York Times was fretting over whether Dean's "angry message" would be his downfall. "All the Rage," read a Newsweek headline on a Dean profile.

And in two features in the summer of 2003, The Washington Post described Dean as "abrasive," "flinty," "cranky," "arrogant," "disrespectful," "fiery," "red-faced," a "hothead," "testy," "short-fused," "angry," "worked up," and "fired up." And trust me, none of those adjectives was used in a complimentary way. In fact, the Post took pains to distinguish Dean's anger from that of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whom the paper termed "brilliantly cranky."

Bad luck for Dean, because back during the Bush years, there was really no worse crime, at least in the eyes of the Beltway press, than being "angry." (Especially being an angry Democrat.) It was practically a deal breaker. Serious people simply didn't conduct themselves that way in American politics. They didn't let their runaway partisan emotions get the best of them.

But oh my, how times have changed! Suddenly this summer, as right-wing mini-mobs turn health care forums into free-for-alls, as unhinged political rage flows in the streets, and as the Nazi and Hitler rhetoric flies, anger is in. Suddenly anger is good. It's authentic. It's newsworthy. Reading and watching the mini-mob news coverage, the media message seems clear: Angry speaks to the masses.MORE

My report for the Cato Institute on the effects of full-scale drug decriminalization in Portugal -- the background for which I wrote about here -- is now available online. It can be read here, and the .pdf is here. I'll be at Cato tomorrow to present the report at noon, and the event can be watched live here. Drug policy is being more openly debated than ever before in the U.S. (Time 's Joe Klein just wrote a column advocating marijuana legalization), and the unambiguous success of Portugal's 2001 decriminalization -- which is what enabled the Portuguese Government to address their exploding drug problems in the 1990s and to achieve far better results than virtually every other Western country -- provides a compelling empirical basis for understanding the profound failures of the American approach.


I'm traveling today and it's unlikely I'll be able to write again, but today is the deadline for the Obama DOJ either to release 3 key, still-secret OLC torture memos or explain to the court why they refuse to do so. A report two weeks ago from Newsweek's Michael Isikoff (which quoted an anonymous Obama official as describing the memos as "ugly") claimed that Obama had disregarded the emphatic objections from ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden and others in the intelligence community and had decided to disclose the documents in full, but a New York Times article this week indicated that no decision has been made because of very adamant objections to disclosure from the likes of Obama counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan (whose pending appointment to be CIA Director, it's worth recalling, was opposed precisely because he was clearly an advocate for some of the worst CIA abuses of the Bush era). MORE

I do think that this case is believed to be prosecutable because of the offense that society takes at the very idea of a man being anally penetrated. This offense is understandably exaggerated when that penetration occurs by force. And this woman used a (presumably) plastic object. It’s so unnatural. Whereas a woman being forcibly penetrated by a man . . . well, what’s the big deal, sexually penetrating women in various orifices is what they’re for, after all. Simply put, there are different social values shaping the lenses through which people see this rape as opposed to many others. Just like female rape victims vary on the rapeable scale, many fewer people assume that a man in such an exposed position was “asking for it” than would if it was a woman. Because penetration is seen as something that men are supposed to do, not receive. And for that bizarre reason, people generally perceive a straight man as less likely to consent to anal penetration in front of a crowd of people than a woman — and think that for a woman, it would be less of a big deal.
But none of that is to say that the man in this case is not experiencing victim-blaming or mockery. He absolutely is. (Oh look, here’s an example.) That blaming and mocking just occurs somewhat differently. And from the majority of the many articles I’ve read on the subject, it seems to occur significantly less openly in the media. There are few overly victim-blaming comments, a lack of references to the alleged rape as “sex,” and so far a lack of instances where the word rape is put into scare-quotes.MORE

In the majority of sexual assault cases, where a woman is the victim of a man’s violence, rape apology is rooted primarily not in the denial that male violence exists, but in the denial that male violence means something and needs to be stopped. Conversely, in cases where a man is the victim of a woman’s violence, rape apologism is strongly rooted in the denial that women’s actions can count as violence at all — and especially that their actions can count as sexual violence against men, who are routinely construed as incapable of being victims.MORE

BOSTON — Sen. John Kerry has asked the Obama administration to grant asylum to a gay man who was forced to return to Brazil after he was married to a U.S. citizen in Massachusetts.
Genesio "Junior" Oliveira has been separated from his husband, Tim Coco, since August 2007, when he left the country after his request for asylum and an appeal were denied.
Oliveira asked for asylum in 2002, saying he was raped and attacked by a physician as a teenager in Brazil, and feared persecution because of his sexuality. The Associated Press does not typically name rape victims, but Oliveira speaks openly about his case and allows his name to be used.
In a letter sent Thursday to <a target=" _top"="_top"" href="BOSTON — Sen. John Kerry has asked the Obama administration to grant asylum to a gay man who was forced to return to Brazil after he was married to a U.S. citizen in Massachusetts.
Genesio "Junior" Oliveira has been separated from his husband, Tim Coco, since August 2007, when he left the country after his request for asylum and an appeal were denied.
Oliveira asked for asylum in 2002, saying he was raped and attacked by a physician as a teenager in Brazil, and feared persecution because of his sexuality. The Associated Press does not typically name rape victims, but Oliveira speaks openly about his case and allows his name to be used.
In a letter sent Thursday to <a target=" class="rcLink">Attorney General Eric Holder, Kerry said Immigration Judge Francis Cramer found Oliveira's testimony to be credible and his fear of living in Brazil genuine. However the judge denied the claim, saying the man "was never physically harmed" by the rape, the letter said.
Kerry called the ruling "outrageous."MORE

Survey by a US based polling organisation reveals Muslim public opinion on terrorism, US policy, al Qaeda and Islamist politics.

People living with HIV in the Gulf region face ostracism and commonly tell of their feelings of frustration.

Al Jazeera spoke to "Hamad", an HIV positive man living in Bahrain, where he says there is still a stigma associated with the deadly disease.

The Israeli government did indeed withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005 - in order to be able to intensify control of the West Bank. Ariel Sharon's senior advisor Dov Weisglass was unequivocal about this, explaining: "The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."
Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders - so they voted for Hamas. ... It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72 percent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 percent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine. So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders.
Rather than seize this opportunity and test their sincerity, the Israeli government reacted by punishing the entire civilian population. They announced they were blockading the Gaza Strip in order to "pressure" its people to reverse the democratic process. They surrounded the Strip and refused to let anyone or anything out. They let in a small trickle of food, fuel and medicine - but not enough for survival.

The Israeli government did indeed withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005 - in order to be able to intensify control of the West Bank. Ariel Sharon's senior advisor Dov Weisglass was unequivocal about this, explaining: "The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."

Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders - so they voted for Hamas. ... It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72 percent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 percent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine. So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders.

...

Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises. Don’t take my word for it. According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security services Shin Bet, “told the Israeli cabinet [on the 23rd] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms.” Diskin explained Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet – high with election-fever, and eager to appear tough – rejected these terms.

The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He says that while Hamas – like much of the Israeli right – dreams of driving their opponents away, “they have recognized this ideological goal is not attainable, and will not be in the foreseeable future.” Instead, “they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967.” They are aware this means they “will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals” – and towards a long-term peace based on compromise. The rejectionists on both sides – from Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh to Bibi Netanyahu – would then be marginalised. It is the only path that could yet end in peace – but it is the Israeli government who refused to choose it. Halevy explains: “Israel, for reasons of its own, did not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process with Hamas.
MORE

Dov Weisglass' comment was that the Gazans were being "put on a diet." Turns out it's a starvation diet: Oxfam says only 137 trucks of food were allowed into the Gaza Strip this November -- an average of 4.5 per day, compared to the December 2005 average of 564 per day. Gaza has nearly 1.5 million people crammed into 139 square miles -- 137 food trucks wouldn't begin to cover their needs, especially since the inhabitants aren't allowed to go outside of Gaza to seek work. The UN says poverty there has reached an "unprecedented level."

Poor James Franco. (And poor Sean Penn. But for the moment, poor James Franco.)

In the relentless publicity interviews he's been doing for his new movie, "Milk," there's plenty to ask about his performance as the neglected lover of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, the gay rights martyr. So what does every interviewer -- from David Letterman to the Philippine Daily Inquirer to public radio's Terry Gross -- want to discuss most, over and over and over?
The kissing.

Wasn't it really difficult to kiss another man? Implied: Without throwing up, seeing as you're so obviously straight? What were you thinking as you kissed? Did you rehearse it? What was it liiiiiike?

Underlying the questions (and the answers) is this notion that a gay kissing scene must be the worst Hollywood job hazard that a male actor could face, including stunt work, extreme weather or sitting through five hours of special-effects makeup every day. We live comfortably, if strangely, in a pseudo-Sapphic era in which seemingly every college woman with a MySpace page has kissed another girl for the camera; but for men who kiss men, it's still the final frontier.

There's a whiff of discomfort of the Seinfeldian, "not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-it" variety. It's a post-ironic, post-homophobic homophobia, the kind seen most weeks in "Saturday Night Live" sketches or in any Judd Apatow movie.

Judging from their interviews over the years, actors who have filmed scenes in which they have pointed a revolver at someone's head and pulled the trigger still think gay kissing is the grossest thing they've ever had to do for a movie. Franco has tried to walk a fine line of laughing along in such interviews, while pointing out that "Milk" is essentially a movie about fighting for acceptance. He's had to rehash the same kissing stories again and again:

( Read more... )