As prefaced here, this is my post in support of Crablaw's Take Back The Blog virtual march.

It should go without saying (and virtual-marching) that decent people will not stand for the kind of behaviour that has recently been directed at Kathy Sierra, Deviousdiva, Jill Filipovic, Melissa McEwan and Amanda Marcotte -- to name just a handful who got a lot of publicity, for every one of whom there are a hundred or a thousand women whose similar stories never make headlines.

It should go without saying, but it doesn't, so I'm adding my voice to those who are standing up and saying it today. I want the cowardly degenerates responsible for these disgusting attempts at intimidation to know that they won't be tolerated any more in cyberspace than they would be in meatspace.

A good place to start reading about all of this might be my custom Google search, which will emphasize results from my blogroll:

I haven't said anything about the Kathy Sierra fiasco for the same reason I don't say much about politics any more: my blogroll does a much better job than I ever could. But that assumes that you are reading my blogroll pretty extensively, and some things simply warrant more effort than such a blithe assumption. Medley is right, the Sierra incident is one such case:

I wrote briefly about the Kathy Sierra situation earlier. I resent the hell out of the fact that these despicable behaviors are out there and must be addressed -- not only is the harassment and threatening vile in and of itself, but the fact of it takes time and energy and spirit away from all of us who are compelled to speak out against it. It's a double-win for the misogynists and hatemongers of the world.

But, we must speak.

This kind of crap must not go unanswered. It's why, if you scan my del.icio.us feed, I'm always ranting that MEN WHO DON'T HATE WOMEN MUST SPEAK against this crap as well.

I still think my blogroll is a better source of information and insight than I am, though, so for such times as this I've built a custom Google search engine that will emphasize the results from sites in my blogroll:

Try searching for combinations of "Kathy Sierra", Markos, sexism, misogyny, "death threat". And for the record: what happened to Sierra was vile, the perps are wastes of oxygen who should be doing serious jail time, and Kos is an idiot who long ago made himself irrelevant to progressive politics.

This "point to my custom search" approach isn't perfect, but I simply don't have time to cover all the things I find important, even just the ones I find compelling. But I do have great faith in the ability of my blogroll to cover any topic -- after all, if they don't cover it, I won't know about it anyway. I don't get news anywhere else. So, we'll see if I can't get the most important issues at least a little coverage here.

Update: yet another woman is being targeted by filth on the internet. Deviousdiva is a British expat living in Greece and writing about the plight of the Roma in Athens. Her meatspace ID has been revealed and she's been threatened. (Hat-tip: Lindsay.)

There's a real pattern developing here, a pattern of online abuse of women. My guess is that as outright misogyny becomes less and less acceptable in public discourse, the online world provides a kind of outlet for mouth-breathing cowards who would not dare say these kinds of things to anyone's face.

The answer, pace idiots on the right, is not to abolish online anonymity; nor, pace idiots on the left, is the answer to establish some kind of Code of Conduct.

The answer is to SPEAK UP and make cyberspace as unwelcoming as meatspace for these degenerates. So if you have a blog, please consider joining the "Take Back the Blog" virtual march on April 28th (I've messed with the date to keep this post on top until then). Even if, like me, you are no expert on such issues and probably won't have anything more substative to say than [this is good], say that -- stand up and be counted.

Longtime readers (both of you) are probably waiting for the punchline, or at least the cynical remark, after that title, but there isn't one. Look at the category. I'm not kidding here.

And what is the investment in question? Lindsay is having a fundraising week to support her work as a freelance journalist:

I have been "drug free" for nearly six months: It has been half a year since I swore off pharmaceutical copywriting for good and dove full-time to blogging and other freelance writing! I cut way back on pharma after Katrina, but I was still "chipping," doing the odd copywriting assignment to supplement my blogging/writing income. I knew that if I was serious, I was going to have to go cold turkey and kick my pharma habit once and for all.

So, last October, I quit for good.

Since then, my freelance career has been off to a great start. The blog has continued to grow and thrive. I've published in Salon, TIME, The New York Press, AlterNet, Chelsea Now, and other outlets. I also recently joined This Modern World as a co-blogger. It's an exhilarating time, but I'm just barely keeping my head above water.

I've suggested supporting Lindsay before, and my reasons haven't changed. I don't see how you can have a functional democracy without a free, that is, independent, press -- and the more independent the better. We need smart, insightful, resourceful journalists who are not beholden to one corporate media giant or another.

Naturally, Lindsay wants to make a living from this, which means not having to hold intellectual bake-sales on her blog (in return for donations, she's taking requests for articles and/or photos). That's part of her plan, initially by way of advertising on Majikthise. But it's a tough gig, and support now could make a lot of difference in helping her to establish a mature, self-sustaining career. If you have a few spare dollars, please do something good for the world (and especially the US!) and send 'em to Lindsay.

If you read science blogs much at all, you will have run into Rob Knop, either at his own blog, Galactic Interactions, or in someone else's comments. Though I don't always agree with him, I find him a cordial and thoughtful member of our virtual community. One of Rob's particular concerns is the status of women in science, and he recently posted an entry on what happened when he tried to get a faculty meeting to come to terms with the idea that his department (Physics and Astronomy at Vanderbilt) is a hostile work environment for women:

We have an issue in our department right now which has (tangentially) brought up the issue of the climate for women in physics. We have a serious problem with the climate for women students and post-docs (at least). I don't really know if it's worse here than physics departments elsewhere; I know the climate is globally bad everywhere, and maybe it's worse on average, or maybe it's better on average. But I do know it's bad here, and unless we think about it, it will stay bad.

In a short presentation to the department today, I included a slide with this statement on it:

The biggest problem among the faculty is that we all allow things to slide. None of us speak out when we see and hear things that we should be questioning. We are all, constantly, guilty of this; I can name a few instances for myself, and doubtless have forgotten many more.

In retrospect, using the absolute term "none of us" was probably a mistake, but certainly it's rare when people speak out. This statement was close to a direct quote from a female graduate student I've talked to; I asked her what she thought the biggest climate problem was, and it was this: the fact that behaviors are accepted, not questioned, evidently by all.

It wasn't pretty; you can read the whole thing here. It got worse: his department chair insisted that he take the entry down (which he did). In comments on Zuska's post about all this, Absinthe posted the text of a letter she sent the dept chair, Robert Scherrer. I thought that was a good idea, so I'm doing the same:

Dear Prof Scherrer:

I write to express my concern over an article posted by Rob Knop on his personal weblog, in which he described the disappointingly negative reaction he received when he tried to get a recent faculty meeting to consider the level of discrimination faced by women in your department.

As a research scientist, sex discrimination in our "tribe" is of immediate and personal concern to me. I believe it to be a widespread and pressing problem and consider it a culpably stupid waste of human resources wherever it occurs. I expect better of my colleagues and professional peers.

I have been reading Prof Knop's personal writing on this issue for some time, and regard him as admirably open-minded and fair in his approach. I have never known him to be anything but polite and reasonable. I make this point because I can only imagine that his presentation to your faculty meeting was of the same high standard: well reasoned and not in any way threatening.

For him to meet with a solid wall of aggressive denial that the problem even exists is, if anything, cause for even greater dismay than the hostile environment for women that he describes within your department. It took considerable courage for Prof Knop to broach this contentious topic with his colleagues. As chair, you are largely responsible for your department's overall tenor and for its compliance with legal requirements for equal opportunity. I should have thought you would see Prof Knop as a welcome ally in this undertaking.

In fact, though, your response to Prof Knop's article is cause for yet further concern. As I understand it, you demanded that Prof Knop remove the post (which he did). This was counter-productive at best, since the Web never forgets; indeed Prof Knop's post is available in full elsewhere, and has probably attracted more attention as a result of your actions than it would have on its own. Prof Knop has explicitly disavowed the notion that your actions constitute censorship, but on this I disagree with him. His article made no mention whatsoever of anyone by name, nor of any sensitive business (hiring, tenure, or similar). The research community, and academia in general, needs more transparency -- not more secrecy.

This is an open letter, having been posted to my own personal weblog. I understand that you are busy, and do not expect a reply. You should know, however, that I will be advising friends, students and colleagues of both sexes that they should avoid your department, and probably view Vanderbilt University itself with some suspicion, on the basis of this incident.

Sincerely,

me.

Update: More from Rob, in typically careful and reasonable style. He's right, and I'm wrong, and I won't be recommending to anyone that they avoid VU or Rob's department.

For one thing, they have a pretty strong female and minority presence (see the first comment on Rob's entry), which can only help in improving the situation -- conversely, if they stop getting female/pro-feminist male/minority applicants, that can only be harmful. For another, reading the blog discussion of this whole incident will provide a good background for anyone considering VU or Rob's department, leaving them armed with penetrating questions to ask at interview time.

I got a response from Prof Scherrer (I won't quote it as I didn't ask permission/give warning). He focused his reply on the fact that the meeting included legitimately confidential discussions, which I think is somewhat lame, but then he's a dept chair and I'm just some weirdo on the internets. (Should I write him again to let him know the change in my position that Rob has caused? I lean towards "quit bothering the guy" myself.)

Further to the petition and boycott pledge I linked a while back, Tom Stafford has put together an open letter to Reed Elsevier that you can sign if you are an academic or researcher. Tom writes:

The letter will be sent to the Times Higher Education Supplement, a leading UK academics' weekly, with potential for other national and international coverage. This will be the next in what has now become a series of open letters from professional users of Reed products. Previous letters have been signed by medics (in The Lancet) and high-profile writers (in the Times Literary Supplement), and both have received considerable, and worldwide, media attention.

Here's the text of the letter (also available as a pdf here):

Mr Jan Hommen
Reed Elsevier PLC
1-3 Strand
London
WC2N 5JR

xx October 2006

Dear Mr Hommen

ARMS FAIRS AND ACADEMICS

We are an international group of academics who are extremely concerned
about Reed Elsevier's involvement in organising major arms fairs in the
UK and around the world.

We rely on our academic work to be disseminated chiefly by means of
books and peer-reviewed articles, a significant share of these via Reed
Elsevier publications. Being both contributors and (unpaid) referees,
and readers of Reed Elsevier journals makes us stakeholders in the Reed
Elsevier business.

On its website, your company states that it is "committed to making
genuine contributions to the science and health communities" and that it
is "proud to be part of [these] communities". Conversely, we are not
proud to be associated with Reed Elsevier as we feel your statements are
undermined by the conflict between your arms fair activities and our own
ethical stance. Arms fairs, marketing the tools of violence, are a major
link in the chain of the global arms trade which proliferates arms
around the world and fuels a cycle of human, scientific, economic and
cultural destruction.

This is entirely at odds with the ethical and social obligations we have
to promote the beneficial applications of our work and prevent their
misuse, to anticipate and evaluate the possible unintended consequences
of scientific and technological developments, and to consider at all
times the moral responsibility we carry for our work.

We call on Reed Elsevier to cease all involvement in arms fairs since it
is not compatible with the aims of many of your stakeholders.

Yours sincerely

[Signatories]

If you want to sign it, send email to tDOTstaffordATsheffieldDOTacDOTuk with "open letter to Reed Elsevier" in the subject line and a brief note including your full academic title, name, discipline and institution (or former institution if retired). The petition is ongoing, so also please sign that if you haven't already. As I write there are 357 signatories; if you're reading this you will probably recognize #19, 32, 55 and 90 (I'm #28).

I know that, after the umpteenth petition or letter or fundraiser or whatever, outrage fatigue starts to set in; and I know that, as world affairs go, there are more important issues than scumbags Reed Elsevier branching out into arms dealing. But -- and here I'm speaking to my colleagues: researchers, teachers and academics the world over -- this is our issue. It's in our professional backyard; we own a chunk of it. Not only is a major academic publishing house part of our community, or at least of its infrastructure (whether we like it or not), but as the primary consumers of their primary products and services we have an unusual degree of leverage in this situation. Reed Elsevier is a business: if enough of their customers sign Tom's letter and petition (and Nick's boycott), they will get out of the arms trade.

Over at Uncertain Principles, Chad is a bit frustrated with some of the discourse around the Pipeline Problem (that is, why are so few women retained in higher positions in science?):

One of the things that ends up bothering me about the discussion of how to get more women in science is that it tends to focus on the college and professional level. Everybody seems to have an anecdote about a creepy physics professor, or an unpleasant graduate student, or a sexist post-doc.

This bugs me for a couple of reasons. The obvious one being that I'm a college physics professor, and I'm not that guy. I'm not fool enough to try to deny that unreconstructed sexist pigs exist in the profession, but I'm not one of them, and neither are my immediate colleagues, and sweeping statements that lump us in with the pigs of the world bother me.

Now, Chad's larger point is about intervention earlier in the pipeline; I largely agree, but I want to focus on something else:

sweeping statements that lump us in with the pigs of the world bother me

I'm a postdoc, and I try not to be That Asshole. When someone says something that effectively lumps me in with Those Assholes, I have an algorithm that allows me to avoid taking it personally:

1. whatever cogent criticisms of sexist behaviour this person is making, do they in fact apply to me?
2. if yes, fix problem (that is, fix self)
3. if no, do said criticisms apply to anyone around me, or the environment I work in?
4. if yes, how do I fix that? can the person making the criticisms also give me constructive advice?
5. if no, there would appear to be nothing I can do here but be pointlessly offended, therefore *shrug*

Here's my point, and I think it's an important and somewhat underappreciated one: I think that not taking such things personally is one of the most important things I can do about the fact that "unreconstructed sexist pigs exist in the profession". Allowing the people who bear the brunt of said pigs' actions to vent without shutting them down just because "hey, I'm not like that" is a way to contribute to an anti-pig environment. I think of it this way:

Angry Female Scientist: my fucking profession is riddled with sexist assholes! Jesus fuck! I hate you bastards!

Male Option 1: I'm not like that/don't generalize, you'll alienate your allies/don't be so emotional/etc

(This translates "shut up and keep your place", not just immediately in the AFS's mind but in a larger sense, in which an angry woman is immediately confronted, dismissed, argued with and ultimately ignored. Think about what happens when a man gets angry and makes overly general statements; he generally gets cut some slack, or at least left to vent.)

Male Option 2: Dude¹, what happened? Did I do something?

(This translates "I accept that there's a problem, that you have a right and a reason to be angry; I'm on your side, go ahead and vent, maybe tell me how I can help".

I prefer MO2. I don't want to be That Asshole, and I don't want Those Assholes to feel free to be assholes in my presence. So I speak out, and when someone else speaks out -- especially if it's an AFS -- I try to figure out if they're legitimately mad at me and if they're not, I let 'em vent and don't take it personally. It's healthy: there should be a hint of anger in the air, when women are still being raped on the job.

I'd rather be That Humorless Liberal than That Asshole.

P.S. Further to Chad's opening point, it does indeed seem that everyone has an anecdote about some sexist creep or other. I take that as an indication that there are way too many sexist creeps in my profession: those stories don't make themselves up.

----
¹American for "mate"; like "mate", has become a unisex term.

Apropos the last entry, via Atrios: Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez got some monkeymail and replied in much better style than her idiot correspondent deserved:

MICHAEL SAYS: 3. They do not register for selective service and do not serve in the military - forcing legal Americans to defend them.

ALISA SAYS: Sigh. According the U.S. government, all male immigrants -- legal and otherwise -- are required by U.S. law to register for selective service.

According to the National Center for Immigration Law, one in ten U.S. soliders who have DIED in Iraq have been immigrants. Five percent of those serving in our military are illegal immigrants.

The first soldier to die for the United States in the current war in Iraq was Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala.

(Emphasis mine.) Good enough to die, not good enough to vote. I had no idea.

That's just a sample, too -- you should read the whole thing. By reading one blog post you can be better informed about the current immigration debate than anyone in the mainstream media.

When Erika Thereian changed her Second Life skin from white to black, other things changed. Friends became distant, men made assumptions about her sexuality that they hadn't previously made, and there were blatant racist attacks:

"Well, I teleport into a region," she says, recounting a latter case. "Where a couple people [are] standing around.

"One said, 'Look at the n***** b****.'"

"Another said 'Great, they are gonna invade SL now.'"

I was gobsmacked by this. If you'd asked me to predict what would happen, I'd have said nothing much -- I'd have assumed that a virtual world would be much more open minded, less prone to prejudice, than the Big Blue Room. I suppose, in retrospect, it's not so astonishing that there are assholes everywhere -- but I bet no black person would have been surprised. None of Erika's black friends were.

Tell me again how there's no such thing as white privilege?

(via)

OK, here we go: this is just one of the stomach churning stories I alluded to at the start of the last post. Terrance has the full story and links here and here. Briefly: Laurel Hester and her partner of six years, Stacie Andree, registered as domestic partners a year ago, when Hester was diagnosed with lung cancer. Hester now has months to live, and New Jersey law has a loophole of sorts that allows the five assholes pictured above, the Ocean County freeholders board, to decide whether Andree will get Hester's pension when she dies (it will mean the difference between keeping or losing the house they bought together). The board has said no. You can send them email; keep in mind that these scumbags have all the power here, since there's no way to change the law before Hester dies, so forgo the satisfaction of a vicious rant and try to get them to do the right thing. Here's what I sent:

Sirs --

I write to ask you to do the decent thing in respect of Lt Laurel Hester. She has earned that pension, and the right to say to whom it will pass when she dies, with almost a quarter of a century in service to her community. It is simply unjust to deny her that right.

The world is watching. Please show them that American justice has compassion at its core. Please do the right, the fair, the just, the American thing -- and grant Lt Hester's request.

Before I could write that, I had to get this out of my system:

You maggots. You self-righteous, self-satisfied, evil fucking bastards.

Laurel Hester worked her whole life in public service; she's earned that pension and the right to say to whom it will pass on her death, and you have no right to deny her that. You happen to have the opportunity -- the law has made an error, and handed you the opportunity to hurt someone -- and you're falling all over yourselves in your rush to take it.

You contemptible excuses for human beings. If there is a God of eternal torture, as the good Christians tell me, be assured that He is setting aside coals and pincers for you even as you read this.

The spousal unit tells me that Hester may be able to sidestep this whole thing by granting Andree power of attorney. I have the feeling that there's a reason that won't work, or they'd have simply done it and avoided the fuss. Any lawyers reading this? I didn't explain it properly -- spousal unit didn't realise it was an inheritance issue, for which power of attorney is no use.

Via Majikthise: Chris of Creek Running North proposes December 01 2005 as the inaugural Blog Against Racism Day. Quoth Chris:

Discussion of racism is often shot down by the nervous – conservatives and liberals alike - as "playing the race card," a close semantic kin to the "PC" gambit often used to squelch criticism of offensive language in the public sphere. Odd, then that objecting to the term is itself a form of political correctness: "don't say racist! That's offensive!" The thing is, if we discuss racism as a systemic ill, as a function of misinformation and reversible prejudice, if we describe racism in terms of effects rather than intent, then we do a couple things. First, we grant the possibility of redemption, the possibility that people raised in a racist society – me, you, everyone I know – can root out those prejudices. Second, we grant our opponents the freedom to think whatever they like: it's the effects that count.

Society needs to have this discussion. But the responsibility for discussing racism has long been relegated to those people most directly affected by it. In other words, people who aren't white. Us white folks have the luxury of not thinking about racism on a daily basis. As a result, most of us don't. I think it would be helpful if we started to do our share of that particular chore.

Which is all a very long-winded way of declaring December 1, 2005 - the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks' heroic act of civil disobedience on that Montgomery bus - "Blog Against Racism" day, in which people post something on the very broad and complex subject of racism. You don't need to have a political blog to participate. Race, after all, affects almost every aspect of life in one way or another. Your post might be literary in nature, or historical, or concern current issues in need of political attention. You might take the opportunity to debunk scientific racism, or write poetry or essays about personal experiences, uplifting or depressing.

With luck, the discussion engendered will endure past midnight on December 2.

I'm in, even if I do no more than collect links to better entries. If you're really unlucky, I'll get drunk and post about my redneck past. (And for the record, I think Chris is right -- the cartoon is racist -- but it's more subtle than KKK-style racism and an excellent illustration of the sort of conversations we need to have, and why we need to have them.)

Unless you've been living under a particularly isolated rock, you know what happened when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. If you have been reading any of the blogs on my list over on the right, you are probably about as well informed as anyone. If you want more information, I recommend the coverage at Making Light for basic what's-going-on (and more), and two posts from Rivka for a good starter on the sociopolitical background: why the aid wasn't there and depraved indifference.

A friend recently commented that he'd already given to the Red Cross, and if somone wanted more of his money they should come up with something specific not just another link to the Red Cross. Unless you're a soulless empty-hearted meat puppet you too, dear reader, have already given to the Red Cross, so here are some specific, local, hands-on options:

Firstly, nearly all Katrina victims heading into Texas will pass through Orange, which is Rafe Colburn's home town. In comments to that entry, Rafe's mum, who is working with local relief efforts, provides some addresses to which you can send some money. These are churches and I'm an atheist, but ideological differences shouldn't matter when there are people hungry and cold:

Orange Christian Services
2518 W. Park Ave Orange, Texas 77632
(409) 886-0938

Salvation Army, Orange Chapter
1950 Martin Luther King Dr.
Orange, Texas
(409) 883-4232

Orange Red Cross
908 Pine Ave
Orange, Texas 77632
(409) 883-2322

(Karen Colburn says:) My church is committed to serve these people for however long it takes.
Our address is:
First Presbyterian Congregation of the Church in Orange
Rev. Sam Knight, Pastor
902 Green Ave.
Orange, Texas 77632
(409) 883-2097

Secondly, my pal Brad is organizing an underpants drive:

Who doesn't love underpants? I love underpants. You know who would really love underpants? People who don't have any underpants.

Here's the deal: Thousands of folks affected by Hurricane Katrina are being evacuated to shelters in Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois for who knows how long. Generous people have donated clothing and other supplies for them, but there's a serious shortage of clean undergarments for women, men and children.

Click here to donate cash via PayPal and DropCash. I'll be purchasing and drop-shipping as many clean, packaged undergarments as possible. They'll go directly to folks who fled the hurricane-affected areas and are currently being cared for at relief centers in St. Louis; Belleville, Illinois; and Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. [...]

I'm also taking care of the PayPal fees, so your entire gift will go directly to underpants. Cross my...er, heart.

If you don't have a paypal account, you can email me (sennomaATfastmailDOTfm) and we'll work something out.

Update: Me = dum. You can put money into Brad's undies with any charge card (you don't need to have your own paypal account in order to add money to someone else's). If you don't even have a charge card, then send me a carrier pigeon and we'll work something out.

Amazon's Nonprofit Innovation Award is down to the ten finalists, and now you can vote with your dollars. The idea is good (encouraging innovation in nonprofits), the list of finalists looks sound... and one of the judges is Henry Fucking Kissinger.

Oy, Bezos, what were you thinking?

For me, there's always this "yeah, but.." thing going on with Amazon. On the one hand, they're (in my experience) a pretty good company to deal with: better than adequate customer service, good range of products, even a pretty sweet deal on shipping if you shop there regularly. Their wishlist application is usable, if not perfect, and they are convenient. On the other hand, they're getting to be an 800-lb gorilla in bookselling terms, and I worry about the squashing of local bookstores, and then there are things like the 1-Click Patent Fiasco and Henry Fucking Kissinger. (On yet a third hand, even the famously intractable Stallman has apparently granted Amazon provisional forgiveness for the patent absurdity.)

So I dunno. I guess I'll just keep on with my present policy, which is to continue shopping at Amazon but also remember to share the love a bit (Powell's is right here in Portland... envy me, bibliophiles elsewhere!) when it comes to books.

(hat-tips for the Kissinger NSA link: Randy via Jeanne )

No theme or special project here, but Robert is blogging for The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust -- of which I am a life member. Sponsor Robert here.

Hmmm. *goes looking*

Bugger. I've been to Jersey, specifically to visit the DWCT, but all my photos are on a Mac disc that our PCs can't read. Oh well.

Also, I've just noticed that Robert takes requests and is getting veeeeerrryyy sleeeeepppyyy, so if you're reading this please take a moment to leave him a comment.

RandomBird is writing a memoir in books -- her life, as glimpsed through the books she was reading at the time. For instance, her love affair with modernism started (with Hemingway... I really should give him another try) at the same time she got her FIRST REAL BOYFRIEND. (I'd venture to guess the former outlasted the latter.) If you're any kind of a language/lit geek, it's good reading.

...on the topic of Little Women: As an eight-year-old I was most struck by a scene early on in the book where the March girls piled crap on their backs and walked around the house symbolically (or perhaps almost literally) "carrying their burdens." It was at this point that I first discovered the remarkable power of the way that words were attached to physical action. Prior to this, words were just words. Previously, books had simply created vivid stories in my mind that I would be left thinking about for days after I was finished. Little Women showed me that words were the cornerstones of the way in which we wrap our minds around the world, the only way in which we can wrap our minds around the world.

Just for something completely different, she's also watching the entire first season of 24. RandomBird is blogging for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and you can sponsor her here.

(From Kalani, who is blogging for Rock'n'Roll Camp for Girls; you can sponsor her here.)

Jacki and Robert Myers of Wisdom of the Illiterati are cooking for 24 hours, and Robert is reviewing 24 of his favourite LPs. They're doing it for Heifer International and you can sponsor them here.

Candice is blogging for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation; she has had Type I diabetes for 19 years. It's quite an eye-opener to see what she goes through every single day -- in fact, every time she eats. Sponsor Candice here.

Stephi is blogging for Book Aid, and you can sponsor her here. I'm not sure what her theme is, because her background has burned out my retinas. Jesus.

Manic is blogging for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, but I know you just want to look at boobies. You can even see mine, but I'm not telling which entry. (I think there's even a Name The Boobies competition; maybe you can win something if you can spot my cleavage.)

Sponsor here.

The 'thon team already has two mechanisms in place for surfing cool stuff: the hot spots page for special projects or themes, and the webcam portal.

Not everyone sends in their site for the hot spots page though, and the 'thon team cannot possibly read every blog and highlight stuff (although plans are afoot to build a way to do just that for future events). So I'm going to try to find stuff that's not linked from the 'thon site, but just to whet your appetite here's one from the hot spots.

Over at The Red Room, Cat (not the spousal unit, a different Cat) is updating The Descent of Inanna. Inanna was the chief deity of ancient Sumeria, and her mythology is among the oldest in writing. The Descent is the story of her journey to the underworld; you can read scholarly translations here and here. Cat is writing in modern language -- "hell goddesses and bling" as she puts it. Though she might make some technical errors ("no, that's not a "dagger", it was clearly once used to kill a pig and the ancient Sumerians had a different word for that, don't you know anything?") she's making (you should pardon the pun) a hell of a story out of it. To read it in order, go here and scroll to the bottom, then read up.

Cat is blogging for the Global Fund for Women, and you can sponsor her here. (Sponsorship is open throughout the event; how it works is explained here.)

It's Blogathon day (see here for history and explanation). Briefly, in 2000 the spousal unit posted an entry every 15 minutes for a full 24 hours, just for the hell of it. Next year she decided to make it a ~thon, inviting others to play along and get sponsors to donate to charity (like a walkathon, or spellathon, or whatever).

In 2001, 101 bloggers and their sponsors raised just over $20,000; in 2002, 212 bloggers and $58,000; in 2003, 401 bloggers and $102,000. As you might imagine, running this thing is a monumental undertaking. There was a hiatus in 2004, and this year Sheana of Seeworthy is running the show (with a little help from her friends).

It's an amazing event, and taking part is somewhat gruelling, but fun. People do some truly wonderful stuff -- themed series of posts, write-a-novel-in-48-entries, all kinds of things. We're staying home today, so periodically I'll post something cool from the 'thon.

It's quick and easy, and he asked nicely. No, get your mind out of the gutter. If you have a blog, please take ten minutes to help Cameron out.

The first place the spousal unit and I sent money after December's tsunami was the Red Cross, because they always have an appeal running within hours and relief workers on the ground almost as fast. Recently I got an email update saying that the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has announced that the $1.2 billion raised worldwide in the 30 days following the tsunami was sufficient to meet the costs of the entire Red Cross tsunami relief program projected at this time. You can read the plan and get updates from the ongoing effort online. (I stole the picture from the latter link.) Damn good.



The second place we sent money was the Architecture for Humanity/ Worldchanging Tsunami Reconstruction Appeal, to which we plan to donate regularly; these guys are there for as long as it takes, and you can be part of that. To date, the appeal has raised almost $150,000, with pledges of more on the way. Here's the email update I got from AfH a bit over a week ago:

Our work in Sri Lanka is moving along with the team currently working on a number of housing prototypes. Last week they had already developed a master plan for Kirinda and its surrounding villages, and efforts are underway to realize that plan. (I swiped the second picture from this link -- ed.)

AFH is also partnering with Relief International to rebuild a school in Pottuvil. We are aiming to have the school completed by late spring and Relief International will be introducing an interconnectivity project. We previously partnered with Relief International in the spring of 2004 to help rebuild in Bam, Iran.

Our projects in Tamil Nadu and Banda Aceh are still in their infancy and I'll update the site once they become active.

Damn good.

Yes, more, because it was borne in upon me -- I mean, I knew this, but I hadn't stopped to think about it -- that this isn't going away in a week or a month or a year. Long after the media have stopped looking for adorable toddlers in trees and wet supermodels, people in the affected areas will still be trying to patch their lives back together, particularly since so many of them are among the world's poorest.

What brought this to mind was this post on WorldChanging, who by the way have put together such excellent coverage of this disaster that I'm inclined to say, if you're fed up with tsunami this and tsunami that, ignore everything but WorldChanging and you won't miss anything that matters. Over to Alex Steffen:

What if relief and reconstruction efforts aimed not just to save, but to improve the lives of the victims of this week's disaster?

This might not seem like the time to look ahead. The situation all around the Indian Ocean is grim: the bulldozers are digging mass-graves for as many as 100,000 bodies; at least a million people are homeless, hungry and utterly destitute; clean water and sanitation facilities don't exist; disease is beginning to break out; and relief is still far off for too, too many people. This is a full-blown global crisis.

But this is exactly the right time for foresight.

For one thing, history shows that the world tends to lose interest in disasters in developing world once people stop dying in large numbers. If we don't think now about our commitment to helping these communities recover and rebuild after the immediate crisis has passed, we never will.

And the ruined cities and villages lining the shores of the Indian Ocean are now home to some of the poorest of the world's poor. In many places, traumatized people, who had very little with which to earn their livelihoods to begin with, now have nothing left at all. Add to this the long-term challenges they face -- like decimated local economies, massive pollution (and some new industrial accidents), declining fisheries and forests, lack of capital and, perhaps most ominously, the rising seas and catastrophic storms they can expect from global warming -- and their fate may not be an enviable one.

But that fate is not written in stone. We can still change it. What if didn't just do something to help, but did the right things, and did them fully? What if we looked at this relief and reconstruction effort as a chance to not only save lives (and of course that must come first) but to truly rebuild coastal Southeast Asia along more sustainably prosperous lines? What if we made the commitment to take what are now some of the most ravaged, destitute areas on Earth, and worked with the people there to reimagine and rebuild their communities to be the cutting edge of sustainable development?

What if we made not just relief but rebirth the new measure of our success?

There's more, including concrete suggestions, and you should go read it all.

So what can we do? Here's a short list to be going on with:

• Donate to disaster relief funds, if you haven't already; donate more, if you have.
  
• Sign this petition urging the Bush administration to commit to a $1 billion contribution (I'm #291). I'm not going to get into what a despicable creature Bush's reaction to the tsunami shows him to be because it's bad for my blood pressure; T, from whom I found out about this petition, has been covering that if you're interested.
  
• Be part of a small good thing. WorldChanging and Architecture for Humanity have made a commitment to the recovery process. They're in it for the long haul and I'm asking you to consider joining them. Ten bucks, right now, and more later as you can afford it (I'll nagremind you).

You already know what happened:





Vichaar, Jay, Daily Kos and The Command Post are keeping lists of organisations accepting donations. Here are a few of them:

• American Red Cross in conjunction with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent (donate online here)
  
• Oxfam (donate online here)
  
• Save the Children (donate online here)
  
• CARE Australia (donate online here)
  
• UNICEF (donate via this page)
  

I know it's always something, and I'm always after you to put your hand in your pocket. But as Sisyphus Shrugged points out, our so-called leaders are full of hot air and pigshit when it comes time to step up and act like a human being. The rich will shrug, or flinch if their consciences are really acting up today, and politicians will get to preen for the cameras because they sent a few moldy tents and leftover cans of beans, and the poor don't have anything to give. But you reading this, very nearly all of you, you have disposable income or you wouldn't be online. You can spare ten bucks -- and yes, you can do it every time there's a crisis like this.

Listen: there are people suffering. People, not numbers, not brown anonymous faces on the TV: people just like you and me, only they just got their lives fucked by an earthquake and a billion tons of water. Be a mensch, give a little.

Update, from Stavros: map didn't bring it home? Found my words empty or insulting? Here's another way to look at what happened:

I wouldn't normally post a picture like that, but it's tearing at my guts. It's my hope that no one can look at that dead man's face, so calm there in that flick of a tourist's shutter, and not break open and spill a little money for the relief effort.

Update the second: He didn't die! Hedidn'tdiehedidn'tdiehedidn'tdie!!! WOOOO-HOOOOOO!!!! Someone yanked him out of there moments after the photo was taken. (via Stav again, also in comments) (also, photo: Hellmut Issels)

In lieu of having anything worthwhile to say, here are the HIV links I've collected since I started using del.icio.us:

BBC NEWS | Programmes | This World | New York's HIV experiment

2004-11-30 19:52

holy shit

French vaccine fuels hope in AIDS treatment

2004-11-30 06:38

extract uninfected dendritic cells and virus, mix cells and heat-killed virus, reinject into patient

New HIV co-factor found

2004-11-17 07:01

annexin2 and a host-derived factor important in membrane fusion

Science Blog - Scientists discover enzyme crucial to HIV replication

2004-11-02 06:39

Jeang has a point: a cellular enzyme can't mutate

BBC NEWS Aids warning over bushmeat trade

2004-10-28 15:50

possibility of new human retroviruses arising the same way HIV did

Entrez PubMed: Wofe, SIV infections in hunters

2004-10-28 15:49

relates to BBC bushmeat story

The Lancet : Simian retroviral infections in human beings

2004-10-28 15:48

comment on Wolfe paper; submit to PLoSB as unsolved mystery?

Potential For Developing A New Cream Or Gel To Block AIDS Transmission During Heterosexual Sex

2004-10-21 17:56

this would save millions of African lives, just for starters, and put real power to fight HIV into the hands of women who currently have little or no defense

BBC NEWS | Health | HIV in monkeys 'blocked by drug'

2004-10-18 07:42

Update 041201: Gov Perry has granted a stay of execution. He had this to say:

After a lengthy review of the trial transcript, appellate court rulings and clemency proceedings, I see no evidence of innocence.

Y'know, I thought there was supposed to be a presumption of innocence, with the burden of proof being on the prosecution.

-------------------original post:

Frances Newton is scheduled to be killed today by the State of Texas. After 17 years and despite incompetent state-appointed counsel at her original trial, questionable forensics, new testing methods which could shed light on key evidence and expanded evidence from a key witness, the state looks set to deny her request for a 120-day delay of execution. Atrios and Norbizness have details and Amnesty International has a one-click message you can send to the Governor and the Presiding Officer of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Below is the letter I sent. (I stole the image from here.)

Dear Gov Perry/ PO Owens:

I am writing you to ask you to do everything in your power to commute the sentence of Frances Newton, prisoner number 922, and honor the 120-day minimum reprieve petition which would allow Ms. Newton’s claims to be properly investigated.

What is 120 days to Texas? To Frances Newton, it's life or death. A key witness' testimony has been expanded in support of her innocence, the prosecution is relying on the work of a crime lab which has failed at least one quality assurance audit (1), new testing methods exist which could shed light on key evidence regarding possible gunpowder residue (2) and there have been serious questions raised about the quality of cousel provided (2). In light of these issues, it is unthinkable that Texas should execute Ms Newton without allowing her an adequate opportunity to defend herself.

Ms Newton stands convicted of the 1987 murder of her husband and two children. The key witness at Ms. Newton’s trial, Sondra Nelms, has signed an affidavit expanding on her trial testimony to the effect that Ms Newton's distresss upon finding the bodies of her family convinced Ms Nelms that "there is absolutely no way she had any involvement in their deaths.”

Furthermore, there are serious concerns regarding the forensic evidence presented at the trial. The ballistics evidence that was found at the crime scene was analyzed by the Houston Police Department’s Harris County crime lab, a March 2003 audit of which exposed serious mistakes in the lab’s analysis and interpretation of DNA evidence, poor staff training, inadequate facilities and outdated scientific techniques. Ms Newton's attorneys have recently questioned the ballistics tests on the suspected murder weapon. Moreover, forensic experts stated at the trial that the nitrites found on Ms Newton’s skirt and which were initially suspected of coming from a gun could have come from fertilizer. On the day of the murder, Ms Newton had stayed with her uncle, whose large garden might well explain the nitrites found on her skirt. After all, court records show that tests conducted on Ms Newton's hands on that same night found no evidence that she had fired a gun. The 120-day reprieve could be used to conduct further forensic tests using new methods which can distinguish between gunpowder and fertilizer.

Finally, Ms Newton was represented throughout her trial by state-appointed attorney Ron Mock, who has been barred from accepting court-appointed capital cases since passage of the Fair Defense Act in 2001. His co-counsel has signed an affidavit stating that she and Mock provided ineffective legal assistance to Ms Newton.

Ms. Newton’s execution is scheduled for December 1, 2004. Please live up to the standards of your office: show a decent respect for human life, and for justice: grant clemency to Frances Elaine Newton and honor the 120-day reprieve of execution to allow for a proper investigation of her claim of innocence.

Sincerely, etc.

links:
1. New York Times
2. Houston Chronicle

P.S. signing up for action alerts from Amnesty might allow me to take more timely action in future. Please consider doing this also.

Via Baghdad Burning: Raed and Khalid (of Raed in the Middle and Secrets in Baghdad, respectively) are trying to step in to the gap left by the withdrawal from Iraq of a great many NGOs and aid agencies:

“The Jarrars” (i.e. me and my family), decided to start a small individual humanitarian campaign for a month (maybe we’ll extend it) for buying basic things like some medical stuff, food, blankets, and other necessities and send them directly to hospitals in the most affected cities and towns. We will try our best to work under the supervision of one of the few functioning NGOs in Iraq (e.g. Occupation Watch, or others) to give more transparency to this small campaign, but over all the working plan is as follows:
*Money will be donated through PAYPAL to my account, (Jarrar_raed@hotmail.com), and will be reported on my blog frequently.
*My brother Majid will collect the money from Victoria in Canada and wire it to me in Jordan through my bank account.
*I will buy everything from Jordan, and publish the receipts on my blog.
*Then I will send things to my family in Baghdad, where they will send it in turn to hospitals depending on the priority and accessibility of the towns and cities.
*We will get official papers from the hospitals to insure they received the certain amount of supplements; we will publish them on our blogs too.
*We’ll publish a financial break down at the end of the month (end of Nov.)

You can send money from your credit cards too; even small amounts of money can do much in Iraq.

(Raed's post is here.) This appeals to me because:

• it's transparent: they plan to publish all the information you could want about where the money went
  
• it's direct: between Khalid right there in Baghdad and the NGO/s with whom they liaise, I feel confident that the help will go where it's needed.

Please consider making a donation.

(For those who, for whatever reason, are uncomfortable supporting the Jarrars, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq maintains a web portal for UN agencies and NGOs working in Iraq. In conjunction with the Humanitarian Information Center for Iraq (an initiative of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), they maintain databases of who is doing what where and contact details for humanitarian interventions in Iraq.)

Our friend Mollie is president of the Ozarks Literacy Council, who just had a large and costly window broken by small and worthless scumbags. The intricate iniquities of insurance companies and landlords have conspired to land the council with the full cost of replacement, which they need to raise by Tuesday so as not to conflict with the annual United Way blackout period (whatever that is -- I have no idea, go ask Brad).

So, if you have five bucks (or five hundred; hey, you don't know for certain Steve Jobs doesn't read this) to spare, please consider helping out a friend of mine and her worthy cause.

Iraq's top-level domain, .iq, was deactivated before the 2003 invasion and is still unavailable. Understandably, they'd like it back. The Dialogue Channel has a petition you can sign (more info here). It might seem like a little thing, but my feeling is that it could mean a lot to a people trying to get back to the business of being a real nation again. (via PaleoJudaica)

Jew. Jew jew jew jew jew jew jew jew .

Why.

Update: Ralf points out in comments that if you're going to googlebomb a pack of assholes, you might as well go nuclear (viz, wipe them off the page rather than just out of the top slot):

jew

jew

jew

jew

jew

jew

jew

jew

jew

Oh, this is wonderful. The Playpump uses a children's playground toy to pump water to a holding tank, dramatically reducing the workload of poor women in South Africa. Advertising on two sides of the tank pays for installation and upkeep, and the other two sides are reserved for public health messages like the one in the picture at right. Via Rivka, who provides lots more detail; go read about it, it will cheer you up no end.

Joi Ito, in one of his thinking-out-loud style posts, wondered about what it is that makes people care:

What is really striking to me and something that I'm trying understand is the process that people go through to reach a higher level of caring for human beings outside of their immediate circle. I think that this process holds the key for some of the important contributions that technologies can make.

This struck me as being a fundamental question. It seems utterly -- viscerally -- obvious to me that human need on the other side of the world, or down the block, matters to me; that it affects me, that I must respond to it. By way of rational explanation, I offer two observations. One, I've been up and down a bit through my life, and it's not hard for me to see myself in pretty much any lousy situation; and I know that it's all too easy to end up in the shite through no fault of your own, and fault doesn't matter much anyway when you just need a hand. Two, I am always better off if those around me, whether next door or across the world, are better off: it means they are more able and more likely to lend me a hand if I should need one, and less likely to try to elevate their situation by climbing over me. In the long term, over many generations, sharing is the only real security. In the short term, over one lifetime say, that doesn't really hold. There are plenty of assholes living well on other people's sweat, and since I don't believe in any form of life after death I don't believe they will ever pay any material price for that. The price they pay, though, is in quality of life. I don't believe you can be happy without awareness, and once aware you cannot escape empathy. Or to put it another way: like Honest Abe, I feel good when I do good things, and that's my religion; and I don't see how anyone can be really happy any other way. Money and power and all the trappings thereof are no substitute; not even close.

I didn't always see the world that way, though, and it got me to wondering how I came to have the Weltanschauung I now do. About then, kevin of bastish.net joined the conversation with a careful exposition of his own journey into caring. It neatly describes my own, and so I reproduce it here with his permission:

1. Ignorance
----Blissfully unaware of problems and plights of both neighbors and those thousands of miles away.

2. Awareness
----Heard something on the news. Know it's not good. Think "Someone should do something about that."

3. Superficial action
----Start making easy changes, that don't affect my lifestyle. Requesting paper bags instead of plastic. Recycle bottles. "Adopt" a poor kid in Columbia. Begin to feel "I am good", yet continue with my own irresponsible patterns of consumption, make decisions based on my own wants, rather than how they will affect other people.

My Tipping Point
3.5 Relatively satisfied with own economic / social condition
----Realize that I don't need to be rich, that my "quality of life" is not based on how much money I have, that I don't need to own what TV, movies, and blogs tell me I do. Begin to have less-quantitative values. Spend less time trying to get richer, begin to have more time to read about both local and global issues.

4. Deeper awareness
----Aware of how my life-style decisions are effecting other people in a negative way. Begin to seriously think about global / local inequalities and what it really means.

4.5 Dissatisfied with own condition as an irresponsible-consumer.
----Realize that my superficial actions are worthless, no matter how many times I re-use a plastic bag, it doesn't help if I am using it buy sweat-shop goods at Wal-Mart. In order to make change, I have to change my lifestyle first, because it is my lifestyle that promotes global inequality.

5. Despair
----Overwhelmed with the enormity of the situation, and the impossibility of changing my behavior, yet remaining a member of a society that doesn't share my values, and puts enormous pressure to put myself first.

6. Find examples / community
----Begin reading, searching, eventually find a community and examples of people who share my values.

7. Resolution / Search for answers
----If they can do it, I can do it too. Resolve that I will make consumer decisions based on a "first, do no harm" approach.
Research, research, research. What are the effects of my decisions? How much do I need to consume? What should I avoid? What can I cut out? What can I use as a substitute?

8. Implementation on a personal level
----Live own life according to the information I am finding. Strive to make good decisions. This is a semi-active approach. While I am actively changing my own lifestyle, placing my wallet vote, I am not doing anything to actively influence others to make large scale changes.

9. Despair
----Plagued with increased awareness, filled with despair that for every good choice or sacrifice I make, there are hundreds of thousands of individuals who don't care, who are working against a sustainable, equitable earth, who can nullify a years worth of my sacrifices, with a single trip to the mall.

10. Implementation on a local level
----Activism on a local level. First, setting an example to those around you by living in a way that promotes your ideals. Devoting time and money to help local institutions influence local policy.

11. Implementation on a global level
While I am not there yet, I have recently applied to a couple graduate programs regarding policy making for sustainability and global equity, in the hopes that I can use what I learn there to implement more wide-spread changes and influence more than my friends and family.

I'm just starting on #10. On a global scale I'm not sure what I can do, besides supporting worldwide charities and being politically active here in the US (Anyone But Bush '04!); but that's a start, and perhaps other opportunities will present themselves.

So to return to the point of this post, I'd like to hear from anyone reading this: do you care? If so, why; if not, why not? Answers on a postcard in Joi's comment thread, of course.

(via BoingBoing) I don't think this quite qualifies as a blog, but Jimmy Carter will be sending regular reports to be posted at the Carter Center as he travels through West Africa as part of a program aimed at eradicating Guinea worm and in order to launch the Development and Cooperation Initiative in Mali. In any case, I am always glad to hear from the best ex-President the US has ever had, and that down there is just about my favourite combination of categories.

Update: There were complaints ("Bastard, I nearly hurled!"), so I moved the pictures of Guinea worm infection below the fold.

more...

Iain J Coleman has a good post up on Fistful of Euros highlighting this paper by UCDavis economist Peter Lindert (that Carlos mentioned in this Electrolite comment thread about this NYT article about the working poor in America). See what I mean about conversations? Anyway, the paper describes why a high-spending welfare state doesn't depress GDP (viz., "looks like a free lunch" but isn't). Here's Iain's summary, emphasis mine:

... social spending is good for personal productivity, and democracy is effective in ensuring that real-world governments avoid the costly mistakes that anti-welfare theorists assume. Apart from illustrating the dangers of hand-waving economic arguments, this tells us that the choice between a European-style high-welfare state, and a US-style low-welfare state, has nothing to do with promoting economic growth and is simply a matter of which kind of society we find more pleasant to live in.

I'd better confess that I haven't read the paper yet and will likely be out of my depth if I do, the dismal science being mostly Martian (or worse, mathematics) to me; but that's why I read blogs, and the excerpt makes intuitive sense to me. I certainly know which kind of society I prefer; besides, "growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell"¹. I keep hearing that modern economic theory is predicated on infinite growth, but that can't be right: it's too crazy. Nonetheless, Economic Growth does seem to have become some kind of modern deity, Mammon's offsider, and it's not obvious to me that economic growth is intrinsically good, or that the opposite of growth is shrinkage (or stagnation). Why is it bad if we don't make more, build more, spend more, own more crap this year than we did last year? What has happened to the c