The Lady Speaks

I meant to share this sooner, but forgot!

Last week, I received the following email:

May 2, 2008

Author

The Lady Speaks blog

theladyspeaksblog@yahoo.com

Dear Author,

I am writing to request permission to reprint the material listed below in my forthcoming college textbook, Dialogues: An Argument Rhetoric and Reader, sixth edition.

Pearson Longman plans to publish this college composition anthology in August 2008. It will be a soft-cover volume of about 700 pages and should retail for $50. The first printing will be 5,000 copies. I am seeking to clear permissions for its distribution throughout the United States.

You may forward permissions and replies directly to me at the above address, fax number, or email address. Should I need additional permission, please let me know to whom I should apply. I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

Gary Goshgarian

The blog post he’s requesting permission to reprint is from February 22, 2007 and is entitled, Is YOUR Mascot a Racial Stereotype?

My first reaction was “HOLY Hannah!” The second was, “Is this legit?” (It is. Gary Goshgarian is a professor at Northeastern University in MA and also writes fiction novels under the pseudonym “Gary Braver.”)

My third reaction was, “OHMIGODSANDGODDESSES! I’m going to be in a college textbook!” I then called every single family member and I think I might have gone out and shouted it to the neighborhood.

I supposed it’s likely that my post will be in the “What Not To Do: When Blog Posts Attack!” but I suppose being in print as a bad example is still good. Like the D-list and lower actors say: “As least they spelled my name right.”

One thing I absolutely must say is: Thank you Marie Petronchak Parks! Without you as my 9th-grade English teacher, I’d be lucky to write a single coherent sentence.

Yep, evil liberal blogger that I am, I failed to produce a post honoring mothers and motherhood and all those who aren’t mothers but step in to fill the breach. I’m sure it’s because I’m an anti-family, abortion-forcing, pants-wearing, male-hating feminazi. (Yes, I got an email cursing me for my failure to post and accusing me of just that. And no, it wasn’t from my mother. )

Or it could be because I spent part of the day cleaning the house in preparation for my trip to Ohio this week, (I leave Wednesday.) and part of it reading several books from the TBR pile that’s been building up, instead reading blogs and other such.

It was a lovely Mother’s Day. I reaped my gifts from two of my three children (all of whom shall go unidentified to protect the guilty party who forgot what day it was and didn’t come home till after midnight) - a beautiful pot of narcissus and a card that made me cry from one child and an amethyst geode from another who knows her mother’s love of rocks and crystals. I also received pink and white pansies in coffee mugs from my niece and nephew, and a neat little book, “Who Else But A Mother?” and another card from my mom. In addition, I was treated to breakfast Saturday morning.

But for all those who were irritated by my failure, this one’s for you:

Read more »

Limited free time means I haven’t been able to work on the blog as often as I’d like, plus the “primary fatigue” that set in made me want to start posting recipes rather than digging in to write anything substantive. Unfortunately, this also meant I stopped posting the FAWS and updating “Counting the Cost.” I may not get to posting much else on a regular basis, but I’ll try to remember to keep these going. –Jenn

War Pigs — Black Sabbath
1970

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their judgement day comes, yeah!

Now in darkness, world stops turning
As the war machine keeps burning
No more war pigs of the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings
All right now!

From Political Ticker, via Tennessee Guerilla Women:

“Do you know how difficult it is for women to stand up and say we are the best at anything? The Democratic Party has to know that women are the core, women have to be at the table and women are going to be heard as we continue in these contests until they finally end.”
– Hillary Rodham Clinton

I’m in a rather interesting mood. Pissed as hell and depressed.

I’m starting to allow my heart to realize that Hillary may not win the nomination. She’s not giving up, though, so I’m not either. Hope springs eternal, and I’m going to keep fighting for her as long as she’s willing to keep fighting.

However, I’d be stupid not to look to the future and ask myself just what I’m going to do come November. The question on everyone’s minds is: “Will the Hillary supporters become Obama supporters once the nomination is decided?”

In my mind, there are two questions: Can I support the Democratic nominee if it’s not Hillary, and can I continue to align myself the Democratic party at all after witnessing, reading, or listening to hundreds (or thousands) of misogynistic attacks on Hillary and her supporters by other members of the party ?

I can’t answer for anyone else, and I will make no attempt to dissuade anyone from their own decisions about this, but — at this point, unless something completely changes my mind between now and November — I’ll vote for Barack Obama if he’s the nominee. Any Democratic candidate is - theoretically - better than any Republican. [Theoretically meaning: what's happened since January 2007 that is different from what happened between 2001 and 2007? Besides more hearings.]

However.

I will no longer be a registered Democrat. I am leaving the party and those members of it who have used hateful language against a Democratic candidate and against fellow Democratic voters who had the temerity not to jump on their bandwagon.

June 2008 will mark the 20th anniversary of my becoming a registered voter. I have not missed an election since I became eligible to vote, and I have always been a Democrat. Until now.

I’m done.

But apparently, that’s just fine with certain parts of the party who tell me they don’t need my vote. Just ask Donna Brazile.

I’m just one of those typical, white, blue-collar, traditional Democratic, over-30 but not quite 40, women to whom $30 in gas savings means a lot (like, a month’s worth of one of my prescriptions, or one month’s phone bill payment, or 15 days’ worth of school lunches for one of my younger kids), who wants clear and direct answers about how a candidate intends to bring our troops home (and when!), solve the economic crisis, restore America’s reputation abroad, close Guantanamo and end America’s human rights abuses, help families who are losing their homes, end our oil dependence, secure women’s full reproductive rights, create equality in the workplace (and every place) for women, minorities, GLBTQs, create jobs, end our financial dependence on China - among many, many other vital issues. In other words: no one important or anything.

Yes, yes, I hear the cries of: “She’s pandering!”

Fuck yes, pander to me! Over the past 7 years, we’ve watched politicians pander to one - and only one - constituency: the rich and powerful. Now — Goddess forbid! — someone wants to pander to the poor, the middle-class, the families, the small businesses, the women? Well, hell yeah!

But Hope and Change© apparently means not pandering to the people in this country who are struggling and need relief from the high cost of food, gasoline, utilities, and every other goddamned thing out there. Hope and Change© aren’t about helping those who — forget making ends meet — can’t even get the ends within sight of one another.

So, when it comes time to cast my ballot, if the nominee is Barack Obama, I’ll suck it up, hold my nose, and press the switch - as an Independent. And I’ll probably, in my bitterness, proclaim as I do so, “May the Goddess have mercy on my soul.” (Yes. I am bitter. I’m bitter because I actually thought Democrats were the party of women, of labor unions, of blue-collar laborers, of the underdogs of society, and boy, I’ve been proven wrong this year.)

But between now and the nomination, I’m going to light my candle, and I’m going to use my teaspoon, and no matter how this turns out, I’m going to know I did my damnedest to elect the first female President of the United States of America.

Mildred Loving passed away today.

From the Associated Press:

Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.

[snip]

Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.

“There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause,” the court ruled in a unanimous decision.

[snip]

[...] she and Loving got married in Washington in 1958, when she was 18. Mildred told the AP she didn’t realize it was illegal.

“I think my husband knew,” Mildred said. “I think he thought (if) we were married, they couldn’t bother us.”

But they were arrested a few weeks after they returned to Central Point, their hometown in rural Caroline County north of Richmond. They pleaded guilty to charges of “cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth,” according to their indictments.

They avoided jail time by agreeing to leave Virginia — the only home they’d known — for 25 years. They moved to Washington for several years, then launched a legal challenge by writing to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who referred the case to the American Civil Liberties Union.

In a public statement last year, on the 40th anniversary of the Loving decision, Mildred said, in part:

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the “wrong kind of person” for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry.

Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights. I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.

At the time the Supreme Court handed down its decision, nearly 80% of Americans disagreed with it and used Biblical justifications for doing so. Forty-one years later, those same kinds of Biblical justifications are being used against same-sex couples. And they are just as wrong and just as ignorant as they were then.

I pray we see the day when all those who love are free to join their lives together.

Thank you Mildred and Richard.

Blessed be.

I’m still tired, and the flu…ague…flu-like illness I felt coming on before my trip to New Hampshire has definitely sprouted. (NH is a beautiful state, with incredibly friendly people, but damn! Cold, rain, and possibilities of “snowstahms” on the first weekend in May?! And did I mention cold? I never thought of PA as a warm, “southern” climate till now.)

So, I’m busy feeling feverish while wracked with chills. Therefore, you shall have linkys!

Death toll in Myanmar at 4000 and could reach 10,000 or more. [CNN]

Why does Dick Cheney hate whales? [MSNBC]

Federal Air Marshals being denied boarding by airlines because they have the same name as terr’ists on the [giant useless stupid] no-fly list. [Boing-Boing]

Austrian father who imprisoned and raped his daughter for 24 years, forcing her to bear 7 children, is going to use the insanity defense. [CNN]

Toxic goo from Superfund sites being used as a fertilizer. [oh goody!] [Natasha at Pacific Views]

And now… I’m going back to bed.

This is part two of my series on how the wasteful, destructive agriculture polices of the last 8-12 years — also known as “Make Money By Not Feeding America” — has affected the cost of the food we purchase. Part One is here.

In Part One, I spoke of wheat and how in the rush to grow corn for ethanol, it’s being pushed aside - which drives up prices at the mills, which then drives up the price at the retail level.

Today: Corn.

In the rush to find cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels for our vehicles, ethanol was latched onto by the Bush administration. As a result nearly a quarter of all corn grown is being diverted from human and animal food stocks and heading for ethanol plants.

As we see with wheat, prices are going up. In this case, the price rise is first seen as the price-per-bushel - the amount the corn farmer is paid. That drives up costs at the farm and farm-factory level - where it’s used as feedstock cattle and poultry. Then prices rise again at the retail level. We’ve seen a huge rise in the cost of eggs, meat, and milk and other dairy products as a result.

Meanwhile…back at the farm, it’s difficult to turn away from devoting your corn to ethanol production with prices per bushel on the rise.

From the Washington Post, via MSNBC: [my emphasis throughout]

Across the country, ethanol plants are swallowing more and more of the nation’s corn crop. This year, about a quarter of U.S. corn will go to feeding ethanol plants instead of poultry or livestock. That has helped farmers like Johnson, but it has boosted demand — and prices — for corn at the same time global grain demand is growing.

And it has linked food and fuel prices just as oil is rising to new records, pulling up the price of anything that can be poured into a gasoline tank. “The price of grain is now directly tied to the price of oil,” says Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, a Washington research group. “We used to have a grain economy and a fuel economy. But now they’re beginning to fuse.”

Oh, and thank your Democratic Congress too.

Rising food prices have given Congress and the White House a sudden case of legislative indigestion. In 2005, the Republican-led Congress and President Bush backed a bill that required widespread ethanol use in motor fuels. Just four months ago, the Democratic-led Congress passed and Bush signed energy legislation that boosted the mandate for minimum corn-based ethanol use to 15 billion gallons, about 10 percent of motor fuel, by 2015. It was one of the most popular parts of the bill, appealing to farm-state lawmakers and to those worried about energy security and eager to substitute a home-grown energy source for a portion of U.S. petroleum imports. To help things along, motor-fuel blenders receive a 51 cent subsidy for every gallon of corn-based ethanol used through the end of 2010; this year, production could reach 8 billion gallons.

There’s just one problem…well, several problems:

Although ethanol was once promoted as a way to slow climate change, a study published in Science magazine Feb. 29 concluded that greenhouse-gas emissions from corn and even cellulosic ethanol “exceed or match those from fossil fuels and therefore produce no greenhouse benefits.” By encouraging an expansion of acreage, the study added, the use of U.S. cropland for ethanol could make climate conditions dramatically worse. And the runoff from increased use of fertilizers on expanded acreage would compound damage to waterways all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Development specialists have also joined the fray. “While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs, and it is getting more and more difficult every day,” World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick said in a recent speech.

And, the future for food prices isn’t looking too good:

Two leading oil pipeline companies are exploring the feasibility of building a $3 billion ethanol pipeline, the first of its kind, to link Iowa and other parts of the Midwest with motor-fuel markets in the East. It would carry 3.65 billion gallons a year and give another industry a vested interest in maintaining high ethanol output. Because of this domestic demand, Iowa’s exports of corn are expected to shrink to less than half of current levels in the next couple of years. Nationwide, corn stockpiles are dwindling.

[snip]

… Iowa produces more eggs, 13.5 billion, than any other state. And chickens, like capons, mostly eat corn feed. The Charles City ethanol plant alone consumes three-quarters as much corn as the entire Iowa egg industry.

[snip]

“We don’t have to make fuel out of corn and soybeans, but we do have to feed animals,” says Kevin Vinchattle, executive director of the Iowa Egg Council. “We’re going to be right there bidding for feedstocks and making sure that we have the highest-quality feed available. We just don’t have an alternative.”

What we really need in this country is a responsible, sustainable, non-destructive, non-wasteful agriculture policy. We absolutely do need to support our family farmers. But, we should only support those family farmers who are contributing to the feeding of America.

It is time to end the subsidies to corporate entities that run factory farms, the owners of said corporate entities, and those whose product is going for any use other than feed or food.

What we also need is a responsible energy plan, because — thanks to the ethanol boom - the two are intertwined.

So, you go into any grocery store, bakery, dessert shop and think, “Holy hell. This stuff’s getting expensive! WTF?”

Naturally, we assume fuel prices have done it all, but part of the price increase is decades of wasteful, destructive agriculture policies. Wheat prices are soaring (yayz for the commodities brokers!) and the number of acres devoted to wheat has dropped by 24 million — or just over 25% since 1981.

From the Washington Post, via MSNBC

U.S. farmers are expected to plant about 64 million acres of wheat this year, down from a high of 88 million in 1981. In Kansas, wheat acreage has declined by a third since the mid-1980s, and nationwide, there is now less wheat in grain bins than at any time since World War II — only about enough to supply the world for four days. This occurs as developing countries with some of the poorest populations are rapidly increasing their wheat imports.

[snip]

U.S. wheat yields per acre have increased little in two decades, partly because commercial seed companies have all but abandoned investments in improved varieties, preferring to focus on the more profitable corn and soybeans. Subtle warming changes in the climate and the recent availability of new plant varieties that thrive in cold, dry conditions have pushed the corn belt north and west.

[snip]

In 1996, Congress gave a strong nudge to these changes by passing legislation allowing wheat growers for the first time to switch to other crops and still collect government subsidies. The result is that farmers received federal wheat payments last year on 15 million acres more than were planted. [my emphasis]

Oh goody. So, Americans - in the form of taxes - are paying farmers not to produce wheat and we’re paying through the nose whenever we buy wheat products because we’re paying farmers not to produce wheat. Lovely.

And this isn’t a problem for America only. Developing nations count on us to supply them with cheap wheat to cushion their own production. Except that other wheat-producing nations are stopping exports in order to conserve their harvests for their citizens. Add in the falling value of the dollar:

The U.S. government stopped holding large stocks of wheat in the 1980s, but the United States, nearly alone among wheat producers, allows countries to shop here even when others have shut off exports.

This free-trade policy resulted in a run on the 2007 U.S. wheat crop this year by foreign buyers taking advantage of the favorable dollar exchange rate to stock up, even as Ukraine, Argentina and Kazakhstan blocked exports.

Those of you who feel smug about driving your ethanol-fueled vehicle? Stop.

The ethanol boom, in particular, is providing strong incentives to keep former wheat acres in corn. Within a year, Braaten will be able to truck his corn to three modern ethanol refineries, one already built and two others near completion. These huge distilleries will need corn from an area about the size of Rhode Island, and many of the acres will come at the expense of such traditional crops as wheat and sugar beets.

And, of course, corn seeds are a money maker for the corporations.

These seeds are protected by patents and licensing agreements, requiring farmers to buy a new batch each year. That produces strong financial incentives for the companies .

[snip]

Even then, there is no assurance that farmers will buy the seed year after year. That is because of the nature of the wheat plant, an unusually complex organism originating in the Middle East thousands of years ago. Unlike hybrid corn, which loses its productivity after the first year, seeds from improved wheat varieties can be saved and replanted for several years without significant loss of yield.

But in the end, under the rule of the Bush Corpos, feeding America is just another way to make a fortune. Unless, of course, you’re the farmer.

Unfortunately for America, few will notice there’s a problem until they’re standing in breadlines.

Lambert at Corrente says:

Since Barack Obama likes Jay-Z so much, and songs like “99 Problems (But a Bitch Ain’t One)” and “Dirt Off Your Shoulder,” I think it’s only fair that we help her pick out some theme music.

He and the commenters list their choices, including Aretha Franklin’s Respect and Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive.

My choices are:

I Am Woman by Helen Reddy

Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves by the Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin

or - my personal favorite - This One’s For the Girls by Martina McBride.

So, what songs would you choose for Hillary’s campaign?

If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women’s rights…. And women’s rights are human rights.

– Hillary Rodham Clinton
September 5, 1995
Fourth World Conference on Women

That is all.