Women’s Day and Oklahoma

News and analysis…

March is dedicated as Women’s History Month, starting off with International Women’s Day, March 8, 2010. In honor of that occasion, below are some of the recent stories focusing on the status of women in Oklahoma…

Oklahoma House of Representatives | OKLAHOMA CITY (March 2, 2010) — Legislation creating a pilot program that seeks to establish reentry and diversion programs to allow nonviolent offender mothers to receive community-based services in lieu of incarceration unanimously passed the House today.

House Bill 2998, by Rep. Kris Steele, would encourage re-entry and diversion programs as opposed to jail time for nonviolent female offenders in allow them to receive rehabilitative services while maintaining contact with their children.

Oklahoma incarcerates more women than any other state in the nation. Its incarceration rate for women is 131 per 100,000 residents, almost twice the national average of 69 per 100,000.

Most women prison inmates, 68 percent, are in prison for nonviolent offenses.

“This bill will give women convicted of nonviolent crimes access to community-based rehabilitative services that have proven effective,” said Steele, R-Shawnee. “As policy-makers, we can be both tough and smart on crime. The average prison stay for nonviolent women is less than a year, but the impact on their children is lifelong and devastating. In-home rehabilitative services will keep these families together and allow Oklahoma women to receive the help they desperately need.”

The bill passed the House with a vote of 92-0 and will next be considered by the Senate.

Henry G. Bennett Memorial Library | The month of March is Women’s History Month. Between the years of 1907 and 2008 only 77 women have been elected to the Oklahoma Legislature. As of February 2009, 46 of these remarkable women have shared their stories as part of the Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project.

Since 2006, Associate Professor/Oral History Librarian Tanya Finchum of Oklahoma State University embarked on a project to capture and record information about women who have served or are currently serving in the Oklahoma Legislature. Within the Oklahoma State University Library website, a website was launched in February 2009. The website is a culmination of her work and includes transcripts, audio excerpts, and memorabilia collected as a result of interview efforts. The web address is http://www.library.okstate.edu/oralhistory/wotol/.

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence | Domestic Violence in Oklahoma:

Oklahoma Law enforcement agencies answer an average of 15, 000 domestic violence calls each year….

Oklahoma currently ranks 10th nationally for the number of women murdered by males. Among cases where the relationship between the victim and offender was known, 91% of perpetrators were known by the victim.

According to a study conducted by the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of  Battered Women, nearly 3/4 of women incarcerated in Oklahoman state prisons reported being physically abused at some point in their lifetime.

Nearly 20 percent of Oklahoma high school students have reported being hit, slapped, or physically hurt by their boyfriend or girlfriend; this is compared to the 9 percent of all students nation wide.

The rate of dating violence for Oklahoma ninth graders is more than three times the national average, at the rate of 26 percent for Oklahoma freshmen, compared to 8 percent nationwide.

New OK | Budget problems have caused cutbacks statewide in services to women who are victims of domestic violence or sexual assault, officials say.

“It hurts my heart,” said Marcia Smith, executive director of the state Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. “Demand for help is up, but budget problems are forcing some services to go away.”

About 29 state-supported programs offer help to domestic violence and sexual assault victims, Smith said. All of them have experienced a 10 percent cut in funds for the past two months, on top of 5 percent funding cuts every month since July.

“It’s too much for them to absorb,” Smith said.

Huffington Post | Anti-choice legislators in Oklahoma are experts on at least two things: waste and distraction. After repeatedly introducing laws – and having them overturned by the courts for being unconsitutional – that do nothing more than force government intrusion into the professional lives of physicians and the personal lives of women seeking reproductive health care, they continue to waste taxpayer time and money by ignoring constitutional rules.

Yesterday, a bill that may be unconstitutional sailed through the OK House and is on its way to the Senate. It would force physicians performing abortions to narrate an ultrasound description to the pregnant woman on whom the ultrasound is being performed. This was one week after an Oklahoma district court ruled unconstitutional a 2009 law that created a public web site where doctors would be forced to publish personal information on women who have had abortions (including their names and the reason for their abortions). And now the Oklahoma Supreme Court confirmed the ruling of a lower court that mandatory viewing of ultrasounds is unconstitutional putting to rest a 2008 law that would have forced women to view the ultrasound of their pregnancy prior to receiving an abortion…

Astoundingly, the bill passed the OK House without a question or a discussion, despite this history of wasting taxpayer time and money by passing unconstitutional laws and then having them overturned.

Best of the web…

Senators: Lift Ban on Gays Donating Blood  |  365 Gay News

The senators said that while hospitals and emergency rooms are in urgent need of blood products, “healthy blood donors are turned away every day due to an antiquated policy and our blood supply is not necessarily any safer for it.”

Brian Moulton, chief legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign,the nation’s largest gay rights group, said they are hopeful that the policy, last reviewed in 2006, will change under President Barack Obama, “who is interested in looking at all the policies that have a discriminatory effect.” The goal, he said, is “to have policies in place that are based on the science” rather than “any discriminatory idea about our community.”

One in three killed by US drone strikes is a civilian  |  The Raw Story

The US military has used drones to attack suspected terrorists in Pakistan since at least 2004. Proponents of the small, unmanned planes say they are capable of “surgical strikes” that reduce civilian casualties and effectively combat terrorism.

Is that true? Well, not really, according to a new report from the New America Foundation, a non-profit research institute.

The percentage of civilians killed by drones in Pakistan is at about 32 percent, or one out of three, the report states, and the strikes themselves have little effect in deterring terrorist activities in either Pakistan or Afghanistan. Researchers do not believe any of the reported strikes targeted Osama bin Laden.

Ford’s First EV Isn’t Sexy, But It’s Smart  |  Wired

Ford’s first mass-market electric vehicle isn’t a sexy sports car. It isn’t a sleek sedan. And it isn’t cool compact. It’s a van. A delivery van, to be exact, designed specifically for fleet use. It isn’t the sexiest way to break into the electric arena, but it’s a smart move for Ford and a logical place for EVs.

Ford rolled into San Francisco with one of the Transit Connect Electric vans that goes on sale at the end of the year. It isn’t much to look at — a big box on wheels with a definite European flair — but it offers 80 miles of range and charges in as little as six hours. Ford is offering it only its big fleet customers for now but opens the order book next year for anyone who wants one.

Still Blaming the Victim…

News and Analysis…

In preparation for the Xenia Institute’s upcoming event on intimate partner violence, I thought it worth while to examine how issues related to domestic abuse (such as rape) are dealt with in the news. Depressingly, aside from the occasional 2 second headline, these issues are still largely ignored by the public… and when addressed it can met by a decidedly negative response. Indeed there are still those who try and blame the victims of abuse alongside their assailants, as demonstrated by a recent, rather controversial survey taken in England.

BBC News | Almost three quarters of the women who believed this said if a victim got into bed with the assailant before an attack they should accept some responsibility.

One-third blamed victims who had dressed provocatively or gone back to the attacker’s house for a drink.

The survey of more than 1,000 people in London marked the 10th anniversary of the Haven service for rape victims

More than half of those of both sexes questioned said there were some circumstances when a rape victim should accept responsibility for an attack….

The survey also found more than one in 10 people were unsure whether they would report being raped to the police, and 2% said they would definitely not do so.

The main reasons were being too embarrassed or ashamed (55%), wanting to forget it had happened (41%) and not wanting to go to court (38%).

StyleCaster | Harrison may be right that women engage in victim-blaming as a way of feeling safe, convincing themselves that only people who act a certain way get raped. It’s possible, too, that a decline in the numbers of young women who identify with feminism have made more young people convinced that a woman who wears a short skirt is “asking for it.”

Shakesville | These results feel sensational, because ZOMG even women blame victims! But the reality is that when people disproportionately targeted by sexual target victim-blame, it is frequently, among women who have not been raped, an attempt to disassociate from the ugly reality that there’s no magic strategy to insulate oneself from all possibility of sexual assault. Or, among victim-blaming survivors, a reflection of guilt and shame—a misplaced feeling of responsibility for one’s own rape.
That doesn’t make the victim-blaming any more justified (or less depressing), but it does provide a context that most media coverage will lack.

New Stateman | But the fact is, if so many people are ready to believe that a woman is culpable in her own violation, jury trials will inevitably be affected: it is a self-perpetuating, vicious circle. While the majority of people in the Havens poll were keen to assign partial blame to the victim, one in five women said that they would not report it to the police if they were raped, saying that they would be ashamed, or would not be believed. This feeling is justified — just last year a freedom of information request showed that some police forces were failing to record more than 40 per cent of reported rape cases — but we have no hope of changing police attitudes if these attitudes continue to proliferate across society.

We urgently need education; a high profile campaign, starting with schools, to educate the public and eradicate the view that rape is sometimes deserved

Best on the web…

Herpes Drug Might Also Slow HIV Progression  | Business Week

New research suggests that people who are infected with both HIV-1, a strain of the AIDS virus, and herpes simplex virus type 2 could benefit in more than one way by taking a herpes drug called acyclovir. In addition to treating herpes, the medication appears to also slow the progression of HIV.

Computer Engineer Barbie Had PhD In FUN (And Breaking Down Stereotypes) |  Gizmodo

Barbie’s had 124 careers since 1959, ranging from Stewardess to Paratrooper. Today she gets her 125th: computer engineer. You can tell she’s smart ’cause she’s got glasses, and reads nothing but binary.

Barbie’s latest career move is also significant for being the first decided entirely by online vote. Though maybe it’s not so surprising that the internet community was especially inclined to see a Bluetooth-rocking geektastic Barbie.

Winter Olympic Medals Made From Recycled E-Waste  |  Scientific American

When Olympic champions are crowned at this year’s winter games in Vancouver, these elite athletes will be taking home more than just gold, silver or bronze medals—they will be playing a role in Canada’s efforts toreduce electronic waste. That’s because each medal was made with a tiny bit of the more than 140,000 tons of e-waste that otherwise would have been sent to Canadian landfills.

What’s in a Text?

If you know me then you probably know that texting is my preferred means of communication.  I have even been know to say that if you don’t text, we can’t be friends.  This isn’t because I’m discriminating against non-texters.  Rather, I have much more difficulty communicating with people who don’t text message. Therefore, we are much less likely to be close.

Recently, my love of texting has come under scrutiny.  As the youngest of the volunteers on a political campaign, I am surrounded by non-texters!  I have had to keep my thumbs in check and actually call people when I need to communicate something to them.  The salutations and farewells on phone calls take up much of the time.  I could have sent a text in one tenth of the time and not ostracized the people around me by having a phone up to my ear.  I will admit that there is a time for phone calls, especially when you need to exchange a lot of information and receive feedback immediately.  But, to inform someone of a small piece of information, texting is the best.  (It turns out that it is also good for raising money for disaster relief, as the Red Cross has raised over $5 million for Haiti in a texting campaign.)

Then the question arises, how is texting different than e-mail?  If everyone had e-mail on their phones (which I certainly do not), then why text?  Both exchange written messages instantaneously and anything that could be put into a text message could certainly be put into an e-mail (although the vice versa is not equally true).  A blogger at Associated Content makes this point.

Why text/mms when you can email? The only reason why I can see texting beating email at this point is because not everyone has phones that have email on them. But when you and your friends both have email capable smart phones think about it why would you text him? With email you can still send an “instant” message to your buddy, but you can type out a message of unlimited length and you can easily insert images or other files along with the email. So if all your friends have smart phones why wouldn’t you just send an email?

I have been thinking about this question and have arrived at an answer: text messages have a different tone than e-mail.  This begs the question, “why?” to which the answer is: because they are almost always deleted within a few weeks of being received.

While e-mails are cataloged and recalled years after their received dates, texts are long gone.  Cell phones only hold a certain number.  I’ve had phones that held 30, 200, and 400.  But, eventually you have to delete messages.  Most people “delete all” every month or so at which time those texts go into oblivion.  Sure, some people keep old texts.  I myself have one from 2005.  But, 99% of texts that have been sent to me have been deleted.

The subconscious knowledge that the text will most likely be deleted and never resurface allows a level of candor and intimacy that is not found in most e-mails.  I have received and sent texts with incredibly private details of my life.  I have completely bared my soul.

Cell phones are the perfect receptor for text messages because they are such closely held personal objects.  Some one else might get on my computer and happen to glance at my e-mail, or see over my shoulder in a coffee shop, but no one can see a text message I am reading or composing without my knowledge.  The screen is simply too small.  I would never read the texts on another person’s phone.  That would be like reading a private diary.  This level of privacy once again facilitates candor and intimacy in text messages that cannot be communicated in e-mails.

I would like to briefly note that I do not use text abbreviations, nor do I forgo punctuation in text messages.  I enjoy words and sentences in their entirety.

This is my argument for the power of texting, that candor and intimacy that can be created by just 160 characters that no one else will ever see.

What’s Buzzing at Google

News and Analysis…

On Wednesday Google unveiled its answer to social networking, Google Buzz.  This is merely the latest of Google’s applications that include a mail server (Gmail), online calendar (Google Calendar),  photo sharing (Picasa), RSS feed reader (Google Reader) and many more.  Buzz is already built in to Gmail so for users of Gmail, a note about Buzz came up after logging in and now appears as an option in the main menu.  Google’s newest release is now in competition with the giant of social networking, Facebook.  Who will win this clash of the titans?

Tech Crunch | Buzz also wants to differentiate itself another way: social curation. As Mike wrote about the other night, the social web right now is largely a mess. There’s simply too much going on, and no one is really working to sort it all out. Google is trying to do that with Buzz by allowing you to import items from services like Twitter, but only show you the best ones. For example, Google says it will hide quick messages like “brb.” The plan is to also auto-collapse items that don’t have a lot of comment activity.

The Next Web | Want to know what is going on? Buzz will let you know what is being “buzzed” around you. Know what that means? Geotagged updates in the world (think AR in the future) just became a real reality, finally. Buzz’s updates are going to be snapped to locations, and stuck into Google all over the place. Buzz is about to become the new social layer that Google had never had. Get ready, this is going to rock your world.

Social Customer Manifesto | However, Buzz does two things that will simply make it unusable.

1. It shows threaded conversations and strongly highlights the initiator of those conversations, and makes the comments subservient to the initial post.
2. It takes posts that have “new” comments and immediately bumps those posts to the topmost position of the viewing window.

Search Engine Land | Many will call this a Twitter killer or a threat to Facebook. Certainly the company is targeting the audiences that Twitter and Facebook serve, but suggestions that Buzz will kill them are overblown. From Orkut to Lively to Google Friend Connect and beyond, Google has tried to succeed with social products that just haven’t caught on. There’s no guarantee Google Buzz will be any different.

On the Web…

Are Books Becoming Relics of the Past? | Huffington Post

Just two years ago, the Kindle was such a rare commodity people would approach me to find out what type of a gadget it was, or else ask if I cared to demonstrate how it worked. Nowadays, it is common to see people engaged in reading on all types of eBooks. Last month, I was stopped at security in LAX. Throughout my many years of travelling, I have perfected the art of passing airport security with flying colors–no liquids in purse, shoes and coat off, laptop in separate bin. But here I was pulled to the side, my purse confiscated. Without blinking an eye, the security officer asked whether I carried a Kindle in my purse. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Kindle has arrived! It has joined the venerable ranks of the laptop and requires a bin of its own to pass airport security.

Many Women Don’t Have Kids – Get Over It | Daily Intel

And sure, older women need to know that fertility declines with age. But what are the actual fertility rates of women in each age range? And why is it that increasing numbers of women choose to delay in the first place? What is lost when they don’t? Instead of facts and understanding of the causes and effects of delay, we get a lot of sentimentality aimed at getting you to start your family now.

A First Look at Palin’s Primary Math | FiveThirtyEight.Com

If Sarah Palin runs for the Republican nomination in 2012 — and I’ve been on record for some time as predicting that she will — what are likely to be her best and worst states? And how do these strengths and weaknesses square with the Republican primary calendar? And what about the other likely candidates?

The first, very, very important thing to notice is that the Republican primary calendar will be different in 2012 than it was two years ago. Although this could change as states jockey for position and rules are amended, for the time being the Republicans have divided the states into five groupings.

Big Brother and the Internet.

News and Analysis…

At a recent meeting of the D.C. based Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG) the FBI once again pushed for expanded data retention on the part of internet service providers (ISPs). Always a touchy subject in relation to privacy rights, the FBI is trying to extend the regulations to require ISPs to record which web sites costumers visit and retain the records for two years; a demand which generated much conversation among technology and justice groups over the feasibility and wisdom of such an action.

CNET | FBI Director Robert Mueller supports storing Internet users’ “origin and destination information,” a bureau attorney said at a federal task force meeting on Thursday.

As far back as a 2006 speech, Mueller had called for data retention on the part of Internet providers, and emphasized the point two years later when explicitly asking Congress to enact a law making it mandatory. But it had not been clear before that the FBI was asking companies to begin to keep logs of what Web sites are visited, which few if any currently do.

The FBI is not alone in renewing its push for data retention. As CNET reported earlier this week, a survey of state computer crime investigators found them to be nearly unanimous in supporting the idea. Matt Dunn, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in the Department of Homeland Security, also expressed support for the idea during the task force meeting.

The Technology Liberation Front | But the strongest objection came from John Morris of the Center for Democracy & Technology, who rightly noted that no amount of government subsidies for data retention could prevent leakage of sensitive private data. For this reason and because of the basic civil liberties at stake whenever the government has access to large pools of data about its citizens, Morris argued that we need to strike a balance between how we protect children & the values of free society. Dave McClure of the US Internet Industry Association (USIIA) seconded this point powerfully: If such vast data is retained, it will be abused.

The Next Web | Another concern is whether or not such a law for logging data explicitly for the purpose of federal investigation in some way violates the Constitution. For example, American citizens are entitled to an expectation of privacy. In my opinion, this if you’re just visiting a website in your home that doesn’t have any social features, this activity should be considered private. If, on the other hand, you’re on a site interacting with users, then you’re being less private.

Personally, any proposals for data logging set off my internal Orwellian sensors. The FBI argument will be that more data will allow for better policing of criminal activity, but that’s also the problem: all of the user data collected would be more or less for the purpose of prosecuting people. And the last thing we need in the US is more ways to put people in jail.

Ars Technia | The two-year data retention request has remained consistent over the last four years, even as the Europeans have tightened up many of their data retention policies. That might be, in part, because the US has no equivalent to the EU’s Article 29 Working Group, made of of national data privacy commissioners; here, the push for privacy comes largely from nonprofits outside the government, not from within.

But Europe does face conflicts between its privacy advocates and law enforcement, instructive to consider since the EU is ahead (in a temporal sense) of the US on these issues. While the Article 29 group pushes Internet companies to retain data for no more than six months, the 2006 EU Data Retention Directive requires ISPs and Internet companies to retain certain kinds of data for six months to 24 months. The rule has to be made into law by each EU member state, and was to be fully in place by the end of 2009. Each state can choose whatever retention period it likes best, and can even go beyond two years if desired. (Much like the FBI’s request, the EU rule requires source and destination information, but not the actual contents of communications.)

The US has not adopted either comprehensive data privacy or data retention legislation. The FBI has not been shy about making its views on the matter heard, but the fact that four years have passed without Congress giving the Bureau what it wants shows what a low priority the matter remains.

Best of the web…

Vegetative State Patients Can Respond to Questions  | BBC News

The research, carried out in the UK and Belgium, involved a new brain scanning method.

Awareness was detected in three other patients previously diagnosed as being in a vegetative state.

The study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that scans can detect signs of awareness in patients thought to be closed off from the world.

Patients in a vegetative state are awake, not in a coma, but have no awareness because of severe brain damage.

Costa Rica Elects Female President  | Aljazeera

Costa Ricans have elected their first female president, with Laura Chinchilla, the ruling party candidate, taking 47 per cent of the vote.

Chinchilla declared victory early on Monday, with votes way ahead of her rivals and above the 40 per cent needed to avoid a run-off.

Study Finds Tree Growth Spurt  | The New York Times

Forests in the eastern United States appear to be growing faster in response to rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a new study has found.

The study centered on trees in mixed hardwood stands on the western edge of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland that are representative of much of the those on the Eastern Seaboard.

All are growing two to four times as fast as normal, according to a study published in Tuesday’s issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Jolly Green (Energy) Giant?

News and analysis…

In light of President Obama’s remarks concerning clean energy during his 2010 State of the Union address and his meeting with the Republican caucus on Jan. 28th, there has been a flurry of media activity concerned with finding out who leads in producing clean energy technology. The answer? China. While a small fraction of China’s domestic energy production currently comes from alternative energy, the Chinese government is actively encouraging the increase of domestic clean energy use. While the United States should hardly emulate China, it is certainly worth considering what the United State’s largest competitor in the realm of energy consumption is doing in the area of clean technology…

The New York Times | TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

Tomas Friedman: Dayton Daily News | China’s leaders know their country is in the midst of the biggest migration of people from the countryside to urban centers in history. This is creating a surge in energy demand which China intends to fill with clean, homegrown sources.

In the last year alone, so many new solar panel makers emerged in China that the price of solar power has fallen from roughly 59 cents a kilowatt hour to 16 cents, according to The Times’s bureau chief here, Keith Bradsher.

With so fevered a push for capacity growth, the Chinese government will take it any way they can get it, and if it means creating a new global industry, all the better. Remember, investor certainty is much less an issue in the Chinese context already, where the government makes the rules and the investments. U.S. companies have no certain market for their products – be it energy equipment or green power – and have no incentive to “bet the house” on E.T.

Meanwhile, China last week tested the fastest bullet train in the world — 217 miles per hour. And Bradsher noted that China has nearly finished building a high-speed rail route from Beijing to Shanghai at a cost of $23.5 billion. Trains will cover the 700-mile route in five hours.

By comparison, Amtrak trains require at least 18 hours to travel a similar distance from New York to Chicago.

Clean Techies | Friedman and others may be right that China is doing an exceptional job putting forth a very green face to the world — and, indeed, they are delivering. As Bradsher reports, “China intends for wind, solar and biomass energy to represent 8 percent of its electricity generation capacity by 2020….[t]hat compares with less than 4 percent now in China and the United States.” Bradsher continues, noting correctly, “China’s biggest advantage may be its domestic demand for electricity, rising 15 percent a year.”

In other words, while U.S. lawmakers – and even those in the green movement – continue to jostle over where money should be directed (subsidies for green power purchase, green tech research and development, energy efficiency) and debate whether we can stem the anticipated tide of growth in demand for environmental benefit, the Chinese have one directive: more capacity, now! And, a lot of it, from anywhere. They are not shy (nor ambivalent) about capacity growth. After all, it means economic growth.

Reuters | A new Chinese law requires power grid operators to buy all the electricity produced by renewable energy generators, in a move that will increase the proportion of energy that comes from renewable sources in coal-dependent China.

The amendment to the 2006 renewable energy law was adopted on Saturday by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, the Xinhua news agency said.

The amendment also gives authority to the State Council energy department, together with the State Council finance department and the state power authority, to “determine the proportion of renewable energy power generation to the overall generating capacity for a certain period.”

The Washington Post | In the State of the Union Address last Wednesday, President Obama said “the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy and America must be that nation.” At the same time, on the other coast, 75 clean energy investors, entrepreneurs, and researchers were debating whether the U.S. can gain this leadership position. They agreed that even though Silicon Valley leads the world in technology, it is not clear if it will ever lead in Cleantech. The Valley may develop some breakthrough technologies, but without government help these are unlikely to translate into global leadership. The technology world is rightfully allergic to government assistance and intervention. Cleantech is different, however, and we aren’t dealing with a level global playing field.

The Knowledge Economy Institute Leadership Summit, which I attended, was held at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), in Emeryville, California. The question posed: what will it take for the U.S. to achieve global leadership in the clean-energy economy? The group concluded that the U.S., by far, has the strongest innovation platform in the world. But other countries may well reap the benefits of its research efforts. China, in particular, is making massive investments and has a huge advantage from focused policy and large markets. Even though China is not likely to produce its own innovation, it will continue to appropriate U.S. technology and gain a major advantage by combining this with its manufacturing prowess. American firms which are increasingly choosing to build design and manufacturing operations in China will provide it with additional advantage.

DAVOS Dairy | In China, the government poured an estimated $440 billion into clean energy last year. It is investing heavily in renewable energy and nuclear power. It also is pursuing efforts to make extraction of its vast coal reserves cleaner. Already home to one-third of the globe’s solar-energy manufacturing capacity and 400 solar-energy companies, China is expected to surpass Spain this year as the No. 3 country in terms of wind power installations, behind Germany and the United States.

William Rhodes, senior vice chairman of Citigroup and board vice chairman of the National Committee on U.S.-China relations, predicted that Beijing’s research into storing carbon emissions underground could soon lead to a major breakthrough.

In the United States, meanwhile, President Barack Obama faces an uphill battle in Congress to pass politically-sensitive legislation aimed at capping carbon emissions.

“China has the type of centralized industrial policy that we can’t match and don’t want in the United States or the European Union,” said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense, a U.S. advocacy group. “What we have to compete with China is the power of our marketplace. A clear and declining cap on carbon emissions will send the essential market signal to industry, and that will engage our market directly in this competition.”

Best on the web…

Baptists In Haiti Could Face U.S. Kidnapping Charges | NPR

Haiti’s prime minister said Monday it’s clear to him that the 10 U.S. Baptists who tried to take 33 children out of his quake-ravaged country without permission “knew what they were doing was wrong.”

Prime Minister Max Bellerive said his country is open to having the Americans go before courts in the United States because his own nation’s judicial system was devastated by the Jan. 12 earthquake.

The aborted Baptist “rescue mission” has become a distraction for a crippled government trying to provide basic life support to millions of earthquake survivors.

But the prime minister said some legal system needs to determine whether the Americans were acting in good faith — as they claim — or are child traffickers in a nation that has struggled to fight exploitation of children.

Al Franken’s Anti-Rape Amendment Makes Defense Budget | The Huffington Post

President Barack Obama’s 2011 defense budget proposal includes language that would prevent the government from working with contractors who deny victims of sexual assault the right to their day in court.

Four husbands under Islam | Salon.com

It’s scandalous for a Saudi woman to publicly voice a sense of entitlement to equal rights — but sexual rights in particular? Now, that — that will bring her a lawsuit, threats, slander and infamy. Such is the case for female journalist Nadine Bedair, who recently penned an article for the Egyptian daily newspaper Al Masry Al Youm titled, “My Four Husbands and I.” Mmhm: “My Four Husbands.” You hardly have to read beyond the headline to forecast the shitstorm ahead — but, of course, you’d be missing out on her delightfully daring indictment of polygamy if you didn’t.

The Catholic Church vs. Women’s Ordination: An Unresolved Issue

Analysis…

The the role of women in the Roman Catholic Church has been a subject of much debate over the years–with the ordination of women as priests being one of the major points of contention. Recently there have multiple stories about the women’s ordination movement in the media, many focusing on Father Roy Bourgios, a Noble Peace Prize nominee, threatened with excommunication by the Vatican for his support of the Women’s Ordination  Conference. There has been growing support for the ordination of women around the globe yet the Vatican, leading the world’s largest Church with more than 1 billion adherents, continues to hold to its 2008 declaration against the ordination of women. What do you think about this issue?

The Huffington Post | Meet Fr. Roy Bourgeois, a celebrated priest and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. He’s joined forces with supporters of Women’s Ordination, which has been sending a clear message to the Vatican for decades–that womenpriests were part of the original Catholic Church before Canon Law was re-written and should be honored as such today. “If we are to have a vibrant, healthy Catholic Church, we need the faith, wisdom, experience, compassion and courage of women in the priesthood,” Bourgeois says of the issue. “Many learned scholars have studied the issue and concluded that there is no justification in the Bible for excluding women from the priesthood. With all due respect, I believe our Catholic Church’s teaching on this issue is wrong and does not stand up to scrutiny.”

The Washington Post | Three and a half years ago, Meehan joined a group of Catholic women from across the United States known as the Roman Catholic Womenpriests — ordained as bishops, priests and deacons, sometimes in secret ceremonies, against Vatican law. The first ceremony took place in 2002, when a renegade bishop ordained seven women in a boat on the Danube River near Passau, Germany. Most, if not all members, have been excommunicated. Bourgeois, a Vietnam War veteran, social justice advocate and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, has been trying to recruit other priests, many of whom agree with his position but fear excommunication. “I understand your fear about going public with this,” he told them, “but you and I are card-carrying members of this all-boys club, and our silence simply sends the message very clearly that it’s okay to have women sit in the back of the Catholic bus.”

Cincinnati.com | There are numerous publications by theologians which attest to the history and tradition of women’s leadership in early Christianity and up until the 12th century – as deacons, priests and bishops. See, for example, the calendars of archaeologist/theologian Dorothy Irvin and books by scholars Gary Macy, Karen Jo Torjesen, John Wijngaards, Lavinia Byrne, Ida Raming, Ute Eisen, Joan Morris, Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek. Catholics must search for the above information by themselves because male priests do not mention the words “women’s ordination” from the pulpit at Sunday Masses. Those who follow their conscience and have spoken out for women’s justice within our church and world community have been severely reprimanded by the Vatican. One such person is Father Roy Bourgeois, Maryknoll priest of 38 years and founder of the School of the Americas Watch. He and SOAWatch have been nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

Telegraph.co.uk | “Stealth priestesses” is the way these ladies are described by their opponents (ie, orthodox Catholics). The use of the word “priestess” might seem rude – but, remember, the Roman Catholic Church is irrevocably committed to an all-male priesthood, so the prospect of Catholic women priests or deacons will always be Tabletista fantasy. My guess is that, 15 or 20 years down the line, these churches (along with a certain magazine) will have found a new home in an Episcopal communion modelled on the American Episcopal Church (TEC) rather than the Church of England. And you have to wonder: might the Catholic Church actually be healthier as a result?

Best of the web…

South Carolina Lt. Gov. Apologizes for Comparing the Poor to ‘Stray Animals’  | Truthdig

South Carolina’s Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has apologized for comparing poor people to “stray animals” that are encouraged by gifts of food to breed uncontrollably. Bauer, who is running in the state’s gubernatorial election, told CNN while apologizing that he is “not against animals.”

Egypt’s Internet Crackdown  | The Daily Beast

On January 15, over two dozen Egyptian bloggers and activists were arrested en route to a show of solidarity following the deaths of six Coptic Christians in the southern province of Qena. Among those detained were some of Egypt’s most famous Internet activists such as Wael Abbas and Ahmad Badawy. The bloggers’ cell phones and IDs were taken by Egyptian police. Though they were released a day later, this crackdown sent shockwaves through the dissident community in Egypt. Wael Abbas was even rearrested and sentenced to six months in prison on the spurious charge of damaging an internet cable.

Sex Workers in New Orleans Are Being Labeled as Sex Offenders  | Alternet

New Orleans city police and the district attorney’s office are using a state law written for child molesters to charge hundreds of sex workers like Tabitha as sex offenders. The law, which dates back to 1805, declares it a crime against nature to engage in “unnatural copulation” — a term New Orleans cops and the district attorney’s office have interpreted to mean anal or oral sex. Sex workers convicted of breaking this law are charged with felonies, issued longer jail sentences and forced to register as sex offenders. Of the 861 sex offenders currently registered in New Orleans, 483 were convicted of a crime against nature, according to Doug Cain, a spokesperson with the Louisiana State Police. And of those convicted of a crime against nature, 78 percent are Black and almost all are women.

Communication Overload

Lately I’ve been thinking about the many methods of communication.  Technology has made keeping in touch tremendously more complicated than it was 20 years ago.  I am particularly interested in the number of ways there are to communicate and the way we delegate these methods to certain portions of our lives.  I hadn’t realized that I only use facebook for socializing until someone messaged me about something work related through facebook.  I felt invaded upon.  Don’t they know facebook is only for keeping in touch and chatting with friends?  Of course not, because we all have our own structures for how we allocate our communications.

So, in honor of the variety of communicative tools, I will lay out the ways I communicate and how I perceive them and/or other people I know perceive them.

Letter writing – Largely a relic, letter writing is not widely practiced today.  Mainly, I use letters if I want to emphasize to the receiver the importance I place in this communication.  For instance, when writing to a governmental representative, hand written letters are considered better because they show you took the time to write something down.  You’re not merely cutting and pasting from suggested text.  This is also true for thank you notes which are still written out.

Facebook- Wall writing – For those of you who are not facebook savvy, a brief education.  Each person on a social networking site, such as facebook has an individualized  page or profile.  You and others can write on that profile, or ‘wall.’  The most important thing to remember about wall communication is that it’s public, so don’t write anything that you wouldn’t want other people to read.  I think the best use of wall writing is to pose a topic to someone to which others could also potentially add, such as, “How about those Sooners?”

Facebook- Messaging- Once again for the nonfacebookers, facebook messaging is like e-mail but only between people on facebook.  However, it does not support attachments.  I think that facebook messaging can be useful in keeping up with friends on the site.  Many of my messages follow the format, “So, I saw on your profile that you X.  What’s going on with that?”  It’s a way to get the inside scoop, what that person wouldn’t post on their public profile.  Messaging is completely private.

Chat- I use both facebook chat and Gchat but there are numerous other chat platforms such as AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messaging.  I think chat is best for small talk.  Another useful way to use chat is to have an instantaneous long-distance conversation.  For instance, when my friend was in Kenya, we could use chat to have an instant conversation, when talking on the phone was not available.

E-mail- E-mail is fairly universal in purpose.  But, I generally do not get e-mail from close friends.  We mainly text, talk on the phone and facebook message.  Generally, e-mail for me is for work and work-related communications.  I also of course receive tons of notices and advertisements on e-mail which sometimes makes sorting through mail quite tedious.

Texting- For me, texting is the most important method of communication, especially with my peers.  Texting is great because you can do it at any time, whether you are in bed half asleep or in the middle of a business meeting.  In addition, you can reply in your own time.  With texting, there are no awkward silences as there can be on the phone.  I used to say that all text messages actually say, “I love you.”  Texts carry the notion that the sender was thinking of the recipient in that moment and many serve just to remind the recipient of that fact.  Also, like all the other previous methods of communication listed, texting is good because there is a written record of the communication.

Calling- I love to talk to people I know well on the phone.  For family and close friends, there is nothing like the rhythm that can be achieved from a voice-to-voice banter.  But, for pretty much every one else, I would rather text or communicate via e-mail.  Something about talking on the phone is off-putting for me, it seems like an overly intimate experience for two people who are not close. I have an aversion to answering my parents’ house phone.  It feels inappropriate to answer another’s phone, perhaps because I only use a cell phone and would never answer a friend’s phone without his or her permission.

These are the  main methods I use for communicating.  What do you use?

The Color of Normal

“Whiteness” avers Melville, wrapping up his lengthy phenomenology of the ambivalence of whiteness, “is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors.” Blanc, blank. “… Such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows — a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink.” To make whiteness visible is to learn to read its absent presence: concretely, its racial construction that — until we see it — colors myself as white while denying that I have color in the same stroke — truly a colorless all-color. –– Catherine Keller, Face of the Deep

I got a Hello Kitty toaster for Christmas. Normally it’s not my kind of thing, as the kawaii/cuteness of Japanese pop art has a tendency to really get on my nerves (add that to all the people in my life who, for whatever reason or another, love Hello Kitty and assumed that because I’m Japanese I must love it, too and come rushing up to me with their Hello Kitty stuff to ask me about my own collection … yeah, whatever). But there was something about this pink-bowed toaster that really delighted me: that the silly thing leaves a Hello Kitty design in your toast.

We also haven’t had a decent toaster in this house in ages, so I was excited just to get a toaster. But anyway.

So on Boxing Day morning, I was all excited to test out my new kawaii toaster. This is what I was expecting:

This is what I ended up with:

You can kind of make out a vague Hello Kitty-type shape there, and the image doesn’t get any clearer no matter how much you burn the toast. I was, to say the least, really disappointed (yes, I want a consumer-product cartoon character in my toast! Or maybe if there’s going to be an uncooked spot in my toast, I’d like it to at least look like what it’s supposed to be). Then I looked at the picture on the box and realized: For best results, one probably must use white bread.

That got me thinking about the assumptions that we make about what’s normal, what’s not, what’s assumed to be the canvas upon which we draw our understandings of the world, and what exists outside that in the realms that we call “exotic” and “other.” My normal, as far as breakfast bread goes, is whole wheat and multigrain; for me, white bread is “exotic” and very far outside the realms of my normal. I don’t eat white bread; we’ve always eaten wheat or whole grain breads in my family, so I grew up not really caring for the taste of white bread. I’m not sure that the designers of this and other design-burning toasters were making that assumption on the normalcy of breads  — that most people (or at least those who want Hello Kitty patterns in their morning meal) eat white bread.  But it’s very likely that white bread really is the perfect bland, tasteless, colorless perfect canvas for such designs (did I mention that I don’t care for white bread?), hence the resulting toaster.

But it at least brings up the question of what we assume passes for normal, or what our assumptions for the parameters of “normal.” What does our “normal” look like? Or a better question might be: What does “normal” look like to people who educate our children or craft our public policies?

Or design our technology.

I recently came across this video in which two computer retailers demonstrate the parameters for “normal” on some HP facial-recognition software:

It’s not that this software, which Desi (the guy in the video) jokes about, is necessarily racist; racism is a complex issue that involves structures of power and abuse. However, what’s going on in this video is one of the foundations of racism, which is an assumed privilege of what’s “normal” — that the software designers set white faces/skin color as the parameters for normal. There may be a standard or a default that’s assumed, unquestioned, unrecognized, nearly invisible until something brings it forth to be seen. In this case, whiteness becomes the default, an odd mixture of colorlessness that is itself constructed the color of normal against which everything else must justify itself.

As innocuous and harmless as it was, my toaster experience woke me up a bit to the assumptions I have in my life, and makes me wonder about what other assumptions are at play in my life. And reminds me I need to be on the lookout for them.

Townhalls & Firewalls

Analysis…

President Obama’s recent trip to China has sparked a wave of debate.  From economics to an uncensored Internet, numerous comments have conspired regarding the recent trip abroad.  Largely, the differences between the two nations, the United States and China, are what contribute to the conversation.

The Huffington Post |  In talking to a group of graduate students from the China University of Political Science and Law, one of Beijing’s most prestigious universities, President Obama’s rise to power has filled them with the hope that the impossible, or at least the improbable, is achievable.
For the students, many who have little recognition of a world before President George W. Bush, President Obama represents a new approach to the global order, an approach that they eagerly look to be a part of.

NPR |  President Obama visits China at a time when the world’s two most powerful economies face very different fortunes.
A humbled United States is slowly recovering after sparking the global financial crisis. China, on the other hand, has handled the downturn with ease and appears to be leading the world out of recession, while increasing its influence in Asia.

Time |  The official U.S. buzzword for President Obama’s visit to China this week is “pragmatic cooperation,” but behind the scenes, U.S. diplomats have been aiming for something a little closer to subversion — at least when it comes to getting around China’s “great firewall” of official censorship and information control.
There is a long history of Chinese officials censoring the comments of U.S. presidents. In 1984 when President Ronald Reagan gave a speech in Beijing, state-run China Central Television cut portions that referred to the Soviet Union, religion and democracy. During Obama’s inaugural speech in January, China’s state television cut away when the president referred to previous American generations that had faced down communism. The line that followed was also edited from television broadcasts and from transcripts on many Chinese news portals: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
Online outreach by the Obama Administration is designed in part to bypass such censorship, and increase direct communications with the Chinese people. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for one, has been particularly aggressive on the issue since taking office.

Personal Democracy Forum |  Obama made the argument that Internet freedoms are human freedoms, playing off China’s vibrant — if restricted — base of Internet users. His townhall with “future Chinese leaders” was broadcast online, and questions came, as they have with domestic townhalls, from the Internet, quote-unquote. Chinese young folks used their social networks Xinhuanet and Sohu, as well as from the website of the U.S. embassy in Beijing, to send in questions for Obama. And Obama — who hasn’t always done a great job in recognizing how participatory technologies change the nature of engagement with government — here pounced on the moment, telling his web-savvy Chinese audience, “I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet — or unrestricted Internet access is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged.”

The Daily Dish |  Thirty years from now, the most important aspect of Barack Obama’s interaction with China will be whether the two countries, together, can do anything about environmental and climate issues. If they can, in 2039 we’ll look back on this as something like the Silent Spring/Clean Air Act moment in American history, which began a change toward broad environmental improvement. If they can’t….

News…

Are you an authentic American?  |  Racialicious

So how does one question who or who is not an American? Does it have to do with language, race, ethnicity, how long one has been in the United States – or is it about the more legal aspect of possessing citizenship.

Haunted by Gorbachev’s ghost  |  Truthdig

It has become a pub bore’s cliché to argue that we will never prevail in Afghanistan because no foreign power ever has: not even the Russians, whose nine-year occupation cost the lives of 14,000 of their soldiers and 35,500 wounded, and which ended in humiliating retreat in 1989. Those Cassandras irritate Western leaders, whose response is to insist that it is different this time. “We are not an occupying army,” Gordon Brown told the BBC on Friday. “It’s not like previous interventions. … We are actually creating the conditions by which the Afghans themselves, and not an occupying army, can run their own affairs.”

High court won’t hear Washington Redskins case  |  NPR

The Supreme Court on Monday decided not to weigh in on a 17-year legal challenge by a group of American Indians who contend the Washington Redskins football moniker does not deserve trademark protection because it is racially offensive.
In sidestepping the controversy, the justices did not comment on Harjo v. Pro Football, Inc. The court’s refusal to hear the case leaves in place an appeals court ruling that the plaintiffs waited too long to challenge the National Football League trademarks.

Why Americans hate to love the government  |  The New Republic

Anyone who has followed closely the debate over national health insurance has probably noticed some peculiar inconsistencies in Americans’ attitudes toward the legislation. A Pew Poll released on October 8 found “steady support” for specific elements of the health care plan, including the public alternative to private insurance, the employer mandate, and the requirement that everyone have insurance. Nonetheless, popular support for the plan itself was declining, with 34 percent “generally [in] favor” and 47 percent “generally opposed.”
What accounts for this disparity? Certainly, some people fear that Medicare will be cut, or that “death panels” will be set up, but one of the most persistent concerns is not about specific provisions; rather, it’s that the federal government will be taking over health care.

Next Page »