Rice or the Media: Whom do I condemn?

And I swear I’m not trying to pick on Newsweek.com, but it was there that I first saw an article on Condoleezza Rice’s new book. I was laughing from the first sentence:

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that U.S.-led interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia were not about spreading democracy, but about addressing regional security issues.

Her recent public statements both are and are not part of a book tour: it’s likely many would say the tour is to promote her ideas, and the book is part of that effort, though I think that demeans the reasoning and efforts of others who write books, artificially ennobling Rice’s efforts to communicate her ideas and sell books at the same time while implicitly assigning a crass commercialism to others who write books and then accept lectures to speak about the same themes contained within the books. In any case, however, it’s undeniable that the public statements are part of an effort that is equally well reflected by the publication of her book, Democracy: The Long Road to Freedom.*1
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Newsweek Shocked – Shocked! To Find Racism Happening In Dress Codes

I nearly laughed myself silly over this recent piece at Newsweek.com:

Two black female students attending a charter school in Massachusetts were recently kicked off their sports teams and prohibited from attending a prom because they wore their hair in braids. The Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in Malden, about 9 miles from Boston, enforces a strict dress code preventing students from wearing their hair in any unnatural way, which includes braids.

Twin students Maya and Deanna Cook, African-American sophomores, told local news outlets they were first told to take their braids out two weeks ago by school officials. The girls’ adoptive mother, Colleen Cook, told Boston’s 25 News that she received a call from the school informing her that students weren’t allowed to wear “anything artificial or unnatural in their hair.”

“We told them there’s nothing wrong with their hair the way it is. Their hair is beautiful, there’s no correcting that needs to be done,” Colleen Cook said, adding that the hair policy seems to target only students of color, who wear their hair in braids or extensions reflecting their African-American culture.

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This is What Fascist Policing Looks Like: No Gay Men Abused In Chechnya

If you aren’t familiar with the systematic abuse of gay men by the government of Chechnya, you probably don’t live in Chechnya (or any other republic of Russia for that matter). The issue has been getting considerable coverage for years now. The situation has been sufficiently highlighted for sufficiently long that people in Russia are daring to protest Putin for his lack of intervention in the neighboring country. Putin, it should be noted, did not respond well to the criticism.

But what’s particularly frightening is not yet another example of Putin’s dictatorial opposition to any form of criticism or dissent. What’s particularly frightening is the statement that Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov gave to Interfax through a spokesperson:

“You cannot detain and persecute people who simply do not exist in the republic,” he told Interfax news agency.

“If there were such people in Chechnya, the law-enforcement organs wouldn’t need to have anything to do with them because their relatives would send them somewhere from which there is no returning.”

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Some Rapes Are Tuesday

I hope you read the recent post on Republican efforts to preserve the ability to commit rape after someone who previously consented to sexual activity revokes that consent, even when the activity includes things not covered by the original consent, such as violent force.

Some people will wonder how and why someone like Amy Guy, who by all accounts I’ve read sounds a very strong and capable person, could possibly offer any form of sexual consent to someone like Jonathan Wayne Guy, who had a history of acting abusively towards Amy Guy. For many, that history will understandably justify the fear of something horrific that might lead Amy Guy to minimize her risk by consenting, and, hopefully, by consenting help shape exactly what happens next. The hope is that, despite having sex only out of fear, exercising some agency can help make what happens next less traumatic than it might otherwise be.

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No means “don’t stop” … if you’re a Republican Senator in NC

This story, of course, deals with highly upsetting content, continue as you will.

In 1979 the NC state supreme court handed down a ruling that made it non-criminal to continue to act as if one had someone else’s sexual consent after that consent had been withdrawn. Worse? It did not matter if the rapist acted violently: if an encounter began with sexual consent, criminal law in NC would treat rape as consensual sex until whenever a rapist decided to stop raping. Prosecution would have to wait for the rapist to begin a separate, uniquely distinguishable act of sexual contact against a person without consent.

It was, in short, the Blue Balls theory of automatism. She was asking for it, writ in legalese alongside the ever popular, He’s a good guy, he just couldn’t help it.

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Jack Kingston: A Moral Blot on the Nation

Jack Kingston, a man whose moral compass must always point evil, made one of the most abominable statements I’ve ever heard on one of his regular appearances on Anderson Cooper’s 360. AC was speaking to his guests about Trump’s idiotic statements that 1) No one asks why the Civil War happened, 2) Andrew Jackson was very upset at what he saw going on with the civil war [despite being dead for 16 years], and 3) Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War if his presidency had come later in US history, presumably close to 1860.

Instead of making the point that Trump was simply lying about 1 & 2, Cooper allowed the discussion to focus on 3. As a “what if” scenario about an alternate universe, Trump can’t be said to be lying, and here Kingston even made an effort to portray the President’s comments as something other than arrogant, ignorant twaddle. I’m disappointed, of course, that AC and the panel allowed this to become the focus, but that’s no more than I expect from cable news.

No, the bile flooded my mouth when during this discussion about whether or not some alternate-universe Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War, I head this exchange:

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