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October 31, 2003

The battle's done, and we kind of won, so we sound our victory cheer

Well, The Breast Cancer Site managed to exceed their goal for October.

Those of you who helped with that, you know who you are. Those of you who couldn't be arsed, well, you know who you are too. And, of course, Melek Taus knows all.

Was going to be incredibly tacky and link the words "you know who you are," each word to a different site, but decided to pretend being nice. Just as easy as being nasty, and less typing.

The title's a lie, of course.

Different month, same deal. It's a couple seconds out of your day, even if (like me) you click through all the related sites.

But I'm either preaching to the choir or to the damned at this point, and neither of you needs a sermon from the likes of me.

np -- i'm a tree, Imani Coppola, Chupacabraimani coppola - chupacabra

Yo, what a freak
Are you all staring at me? I'm a tree
Yo, what a freak
I'm a tree! [no you're not]
I'm a tree! [stop lying]

Keep your head up-keep my head up
Keep your head up-keep my head up
Keep your head up girl, keep your head up
Keep your head up-keep my head up
Keep your head up-keep my head up
Keep your head up girl, keep my head up

The sun ain't hard to see
Just turn off your TV
Everything around you is just part of every other thing
I'm a tree
The sun ain't hard to see
Just turn off your TV
Everything around you is just part of every other thing
I'm a tree
I'm a tree

Syncretism (IV)

From EarthSaint: Thich Nhat Hanh:

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

An excerpt of the poem Please Call Me By My True Names, the entirety of which is available at the link above.

Along with the rest of his bio:

Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the most beloved Buddhist teachers in the West, a rare combination of mystic, poet, scholar, and activist. His luminous presence and the simple, compassionate clarity of his writings have touched countless lives. Free of dogma, he shows us how attentive, respectful mindfulness can heal our souls and our world, and bring us home, in joy, to the living body of Earth and kinship with all beings.

In 1967 Thich Nhat Hanh was nominated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Link found because I saw the poem at this page, while searching for a citation on the Robbins quote in the previous entry.

It just looks random. There is a method to my madness. Sometimes.

F'r instance, I could explain that, self-evidently, Zen Buddhism is a syncretic religion, like Yezidi, but this is left as an exercise for the student.

Yep. Missed it.

"Political activism is seductive because it seems to offer the possibility that one can improve society, make things better, without going through the personal ordeal of rearranging one's perceptions and transforming one's self."
-Tom Robbins

Which quote appears at the top of the DivaNation mailing list message I gots a few days back. Among the show listings:

thu Oct 30
POINTY TEETH @ UNITED CENTER for the BLACKHAWKS warmup
(details to follow)
*? time? • PRESTON KLIK's POINTY TEETH RITUAL featuring Alex Duvel +Tiombe +JasonK

Damn, I suck.

But who needs the Blackhawks when you can see the Wolves?

Which I'll be doing tonight, in the process missing:

fri Oct 31 See Mona Jethmalani on the runway on Halloween Night at the 2003 Masquerade Ball, featuring fashion designs from Wanda Cobar (Mona's modeling her designs), Delma Via, Anne Schuller, Victor Miller, Susie Ivey, Rosa Martinez, and Margarita Carrillo. Tickets are $30 including food, dance, and costume contests! Doors @ 7pm, bar/food @ 8-9, show @ 10. Be sure to come dressed up!
info @ 708-442-2700

I'm sure Neogrammarian will agree that seeing Mona modeling beats hockey -- or most other things -- easily.

Damn, I suck.

Want to know more? Swear I just linked the Karma Sutra page at IUMA a few days back. Mona's the singer, Amy's the percussion, Preston is the Preston.

Blood...valor...and victory!

Trying to come up with a costume on short notice. All I need for this is a pie pan, really. . .

Joxer the Mighty,
He's very tidy.
Everyone admires him.
He's so handsome it's a sin.
When things get grim
He'll take it on the chin.
If you're in jeopardy
Caused by the enemy
Don't call the cavalry.
There's a better remedy
(Although he doesn't work for free).
He's every man's trusty,
He's every woman's fantasy,
Plus he's goo-ood company.
Look out! He's Joxer...
Joxer the Mighty!

Need to hire a choir too, though. And the backing orchestra. . .

Anybody with Real Audio installed wanna tell me if this still works? Haven't checked any of the music links for a while, and I think Earthlink might'a pulled 'em when I dropped the DSL.

If Giles' theme song is gone, I'm gonna be pissed. . .

Syncretism (III) - Flashback Friday

Repost from June 21, 2002:

Some people have a deep need for enemies. And what better (or worse) enemy could there possibly be than honest-to-Lucifer Satan worshipers?

That's where, for some, the Yazidis come in:

The belief of Yazidis is a mixture of the beliefs of Islam and Christianity. Their most important book, entitled Kitab-ul-jalwa, is in Arabic and Kurdish, which was translated into German by Maximillian Butner and was edited in 1331 A.H. [1913]. They worship Satan. They call the devil "angel" and "peacock." They will kill any person who swears at the devil.

The only problem is, this isn't quite right.

The term Yezidi comes from the ancient Iranian term for angel or divine being -- similar to the Sanskrit concept of the devi or powerful being, somewhat less than a God, but far beyond the powers of ordinary mortals or superbeings. Thus, the Yezidis are better thought of as angel worshippers than devil worshippers -- although the Angel that they worship is indeed Lucifer

Although there are others who would argue the above is apologetics for evil, evil people.

Confused yet?

Good.

Near as I can piece together from various, conflicting articles, in their version of events, the Peacock Angel Lucifer, also called Melek Taus (transliterated, so the spelling isn't consistent between sources) apologized for his sin of pride (peacocks are known even in the West as a prideful lot, odd since there aren't any here. . .) and was accepted back into the Heavenly Host by God, who's something of an absentee landlord and leaves the Angels to take care of the day-to-day running of the Universe, while He works on his Hendrix riffs.

Oh, and there's no hell:

Malak Ta'us filled 7 jars of tears through 7,000 years. His tears were used to extinguish the fire in hell. Therefore there is no hell in Yazidism.

What's that? The more information you get, the more confusing it all seems?

Maybe you missed this the last time:

Welcome to the real world.

Today seems like as good a day as any to have a nice sit-down with Satan.

Maybe better than most.

Oh yes, and to kick it Britannica style:

Yazidi :
Middle Eastern religion, a syncretic combination of Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Jewish, Nestorian Christian, and Islamic elements.

Its adherents, numbering fewer than 100,000, are found in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Armenia, the Caucasus, and Iran. Most speak Kurdish. They believe that they were created separately from the rest of humankind and segregate themselves from the rest of society. In Yazidi belief, seven angels, subordinate to a supreme but uninvolved God, rule the universe. The belief that God restored the Devil to his position as chief of the angels upon the Devil's repentance has earned the Yazidi an undeserved reputation as Devil worshipers. Their chief saint is Sheikh 'Adi, a 12th-century Muslim mystic. Their name derives from Yazid I (c. 645–683), from whose supporters they may be descended.

"Yazidi" Britannica Concise Encyclopedia from Encyclopædia Britannica.
http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article?eu=408417

Another update, because I am easily distracted: hybridmagazine.com:: Post-War Iraq :: Yezidis:

Q'uranic scholars consider the Yezidi heretics; under most interpretations of Sha'aria (Q'uranic Law) they are not entitled to the toleration afforded to "People of the Book" (i.e. Christians and Jews). Instead, they are to be slain as blasphemers who have set other gods beside Allah. Christians have long believed that the Yezidi were devil worshippers; the Shi'ites have linked them to the Caliph Yazid, murderer of Husayn and one of the most hated figures in the Shi'ite pantheon. The Yezidi refuse to utter the word "Satan," since they believe it is an insult aimed at Melek Taus, and their name most likely comes from "Yazad," an ancient Persian word for "angel." The Yezidi believe Melek Taus is ruler and creator of the material world," left in charge after God lost interest in dealing with the universe and its various complications. They follow numerous taboos; they will not eat lettuce, wear blue clothing, spit on the earth, or drink water in such a way that it makes a gurgling noise. As in Zoroastrianism, fire is revered; Melek Taus is frequently compared with fire, which can both warm and burn.

The Yezidi are ethnic Kurds, but that has not endeared them to their Kurdish neighbors. There is a long history of intertribal squabbling among the Kurds: traditionally they have united to wage war against an invader and then, when that invader is repelled, returned to fighting amongst themselves. The Yezidis, who claim to have preserved the ancient Kurdish religion, have set themselves apart from other Kurds. One is born a Yezidi; there is no conversion into Yezidism, nor is intermarriage permitted between Yezidis and Moslem or Christian Kurds.

Darn. And here I was hoping they were a proselytizing religion.

No idea how I only became aware of hybridmagazine.com now, but it's going on the regular links list.

np -- Believe, Franka Potente, RUN LOLA RUN original motion picture soundtrack

I don't believe in trouble
I don't believe in pain
I don't believe there's nothing left
but running here again

I don't believe in promise
I don't believe in chance
I don't believe you can resist
the things that make no sense

I don't believe in silence
cos silence seems so slow
I don't believe in energy
the tension is too low

I don't believe in panic
I don't believe in fear
I don't believe in prophecies
so don't waste any tears

I don't believe reality would be
the way it should
But I believe in fantasy
the future's understood

I don't believe in history
I don't believe in truth
I don't believe that's destiny
or someone to accuse

Syncretism (II)

Mentioned this before, but it bears repeating:

Gulf War veterans suffered brain damage after chemical exposure, study says

CHICAGO (CNN) -- A new study of two small groups of Gulf War veterans indicates their brains may have been damaged by chemicals they were exposed to while serving in the region, researchers reported Tuesday at a meeting of radiologists.

"The findings suggest a substantial loss of brain cells in the areas that could explain the veterans' symptoms," said Dr. James Fleckenstein, a professor of radiology at the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas where the research was conducted.

Fleckenstein said while the existence of Gulf War Syndrome is considered controversial, the study suggests there is a physical mechanism -- the exposure to neurotoxic chemicals -- responsible for the veterans' problems.

The study participants who complained of Gulf War Syndrome symptoms all had lower than normal levels of the chemical NAA or N-Acetyl-Aspartate in their brains.

The lower levels, according to researchers, indicate the loss of brain cells in the brain stem and basal ganglia. The brain stem controls some of the body's reflexes. The basal ganglia is the brain's switching center for movement, memory and emotion.

"If you have it from the brain stem, you may have problems with attention or balance. If you have it from the basal ganglia, center of mood, you may have depression, difficulty concentrating and pain problems," said Fleckenstein.

Want to know more?

Gulf War syndrome is real, study says : Some veterans suffer form of brain damage

Some Gulf War veterans suffer from a form of brain damage found in toxic poisoning victims, a group of Dallas doctors said in a study released Friday.

In their second finding suggesting that Gulf War syndrome is real, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center researchers found that ill veterans from a U.S. Navy reserve unit performed dramatically worse than their healthy veterans from the same battalion in a battery of brain tests.

"The amazing aspect of this study was just how badly the ill veterans did" said Dr. Jim Hom, a UT Southwestern clinical assistant professor of neurology. "There's something wrong with these ill veterans that is brain-related and, clearly, it is consistent with neurotoxic poisoning, not psychological reactions."

[. . .] In January, a day after the panel announced its conclusion, UT Southwestern researchers said the veterans' mysterious illnesses could be traced to wartime exposure to combinations of low-level nerve agents and common chemicals. The latter includes anti-nerve gas pills, insect repellant and flea collars provided to troops.

The new study compared brain-related and psychological functions of 46 veterans, of whom 20 were healthy and 26 suffered from symptoms such as memory and sleep problems, fatigue, confusion, imbalance and sore joints and muscles.

The ill veterans performed worse on 59 of 71 brain-related tests involving memory, intelligence, problem-solving, attention span and speech. They also showed a "global" pattern of damage affecting the entire brain, said Hom.

Didn't think so.

I'm in a shit mood, my jaw aches from grinding my teeth in my sleep and during the day yesterday and so far this morning, and I have a damaged brain.

This is so not a good day to fuck with me.

Or, it's a perfect day to fuck with me. Obviously, I need the release.

October 30, 2003

Syncretism (I)

From United States of Poetry: The American Dream - Jim Northrup

Shrinking Away

Survived the war, but was
having trouble surviving
the peace, couldn't sleep
more than two hours
was scared to be
without a gun.
Nightmares, daymares
guilt and remorse
wanted to stay drunk
all the time.
1966 and the V.A. said
Vietnam wasn't a war.
They couldn't help, but
did give me a copy of
the yellow pages.
Picked a shrink off
the list. 50 bucks an
hour, I was making 125
a week. Spent six
sessions establishing
rapport, heard about his
military life,
his homosexuality,
his fights with his mother
and anything else he wanted
to talk about.
At this rate, we would have
got to me in 1999.
Gave up on that shrink
couldn't afford him and he
wasn't doing me any good.
Six weeks later my shrink
killed himself. Great.
Not only guilt about the
war but new guilt about
my dead shrink.
If only I had a better job,
I could have kept on
seeing him.
I thought we were making
real progress, maybe in another
six sessions, I could have
helped him.
I realized then that surviving
the peace was up to me.

Scuttlebutt is, Bush and Co. are gonna start pulling troops out of Iraq quick-like to minimize his political exposure come the election.

I'm confident that the warbloggers, whose support for the troops has been unwavering, will dedicate their substantial resources to assisting people -- what's the euphemism? -- ah yes, successfully reintegrating into civilian society.

Because you know what I think you're gonna get when Johnny Comes Marching Home?

Spouse abuse.

Child abuse.

Unemployment.

Murder -- probably also involving spouses and children.

Suicide.

Substance abuse.

Maybe STDs and STIs flying around, depending.

And the ever-popular inexplicable debilitating diseases that no one has an explanation for, and that the governement will fight tooth and nail to avoid attributing to service so as to avoid paying benefits.

Me, I definitely ain't the one to try helping other people with this shit. Because if one of them looks me in the eye and asks if it ever gets any easier, I'm going to tell them the truth.

No. It never does.

You think it's as simple as turning in the rifle, pulling a Clark Kent in a phone booth and dropping the uniform, and everything goes back to the way it was?

News flash, motherfucker.

It never goes back to the way it was.

Update, because reading this shit is just making me feel so much better:

According to 2002 data from the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, 10.8 percent of all male veterans and 13.3 percent of female veterans between the ages of 20 and 24 were unemployed. The unemployment rate is even higher for minority veterans – 17 percent for black male veterans and 23.9 percent for black female veterans between 20-24 years of age. For Hispanic male and female veterans in that age-bracket, the rate was 8.7 percent and 21.6 percent respectively. Nearly 20 percent of Gulf War veterans are unemployed, according to the 2000 Census.

About one-third of the adult male homeless population in America is composed of veterans. On any given day, as many as 250,000 veterans (male and female) are in homeless shelters or living on the streets. Currently, the number of male and female homeless Vietnam War era veterans is greater than the number of service persons who died in that war. Even a small number of Desert Storm veterans are also appearing in the homeless population.

From Majette Co-sponsors Bill to Combat Veteran Unemployment. I'm not going to see what the status of this bill is. Passed, defeated, in committee, what the fuck difference does it make?

And also, DoD Leaders Meet to Discuss Combating Stress:

"Stress is something that has plagued our veterans in the 10 years since the Gulf War," [Bernard Rostker, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness] said, speaking from his experiences as special assistant to the deputy secretary of defense for Gulf War illnesses, a post he's held since 1996. The roughly 250 attendees included chaplains, healthcare workers, mental health professionals, academicians, line officers and a handful of allied officers.

Officials are moving from the traditional concept of combat stress to a more inclusive concept: that operational stress affects service members in most military actions, even those not involving combat.

[. . .] While the issue of stress has been receiving more attention, however, progress in dealing with it has been slow for many reasons.

"One of the difficulties in dealing with Gulf War veterans is they don't want to hear about stress. They think we're telling them their ailments are not real," Rostker said. "They think we're belittling them when we talk about stress."

He said officials studying the issue can't directly link stress to Gulf War veterans' myriad ailments, though at the same time "academic literature tells us that stress can have a contributing effect, if not a prime effect, even years after they have left the combat theater."

There is also evidence that unchecked stress plays a major role in changing behavior, such as increasing substance abuse, including alcoholism, and in the most extreme cases, suicide, he said.

I'm confident this discussion yielded a detailed report, with strong, clear suggestions for how to avoid this sort of thing in future.

Someone might even have read it.

Not someone in a decision-making capacity, but someone.

From United Press International, Lariam Investigation:

Since March 2002, UPI reporters Mark Benjamin and Dan Olmsted have been investigating severe mental problems associated with Lariam, a drug that has been prescribed to 5 million Americans and 25 million people worldwide.

The first article appeared on May 21, 2002 and reported that mounting evidence suggests Lariam has led to suicides. UPI obtained thousands of pages of internal drug company documents that showed it tracking increasing reports of suicide over a decade, as well as thousands of reports of severe psychiatric and neurological problems.

Subsequently, UPI has published the series of stories below, documenting cases of severe problems among scores of Peace Corps volunteers that have been denied and ignored, and focusing national attention on a string of murders and suicides at Fort Bragg involving soldiers who have taken Lariam.

Emphasis added. That one dropped off the media radar a while ago, of course.

I think I should stop now.

No, wait. One more. From The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer on October 16th, Vigil memorializes victims:

The guest speaker for the vigil was Col. Al Aycock, Fort Bragg garrison commander.

''Our goal is to make sure no one has to go through domestic violence," Aycock said. ''Fort Bragg is doing a great deal, and we'll continue the great programs.

''We need more voices to break the walls of silence and end domestic violence now."

Aycock said after the vigil that Fort Bragg has started a series of leadership seminars this year to deal with domestic violence issues.

''We have brought in someone from the outside to come and make sure we are doing everything OK,'' he said.

''We are working to make it known that domestic violence is not acceptable and to make treatment more acceptable."

In the summer of 2002, Fort Bragg couples were victims of a series of murders and murder-suicides. Investigators said four Fort Bragg soldiers killed their wives. Two of those soldiers committed suicide. In a fifth case a wife killed her husband, an Army major, investigators said.

Fort Bragg made policy changes and held a two-day seminar on domestic violence in October 2003.

A two-day seminar.

Well. Problem solved. Guess I should cross that one off the list.

By the bye, there is a site for Jim Northrup, and you can also read his latest Fond du Lac Follies column at The Circle: News and Art from a Native American Perspective.

October 29, 2003

a feeling that anything that crosses one's mind is important or interesting to others

Sez Camille.

Why aren't you a fan of blogs?

Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you're condemned to turn the pages of. Bad prose, endless reams of bad prose! There's a lack of discipline, a feeling that anything that crosses one's mind is important or interesting to others. People say that the best part about writing a blog is that there's no editing -- it's free speech without institutional control. Well, sure, but writing isn't masturbation -- you've got to self-edit.

http://www.viewaskew.com/chasingamy/images/artwork/comic/whcoon.gif

Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy, Buy One Get One Free – An Hour With Arundhati Roy

Mahou No Stage Fancy Lala

Complete Matrix Reloaded Script

Just a few of the open tabs in Firebird right now.

Maybe one day, I'll be able to write about any or all of those without being all musty bookish.

I am, however, self-editing several comments about Paglia.

Pants are not a requisite of cooperation

Still haven't read this Camille Paglia piece at Salon that Atrios linked. Never understood the appeal of the woman, to tell you the truth. Maybe I'm not pseudo-intellectual enough. Maybe I'm too Black. Don't know, don't particularly care.

But this comment made me laugh out loud. The setup: Apparently, Camille claims to be the first blogger.

Yeah, I know, the concept that launched a thousand jokes. But that one's pretty damn good.

Update: Oops, almost forgot. A blast from the distant past: Camille Paglia, Fucking White Oppressor.

For some time now, it's been considered poor taste to refer to African Americans who speak Standard White International English (aka SWINE) as "articulate." It's a bit like waving a sign reading, "I am a bigoted twat. Please fuck with me."

Perhaps you missed the memo.

I kind'a miss that Luke Cage - Doc Doom graphic, though. . .

Luke Cage, Hero for Hire and Doctor Doom are TM Marvel Characters, Inc.

All right, all right, I'm reading the fucking thing. Geez, is there a Reading Camille Paglia Drinking Game? She uses the word "Dionysian," neck a bottle of wine, something like that?

Update again. Camille sez:

As a writer, I'm inspired not just by other writing but by music and art and lines from movies. I think that's what's missing from a lot of blogs.

Ok, she said, "a lot." Maybe she rarely ventures outside Instapunditland, him and his links list.

Quote noted in the comments at Pandagon. I'm still working up the enthusiasm to read the actual article. I already sat through the commerical, though. . .

Also gotta admit, I don't usually read the comments at Eschaton. Too many, and often too policy wonky.

But mostly too many. Don't think this place has ever broken the century mark in a comment thread. . .

Choice is an illusion, created between those with pants, and those without

From What the Fighting Sioux can tell us about white people, by Robert Jensen:

Appeals to the dominant white society to abolish the "Fighting Sioux" nickname and logo typically are framed in terms of respect for the dignity and humanity of indigenous people. That is the appropriate way to address the question, but it has failed -- at least in North Dakota -- to persuade most white folks. So, today I want to pursue another argument.

I want to suggest to my fellow non-Indian North Dakotans -- those of us whose ancestors came from some other continent, primarily those of us who are white and of European descent -- that we should support the campaign to change the University of North Dakota name and logo not just because it is offensive, exploitative, and racist (it is all of those things) but also for our own sake. Let us do it for our own dignity. Let us join this struggle so that we can lay honest claim to our own humanity.

Sorry about mentioning this. Y'know, since Jensen is so damned ubiquitous in the media. As Jesse wrote:

Yeah, you remember how you couldn't turn anywhere [post-9/11] without Noam Chomsky being on the airwaves, especially that immortal edition of the Today Show where he got Katie Couric to agree to be the white Angela Davis? How Robert Jensen stormed the ABC News set and wouldn't let Peter Jennings back in? How Erin O'Connor and Matt Welch went insane and lived in an alternate reality where any of this was anywhere close to what happened?

Anyway, the rest of the piece (found at ZNet, by way of Common Dreams), goes into history and power relations and lots of other boring stuff that has no bearing whatsoever on contemporary 'Mercan society.

And don't get me started on fucking Chief Illiniwek.

I yield the balance of my time to my distinguished colleague from -- nigga, where the fuck you livin' now? -- Uppity-Shinob.

I'm gonna go read Indianz.com and get more pissed off.

Rehab plan focuses on diet:

Audrey Sunnyboy noticed a troubling trend when she entered the drug and alcohol treatment field in 1990.

"I was watching people and was realizing that most of the Alaska Native people did not recover from alcoholism," she said. "And as I was going along, I would ask, 'Did you ever go to AA?' Then they would say, 'No, because I didn't want to talk.'"

Sunnyboy said the realization that AA's 12-step program does not work for everyone, especially people who are reluctant to talk about themselves, is what led to her interest in providing an alternative form of treatment.

Last month, Sunnyboy, a 57-year-old certified traditional counselor originally from Nenana, opened the Sunny Denyaave Center, an office where she hopes to help alcoholics and drug users quit their habits by repairing their bodies through nutrient replacement and proper diet.

Or maybe less so. Depends which article I click on.

Thus did man become the architect of his own pants.

Or is Animatrix off-limits? It's canon, after all. . .

Mentioned writing something about this to Dru in IM the other day: ABCNEWS.com : A Day in the Life of an Obese Teen

Ali Schmidt, an outgoing, attractive 15-year-old from the Bronx, N.Y., usually looks forward to going to school. But when she showed up at Connecticut's Stratford High School for two days in September, it was a different story.

"Basically, walking down the halls was like walking into hell. I felt pain that was excruciating," she said after the miserable day.

Schmidt found herself the object of ridicule: some kids laughed at her behind her back, others made mean comments.

The reason? She was fat. At least she looked fat. In fact, she was participating in an experiment for ABCNEWS designed to capture a glimpse of the emotional and psychological impact obesity has on adolescents.

Schmidt is a slim, 5-foot-7-inch athletic girl. But for the ABCNEWS special Fat Like Me, airing tonight at 8 p.m. ET, she agreed to wear a "fat suit" that would make her look obese.

Using the same makeup and special effects that were used to make Gwyneth Paltrow look obese in the film Shallow Hal, Ali was packed with padding and layered with latex, so that she looked as though she weighed close to 200 pounds.

[. . .] "… People don't go, 'Ha ha, you're white,' or 'Ha ha you're black,' but they see a fat person and they think that they have the right to laugh at them."

But I decided to retain my sanity instead. Because I honestly have no idea where to start with the wrongness.

I didn't watch the show. Perhaps they'll add it to the Shallow Hal Special Edition DVD, giving me an excuse not to rent the version that's out now -- haven't seen it yet, for some reason -- because then I'd miss those extras.

I'm just reading things into that excerpt, right? They don't actually say that the girl ceased to be attractive and outgoing in the. . . no, clinging to sanity, not writing.

Update: Coherent thoughts at Fatshadow, and the links in that entry.

I'm gonna just think up more Matrix pants quotes.

Google can be your friend

Keeps bringing folks here looking for r*c*st j*k*s -- remind me to slap Virginia Postrel next time I see her -- but I figure this power can be used for good as well as for evil.

So, next time any of these folks do an ego search:

  • Elizabeth Loring Purnell
  • Jessica Skolnik
  • Kimberly Murphy
  • Kimberly Roan Makarainen (or Mäkäräinen, if you want to be all diacritical)
  • Meredith Tarr
  • Tisha Stima
  • Saehee Chang
  • Kat McNiece
  • Michelle McQuade
  • Anja Thilenius
  • KC Beyer
  • Rhondie Voorhees
  • William S. Carroll (because I do know some men, you know)

With any luck, they'll end up here, notice the mailto: link, and get in touch.

Yep, using the distorted power of blogs in Google search results to track down old friends is probably wrong. Sue me.

Damn. Forgot Sue's last name.

Update: Added some more names, as I go down memory lane.

No, there is no such thing as too much Minnie Riperton. Anyone who says different is a damn lie.

October 28, 2003

From The Final Call

But reprinted in San Francisco Bay View - National Black Newspaper of the Year. Don't read Final Call myself, and am a bit hesitant about even linking the site (although I have done in the past, if I remember a'right). Not sure why. The tourists already know how much I hate all white people, follow in lockstep with the Nation of Domination and Al Sharpton, blah de blah de blah.

Sorry, lost the train of thought there. From exile with love, part 1 -- Former Black Panther Assata Shakur speaks to America from Cuba:

Assata Shakur is a Black American folk hero. She is a freedom fighter who escaped the chains of oppression. She made it to the other side. She is a sister who defied the definitions of expected behavior by a Black woman.

Her life is the subject of books, movies and poetry. In her own words, she speaks on Cuba and terrorism, differences between Blacks in Cuba and the U.S., living in exile and her hopes for a new world:

"When I was in the Black Panther Party, they called us terrorists. How dare they call us terrorists when we were being terrorized. Terror was a constant part of my life. I was living under apartheid in North Carolina. We lived under police terror.

"People have to see what's really happening. Cuba has never attacked anybody. Cuba has solidarity with other countries. They send teachers and doctors to help the people of other countries. It (Cuba) believes in solidarity.

"To see Cuba called a terrorist country is an insult to reality. If people come to Cuba, they'll see a reality unlike what they're told in America. This country wants to help, not hurt. The U.S. government has lied to its people. The U.S. government invents lies like Cuba is a terrorist country to give a pretext to destroy it."

And since this may not be enough reason for folks to get their hate on, Cuba in the Cross-Hairs: A Near Half-Century of Terror, by arch-villain Noam Chomsky:

Cuban offers to cooperate in intelligence-sharing to prevent terrorist attacks have been rejected by Washington, though some did lead to US actions. "Senior members of the FBI visited Cuba in 1998 to meet their Cuban counterparts, who gave [the FBI] dossiers about what they suggested was a Miami-based terrorist network: information which had been compiled in part by Cubans who had infiltrated exile groups." Three months later the FBI arrested Cubans who had infiltrated the US-based terrorist groups. Five were sentenced to long terms in prison.

The national security pretext lost whatever shreds of credibility it might have had after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, though it was not until 1998 that US intelligence officially informed the country that Cuba no longer posed a threat to US national security. The Clinton administration, however, insisted that the military threat posed by Cuba be reduced to "negligible," but not completely removed. Even with this qualification, the intelligence assessment eliminated a danger that had been identified by the Mexican ambassador in 1961, when he rejected JFK's attempt to organize collective action against Cuba on the grounds that "if we publicly declare that Cuba is a threat to our security, forty million Mexicans will die laughing."

Opinions expressed in quoted material are not necessarily those of Aaron Hawkins, Uppity-Negro.com or any of its subsidiaries.

Probably.

Update. Eh, maybe if I hide the link here where no one will ever see it: From exile with love - Former Black Panther Assata Shakur speaks to America from Cuba:

"I don’t see myself as that different from sisters who struggle for social justice. In the ’60s it was easier to identify racism. There were signs that told you where you belonged. We had to struggle to eliminate apartheid in the South. Now we have to know the other forms that exist today.

"We had to learn that we’re beautiful. We had to relearn something forcefully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the importance of coming together and being active. That fueled me.

"We knew what a token was then. Today young people don’t see Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell as tokens. That’s a problem.

"I realized that I was connected to Africa. I wasn’t just a Colored girl. I was part of a whole world that wanted a better life. I’m part of a majority and not a minority. My life has been a life of growth. If you’re not growing, you’re not going to understand real love. If you’re not reaching out to help others then you’re shrinking. My life has been active. I’m not a spectator.

"We can’t afford to be spectators while our lives deteriorate. We have to truly love our people and work to make that love stronger."

Sorry. Had to get the Condi insult in there. Sue me.

No, no point. Old men like me don't bother with making points. There's no point.

From Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine, excerpt at The Digital Village:

Here Be Chickens - Part 1

Dragons

The first animal we went to look for, three years later, was the Komodo dragon lizard. This was an animal, like most of the animals we were going to see, about which I knew very little. What little I did know was hard to like.

They are man-eaters. That is not so bad in itself. Lions and tigers are man-eaters, and though we may be intensely wary of them and treat them with respectful fear we nevertheless have an instinctive admiration for them. We don't actually like to be eaten by them, but we don't resent the very idea. The reason, probably, is that we are mammals and so are they. There's a kind of unreconstructed species prejudice at work: a lion is one of us but a lizard is not. And neither, for that matter is a fish, which is why we have such an unholy terror of sharks.

You can order both the book and a cd-rom set containing "the entire text of Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine's book, over 700 colour photographs, Douglas Adams reading the book, and lots more" from the Douglas Adams site, if you'd like to know more.

Related -- Granta: 'Worried? Us?' by Bill McKibben:

For fifteen years now, some small percentage of the world’s scientists and diplomats and activists has inhabited one of those strange dreams where the dreamer desperately needs to warn someone about something bad and imminent; but somehow, no matter how hard he shouts, the other person in the dream—standing smiling, perhaps, with his back to an oncoming train—can’t hear him. This group, this small percentage, knows that the world is about to change more profoundly than at any time in the history of human civilization. And yet, so far, all they have achieved is to add another line to the long list of human problems—people think about ‘global warming’ in the way they think about ‘violence on television’ or ‘growing trade deficits’, as a marginal concern to them, if a concern at all. Enlightened governments make smallish noises and negotiate smallish treaties; enlightened people look down on America for its blind piggishness. Hardly anyone, however, has fear in their guts.

[. . .] Fifteen years ago, it was a hypothesis. Those of us who were convinced that the earth was warming fast were a small minority. Science was sceptical, but set to work with rigour. Between 1988 and 1995, scientists drilled deep into glaciers, took core samples from lake bottoms, counted tree rings, and, most importantly, refined elaborate computer models of the atmosphere. By 1995, the almost impossibly contentious world of science had seen enough. The world’s most distinguished atmospheric chemists, physicists and climatologists, who had organized themselves into a large collective called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made their pronouncement: ‘The balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate.’ In the eight years since, science has continued to further confirm and deepen these fears, while the planet itself has decided, as it were, to peer-review their work with a succession of ominously hot years (1998 was the hottest ever, with 2002 trailing by only a few hundredths of a degree).

Bonus round: Climate Change and Wildfire Severity in California, from Environmental Energy Technologies Division News.

Update: Sorry, from that first link in the above sentence, for those of you who aren't into that whole clicking of links thang (in which case, why the hell are you reading blogs?):

Climate is one of the main determinants of wildfire regime. By warming and drying vegetation, and by stirring the winds that spread fires, global warming and associated climate change have the potential to increase the severity and extent of wildfires. Researchers applying predictions of general circulation models (GCMs) have consistently found that climate change will lead to increases in the frequency of weather conditions associated with high wildfire hazard and to corresponding changes in weather-related indices of potential fire intensity and rate of spread (Figure 2), increases in fire ignitions, and a lengthened fire season.

Not that I'm driving at anything.

Is it just me. . .

Or is the art in Boondocks better this week than it's been for a while?

In the introduction to A Right to Be Hostile, McGruder mentioned that he'd felt the quality of the art was slipping a bit as his enthusiasm waned before 9/11 brought about a creative rejuvination. The detail on Grandpa in today's strip -- hell, the fact that Grandpa even appears -- suggests to me that he's firmly back in control.

But, like I said, maybe that's just me.

October 27, 2003

"I'll leave it in God's hands."

That's what Ricky Walters, b/k/a Slick Rick, says in the AP article For 17 months, 'Slick Rick' awaits deportation ruling:

The Hip-Hop Hall of Fame inductee is into his 17th month behind bars, with no end in sight despite legal efforts and appeals from friends such as comedian Chris Rock, actor Will Smith and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

"It's the same old, same old," the voice behind the classic hit La-Di-Da-Di said by phone from a federal detention facility in Bradenton. "Wake up, eat breakfast. Do a little exercise, try to keep yourself together. Call your wife.

"Stay positive."

It's tough in the face of endless negativity. Since his 2002 jailing, Walters has awaited word on whether he can return to his home and two sons in New York City, or if he'll face deportation to his birthplace of England. He sees his wife, Mandy, just once a month.

Obviously, we're all much safer with dangerous immigrants like him locked up.

See, this is why I've been avoiding the political stuff. There's only so many ways to say, "Dear God, they're idiots," and "We are sooooo fucked," and I think I've run through them all. Twice.

Link from Black Electorate, which also links to a piece at AllHipHop.com about the Honorable Minister Farrakhan trying to "mediate tension" between Ja Rule and 50 Cent.

Guess this means the kids at LGF won't be buying their cds no more. . .

RNC Correction

Press Release:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The RNC mistakenly suggested that a recent cartoon regarding Judge Janice Brown was distributed by People For the American Way and the NAACP when in fact the cartoon in question was created and posted on Black Commentator.com in the middle of a reprint of a joint People For the American Way / NAACP press release.

Now that we acknowledge our error we hope People For the American Way and the NAACP and the 9 Democratic Presidential candidates will repudiate this offensive political cartoon.

Links added here and there.

Could I take a second to point out how mind-bogglingly stupid this is?

Ok, I'm done.

Link from ¡Jounalista!. Stupidity from RNC.

To the point where I'm not even willing to find the citation where they "mistakenly suggested" the shit. I'm sure "suggested" is a mild way of putting it.

Update: Wow, guess I should explain why I find this particular manifestation of Republican self-whiteousness so mind-bogglingly stupid.

Yep, I should do that.

Tra la la la la.

What he said

Team Murder sings the praises of new-to-me Misbehaving.net:

[A] weblog about women and technology. It's a celebration of women's contributions to computing; a place to spotlight women's contributions as well point out new opportunities and challenges for women in the computing field.

Except I'm not sure if I stumbled on this entry at Halley's Comment about the lack/disproportionately small number of women in Blogstreet's 100 Top Most Excellent Influential Blogs from Misbehaving, or the other way 'round.

See also: The Politics of Male Blogging.

¡Nalgonas Unidas Jamas Serán Vencidas!

Well, I tried.

Tried going to see The Maria Chronicles, that is, with my sis and Pantalones Calientes yesterday, because the Reader listed the show as starting at 4 on Sunday. The postcards and web site say 2, but if you can't trust the Chicago Reader. . .

. . . which you can't, as least as far as this show time was concerned.

So we went to Chicago Diner instead and had a lovely dinner. Karen didn't steal my fries this time, but that's only because I didn't get any.

Also saw part of a 10-year-old's black belt test at Thousand Waves, while waiting for Karen's shift to end.

He was good. But, you know, still a kid, lacking the self-consciousness an adult (well, this adult anyway) would have going through the paces in front of an audience. Screwing up his face in concentration trying to remember and follow the sequence of moves the tester called out. Grinning at the compliments and the applause.

Looked like his whole fam came out to see it, and there were a bunch of other kid students there too. And a few not-quite-toddlers. Haven't spent time with the little buggers recently; I'd forgotten that if you put them on the ground, they immediately head off at a rapid crawl for. . . you know, I'm not sure where they thought they were going. Maybe it's like when cats suddenly make a mad dash across the floor for no readily apparent reason; they're preventing the universe from ending, and we're too stupid to understand or appreciate their efforts.

Gonna try the play again next weekend, I think. I'd explain the title of this entry, but no hablo español either.

October 26, 2003

I will fuck you the fuck up

Comment spam. I despise that shit.

The C.L.I.T. site has been redone with the prettiness of Blog Body Shop web-fu. Michelle, have I mentioned how much you rawk lately? Place is still lacking in content, but I imagine my sister will get around to adding some shortly. And I still need to create thumbnails for those images. . .

And I'm sure it's something else I'm forgetting.

Title from Motel Hell: The Regency Hotel has had its ups and downs -- way downs:

I was never afraid of elevators until I rode in the elevators at the Regency Hotel. There are three of them, equally spooky, lit with bare white fluorescent bulbs. Carved swastikas and gang symbols scar the wood-paneled walls. The emergency-phone compartments hold dangling wires, pistachio shells, cigarette butts, scorched pizza crusts and broken crack pipes. Some floor buttons are missing, and many of the rest don't light up when pressed. When the elevators ascend, they squeak and rattle and creep along, as if they are being pulled up by hundreds of chinchillas running on treadmills. Going down is worse. Much worse. Going down, the elevators don't rattle and squeak -- they shudder and groan as the lights flicker. And they are prone to sudden, blood-chilling plunges, like small planes hitting air pockets in a thunderstorm. The elevators behave as if possessed. They randomly freeze between floors long enough for claustrophobia to prowl the edges of your composure. They jolt to a halt on floors where no one has called them, doors sliding open to reveal empty hallways.

I was never sure where these elevators were taking me during a recent Saturday stay at the Regency. But Lee was. Lee is the Regency's self-appointed elevator operator.

[. . .] A minute passed, and then I heard squeaks in the central shaft growing slowly louder, accompanied by a coarse voice spewing profanity. The squeaks stopped at my floor. The muffled swearing continued. I heard a warbling chime, and the doors slid open. There stood Lee. He was tweaking -- jaw grinding, eyes vibrating beneath a watch cap low on his brow, ratty black T-shirt pulled tight over the crystal-cut muscles of a natural athlete on speed. Lee looked me over. "I will fuck you the fuck up!" were his first words to me.

By David Holthouse, in Denver's alt-paper Westword.

In a really, really foul mood today, so I'd greatly appreciate any tourists starting shit. Tearing some anonymous stranger on the 'net a new one would do wonders for making me feel better, I'm sure.

October 24, 2003

From one surly media nerd to another

From Jonathan Sterne's Notes for the Next Media War:

The U.S. government has publicly and loudly lied to justify almost every major military engagement of the 20th century, and a few of the 19th century as well. The explosion of The Maine at the beginning of the misnamed Spanish-American War? A lie. Pearl Harbor an unprovoked surprise attack? A lie. Gulf of Tonkin incident? A lie. Iraqis pulling Kuwaiti babies out of incubators in 1991? A lie. These and countless other well-documented cases of government fabrication and exaggeration point to a century-long pattern of U.S. government press manipulation with the goal of whipping the American people into a war frenzy. If that's not enough, consider the use of war photography. As has been well documented all over the World Wide Web, the famous photo of Iraqis toppling the Saddam Hussein statue was not a spontaneous act by a jubilant crowd, but rather an orchestrated and carefully cropped photo opportunity. Wider-angle photos of the square clearly show that it's mostly empty, and ringed by American tanks and troops (see the picture at http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/04/1598451_comment.php).

In the new-to-me September issue of Bad Subjects. I should check them more often.

Nothing in the issue by Annalee Newitz, but there is a link on the column page to the also new to me piece TECHSPLOITATION: Sex in the Matrix:

Yet the more I thought about Reloaded, the more I realized that the sex, as cartoony as it might be, is one of the most innovative parts of the movie. Think about it: When was the last time you saw a special-effects blockbuster with hot, sweaty sex in it? Especially multiracial, multipartner, out-of-wedlock sex that didn't spell doom for its practitioners? The heroes in Reloaded are frankly sexual, with no apologies.

[. . .] As if in a kind of corollary to its sexual openness, the "Matrix" movies are self-consciously multicultural. Their human heroes are fighting against machines who have enslaved most of the human race, and it's hard to avoid comparing our heroes' rebellion to that of colonized peoples all over the world. As if to drive this point home, one of the outspoken members of the liberated human city Zion is played by progressive, antiracist intellectual Cornel West. Tellingly, most of our heroes are people of color and racially mixed. The "bad guys" are all white men in suits. More startling still, Zion is a city both pious and sexually liberated: The rave-orgy scene is a public celebration that follows a group prayer.

This is why I looked for her name. She's good.

For the Benefit of Mister Terkel

Evil Genius Chronicles mentioned a Studs Terkel interview at The Onion A.V. Club:

O: Of all the interviews you've done over the years, which ones stand out most for you?

ST: You know, that's a hard one, because they all... The Klansman and the black woman is certainly a key one, about the transformation of people. [Terkel's book Race included interviews with former Ku Klux Klan Exalted Cyclops C.P. Ellis and black activist Ann Atwater, who formed an unlikely friendship. —ed.] I told you about that John Birch guy. But the Klansman is the best story of a transformation. Here's a guy who cheered when Martin Luther King was killed, and in the end, he organizes a union consisting only of black custodians. The change in him is one of the most dramatic. So there is no one, but that one's certainly in my mind.

And there's a piece by Studs over at In These Times:

One of the things that keeps people from doing what they know they should do for their own good is the national Alzheimer’s disease. There is no memory of the past. There is no yesterday. There was no Depression. There was no New Deal. There is no memory that when the free market, which is our religion, fell on its fanny, the free marketeers—I call them free buccaneers—pleaded with the government, “Please help us out. Please save us.” And of course the New Deal and regulation did. Now the sons and grandsons and daughters and granddaughters of those whose asses were saved by the New Deal, by big government, are the ones who most condemn big government today.

I have no illusions I'll get to be his age, but on the off chance that I do, he's a damned good role model to have.

Take a while for the name to propagate

panopticon

\Pa*nop"ti*con\, n. [NL. See Pan-, and Optic.] 1. A prison so contructed that the inspector can see each of the prisoners at all times, without being seen.

2. A room for the exhibition of novelties.


Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

In the great tradition of Negro, Please and Negrophile, and because I felt left out on the whole Negrop--- name thang, you may now (well, soon, see title) reach this site with NegroPanopticon.com

Seven bucks well spent, I think.

Thanks to George and A. for the suggestions. Negropalooza was tempting, I admit. . .

Don't think it's Aimee Mann. . .

Ok, when I downloaded this from Gnutella or whatever, it claimed the file was Ani DiFranco and Aimee Mann covering Prince's When Doves Cry. But I'm not sure about the latter. Definitely Ani, though.

So.

Five meg file, so dialup users maybe wanna ignore this. Anyone else:

Ani-When_Doves_Cry.mp3

Give it a listen and confirm or deny.

Or just give it a listen.

Checked my bandwidth usage, and am wondering why the hell I'm paying for that much when I never use it. . .

Update: Ok, following up on a comment from yvelle, I checked and this song doesn't appear to have been released by RIAA member Righteous Babe Records. Any of the working musicians out there want to tell me who holds the copyright on audience recordings of live performances, assuming that's what this is?

Yeah yeah, information wants to be free. I should'a mentioned that to the sheriff's deputies as they were evicting my dad the trumpet player from our old house.

One more week

Of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, that is. Think I'll keep the button up on the main page, and just change the text beneath it. Or change over to The Hunger Site. More to remind me to click the thing every day than anything, really.

Hard not to notice that, with the exception of Michele, right-wing blogs ain't take me up on the challenge of adding the button. At least one person, Kim du Toit (yes, we've heard all the jokes before, and yes, they're still funny), explained why in Michele's comments:

I prefer the Boobie-thon.

Which reminds me: you don't have bad tatas, for an old broad.

I want to think he's not representative of. . . well, of anything.

Guess I could email some of the right-wingers about this, or ask someone with posting privileges to mention it on MetaFilter, but figure since Atrios had the entry, and still has the button in a very prominent place at his site, that this is common knowledge, and anyone who isn't participating has made a conscious decision not to.

You know. Like Mr. du Toit.

Still waiting on that homeschool shooting. . .

October 23, 2003

I am not an advocate

Just noticed this at Google News is all.

Gene Mutations Boost Cancer Risk in Women:

Exercising and maintaining a healthful weight when young can delay the onset of breast cancer in women at very high risk of the disease, according to a study of women with a genetic mutation that gives them an 82 percent lifetime risk of developing the disease.

Researchers also found that women with mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene have a 23 percent to 54 percent risk of ovarian cancer, depending on which gene is affected.

The study, appearing Friday in the journal Science, showed that lifestyle during adolescence played a role in when these high-risk women developed breast cancer. The finding was consistent with earlier studies suggesting that among women in general, exercise and healthy weight early in life can reduce a woman's risk of developing breast cancer after menopause.

"The possibility that lifestyle changes such as increased exercise and weight control could modify the impact of genetic risk has very intriguing implications, not only for BRCA-related cancers but for other breast cancers as well," said Dr. Larry Norton, head of the division of solid tumor oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

In the new study, women who exercised actively when they were young — either dancing, or in team sports, or just walking a lot — and who maintained a healthful weight — that is, they were not obese — through the age of 21, were somewhat protected from breast cancer, said Mary-Claire King, first author of the study and a professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Note that the headline (from some copyeditor scum) mentions the factor in the second paragraph of the story, rather than the (to me, more important) bit from the first.

There's also a wire story at Wired, Study: Mutations Give 82 Pct. Risk of Breast Cancer:

Jewish women with the most common genetic mutations known to cause breast cancer have more than an 80 percent chance of developing the disease in their lifetimes, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.

[. . .] The BRCA genes in question, named for their role in breast cancer, help repair damaged DNA before it can make a cell turn cancerous. In people whose genetic code differs in certain ways -- those with the mutations -- the repair process goes wrong.

Breast cancer will affect nearly 250,000 women and men in the United States alone, killing 40,000 each year.

King said in the Ashkenazi Jewish population as a whole about 2.5 percent of young adults carry one of the mutations and 10 percent of Jewish breast cancer patients.

Among U.S. white women generally, 7 percent of breast cancer patients carry mutations of BRCA1 or BRCA2.

But the study shows that staying slimmer and exercising moderately can delay the disease.

Um, that's all well and good, but what about women of col--

Never mind.

You'll forgive me. I need to find a desk to stand on.

Update: Well, that didn't take long. Health Problems in African American Women: Breast Cancer:

Except for African Americans 20-24 years old, African American women are more likely than White women to get breast cancer before age 40. However, they are less likely than White women to get breast cancer after age 40.

[. . .] African American women are more likely than White women to die from breast cancer. Researchers are trying to find out why this happens. Some reasons may be that tumors are found at a later (more advanced) stage so there are less treatment options, or patients don't follow-up after getting abnormal test results. Other reasons might include being overweight or not being able to get a mammography.

No, that's not helping. . .

African American Women and Breast Cancer:

The breast cancer mortality rate for African American women is higher than for White women and Latinos. In any one year, 31 out of every 100,000 African American women die of breast cancer. In comparison, 27 out of every 100,000 White women, and 15 out of every 100,000 Latinos die of breast cancer.

Between 1989 and 1992 there was approximately a 5% decrease in mortality rates for White women with breast cancer, but approximately a 2% increase for African American women.

And neither is that. Nope, I'm no good for this. Now I just really, really want to hurt somebody. . .

Update 10/24: While we're not on the subject, there's an entry at Boing Boing about a Petition to stop drive-thru mastectomies:

On September 25, 2003, Lifetime Television delivered more than 5 million petition signatures to Capitol Hill, urging Congress to ban "drive-through" mastectomies — the practice in which women are forced out of the hospital sometimes only hours after breast cancer surgery. Sign our petition now to help end drive-through mastectomies once and for all.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) introduced bipartisan legislation that mirrors the House bill sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) which would end this horrific practice. The petitions were collected by Lifetimetv.com as part of Lifetime's campaign against this practice with DeLauro, Landrieu, the National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations (NABCO), physicians, advocates and survivors across the nation.

Lifetime Television, NABCO, Rep. DeLauro and Connecticut physician Kristen Zarfos, M.D., have been fighting for this type of access to quality care for all women since 1996. The legislation would require insurance companies to cover a 48-hour minimum stay for mastectomy patients and a 24-hour stay for a woman undergoing a lymph node dissection. The legislation ensures that a doctor and a patient will make a decision together about staying at a hospital after a mastectomy.

Just "signed" it myself.

Thanks to Robert for mentioning this.

Anybody want to come with?

Not sure when I'll be going, but I definitely want to see this:

Teatro Luna announces the world premiere of The Maria Chronicles, the third new play written and developed by the all female ensemble. The Maria Chronicles follows the old adage “Truth is stranger than fiction,”—especially when you’re a Latina trying to make a living as an actress in Chicago. Based on the real-life experiences of nine Latina actresses, The Maria Chronicles offers a cheeky look at the entertainment industry from a Latina point-of-view. From casting directors whose idea that an authentic Latino accent is inspired by the Taco Bell dog to the pressures of living up to Jennifer Lopez’s derrière, The Maria Chronicles balances a funny look at casting, commercials, and auditions with a poignant perspective on the truth behind the stereotypes.

More info, along with ticket information and show times and dates, at the link.

Basically, weekends through November 23rd. I'd like to think even I'm not enough of a space cadet to miss the thing with an entire month to go, but have learned never to underestimate my suckiness.